tennis progressions

Moving players from red to orange is an important decision. It helps to understand what it means for the player to progress them to the orange court. In most clubs, the decision is basely only or primarily on age, but we believe that isn’t enough. The problem is that age is just that; age. Age doesn’t tell you anything about the ability of the player!

Why is the transition from red ball to orange ball so important?

Delaying a young player’s transition from red ball to orange ball may hold them back – but children who are moved up too early can find it hard to play in a court which is much bigger and where the ball flies much faster. Young players who are developing sound basic shapes, game understanding and an excitement about playing and competing can be replaced by unhappy children struggling with the game.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to get the technical foundations and the playing environment right to give your players a chance not just to continue to play, but to continue to improve for years to come.

Move at the pace of the player

Good coaches move at the pace of the learner. When the players are physically, technically, mentally and tactically ready to progress, they move them up. The danger comes when there are no clear criteria in place to know when the players are ready; and remember, the age of the child is not enough of an indicator. If we follow that logic to its conclusion, the court needs to grow at the pace of the learner too.

Just imagine that you decide to move your player from the red group to the orange court. In the week that they complete their last lesson on a red court, they will average approximately 127 cms in height (World Health Organisation statistics). They will still average approximately 127 cms the following week when they start on the orange court! But in the same period the court length has increased by 7 metres, and the average ball rebound height has increased from 95-110 cms to 110-115 cms. When we progress a player from the red court to the orange court, we are expecting them to play in a court which has increased in area by 94%.

Can you start to see the challenge for a young child?!

Reflect on the abilities of your players and on your own coaching. Is there more that they should be doing in the red programme, can they be doing it better, and could your coaching improve?

Managing the progression from red ball to orange ball

The key to successfully moving young players from red ball to orange ball is to stop and reflect on the issues thrown up by the change in the playing environment for our young players. Progression and moving players up is good, provided that it is done in the right way and at the right time.

The decision to move a player along from red to orange should be made by the coach, not the parent or the player! The decision also shouldn’t be simply about progressing players as soon as they pass their 8^th birthday. In previous articles, I’ve talked about the physical, physiological and technical issues that have to be considered. These are your field, one in which you need to be the expert, so take your time and make the right call.

Strategies to phase in the orange court for red ball players

There are some things you can do to phase the orange court in, to ease the transition a little:

Gradual introduction to the orange court

Gradually introduce the progression to orange by allowing players to double up for a set period as they are preparing to leave the red programme. If they can play on red courts and orange courts every week for a period of time, it provides a more gradual induction.

Play both courts for a time

Introduce the orange ball at the end of red, playing at the ‘rorange’ level, so to speak! This will allow players to get used to slightly different ball characteristics. Make sure you do it the right way round – moving to the orange court with the red ball won’t work!

Extend the red court dimensions

Turn the players around so they face a different way. Your players will have grown up playing across the court on the red court. At the end of the red programme, try playing from the service line over the 80 cm net. From there you can gradually extend the length of the orange court, as you probably did at red.

Get parents helping

Parent education is vital. We spend so much time with the players but we ignore the ones who make the decisions, pay for lessons and drive them around. Good communication to parents is essential. If they understand the issues at stake when progressing players, they are more likely to be on your side. Work with them rather than without them.

Conclusion

Being a really good Mini Tennis coach isn’t easy. There are a lot of skills needed to help players develop well at an early age. Unfortunately, many coaches (and maybe parents too) just see the red stage as a quick phase to pass through on the way to the ‘proper’ game. That really mustn’t be the case.

There is important work to be done on the red court; you typically have 2-3 years with your players to prioritise strong technical and physical fundamentals on the red court, to get them rallying and developing a life-long love for tennis. The quality of the player you see on the orange court is largely down to the quality of the work done on the red court.

Other articles on player transitions

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Substantially revised from an article originally published on: Jun 3, 2016

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY CONSISTENCY?

Occasionally, I hear coaches celebrating the fact that one of their players managed a 50 shot rally. That’s great, but have you ever stopped to think what it actually means, and if it is good or bad?

Let me be controversial for a moment. A player who hits a 50 shot rally is a player who doesn’t open up the court. A player who hits a 50 shot rally is perhaps a player who is trying not to lose, rather than daring to try to win. A player who hits a 50 shot rally is a player who hasn’t discovered the real enjoyment of what playing tennis is about. A player who hits a 50 shot rally is cooperating rather than competing.

Think about it. Tennis is a game of attack and defence, of changes of direction, of mastering the effectiveness of the strokes, of getting the ball to do what you want it to do. Tennis is not about hitting endless groundstrokes waiting for the opponent to make a mistake.

So let’s ditch the idea of consistency being about hitting over the net and in to court in long rallies, and instead let’s look at what consistency could mean! Next time you’re tempted to work on ‘consistency’ I want to inspire you to think about what you’re actually looking to achieve.

FORMS OF CONSISTENCY

CONSISTENT ACCURACY – the first challenge is for your players to hit the ball into the large parts of the court more often. Imagine splitting the opponent’s half of the court into 4 quarters. Can your player direct the ball off both sides to each of the 4 quarters at will? If they can, they are more likely to make the opponent move and therefore more likely to open up the court. Hitting the lines isn’t important; hitting the big parts of the court more often is.

RED COURT CONSISTENT ACCURACY DRILL – divide both sides of the court into quarters. Starting the rally either with an overarm serve or underarm feed, let both players direct the ball to a different quarter of the opponent’s court each time, so that they do not hit the quarter twice in succession. Can they consistently direct the ball to different quarters of the court?

CONSISTENT EFFECTIVENESS – technique in isolation means nothing. The purpose of ‘good’ technique is to make the shot more effective and more efficient. Are your players capable of hitting the same ball with equal effectiveness more often? Using the same 4 quarters, can your player hit cross court to the opponent’s backhand with sufficient and equal depth, direction, height, speed and spin? If your player hits the ball effectively, the ball is less likely to come back.

RED COURT CONSISTENT EFFECTIVENESS DRILL – a good measure of effectiveness is to look at where the ball sends the opponent. There are many different ways you can evaluate effectiveness, even on a red court:

Get the returner to stand on a throw-down spot on the court. Can the server serve to move the returner off the spot?

Can the player serve wide enough to get one foot of the opponent outside the sideline? Can the player do it equally effectively from the left and the right?

Can the player hit the groundstroke with enough height and depth to push the opponent back behind the baseline? Can the player do it equally effectively with the forehand and the backhand?

CONSISTENT EXECUTION – good players play in patterns. In other words, they execute specific combinations of strokes. A pattern may consist of just 3 shots, for example a serve out wide, a forehand into the open court and then a forehand to the opposite open court. Can your players execute short, simple and specific patterns consistently?

RED COURT CONSISTENT EXECUTION DRILL – Simply ask the server to tell you or the opponent where they are going to hit their first 3 shots including the serve. Stop after 3 shots from the server, and win the point if they manage to execute.

CONSISTENT APPLICATION – do your players approach every session, every match and every point the same? Look to establish a consistency of quality of application in everything your players do, from the warm up to the training court to the match court, and you’ll see your players improve significantly.

RED COURT CONSISTENT APPLICATION ACTIVITIES – activities like this are less about the task and more about way in which the task is done. Standards, either high or low, are habits. Get your players to self-assess the quality (not the success) of a particular warm up or activity. Get them to think about what they could do to raise the score next time they do it, and make them accountable to that process. Even young children start to understand that doing something well is something they can influence.

“RORANGE” – How to transition players from red ball to orange ball