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The Three Best Contest Drills for Intermediates

Closing Smash Contest

By , About.com Guide

If you want to capture some photos of your students making their most ferocious unposed faces, this is the drill. You'll be feeding them the juiciest possible opportunities to pound on an overhead. The one catch is that they'll have to move forward significantly to get in ideal position. This drill helps with their timing and overhead mechanics, but most importantly, it teaches them to close in on easy balls and take them at the optimal height. Failing to close on easy balls at the net is one of the most common sources of lost opportunities for intermediates.

Group: Line the players up behind the service-line T. Each will start moving forward when you make contact with the feed. Feed so that they can meet the ball at full reach roughly five feet from the net. They should have time to move forward, turn, set up, and hit a well-balanced overhead.

Individual: Have the player start from the service-line T each time. Keep track of her personal bests for sets of ten feeds.

Scoring: Each player gets ten feeds, taken one per turn in line. If the ball lands in the singles court, then bounces two more times before hitting the fence, it's worth one point. If it bounces only once after landing in and before hitting the fence, it's worth three points. If it lands in and then hits the fence, with no bounces in between, it's worth five points below the crossbar (halfway up the fence) and seven points above. The players usually love to try to bounce balls over the fence, and the fun usually justifies rewarding such shots with ten points despite the questionable wisdom of trying such a shot in a match. (You have to aim shorter to bounce a ball over the fence, and you might end up either hitting the net or not producing enough power to put the ball out of reach.) The best accumulated score after ten feeds wins.

Difficulties: For your own safety, feed from well behind your baseline, especially to powerful players.

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