Transform Your Tennis Footwork In 10 Minutes – Instant Tennis Improvements

Footwork and movement in tennis is the glue that binds our entire tennis games together.

You could have great strokes, the biggest forehand in the world, but if you’re not in the right position to hit that forehand, your shot will suffer greatly.

If you look at most professional tennis players, they all have excellent tennis footwork and movement.

The Big Three

Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic have even better footwork and movement than everyone else.
This is one of the reasons why they are able to play at a high level even when they’re not hitting the ball well.

They have the ability to rely on good footwork to keep them in the point.

There are many different footwork patterns that tennis players should learn, in this video, we’ll focus on five of the main ones.

This includes:

• The split-step
• The side shuffle step
• The crossover step
• The cross-behind step
• The first step to the ball

Transform Your Tennis Footwork In 10 Minutes

If you focus on and improve these five tennis footwork patterns, you’ll become a faster, more energy-efficient tennis player.

The Split-Step

The first step that you must master in tennis is the split-step.

The most important footwork step we use in tennis. Whenever your opponent hits their shot, you should try to be balanced and ready to move off in any direction.

Using a split-step will help you to do that.

Have your feet around one and a half to two shoulder widths apart and jump off the tennis court a few centimetres.

Make sure you have the weight of your body on the balls of your feet, not on the heels.

The Side Shuffle Step

The second step you must master is the side shuffle.

This is perfect for adjusting to balls that are quite close to you, where you only need to move a few feet in any direction.

You can also use this footwork pattern when recovering if you only need to cover a few feet.

The Crossover Step

This step is the most important step to master for recovery off a wider ball.

The crossover step will allow you to cover much greater distances in fewer steps than the side shuffle and will save you energy as you are using the momentum that the body creates to move.

The Cross-Behind Step

Often when we are pushed out wide, off the tennis court, our feet end up being out of alignment.

This sometimes blocks us from using the crossover step to recover with.
In these situations, you can also use a cross-behind step.

This will help you to cover a good amount of distance in just a few steps. Roger Federer and Grigor Dimitrov are two top players who use this footwork pattern a lot.

The First Step

Getting to the ball as early as possible should always be your goal.

Too often tennis players will use side steps or move to the ball facing the court, and this costs them time and energy.

The first step you take to the oncoming ball should be explosive and help you create momentum.

Video Timeline:
00:00​ – Transform Your Tennis Footwork In 10 Minutes Intro
00:38​ – Split-Step In Tennis (step one)
2:20​ – Split-Step Timing In Tennis
2:43​ – Side Shuffle Step In Tennis (step two)
4:37​ – Crossover Step In Tennis (step three)
6:30​ – Cross-Behind Step In Tennis (step four)
7:55​ – First Step To The Ball In Tennis (step five)
9:39​ – Tennis Footwork Drills