Spanish Tennis Drills

If The United States and Spain were both tennis stocks, then for the last 10 years, the Spanish stock has been in a bull market, while the United States stock is bearish all the way.

The most obvious sign of this would be the number of Spanish players who have been populating the men's top ten, as compared to the shrinking number of Americans.

Add to that, the fact that even the USTA hired a Spaniard Jose Higueros as the Director of Coaching in 2008.

Not to mention that even without Rafa, the Spanish Davis cup team just took out the Americans in Austin, on Andy Roddick's home court.

Ok, but is there a difference between the coaching that one receives in Spain versus the US?

And, I won't be a smart ass and suggest that the difference is that the lessons in Spain are given in Spanish. If that's all that was required, the the USTA could send its pros to Berlitz language training and everything would be AOK.

I won't pretend that I have trained at a Spanish tennis academy or that I know the inside scoop about what they talk about at the USTA. I will say though that I have read quite a bit about the differences from people who have trained in both places.

A great example would be the pro Chris Lewitt who has written articles on John Yandell's excellent site Tennisplayer.net and who has his own site at chrislewit.com . It seems that the difference is that the Spanish system is fanatical about movement, defense, and racket head speed to generate heavy topsin.

Growing up in North America, every tennis lesson that I have ever seen or taken involved a pro on the other side of the court hitting balls to me(except for the serve). But, it seems that having the pro on the same side of the court and feeding balls by hand is a big part of the Spanish training. And, there are designed movement drills that incorporate both offense and defense.

What's nice as well about these drills, is that it looks like it would be quite easy to have a friend feed balls and for you to get a high level workout.

Here are a few links to a few spanish type drills. Enjoy and maybe you can incorporate them into your training.



Spanish Hand Fed Drill

Spanish Tennis Drill

Spain Tennis Academy


Until next time,

Glenn Sheiner M.D. - author of Insider Tennis Strategies Spanish Tennis Drills guaranteed to make you a smarter tennis player and take your tennis to the next level. Also, check out the world's top tennis humor screensaver
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