Too Many Players, Too Few Courts

Note: While this article is intended for coaches with extreme player/court situations, any coach who has more than four players per court (or a lack of courts for singles practice) will find useful suggestions for organizing team practices in this article.

If you're like many high school coaches, you don't have the luxury of practicing four to a court, much less having courts for daily singles matches.

Many coaches are not allowed to cut, or do not choose to do so, and are limited to as few as two courts, with dozens of players.

How can you run a MEANINGFUL practice with 30 players on two courts?

The short answer is: "Unfortunately, you can't." The key word in the above question is "meaningful."

While some tennis educators will try to convince you that you can use station training, dead-ball drilling and other techniques to practice with more than a dozen students per court, the bottom line is that tennis players need to rally. They need to practice like they're going to play, or they'll play like they practice.

If they aren't able to rally, your players won't learn to play competitive tennis. Furthermore, if kids are standing in lines waiting to hit one ball before returning to the end of the line during the course of a two-hour practice, they are likely to get bored, frustrated or just plain disgusted and quit the team.

While six players to a court is considered acceptable by commercial tennis teachers, even this requires an emphasis on dead-ball drilling -- not what happens in a match.

The good news is that with a little creative thinking, planning and scheduling, you can improve your practices and make them more effective and meaningful for your players even if you have a shortage of court time.

No Other Choice
You may be in a situation where your school runs tennis as a credit class and students must attend at regular times; you may have only 90 minutes for practice; or you may have to take all players and practice with them at the same time.

The emphasis of this article will focus on those situations where coaches have some leeway as to when players can practice.

In the above scenario, you can still try to manage your courts using a combination of dead-ball and live ball drills. Two-on-two drills with handicaps or other matchplay drills will at least allow your players to get some of the live-ball practice they need to learn how to play. Remember, with dead ball drills, players MUST hit three balls before going to the end of the line for any meaningful learning to take place.

Additionally, half of your players can work on conditioning for the first 30 minutes or practice, while the other half of your players work on conditioning the last 30 minutes of practice, allowing each half of your group to practice on less-congested courts. Your conditioning will have to be well-planned, meaningful and enjoyable for your players each day. This means goal-oriented drills and conditioning targets (the USTA fitness testing protocol is a great way to keep kids motivated).

Additionally, varsity and junior varsity players can take turns charting each other's matches. This will allow the coach to gather valuable information on the matchplay strengths and weaknesses of players; allow players to observe how matches are lost an won; and allow players to gain matchplay time not otherwise available if all team members are practicing on limited courts. You can refer to the article "Match Charting," in our player database.

Scheduling
The key to running effective practices with many players and few courts has more to do with scheduling than with what type of drills and activities you do. Consider whether or not you really need to have all of your players attend a two- or three-hour practice, five days a week if it means that they'll have 10-15 hours of inappropriate practice.

Consider dividing your team into a varsity and junior varsity (if you haven't already). Do your junior varsity players need to practice at the same time your varsity player do? Do they need to practice five days a week?

Below are three schedules for a team with 30 players and two courts. This schedule assumes that:

#1 The team can be divided into varsity and junior varsity squads.

#2 Players can practice at different times.*

#3 All players are not required to attend practice every day.*

*If you have a program which requires that all students must attend the full practice each day, use charting as described earlier in this article.

These schedules guarantee varsity players four or five days of practice, and junior varsity players three days of practice.

It's important that you sell your player, parents and AD on the fact that quality of practice is more important than quantity. Show them your pre-planned schedule so they can see that you are organized, and that players will be able to attend higher-quality practices.

Remember, planning and scheduling will help more than "fast-action" drills in your efforts to give your players meaningful practices when you have limited courts, and will allow them to have more fun while developing into better tennis players.

Staggered Practice Plans
(click here for a printable .pdf)