HOW TO “WARM UP” FOR YOUR TENNIS MATCH
By Ron Steege
We’re now in the heart of the USTA league and tournament season and for those of us in the league and tournament business the warm up is one of the more challenging areas to manage. It’s also one of the bigger areas of complaints that we hear about from players this time of year. The problem is that very few players understand how to execute a proper warm up and very few tournaments enforce the warm up policy that they have created, unless there is an on site referee.
The first step in beginning a good warm up procedure is to understand that what you are doing is not practice, it’s a pre-match warm up. There’s a distinct difference in your mental approach to a pre-match warm up routine than a practice. In a warm up, you are generally allotted 10-15 minutes to develop a rhythm and feel for each of the strokes you’ll be using throughout your match. This includes groundstrokes, volleys, overheads and serves. In a practice, you have much more time to devote to one area of interest and perhaps other things as well, depending on your schedule. The big difference will be in your mental focus for each.
Unfortunately, space doesn’t allow for me to go in to all of the mental aspects of a warm up. My focus here will be to help you develop a more effective routine and improve time management. My first bit of advice is to take care of as many things as possible off the court prior to going on to the court. Activities such as re-gripping your racquet, filling your water bottle, getting a towel ready, changing your shoes and of course the big time saver - go to the bathroom! These things all add up and are often responsible for players arriving to their assigned courts 10-15 minutes late.
Before any balls are hit, a racquet should be spun to determine the serve and side. If the sun will be a factor during your match, I recommend knowing your preferred side before walking on to the court and standing on this side of the net. It is common for a player to not plan this out very well and if you win the racquet spin you may be able to have both the serve and your preferred side because your opponent is likely to choose the side they’re on rather than take the time to switch sides. So as you can see the racquet spin also determines the side that you warm up on.
Usually the warm up should begin with groundstrokes. Hitting service line to service line (mini tennis) with abbreviated strokes is a good way to ease in to your shots. After a minute or two, you should move back and progress in to full swings. Groundstrokes are usually exchanged for 5 or 6 minutes, then volleys by both players for a combined 2-3 minutes including overheads. Serves are then exchanged back and forth between players for the final 2 minutes. Return of serve is usually not part of the warm up unless one player has finished warming up and the other player needs to hit a few more serves. It’s perfectly acceptable to hit returns in this case, but in most other instances it’s considered improper etiquette.
Throughout the warm up your shots should be aimed directly to your opponent for consistency and longer rallies. I recommend aiming all of your shots for extra depth since most players have a natural tendency to hit shorter during the match. When warming up your serve, try to direct a few balls to each of the corners and be sure to hit all of the various spins that you plan to use. If you are feeling some nerves, one of the best ways to ease tension is to become more active with your feet, and don’t worry about working up a sweat. This will go a long way towards developing feel and getting you more mentally in to the match and off to a fast start.
Learning a solid warm up ritual is an important element of player development. Once you find a routine that works for you it will go a long way toward more consistent results. I hope these tips help and I look forward to seeing you on the courts!
