On The Rise Tennis Training Philosophy

Foundational Tennis Players
At On The Rise Tennis we strive to build tennis players from the ground up. We believe the best way to train players is by building a solid base/foundation. You need the basics of tennis; movement, technique, strategy and balance, built up the correct way in order to become the best player you can be. Far too many people worry about the level of hitting they get when they don’t have these fundamentals down.
Technical Strokes Philosophy
​​​Some of our stroke work that we use to develop technically sound swings comes from a Great Base Training philosophy with our own twist. We work on our players developing a smooth swing path with a low to high follow through to create topspin from the Great Base foundation and then after they have the basic swing path down we might tweak the swing to best fit the individual's biomechanics. Many pro tennis players have variations in their swing, but they all have the important checkpoints that make their swing solid from a technical aspect.

Footwork Philosophy

The footwork philosophy that we work on at OTR is half based around the Bailey Footwork system. We work on developing a solid balanced base for players to use during their groundstrokes and volleys and from there work on footwork patterns based on  2 step, 3 step and then 1 step movement based program. We spend a majority of time on these 3 step and under footwork patterns because 80 - 90 percent of tennis shots are played between the singles alley. Players can cover all shots through the center of the court with these most used movement patterns.

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Groundstroke Footwork

The main focus of our footwork training for the groundstroke is spending time getting players to be balanced on their shot while having their body weight transfer forward through the ball. We work on developing the Perfect Set Up on the ball in a closed stance, semi open stance and open stance set up.

Volley Footwork

Having a great volley in tennis comes from the feet. We spend time on the volley by utilizing our 3 footwork patterns to build a solid foundation for the footwork. We work on the Outside foot-inside foot volley, the Inside foot-outside foot volley and a cross step volley. From this base we are able to show players what situations they should utilize the various footwork patterns in in order to be successful when they are coming to the net.

Serving Philosophy

We fully believe in two major concepts when developing a players serve.
We build a great base by developing a better throwing motion. We utilize baseballs, footballs and lacrosse balls to help kids work on the necessary body movements to have a great tennis serve. Secondly, we focus on develop a simple motion. Far too many players have unnecessary movements such as extra wrist movements, too big of swing paths or the elbow tucking to name a few different problems that we often see and need to eliminate from a player's swing.