Practicing Modern Tennis Footwork

This video teaches you how to practice modern tennis footwork during your warm up. The pros (Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, etc.) use a number of specific steps when they play a match. Yann Auzoux and I discussed what these steps were in a recent video (titled "Modern Tennis Footwork"). Now we're going to show you how to practice them so that they become second nature.

We spend most of our time talking about the following pieces of tennis footwork: the walking step, the hopping step, the inside step, and the carioca step.

The warm up Yann and I do is very simply... it's something you can do the very next time you hit the court!

[HyperHorse]

This is one of the best drills I've seen for a while.. I'll be sure to employ it when I start playing again...
Thanks Will & Yann...

[YenTien]

Thanks for this great tutorial. I tried this today against the wall. After a regular 90 minutes I felt my breath was much more heavy, but my feet was much more alive. I also found that walking step is far more difficult than I imagined :(

I am going to keep practicing this. Thanks again!

[nelsongracia]

Excellent to know all variety of foot steps, thank You, to the teacher . Knowing and practicing is the best way to made our game more perfect . Tuesday I will be at the tennis court with my professor Argenis Torres @ casa de italia, practicing this exact movement .

[irina]

It's absolutely true! I'm working on it :) Modern tennis is soooo dynamic! 

[beavertown]

Both coaches are very clear in teaching. Thanks!!!

[Kingaxel]

Great video Will! As always, it's very helpful and instructional. I like the this one particularly because you demonstrate the tips in an actual practice format. You can actually see what this actually looks like during practice with a partner. One can copy exactly what you did and have a great practice session.

[Dubinski]

Yann looks like he is salsa dancing on the court. Amazing. So smooth.

[champ]

holy cow, 61k hits on that last one... nice job guys
I wish I had the time or motivation to work on this stuff

[LeafVillItachi]

@FYB2007 and with that i totally agree with FYB. I'm a high school tennis player and i this video and the previous one you've done with him have taught me a lot and for the most part improved my game.

[fox]

great lesson, and they must be better than you think. it seems easy, but actually difficult.

[claus]

excellent tip. thanks.
those 5 min is like an hour of hit for me

[fuzzyyellowballs]

@Elohite some do, some don't. depends on preference.

[xlovemakayla]

I love you. You rock a tennis. Thanks for the great videos. They really help me. (:

[TonyUK]

Footwork is intrinsically linked with head movement and as has been mentioned in a previous post, footwork is learned while we're growing up - we turn our heads to see and the feet follow - it's natural and common sense. Players don't want to be focusing on the feet - they should be focusing on the ball, finding it with their hands and keeping their heads still. The problem with this video is that the players are 'bouncing' around far too much with excessive footwork -

[rainnina]

this video made me realize my footwork mistake
thankyou xx

[edithdiangelo]

Thank you for this video, it is very helpful ♥

[mtlsteven]

very nice, non stop hitting, :P pretty good video thanks FYB! but too bad it's getting cold and rainny almost everyday in canada montreal, can't practice :(

[TonyUK]

Not even pros who rally from the baseline during warm ups are running around this much. Watch Justine Henin and others on Youtube rally in the boxes and then progress back to the baseline increasing the power on their shots. While viewers may initially be focusing on the arm movement, as this is where all the 'action' is perceived to be, it is worthwhile actually watching what the feet are doing. The feet do what is necessary to get the hand (and racquet) to the ball.

[RobertSchmitt]

I have a question. I myself and understand a lot of players with various skill levels warm up in the short court. Do the pros warm up with the short court before moving back?

[champ]

@ytaidan FYB is right, i've noticed that players in europe do this more naturally due to playing on clay, but young american players never actually learn this, though some do similar things naturally