SERVING ON HARD COURTS It's always important to serve to your opponent's weaknesses so you need to be able to hit the first serve to all of the areas marked in orange. You need to be able to target the wide and centre positions of the service box and then the middle mark aimed at the body. The body serve should be aimed deep in the box to ensure your opponent has less time to react. On the second serve, try to use the kick serve to the backhand as the surface will help the ball to bounce up around shoulder height if you get enough top-spin on it. Aim about a metre in from the service line as this takes your opponent further out of position. INSIDE-OUT AND INSIDE-IN FOREHANDS Most of the top players are looking to dominate the rallies with their forehands. This includes forehands hit from the left side of the court. An inside-out forehand is a forehand hit from the left side of the court diagonally whereas an inside-in forehand is a forehand hit from the left side of the court straight. Put down some flat lines and challenge yourself to hit forehands on balls which land in the marked area whenever possible - but be sensible! As you get better at it, you can move the flat lines closer to the inside tram line. The further you move towards the tramline or over the tramline, the better your shot needs to be as you are further out of position. Obviously you cannot hit inside-out or inside-in forehands from the right half of the court. When the ball bounces in that area, you would hit cross-court or down the line forehands to corresponding target areas as for the last drill below. PICK THE RIGHT TARGET AREAS Put down some target markers and hit corresponding targets from the area of the court that you are in. So when hitting an inside-out forehand and you are in a deep position (1) aim for a deep position (1) on the opposite side of the court. Similarly, aim for a three-quarters of the way up the court if you are in that position (2) and aim for two-thirds of the way up the court if you are stationed there (3). For inside-in forehands aim for a deep target around a metre inside the baseline. A good tip is to remember that when you are hitting inside-out forehands, you must hit the inside of the ball to get a good angle. When you are hitting inside-in forehands, hit the back of the ball to make it go straight.
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