Tennis Drills for Kids 8 and Under

Coaching young kids in tennis is a completely different job than coaching adults. Under-8 tennis is 60% movement and coordination, 30% ball feel, and only about 10% real technique. Get those proportions right and the strokes come naturally in a year or two. Get them wrong and the kid quits.

Setup

• Use red low-compression balls — either foam or felt.
• Use a shorter court — 36 feet, from service line to service line.
• Use a child-sized racquet — 19, 21, 23, or 25 inches depending on the child's height.

Warm-up (5 minutes)

Balloon or beach ball tosses. Catching. Underhand throwing at a target. This is not filler — it is developing the hand-eye tracking that tennis strokes will build on.

Drill 1: Bounce and catch (5 minutes)

Kid holds racquet, drops ball, lets it bounce, catches it on the strings without moving. Teaches ball tracking and racquet control without the complexity of a swing.

Progression: bounce, catch, and gently toss back onto strings. Then bounce, tap, bounce, tap.

Drill 2: Feed rallies (10 minutes)

Coach or parent underhand-tosses low balls to the child from ten feet away. Child hits forehands into an open space. Success target: "hit three in a row past this line."

Do not correct grip yet. Do not correct swing. Just get the ball back over.

Drill 3: Red-ball rally (10 minutes)

Kid vs kid or kid vs parent on a shorter court. Cooperative rallies with counts — "how many can we hit in a row?" Turn it into a game with numbers.

Drill 4: Movement games (10 minutes)

Sharks and minnows, cone touches, ladder drills. Anything that teaches quick feet in a game format. Kids will do more sprints in a fun game than any amount of "run to the line."

Drill 5: Points to 3 (10 minutes)

Miniature matches to 3 points. Serve underhand from mid-court. This teaches competing more than any drill in the world — and it is what they will love most.

What NOT to do

• Do not use full yellow balls. They bounce over their heads and cause chopping habits.
• Do not correct grip more than once per session. They will not remember, and the frustration is not worth it.
• Do not run a strict 60-minute lesson. 30-45 minutes is plenty at this age.
• Do not compare siblings. Every kid develops on their own curve.

Kids at this age either fall in love with tennis or drift away. Fun and success are the whole game. Everything else comes later.