Most players never learn to meet the ball. They stand where they are, wait for it to arrive, and hit late and cramped. This is a full beginner lesson, seven minutes of a real student building groundstrokes from the ground up, and Coach Tim Brielmaier does not hand her a racquet for the first three minutes. That is the point. The swing is the last thing you add, not the first.
Stage one: catch and throw, no racquet
The lesson starts with the ball fed to the student and caught by hand, in the same shape on the forehand and the backhand side. Catch, turn the shoulder, throw it back to the coach's chest. The throwing motion matters more than it looks: it is the same motion as the serve, so every throw here is a serve rep in disguise. On the backhand side you can catch with the left hand and switch it over to throw with the right.
Stop waiting. Go out and get the ball.
The first correction, and the one that changes the most: “What's happening now is you're letting the ball come to you. Instead, go out to the ball. Be proactive. Go get it.” Watch how much easier the catch becomes the moment the student moves toward the ball instead of waiting on it. Everything downstream, the spacing, the swing, the depth, depends on this one habit.
Spacing: where to meet the ball
You do not want to catch the ball against your body. You want to meet it out in front, with room, because that is exactly where the racquet will meet it later. Coach Tim practises the spacing while the hands are still empty, so by the time the racquet arrives the contact point is already a habit. His weight control and spacing lesson goes deeper on the “invisible wall” contact point.
The keep-running drill
On the last hand-catch the student is sent running after the ball, all the way past it: “Keep running, keep running, there you go.” The feeling he wants is that you keep moving and can get to any ball. Players who stop their feet as the ball approaches are the ones who end up late and jammed.
Stage two: add the racquet, but only tap
Now the racquet comes in, and the instruction is deliberately small: just tap it. Forehand tap, backhand tap, tap the short one. Use the other hand to cradle the racquet while you move. The tap keeps the new variable, the racquet, from wrecking the footwork and spacing you just built. When a ball is too far away or too close you feel it immediately, because there is no swing to hide behind.
Stage three: prepare early, then the full swing
The full stroke is built in pieces. Prepare as soon as you see which side the ball is going to: leave with the racquet, drop, and finish. On the backhand, change your turn, drop, and finish. Then the two rules that fix most beginner groundstrokes:
- Go in at 45 degrees. Don't move sideways along the baseline to the ball. Move in toward it at a 45-degree angle and take your regular swing.
- Start below the ball, finish above it. Lift the racquet over the opposite shoulder for spin. “Lift it higher” is the note that comes up again and again in the second half of the lesson.
Too far, too close, just right
With the swing in place, spacing errors show up as shots. Coach Tim calls them as they happen: that one was a little too far away, that one too close, that one just about right. Hearing the three in a row is the fastest way to learn what “just right” feels like from the inside.
Knuckles to the target
A simple checkpoint for the finish: at the end of the swing, the knuckles of your hitting hand point to where you wanted the ball to go. If they point somewhere else, the ball usually did too.
Shove the ball away for depth
The lesson finishes on depth. Push out through the ball, shove it away from you, shove it down the line. The shove is a weight-transfer move, not an arm move, and it is what sends a ball to the baseline without swinging harder. If your groundstrokes land short, this section is the one to rewatch.
How to practice this on your own
You can run the whole progression against a wall. Catch and throw first, then tap, then the full swing, and give yourself the same three calls: go get it, 45 degrees, lift it higher. Coach Tim's wall practice lesson covers the setup, and the topspin lesson is the next step once the low-to-high swing is in place.
Get a lesson to build on it
This is the lesson Coach Tim gives a brand-new player, and it works because every stage is checked before the next one is added. He is a mobile coach across Florida's Space Coast and Treasure Coast and comes to your court. See lessons and pricing, or read what to expect in your first lesson. Not local? Ask about online coaching.