Best Cardio Tennis Games

Practice is important. The purpose of playing tennis games is to develop skills and stimulate a game situation. Games are also great fun while you practice this is why our group tennis lessons focusing on skills and cardio include games. Here are some of our favourite cardio tennis games:

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TENNIS GAME #1: First to 50

Players find opponent and rally them in a cross-court battle.
Player on the right side can only hit forehands and the player on the left (advantage) must only hit backhands.
Tally each shot and when the rally ends, the winner gets one point for each shot in the rally e.g. the winner gets 9 points for a 9 shot rally.

First player to over 50 points wins.

This is a great way to practice the consistency with your groundstrokes. You can mix it up by changing positions, allowing both forehands and backhands or hitting down the line instead.

TENNIS GAME #2: Shadow

2 players face each other across the sidelines.

Player one is the leader and they must make a range of movements along the line for player two to shadow. It can be any movement e.g. squats, lunges, jumping or sidestepping. It's a fun way to improve on-court movement.

TENNIS GAME #3: Up and Over

Two rows of players face each other standing across the net behind the service line
Players hit the ball across the court to their partner directly in front of them
Receiver hits the ball back and then runs to the back of the line

Next person in line is to return the ball back to the opposite side of the court
Repeat.

TENNIS GAME #4: Five ball pick-up

Place five tennis balls in a line across a court
Place a racket outside the sideline.

Players start at the sideline and have to sprint to pick up the balls, placing them one at a time back on their racket.
First player to have all 5 balls on the racket wins

This game is great to improve acceleration and agility.

TENNIS GAME #5: Baseline race

This is a competitive game to practice ground strokes from different court positions.

All players start on the service line
Feed one ball for each player one at a time
If they hit the ball back and it goes in, player takes a step back towards the baseline.
If the player misses or their return goes out, they take a step closer to the net.

The game ends when the first player gets back to the baseline. Consistency is key!