Progressive Tennis

A mini-revolution is brewing in the tennis community in Canada. The approach is called “Progressive Tennis”. We have imported it from leading nations such as Spain, France, and Belgium where it has produced many junior and adult international champions. Progressive Tennis uses a systematic progression of court sizes, balls, and racquets to scale down the game to an appropriate level for 5-9 year olds.

Modified racquets and balls are not revolutionary. The equipment has been around for years, as has the “graduated length” concept. Coaches have used parts of Progressive Tennis for years seeing the advantage from the perspective of success, fun, and safety. The difference now is that all of these elements have been married into a much more systematic way than ever before. We have developed equipment including graduated balls, racquets, lines, courts, and nets, and merged them with curriculum and competitive structure.

The power of the progressive tennis system is that it allows young players to play quickly and successfully. In Progressive Tennis, the philosophy is that tennis is a great and fun game to play and the quicker and more skillfully a player can play, the more enjoyment there is. Each stage not only has specific equipment to facilitate success, but particular skills to develop as well. A Game-Based Approach will allow for the development of focused, athletic, competitive, smart, effective, and independent athletes. 
Simply put, “Progressive Tennis” is used as a developmental tool to allow young athletes to improve their overall skills so that they can transition to the regular court without injury, and with relative ease.

Program Descriptions

Stage 1-Le Petit Tennis (3-5 Year Olds)

Le Petit Tennis is the first step in progressive tennis. In LPT young athletes learn by using a series of stories, colourful books, games, small format courts with decorations and age-adapted equipment like large inflatable balls, lower nets, and bigger racquets. In conclusion, Le Petit Tennis method engages young athletes in role play to teach the fundamentals of the game. They create images and stories for the tennis equipment, techniques, and boundaries to learn the pillars of the game.

Stage 2-Half-Court Tennis (5-6, 7-8 Year Olds)

First Serve & Second Serve

Half-Court is the second step in progressive tennis. The transition to successful half-court tennis will require a period of skill development where basic co-ordination and cooperative activities will lead to the development of the basic strokes and fundamentals. Therefore, this program will need to be broken into segments: one for experienced athletes who have some basic exchanging ability who will be able to begin competing and training at half court and the other for athletes who are just starting the game.

Stage 3-3/4 Court Tennis (9-10, 11-12 Year Olds)

Ace & Game

The ¾ Court stage is the most important stage of this progressive development: the court dimensions are adjusted smaller but with a similar ratio as the full court. This step facilitates the development of an all-court game style with net-play. The key is to develop the same tactics as full court tennis along with the associated fundamentals and techniques.
Players will move to ¾ Court once they have a full repertoire of skills at the half court. For most players who have gone through the half court program this transition will take place at 7 years of age. There will also be some late starters who will make this transition at 8-9 years of age.

Stage 4-Full Court Tennis (13+ Year Olds)

Set & Match

Players will move to full court once they have a full repertoire of skills at the ¾ court. This transition to full court tennis will take place in a two step process. The first step will be with a transition ball which provides a more lively bounce than the low compression ball but not as much as a bounce as the regular ball (this will help to promote the continued development of proper technique). This will help ensure longer rallies and points. The final step will be using the regulation ball, on a full length court.
*It is quite possible that different levels, stages, and court lengths will be merged to accommodate the varying levels of athletes* News about the summer 2011 Youth Tennis program will be coming soon.

In addition to our Progressive Tennis Youth Programs, we will also be offering a "Junior Team Tennis" programs for ages (U11), (U14) and (U17).   These teams will be co-ed and they will play singles, doubles, and mixed amongst each other and other Clubs in the HRM.  More information will be posted in the coming week.