How to Practise Tennis Alone: A Solo Session That Actually Works
No partner, no coach, no ball machine. Here is a solo session that genuinely makes you better: serve baskets, wall rallies, shadow swings, and footwork, built into one focused hour.
By Two brothers in Melbourne, co-founder of RallyHub.
The fastest way to improve at tennis is to play more often, and the biggest obstacle to playing more often is finding someone to play with. So here is the unlock most adults never try: you can get genuinely better on your own. A solo session will never replace match play, but an hour by yourself can fix your serve, groove your forehand, and sharpen your footwork in ways a social hit never will, because nobody is waiting on you and you can repeat the same thing two hundred times. Here is a solo session that actually works, no partner, no coach, no ball machine required.
What solo practice is good for (and what it is not)
Solo work is brilliant for the things that break down under pressure: your serve, your swing path, your footwork, and your fitness. It is useless for the things that only a live opponent teaches: reading where a ball is going, point construction, and handling someone hitting back at you. So treat solo sessions as the workshop where you build the parts, and match play as the road test. Do both and you improve far faster than people who only ever turn up for the weekly social.
1. Serve baskets (the highest-value drill in tennis)
The serve is the only shot you hit entirely on your own terms, and it is the only shot you can practise to completion without a partner. That makes it the single best use of solo court time, and almost nobody does it.
Grab a basket or a bag of balls, twenty or more if you can. Stand at the baseline and serve them one after another into one target box. Then switch and serve the next basket to the other box. Do not rush. Between each serve, reset your stance, your ball toss, and your grip (Continental, always). You are not trying to hit aces, you are trying to repeat one clean motion until it becomes automatic.
- Put a target down in each corner of the service box: a cone, a ball can, a spare towel.
- Track a number out loud: "six out of ten in." Next basket, beat it.
- Alternate first serves (full pace) and second serves (more spin, higher margin).
Two baskets, twice a week, and your serve will be unrecognisable in a month. Picking up the balls afterwards is the cardio.
2. The hitting wall (your most patient partner)
Every public tennis centre and most schools have a practice wall or a hittable brick surface somewhere. The wall returns every ball, never gets tired, and never judges your unforced errors. It is the best ground-stroke trainer ever invented.
Stand back far enough that the ball comes to you on one bounce, around the same distance as a baseline rally. Rally with the wall and focus on one thing at a time: today it is a full follow-through, next session it is split-stepping as the ball comes off the wall. Aim at a spot or a line drawn in chalk so you are practising placement, not just contact.
The wall comes back faster than a real rally, so it doubles as reaction and footwork training. If it feels too quick, step back. If you want to drill volleys, step in close and punch short, firm volleys against it.
3. Shadow swings (the drill you can do anywhere)
No court, no ball, no problem. Shadow swinging is rehearsing your stroke with no ball, slowly and correctly, so your body memorises the right shape. Pros do it constantly. You can do it in the backyard, the hallway, or while the kettle boils.
Pick one stroke. Move your feet into position, turn your shoulders, swing in slow motion, and hold the finish for a count of two. Do twenty. Because there is no ball and no result to chase, you can focus entirely on the movement: the unit turn, the contact point out in front, the follow-through over the shoulder. This is how you fix a hitch without the panic of a ball flying at you.
4. Footwork ladders and lines
Most points are lost because the player arrived at the ball late or off balance, not because their swing was bad. Footwork is trainable solo and it transfers straight to match play.
- Split-step starts: stand at the baseline, do a small split-step hop, then explode three steps to one side and shadow a forehand. Recover to the middle. Repeat to the backhand side.
- Line sprints: use the court lines. Sprint to the singles sideline, sidestep back, sprint to the other, eight times. This is the exact movement a long rally demands.
- Agility ladder or cones: if you have one, quick feet through the rungs trains the small adjusting steps that get you perfectly positioned for contact.
5. Toss-feed groundstrokes
No wall? Feed yourself. Stand near the baseline, drop or gently toss a ball out in front, let it bounce, and hit a full groundstroke into the court. It sounds basic, but it lets you rehearse a perfect swing on a perfect ball, which is how you build a repeatable stroke. Hit ten forehands to a deep cross-court target, then ten backhands. Quality over quantity: a clean, balanced finish every time.
Putting it into one hour
A solo session that covers everything:
- 10 minutes: dynamic warm-up and footwork lines.
- 15 minutes: wall rally, one focus per five minutes.
- 20 minutes: two serve baskets, tracking your in-count.
- 10 minutes: toss-feed groundstrokes to targets.
- 5 minutes: shadow swings to cool down and lock in the feeling.
Do that once a week on top of your normal hit and you will pull away from everyone you play who only turns up on game day. The work nobody sees is the work that wins.
When you do get back on court with a partner, track what is improving so the solo work pays off in real matches. See how to track your tennis matches, and if you want to know which strokes to prioritise, start with the five shots every social player needs.