Just like everything else I have written on this site, every kid is different, so be sure to try different ideas and see what works, but here is some info on what has worked for us.

Before I go into specifics on different routines, it is important to take a step back and describe the situation I am referring to. At most junior tournaments, the kids show up, get three balls from the check-in desk and then hit the court. Once they reach the court, USTA allows for five minutes of warm-up. The routine here is always the same: short court rally, full court rally, volleys and overheads, followed last by serves. To be clear, this is NOT what I am describing when I talk about warm-up.

What I am referring to is all of the prep that happens before the kid even checks in at the front desk and gets assigned a court. This is a critical time that often requires a thoughtful strategy in order to put all of those hard hours of practice to work in the match. After all, you don’t want to spend hundreds of hours sweating on the practice court, only to lose in the match because you didn’t warm up properly. Or even worst – risk injury because you didn’t prepare your body correctly for a grueling 2.5 hour marathon at the hottest point of the day.

In addition to the physical reasons for doing a thorough warm-up before the match, there are also important mental reasons as well. For one (and this is something very unique to tennis that surprised me when I first observed it in the many junior tennis tournaments I have witnessed), because of the repetitive nature of tennis, it is important to “get into rhythm” as much as possible. The player needs to get reacquainted to seeing the ball. How it spins and bounces, and how to ensure they are standing in the exact correct spot to make contact. For as much as serious tennis players train, they all still need time to get that feeling back into their body, and the warm-up process is the perfect way to do that. Second, the warm-up can be a good distraction from perseverating over the match about to take place. Because tennis is such an individual sport, the player doesn’t have others to talk to before the match starts. There are other players to talk to and socialize with, but often these are the same kids you will be competing against, so there is only so much that can be discussed, The warm-up, therefore, becomes a good way to focus on something else in the minutes leading up to the match. It helps the player get relaxed by giving the nervous energy an outlet from the body. And playing relaxed and free is almost always the best way to get good results.

So with all that said, what should the warm-up actually be? What should you be doing? How long should you be doing it for? And how can you help your junior player with it?

As I always say upfront – your experiences and results may vary, but here is what I have seen work.

First, the best warm-up is on court, at the site of your tournament, and as close to the time of play as possible. This is usually not a problem when you’re on the ATP tour and playing for millions, but for the average junior player in a local Level 6 or 7 tourney, this is far easier said than done. This step is easy if you are playing the first match of the day. The courts will be free because it is before any matches have started, and the tournament directors usually open the courts 30 to 60 minute before the start time for kids to warm up. If that happens to be you, then be sure to take advantage by arriving to the site early and getting on court. Arrange for another competitor to hit with your child, or hit with him/her yourself if that is an option. This approach is best because the conditions are exactly what the kid will be facing (wind, sun, cracks on the court, etc.), and that familiarity can be an advantage. It’s also great, because the player moves directly from warm-up to competing, so the body is engaged and ready to move.

Quite often though (for me this has been the majority of the time!), there are no warm-up courts at the site of the tournament. All courts need to be used for matches that are taking place and given how hard it is for any tournament to secure a dozen or more courts for an entire weekend, it is rare to see courts not being used. If this is the situation you find yourself in, the best thing to do is to find a court within a reasonable driving distance.

Once on court, you should have a standardized warm-up routine. Now is not the time to introduce anything new. Instead, take the player through a set pattern of drills and hitting that you know is comfortable for them. For my son and me, this is what we do:

• Short court: 3 min
• Baseline, down the middle, hitting slow but consistent and deep: 5 min
• Backhand target from baseline (I stand in the backhand corner and he hits to me there from both corners of his baseline): 5 min
• Forehand target from baseline (same drill as above, but I move to the forehand side): 5 min
• Volley rally (player comes to net and control volleys ball back to baseline): 5 min
• Serve from all four corners of the court: 10 min

We can usually get this warm-up done in just over 30 minutes and it’s enough to get a decent sweat going, which is how I know we have worked out any pre-match jitters. 

In addition to this routine, I have seen other warm-ups that might include: playing out full points; return drills (if you are a good enough server to where the player feels there is a simulation happening); or hitting from the baseline in a set pattern. The variations are endless, but what I have observed it is usually best to do the same routine everytime to ensure you are comprehensive with all the different shots that can happen over the course of match and because the routine creates comfort for the player.

What is also key to remember during an on-court warm-up is what not to do. 

• Do not use it as a time to teach something new. This will be hard to resist because if there is something super obvious that needs to be fixed, you will be tempted to highlight it and get the kid to address it. But the last thing you want to do is put a spotlight on something wrong, which will only reduce your kid’s confidence and break his concentration.
• Do not use it as a practice match. The other thing you want to avoid is wearing the player down right before they need to play. At a high level (which is what you are dealing with if you are in a full day tournament), tennis can be physically grueling. You need to make sure your player is warmed up and not worn down before the match starts. Make sure to remind the kid to move slowly and smoothly and to reserve energy for the match.
• Do not control the session too much. If you do enough of these warm ups, eventually your player will know what works and what doesn’t work. This is their time, not yours, so defer to them when they make requests or have ideas on what to focus on.

The on-court warm-up is straight forward, and like I said, if you can get access to a court, then it’s just a matter of creating a routine and sticking to it. What gets harder is when you need to do a warm-up OFF court. This happens far more often than I would have guessed before starting these tournaments with my son. Often, you will be playing more than one match on the same day, and so there needs to be a second warm-up before the second match, and this is often done off court since all the courts are being used, and you might not have time to drive to a separate set of courts. 

What has worked for my son and me is to divide the off court warm-up into three phases:

1. Phase 1 is stretching. Pretty straight-forward, but I make sure my son spends at least 5 to 10 minutes working from his feet to his neck with both dynamic and static stretching.
2. Phase 2 is moving. In order to avoid injury, it’s good to move under conditions where you can control your exertion levels and pay attention to how your body feels. This phase is also 10 minutes and involves liners (going back and forth across 20 or so yards doing things like knee raises, butt kickers, skips, etc.). If there is no space for that, we resort to jumping rope, but doing something to get the heart rate up and the body activated is the goal here.
3. Phase 3 is reflexes. You see this a lot in big tournaments on TV where you see the top pros juggling tennis balls or playing catch. This is because reaction time in tennis is critical. In addition to activating the physical body, you also need to activate the nervous system, which is critical in tennis. We spend another 10 minutes doing this as well. 

Just like the on-court warm-up, it’s critical to remember you are just getting the body moving through these routines. Be sure not to over do it because you need to make sure there is plenty of gas left in the tank for the actual match that is about to be played.

Like most of you tennis parents out there, I am not a licensed personal trainer, and nor can I afford to hire one for my son. But these are some basic routines that work well for us, while addressing the practical, logistic challenges you will face as your child prepares to take the court!