Kleinkinder (3 - 6 Jahre)

Tennis training with tots aged 3–6 years requires individual adjustments by the tennis coach to the circumstances. The coach must take into account the physical, emotional and cognitive development of the children in their training. In tennis training with toddlers, the focus should be on having fun and developing the child’s motor skills. It is not about developing the perfect forehand stroke technique, for example, but much more about working on the basics. The tennis exercises for young children should be structured in such a way that the training goal is achieved through play, which means that the coach should define and formulate the exercises in a creative and child-friendly way. Positive reinforcement of the child during the exercises is essential.

The coach should also ensure that they provide age-appropriate equipment. The trainer should stick to the individual stages for small children and start with the red stage. This means: use foam balls or red balls that are at least 50% pressure-reduced. Lower nets, smaller court dimensions, smaller rackets – the coach should provide all of these for tennis training with small children.

Safety should also be taken into account during training. Toddlers are often over-motivated, run all over the court and, especially when training with larger groups, the coach should precisely mark out running routes and target zones to avoid accidents.

It is also important that the cognitive and motor skills of tots are taken into account. The tennis coach should therefore give simple and clear instructions. Coordination training in particular should play an important role in this area. Catching, throwing and running are very important in order to be able to stand well in front of the ball later on, even with individual strokes, and to be able to assess the bounce of the ball well.

When training tennis with tots, the training times should also be adapted. At the age of 3-6 years, a whole hour of training is too much. The children lose concentration and the quality of training suffers as a result. We recommend a training time of 20 to 40 minutes for tennis training with small children.

Problems can often occur during tennis training with tots, especially when the children have to try out new and unfamiliar things. It can therefore happen that the children are not confident and refuse to take part in training. In this case, it is advisable to involve the parents. Parents are seen as role models by the children, so you can definitely encourage parents to take part in training. As the children get older, however, parents should no longer be directly on the tennis court.