Hitting a ball against a wall: pros and cons

There is an interesting question from a TennisConsult user

Hi, I would like to hear your take on the hitting wall, good and bad inputs. Would you recommend a hitting wall at home or not, if any – which one would you recommend. Hope to hear from you. Regards, Peter

Our tennis expert David Mullins answers the question

Before iPads, Netflix, Instagram and 789 TV channels there were bats, balls and walls. Hitting a ball against a wall could keep children like myself entertained for hours. Unfortunately there is so much in our world now skillfully designed to consume our attention. Hitting a ball against the wall is no match for the engineers at Facebook!

I believe the number one benefit to having a wall is getting kids in the habit of doing somewhat monotonous exercises and learning to be present and creative in those moments.

Reaching your potential as a tennis player cannot just be about fun and good times, in order to get good you have to be willing to do some of the “boring” things well, and do them consistently. I think the discipline that can be learned playing against the wall is priceless. If your child enjoys that then you probably have a life long tennis player on your hands.

There are secondary benefits in terms of increasing stroke production repetitions, and it can also maybe help improve set-up and spacing with the ball. The obvious downsides are the predictability of how the wall will react to your shot, and lack of tangible feedback in terms of ball placement.

I can’t recommend any particular brands but garage doors and side of houses worked great for my generation and many generations before me.

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