Ask most juniors where they missed a rally ball and they will tell you it went out. Ask where the good balls landed and they usually cannot answer. That gap is the whole problem. In more than 30 years coaching in Sarasota, I have watched Michael Boothman-style drilling — that is, my own stubborn insistence on measurable targets — turn “hit it deep” from a vague instruction into a number a ten-year-old can actually chase. This post breaks down a live-ball game I run on the public courts most mornings: the Back-Third Game.
Why depth is the target that matters
Short balls lose points. Not directly, usually, but they hand your opponent a step inside the baseline, and from there the geometry tilts against you. A ball that lands in the back third of the court — roughly the last few feet before the baseline — pushes your opponent back, buys you time, and cuts down their angles. Depth is not flashy. It does not show up in highlight clips. But it is the single most reliable way a developing player wins more rallies without changing anything about their swing.
The trouble is how depth usually gets “coached.” A player sprays a few long, hears “too much,” nets the next one, hears “too short,” and leaves the session with no idea what deep actually feels like. They learned to fear the baseline, not to own it.
The pillar underneath this: Accuracy Inside Representative Conditions
The first of my Six Pillars is Accuracy Inside Representative Conditions, and it is the reason this game works. Accuracy built while a coach feeds soft, predictable balls does not survive contact with a real rally. The nervous system practiced the wrong problem. So we build placement inside live, game-like conditions — a moving ball, a real opponent, consequences on every shot.
Two numbers anchor it. The first is what I call the 85/100 Rule: I want a player hitting their target on roughly 85 out of 100 attempts in the pattern we are grooving before we add speed or complexity. Not 100 — perfection is a machine’s goal, and it makes players tentative. Eighty-five means it is reliable but still stretched. The second is the working standard inside a single drill: 8 out of 10 to the target in a live rally. Hit that, and we move the target or raise the pace. Miss it, and we stay, patiently, until the body figures it out.
The Back-Third Game, step by step
Here is exactly how I run it with a junior in a Sarasota summer group.
Mark the zone. Using a few cones or a rope, I lay a line across the court about four to five feet inside the baseline, running the full width. Everything between that line and the baseline is the “back third” — the scoring zone. On a public court with no lines to spare, chalk or even a row of ball cans works.
Rally live, count landings. Two players cooperate to build a rally — real strokes, real movement, no soft feeding. Every ball that lands in the back third scores a point for the pair. We are not competing against each other yet; we are competing against the number. The goal is 8 of the player’s last 10 rally balls landing deep.
Add the net-clearance cue. Depth comes from height over the net, not from swinging harder. I tell players to aim for a window a good three to four feet above the tape. Almost every junior who is landing short is skimming the net; raise the target above the net and the ball travels to the back third on its own. This is where Technique Is Geometry quietly does its job — center contact and a slightly higher, square face send the ball deep without extra effort.
Turn on the pressure. Once a player clears 8 of 10 cooperatively, we compete. Now a ball in the back third wins the point outright; a ball that lands short but stays in is neutral; anything out loses. Suddenly depth has a live consequence, and the player is solving the exact problem they will face in a match — which is the whole point of representative practice. Reproducing skill under match-like pressure and variability is a core principle in how the USTA frames player development (USTA coaching resources).
What to watch for, and what to leave alone
The most common thing I see is a player who lands three deep balls, gets excited, and starts crushing the fourth into the back fence. Do not correct the swing. Correct the aim — bring their eyes back to the net window, not the baseline. Depth is a height problem far more often than it is a power problem.
The second thing: resist over-coaching between balls. A junior needs reps against the moving ball more than they need my voice. I will give one cue — usually “higher over the net” — and then go quiet for ten rallies and let the count do the teaching. The scoreboard is a more honest coach than I am.
And notice what this game does not ask for. No footwork patterns to memorize, no grip changes, no swing overhaul. It isolates one variable — where the ball lands — and makes it visible, countable, and consequential. That is usually enough to move a player a full level over a summer.
Bringing it home
Depth is the least glamorous skill in tennis and one of the most decisive. If you can push a ten-year-old’s rally ball back three feet, you have changed the math of every point they play, without touching their technique. Give them a zone, give them a number, and let them chase it in a real rally.
If you want to see how this fits into the larger development picture — how accuracy, live-ball rallying, and real numbers build on each other across a season — take a look at how I approach coaching. And if you are a Sarasota parent whose junior is spraying balls long and short with no pattern, this is the exact game to start with on your next trip to the park.
Depth is not a talent. It is a target, practiced honestly. That is coaching I will stand behind.
— Michael Boothman, USPTA Elite Professional, founder of SRQ Tennis, Sarasota FL