550 court-mapped situations, each with a practice drill you can run yourself — so the person on the sideline finally has something useful to do.
Your player has had hundreds of hours of coaching on how to hit the ball. Ask them why they hit their last shot where they hit it, and watch what happens.
Junior tennis is taught almost entirely as a physical skill. Grip, swing path, footwork, repeat. All of it necessary. None of it tells a 13-year-old where to serve at 30–40, or what to do when their opponent starts running around every backhand, or why the ball keeps flying long and swinging softer is making it worse.
They're not losing to better shots. They're losing to better decisions.
Here's one that costs juniors matches every weekend.
Almost every junior plays 40–0 and 30–40 the same way. Often backwards — careful at 40–0, when losing the point costs nothing, then swinging for an enormous serve at 30–40, when it costs them the game.
Take your risks when they're cheap. That's one card. There are 549 more.
Watching your own child compete is harder than playing. You can see what's going wrong. You can't say anything, you're not sure you'd be right, and there's nothing useful to do with your hands.
Everything in junior tennis is sold to the player and billed to the parent. The lessons, the squads, the tournaments, the travel. Somewhere in all of it, nobody hands you anything at all.
This is the part nobody sells you.
Not a replacement for a coach — a good coach is worth every dollar, and this doesn't teach anyone to hit a ball. It's the thinking underneath, written so a parent and a player can work through it together, in ten minutes, in a car park.
On what this costs.
A full-time academy runs to five figures a year, and it is worth it for the families who can do it. Most families can't — and most players who can't are given nothing at all beyond a weekly lesson and a long drive home.
Understanding the game shouldn't be the expensive part. That's the whole reason this exists.
Every card gives your player a court diagram, the score, and a situation. Then either three options to choose from, or an open question to answer in their own words.
They write down their choice and why. Then they check the answer key — which gives the best play, the full reasoning, and the name of the tool they just used. The same tools come back in new disguises, which is how a decision turns into an instinct.
They get it wrong on paper, so they don't get it wrong in a tournament.
This is what makes it last. The Complete 500 runs in twenty blocks, and every block steps up.
| Blocks 1–5 One thing to notice. One clear right answer. | Cards 1–125 |
| Blocks 6–11 Two things interact. A second option becomes defensible. | Cards 126–275 |
| Blocks 12–16 Three things interact. The opponent adapts, and your player adapts back. | Cards 276–400 |
| Blocks 17–20 Everything at once. Score, conditions, tiredness, an opponent who has worked you out. | Cards 401–500 |
By the last block, two thirds of the cards have no multiple choice at all. Your player has to write their own answer — because by then they should be able to.
A 12-year-old starts at the front. The same kid is still finding new things in it at 14.
A decision made on paper is worth very little until it has been made on a court, under pressure, enough times that it stops being a decision at all.
So every card's answer key ends with a drill. 142 of them, each one training the skill behind the card it belongs to.
| Set up What you need — cones, a water bottle, a length of ribbon. Nothing you have to buy. | |
| How it works Who feeds, what counts, what sends the count back to zero. | |
| You have it when A countable target at three levels — developing, competitive, advanced. Nobody has to guess whether it's working. | |
| No hitting partner? A version for a parent who can't rally a ball. Every single drill has one. | |
| Make it harder Where it goes next, once they own it. |
Hand the drill to a coach and they can run it in a lesson. Run it yourself off a bench with a bucket of balls. Either works.
Read it, decide it, then go and earn it.
Every volume includes the situations, the full answer key, and the drills.
Every card, ordered by difficulty rather than topic, mixing all seven phases together. Two cards a day and it lasts most of a year. Bought as separate volumes this is $543 — you save $246.
Where the safe ball goes and why. What depth actually does. When you're allowed to change direction — and when you aren't.
Every serve should have a target. First serve, second serve, the ball after it, and what changes when the score does.
The most wasted shot in junior tennis. Where to stand, what to do when you're late, how to attack a second serve without overdoing it.
Most net points are lost before your player reaches the net. Which balls to come in on, where to stand, why the first volley isn't the finish.
The score changed. The tennis didn't. Which points deserve risk, how leads evaporate, what a bad line call should cost you.
Everyone sells you the good days. This is for the bad ones — diagnosing yourself mid-match, and winning when your best tennis doesn't show up.
Defending isn't losing, it's refusing to lose yet. Why height is time, and how to get from scrambling back to level.
Every pattern that reverses against a left-hander. The ad-court serve your player has been taught goes straight to a lefty's forehand.
One payment. No subscription, no login, nothing that expires. A $79-a-month membership is $948 a year, every year — this is once.
There's no name on these books, so don't take anyone's word for it. Ten real cards, free, with the full answer key and the drills. If the thinking isn't obviously good, don't buy the rest.
Send me the free sampleNo spam. Unsubscribe any time.
You'll notice there's no name on these books. That's deliberate, and I'd rather say so up front than have you wonder about it.
I work in a different industry and I'd like to keep the two separate. What that means for you is that none of the usual shortcuts are available here — no credentials to lean on, no trophy cabinet, no face. This has to stand on the work.
What I am is a parent who has sat through a lot of junior tennis. I know what it is to watch your own child lose a match you could see coming, and to have absolutely nothing useful to offer on the drive home. Nobody hands the parent anything. You're expected to pay, drive, and stay quiet.
So this is the thing I wanted and couldn't find: something a player and a parent can work through together, that costs less than a month of squad, and that gives you both something concrete to do on Thursday.
Read the free ten before you spend anything. If the thinking isn't obviously good, don't buy the rest.
— Crosscourt IQ
Written for U12–U14 competitive juniors who play sanctioned tournaments. The tactics hold well into U16 — the situations don't change, only the speed.
No. The answer key does the coaching, and every drill has a version for a parent who can't rally a ball. Your only job is to ask “why that one?”
No. It's situational awareness — reading a situation and knowing what to do. Confidence tends to follow from knowing what you're doing, but that's a by-product, not the subject.
No, and it isn't trying to. It teaches nobody to hit a ball. It covers the decisions a lesson rarely has time for, and gives a coach 142 drills they can run.
Ask your player where their last serve was aimed. If the answer is “in”, there's room for this.
Instant download. A print-friendly PDF, yours forever. No app, no subscription, no login. Each copy is issued to one buyer.
Thirty days, no questions, and you keep the PDF. And a note on how we judge this: a clean copy is a bad review. It should end up dog-eared, coffee-stained, and falling apart in the tennis bag.