During drills, you can isolate a specific skill or skills. During practice matches, you can test those skill to see if you are implementing them correctly. A practice match is like a quiz. If you want to do well on the final exam, you need to take the quizzes to test yourself. If you are failing every quiz, then you need to learn the content better. If you aren’t performing well in practice matches, then you need to go back to the practice hall and work on specifics.

Some drill work on a number of different skills. I was recently practicing a drill that seemed quite game-like. The benefit of doing a drill like this is that it somewhat simulates a match…

However, I was struggling with the drill at times and wanted to isolate my middle forehand transition. So, I asked my training partner to make it easier…

This is the beauty of doing drills. They can be challenging or easy and you can work on SPECIFICS. If you only play matches, you won’t reach your full potential. If you only do drills, you won’t reach your full potential. Get the basics right. Start implementing the basics in matches. Go back and do drills. Continue to test yourself with more games, and continue this cycle over and over…