How to Drill Inside-Out and Inside-In Forehands With a Tennis Ball Machine

Place the ball machine on the far baseline several feet to the right of the center mark, feed balls into your backhand third at mid-court depth and low speed, and set the interval at 8 to 10 seconds while you learn the movement. An inside-out forehand is a forehand hit from your backhand side and sent crosscourt. An inside-in forehand is the same shot redirected down the line. Two settings decide whether the drill works. A feed that lands too deep leaves no room to step around the ball, and the 4 to 5 second interval usually recommended for machine work gives you time to swing but not to recover. Fix both before you add pace.

How Inside-Out and Inside-In Forehands Differ

Both shots are forehands played from the backhand side of the court, and the only difference is where the ball goes after contact. For a right-handed player standing in the ad corner, the inside-out forehand travels diagonally into the far corner on your right as you look across the net, which is a right-handed opponent's backhand. The inside-in forehand travels straight down your own sideline into the far corner on your left, which is that opponent's forehand.

That difference changes the margin on every ball. The crosscourt inside-out flight passes over the lower middle of the net and has the full diagonal of the court to land in, so it tolerates more spin and a higher net clearance. The inside-in flight crosses closer to the net post, where the net is higher, and it lands in a shorter, narrower strip. It also hands your opponent the longest diagonal back into your open deuce corner, so the reply arrives at the point on the court you are farthest from. Drill the inside-out as your default and the inside-in as the ball you earn.

Some coaches use "inside-out" to describe the swing path rather than the ball's direction. On the court and in match commentary, the direction definition is the one in use, and it is the one these drills follow.

Ball Machine Setup for Run-Around Forehand Drills

Set the machine to land balls in your backhand third between the service line and about four feet behind it, at a low speed setting, with flat to light backspin and a feed interval of 8 to 10 seconds.

Where to Place the Machine

Put the machine on the far baseline about six to eight feet to the right of the center mark as you look across the net. Left-handers place it the same distance to the left. Run-around forehands almost always come off a crosscourt ball from an opponent's backhand corner, so an offset machine reproduces the incoming angle you face during a point. A ball fed up the middle arrives at an angle you would rarely see before a real inside-out forehand, and it lets you cheat the first step.

The feed also has to land in the same zone every ball. An oscillating feed that sweeps across the baseline trains general movement instead of one pattern. On the S10 each shot in a sequence carries its own direction value, so holding the zone means giving every shot in the block the same direction and letting the variation come from your own shot selection. Fine-tune the placement with the direction control, which aims each shot relative to the machine's default center position within a narrow band either side of it. The Acemate S10's ball machine mode does not depend on court lines, so a half court or a practice court works as long as you can mark the landing zone.

The S10 Pro gives you more room to vary that incoming angle. Its horizontal feed range extends from 0 to 180 degrees, while the internal launching system changes the shot direction without relying on the machine body to turn for each feed. For the basic run-around drill, keep the landing zone fixed. Use the wider angle range later when you want to reproduce more demanding crosscourt entries.

Feed Depth and Pace

Land the first feeds between the service line and about four feet behind it. Mid-court depth is what gives you time to move around the ball, and it is the depth you would genuinely run around in a match. A deep, heavy feed into the backhand corner is a ball you should be hitting a backhand on, so drilling forehands off it trains a decision you would not make.

Depth is not a separate setting. It comes out of speed, spin, and elevation together, and the shot schematic in the app updates the depth as you move those sliders, so set the ball visually and then check where it actually lands. Keep the speed low at the start. On the S10 the speed control is a 1 to 10 dial, and roughly 3 to 4 is enough while you build the movement. The pattern breaks down through late footwork long before it breaks down through pace, so speed is the last variable to raise.

Spin and Net Clearance

Start with a flat or lightly sliced feed. The spin slider treats zero as flat, negative values as backspin, and positive values as topspin, so a small negative setting produces the low, skidding ball that invites the run-around forehand. Heavy topspin kicks up toward your shoulder and is much harder to step around, so it belongs in the later blocks.

Set the elevation around 15 to 20 degrees to begin with. The S10 adjusts elevation between 10 and 40 degrees, and a higher angle raises both net clearance and the bounce. Once the pattern holds up, a setting near 30 degrees gives you the shoulder-high ball that forces you to take the inside-out early rather than letting it drop.

Feed Interval and Recovery Time

Set the interval at 8 to 10 seconds while you are learning the pattern, then work down. The standard advice for ball machine drills is 4 to 5 seconds, and that number is right for grooving a stroke you already own. A run-around forehand is three actions rather than one: a step around the ball, a swing, and a recovery back across the court. A 4 second feed covers the first two, so the recovery disappears and the drill stops training the part of the pattern that decides points. That is the case for feeding on recovery instead of a fixed rate.

Work down in stages: 8 to 10 seconds until your contact point is stable, 6 to 7 seconds until you can get back past the center mark before the next ball leaves the machine, then 4 to 5 seconds. One detail matters when you program a sequence on the S10. The interval applies to the whole sequence and stays the same throughout it, so set it for the hardest ball in the pattern rather than the easiest.

Starting Settings by Stage

These are starting points for a right-handed player, not fixed values.

Stage	Feed landing zone	Speed dial	Spin	Elevation	Interval	Set size
Learning the movement	Backhand third, service line to 4 ft behind it	3 to 4	Flat to light backspin	15 to 20 degrees	8 to 10 sec	10 balls
Building the pattern	Backhand third, 6 to 8 ft behind the service line	4 to 6	Light topspin	20 to 25 degrees	6 to 7 sec	12 to 15 balls
Match-speed patterns	Backhand third, within 6 ft of the baseline	6 to 7	Medium topspin	25 to 30 degrees	4 to 5 sec	12 to 15 balls

Move to the next row only when your target hit rate holds at the row you are on.

Using the S10 Pro: Keep the same three-stage progression, but do not transfer the S10 dial values directly. The S10 Pro uses a 1–15 speed scale, 7–40° vertical adjustment, ±5 spin levels, and a 1–15 second feed interval. Start with low pace, modest spin, and enough recovery time to hold the target zone, then increase difficulty one variable at a time.

The Inside-Out Forehand Drill

Run the inside-out first. It is the higher-percentage shot and it builds the spacing the inside-in depends on. Work in sets of 10 to 15 balls with 15 to 20 seconds of rest between sets.

1. Set the feed. Backhand third, mid-court depth, speed 3 to 4, flat to light backspin, elevation 15 to 20 degrees, interval 8 to 10 seconds.
2. Mark the target. Put a towel or two cones in the far corner diagonally opposite you, about three feet inside the sideline and five feet inside the baseline. Put one more cone on the center mark as your recovery marker.
3. Start every ball on the cone. Stand on the center mark in a ready position and split step as the ball leaves the machine, not when it bounces.
4. Open with the outside foot. Pivot on your right foot and turn your hips, then drop your left foot back and to the left. This is a diagonal opening step rather than a sideways shuffle along the baseline.
5. Cross over behind the ball's line. Bring the right leg through with a crossover step so you arrive behind and slightly outside the incoming ball, then take one small adjustment step. Three steps total for a mid-court feed.
6. Leave yourself an arm's length. Contact sits out in front of your right hip with the arm extending, not beside your body.
7. Drive it. Aim three to four feet over the net at the target. A tentative inside-out forehand is a ball that gets attacked, so hit it with intent while it still lands in the zone.
8. Recover to the cone. Get back past the center mark toward the deuce side before the next feed arrives. If you cannot, lengthen the interval instead of skipping the recovery.

Count how many of the 10 land in the target zone, and stop the set when your contact point starts drifting behind your hip.

The Inside-In Forehand Drill

Change only the target and keep the feed identical for the first few sets. Using the same ball makes the difference between the two patterns show up in your body rather than in theory.

1. Keep the feed settings from the inside-out block.
2. Move the target down the line to the far corner on the same side you are standing, again about three feet inside the sideline and five feet inside the baseline.
3. Take the same opening and crossover steps. The footwork does not change. What changes is what you do with your shoulders at contact.
4. Rotate slightly earlier and stay square. Squaring your hips and shoulders a little more toward the net keeps the ball from being pulled crosscourt. Contact needs to be farther out in front than on the inside-out, and that is what holds the ball inside the singles sideline.
5. Add height. The net is higher near the post and the court is shorter down the line, so aim four to five feet over the net rather than skimming it.
6. Recover harder. Sprint back through the center mark and keep going a step toward the deuce side.

Expect a lower hit rate. Six or seven in ten inside the same target zone is a fair standard for a shot carrying this much risk. Misses wide mean late contact. Misses into the net mean clearance has dropped, and the fix is height rather than more repetitions.

The Three Plus One Pattern Drill

Once both shots hold up on their own, program a four-ball sequence: three feeds you take inside-out, then a shorter fourth ball you redirect inside-in. That is how the pattern appears in points, where the down-the-line ball comes off a shorter, higher ball you can take early while your opponent is still recovering crosscourt.

Building it needs a programmable machine rather than a fixed feeder. On the S10, open the Ball Machine page and tap the plus button four times to add four shots, then tap each shot number to set its own direction, speed, spin, and elevation. Keep shots one to three identical at mid-court depth in the backhand third, and give shot four a lower speed with a few degrees more elevation so it lands shorter and sits up. Set the interval at the pace of your recovery, then tap Save to store it as a custom training plan.

Two further sequences worth saving:

• Two and one wide. Two balls to the backhand third, then one wide to your forehand corner. This stops you camping on the ad side waiting for the run-around, a habit that shows up in matches as a wrong-footed first step.
• Run-around or backhand. Alternate a ball in the backhand third with a ball deep and wide to the backhand that you have to hit as a backhand. Deciding whether to run around is the actual skill, and that decision only exists when the backhand is a real option.

Call your target out loud before each ball leaves the machine. Naming the shot before it arrives is the closest a fed ball gets to a match decision.

Recovery Footwork After Each Pattern

Recover past the center mark toward your deuce side rather than back to the center. After an inside-out from the ad corner, your opponent is in their backhand corner and their two realistic replies split between your ad corner and your deuce corner, so the recovery position sits a step on the deuce side. After an inside-in, you have hit into their forehand while still standing in the ad corner, and their crosscourt reply runs the full diagonal into your deuce corner, so the recovery is longer and it starts before your own ball has landed.

The center-mark cone makes this measurable. Your foot touches the cone before the next ball leaves the machine, or the interval goes up by a second.

Fed balls never punish a slow recovery, because nothing comes back. A machine that returns your shots removes that gap, and rally mode on the S10 does it on a standard court. For crosscourt pattern work, set the machine's vertical position to 4 or 5 and its horizontal position to 1, 2, or 3, which is the reset position it returns to across the width of the court. Then choose three to five landing zones from the 25-zone grid and put them in the corner your pattern leaves open. Stay at least seven feet, or two meters, from the machine while it is moving.

Common Mistakes in Run-Around Forehand Drills

Backing up instead of stepping around. Retreating along the baseline keeps the ball on your left and jams the swing. The opening step goes diagonally back and out, and it needs its own repetitions before you add pace.

Crowding the contact point. Spacing goes wrong more often than technique in these patterns. If you film one thing, film whether contact happens in front of your right hip or beside it.

Running around every ball. Hundreds of fed balls from one corner train you out of a shot you still need in matches. Alternate pattern blocks with straight backhand practice so the run-around stays a choice.

Aiming at a side rather than a target. Crosscourt is a direction. A three-foot by five-foot zone is a target, and your hit rate only means something once one is on the court.

Session Volume and Rep Counts

Run 10 to 15 balls per set with 15 to 20 seconds of rest, and stop the set when spacing collapses rather than when the hopper empties. Run-around forehands ask more of the trunk, shoulder, and forearm than a neutral forehand, since you are rotating while moving away from your base. Long unbroken blocks at short intervals are a common reason players finish a machine session sore.

A full hopper on the S10 holds 80 balls, which is about five to six sets before a pickup break. Two or three hopper loads is a substantial session for most players. Split them so no single stroke runs continuously: a load of inside-out sets, a load mixing the three plus one sequence with backhand work, then a shorter load at match-speed settings.

Late contact, a shortened follow-through, and balls sailing long are the same signal. When they appear, switch to another of your ball machine drills rather than adding repetitions to a movement that is coming apart. Ball condition matters here too, since placement accuracy depends on consistent balls and a standard surface, and balls that have been through a machine repeatedly will not land where the settings say they should.

How to Tell the Pattern Is Working

Use your hit rate against the marked zone as the primary measure: seven of ten inside-out forehands landing in a three-foot by five-foot corner zone is a reasonable gate before you make the drill harder, and six of ten for the inside-in.

Three readouts in the S10's training data are worth watching: your in/out rate, your average net clearance, and the shot distribution map. Net clearance usually explains a bad day, since inside-in errors into the net show up as a clearance figure that has dropped. The distribution map shows whether the inside-out is finding the corner or drifting toward the middle of the court, where the shot stops putting anyone under pressure. Tracking ball placement over time tells you more than any single session, since one bad set moves an average further than it should.

Then raise difficulty in this order: deeper feeds, shorter interval, higher speed, then sequences that remove the certainty about which ball is coming. Changing two at once tells you nothing about which change your footwork could not absorb.

The Acemate S10 stores these sequences as custom training plans, and its rally mode returns the ball so recovery becomes part of every repetition.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Do Inside-Out and Inside-In Forehands Work for Left-Handed Players?

The movement mirrors, but the tactical result flips against a right-handed opponent. A left-hander runs around the backhand in the deuce corner, and the inside-out forehand then lands crosscourt on a right-hander's forehand, while the inside-in down the line is the ball that attacks their backhand. Left-handed players usually get more from drilling the inside-in as the primary pattern, with the inside-out reserved for opening the court against another left-hander.

Can I Practice These Patterns Without a Full-Size Court?

Yes, for the feeding drills. Ball machine mode does not depend on court lines, so the feed, the footwork, and the target zones work on a half court or any clear, level surface with enough room, using cones to mark the landing zone and the targets. Rally mode, where the machine returns your ball, needs a standard tennis court because it locates itself from the court lines.

Do I Need a Programmable Machine for These Drills?

For the single-pattern blocks, no. Any machine that holds one direction, lets you set the feed interval, and lets you adjust elevation will run the inside-out and inside-in drills on their own. The three plus one sequence asks for more, since it needs direction, speed, and elevation stored per shot inside one program. That is the first spec to check if you are still comparing tennis ball machines.

What Is the 80/20 Rule in Tennis?

It is coaching shorthand for the idea that a small number of patterns and decisions produce most of your results, so practice time should follow that concentration rather than spreading evenly across every shot. Applied to run-around forehands, it means hitting the higher-percentage inside-out on most balls and saving the inside-in for the short ball that earns it.

How Often Should I Drill Run-Around Forehands?

Once or twice a week is enough for most recreational players, as long as those sessions also include neutral rally patterns and backhand work. The pattern is a movement skill more than a stroke, so weekly frequency does more for it than volume inside any single session.

Does Running Around the Backhand Weaken Your Backhand?

It can, if the run-around becomes automatic. Players who drill only the forehand pattern tend to take the backhand out of play in matches, then lose the point when an opponent takes their time away. Keeping backhand blocks in the same session, and building sequences where the backhand is the correct answer, keeps both shots available.