Eryna Ayako Sasaki with her first racket at 3 years of age. She often spent hours playing around the tennis courts while her older sisters, Angelyna Tatsuko and Christyna Seiko, practiced.


Skip to Eryna Ayako's First Career Tennis Match at 6 Years of Age!

Eryna Ayako gets a smaller and lighter 17-inch racket that allowed her to begin learning her one-handed forehand strokes on both sides. She is right handed, but learning to hit forehands with the weaker hand was inspired by Rafael Nadal, Kimiko Date-Krumm and Hiroki Ishii .

Eryna Ayako's first trial lesson with a foam ball on an indoor tennis court. Up to this time, she had only been hitting a balloon in the house and 'shadow-swinging' in the park or parking lot with her 17-inch tennis racket. Note that she is actually training to hit a one-handed forehand on both sides (right and left). She only goes for a few times as she was more interested in being coached seriously from her father like her older sisters were.
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6-Year Old Eryna Ayako rallying with a Stage 3 red ball on a tennis court using a 21-inch racket. A year removed from using a foam ball and 17-inch racket, she has only been fed balls in the park or done self-tennis drills. She began to rally with her sisters, 12-year old Angelyna Tatsuko and 10-year old Christyna Seiko about four months earlier, but is rusty after not practicing for a couple months.

Note that she has been hitting a one-handed forehand on both sides (right and left) and is even able to switch hands during a rally!
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Eryna Ayako in special training to play a real doubles match (using yellow balls) with 10-year old Christyna Seiko (ranked #2 in the state for doubles), when her older sister was unable to get a partner for the following month's 12 & Under Prefecture (State) Championships after moving to the new prefecture just before the entry deadline. Having only played with a Stage 3 red ball and knowing that she would hurt her wrist/arm if she used her one-handed forehand with a yellow ball, she not only needed to adjust to the speed and bounce of a regular ball but would have to learn to hit a two-handed forehand for safety reasons. She trained in this manner for two weeks, however, before ever practicing to hit a ball (phase 1).
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• In a thick jacket and her bicycle helmet, she was first hit with Stage 2 orange balls to prove they would not hurt and to work on keeping her eyes open when a ball came at her.
• She worked with light weights to strengthen her wrists and biceps in preparation to serve with a heavier ball and racket.
• Using a small, 3 kg medicine ball, she would squat and explode upwards to strengthen her legs and arms further.
• She began jogging, side-stepping, and other various footwork drills with her sisters (not shown).
• With her thick jacket and bicycle helmet, she would practice squatting at the net in the Australian formation when her sister practiced serving (not shown). By design, she would also practice moving at the net with her racket up (protecting herself) to distract her opponents or become a decoy to lure shots towards her sister's forehand.
• Stage 2 orange balls were hit at her to practice dodging them (not shown), in case her opponents began to target hitting at her after returning serves. She would be playing the backhand side (ad court), with a normal plan to run off court to her left. However, if she was being targeted, we had a tactic to run right, dodge and duck to lure shots to her sister's forehand.
• On various warm-up hitting drills for her sisters, she would also take a position on the opposite side to get used to the speed of the yellow balls being hit by older girls. She also had to remain alert to dodge any stray balls that were accidentally hit at her. Her sisters were especially careful to hit away at first (only had her sleeve or leg clipped a couple times during the 5 weeks practicing this).

Eryna Ayako in her first crash course practice with Stage 2 orange balls while continuing to use her 21-inch racket. This was the beginning of phase 2, where she practices hitting underhand serves for the first time and returning serves with a two-handed forehand. The initial plan was to position her within the service box with hopes of blocking half-volleys near the bounce. In the background, Christyna Seiko is practicing control, rallying within the doubles alley only.

Note that she has only three weeks to practice for the match and she is just given a total of about 10 minutes a day between her sisters' drills when balls are being picked up because of limited court time!
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Eryna Ayako in her first crash course practice using a 23-inch racket while continuing to use Stage 2 orange balls. This was day 10 of phase 2, and while we had always thought to move to a 23-inch racket, we had actually moved up to Stage 1 green balls on day 5 using her 21-inch racket and she hurt her wrist after hitting several serves. She took three days off to recover and returned to Stage 2 orange balls when she started practicing again. Here she practices for the first time with a 23-inch racket and only returning serves with a two-handed forehand, as she understandably takes time to get used to the extended racket length (after all, she hasn't even started elementary school yet).
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Eryna Ayako in her first crash course practice with Stage 1 green balls and just the second day using a 23-inch racket. This was day 12 of phase 2, and after being hurt for three days when trying to serve with her 21-inch racket using Stage 1 green balls on day 5, she practices returning only. As she continues to adjust to the longer racket length, she was demonstrating the ability to simply hit balls on the rise.
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Eryna Ayako in her first crash course practice serving with Stage 1 green balls while using a 23-inch racket. This was day 15 of phase 2, after hurting her wrist serving with green balls on day 5 using her 21-inch racket, this was the first time in 10 days to practice her underhand serve again. She also continues to improve her ability to hit balls on the rise.
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Eryna Ayako in her first crash course practice returning overhead serves with Stage 1 green balls while using a 23-inch racket. This was day 17 of phase 2, with focus so far having been exclusively returning on her forehand, she also attempts backhand returns for the first time as well. However, with so little time before the tournament, training for backhand returns was basically abandoned. It is also the first time to receive serves from Christyna Seiko, who was also given pointers on how to talk to her younger sister before serves and returns to simulate match conditions.
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Eryna Ayako in her first crash course practice using the regular yellow tennis balls. This was day 21 of phase 2, the opening day of the tournament, and she practices with her 12-year old sister, Angelyna Tatsuko, on court 1 as her sister/partner, Christyna Seiko, is injured and receiving professional medical treatment. While she is successful on returns, the yellow balls prove heavy and she struggles to even reach the net on her own serve before her wrist begins to hurt. The hope is that her sister/partner is well enough to hold serve to offset Eryna Ayako's service games, and that she can get enough returns in to win more return games than they lose.
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