Danai Udomchoke's Favorite Stretching Routine for Hip Flexibility

When Thai tennis legend Danai Udomchoke was grinding his way through the ATP Challenger circuit, the matches often came down to who could still move freely in the fourth set. Years of sliding on hardcourts from Bangkok to Brisbane taught him that hip flexibility was the quiet engine behind every explosive first step, every lunging forehand, every sudden direction change at the net. Over time he built a stretching routine that travelled with him, one that could be done in a small hotel gym, on the changeover bench, or on a quiet court at sunset in Pattaya.

For fans in Australia, where summer tennis means pavement-melting afternoons and tournaments like the Brisbane International and the Australian Open demand peak conditioning from the first round, his approach carries real weight. Australian players and weekend warriors alike tend to push through tight hips rather than address them, especially during the busy January swing. Danai's method is the opposite: it treats the hips as the foundation that has to be opened up before the legs, the lungs, or the racquet even get involved.

What follows is the routine he relied on during his prime years on tour, adapted so anyone — from a club player in Melbourne to a competitive junior in Perth — can work it into a busy week. The sequence blends dynamic mobility work with deep, held stretches, and it pairs naturally with the kind of hardcourt training that defines Australian tennis culture.

Why hip mobility matters in tennis

The hip joint is the largest ball-and-socket joint in the body, and in tennis it acts as the bridge between the rotational power of the core and the linear drive of the legs. When that joint is stiff, the body has to steal rotation from somewhere else, usually the lower back or the knees, and that is where most recreational injuries quietly begin. Danai noticed early in his career that the players who finished seasons strongest were rarely the ones with the biggest serves; they were the ones who could still drop into a deep split-volley in the third set without their hip flexors locking up.

In a country like Australia, where club competitions run almost year-round and surfaces tend to be unforgiving on the joints, the hip takes on extra stress. Rebound Ace, Plexicushion, and the modern Laykold courts at venues such as Melbourne Park all push force back up through the legs. Without supple hips, that force ends up concentrated in the lumbar spine. Danai often pointed out that the stretch he disliked most in his twenties — the deep internal rotation hold — turned out to be the one that saved his career once he crossed thirty.

Hip flexibility is also a recovery tool, not just a performance tool. Blood flow increases through held stretches, helping clear the metabolic by-products that build up during long rallies. For Australians training through the December-January peak, that recovery element can be the difference between playing a tournament final and sitting on the couch watching it on the telly.

The warm-up Danai swears by before stepping on court

Before any of the deeper work begins, Danai always starts with what he calls a "wake-up" sequence. The goal is to lubricate the joint, not to push it. He begins with controlled hip circles, ten in each direction on each leg, keeping the knee soft and the foot just lifted off the ground. From there he moves into a slow walking lunge, opening the front hip as the back knee drops towards the ground, eight to ten steps per side.

The next step is what Australian fans would recognise as a coach's classic: the lateral leg swing. Holding onto a fence or the net post, he swings one leg across the body and out to the side in a smooth arc, building to about twenty swings per leg. The swing is never forced, never bouncy. He treats it like a pendulum. Then he swaps planes and does straight-front-to-back swings, again twenty per leg, finishing with the knee passing softly under the chin.

Finally, before he ever picks up a racquet, he spends two minutes in a deep squat hold, feet slightly wider than shoulder width, elbows pressing the knees gently outward. This position, which Australians often call a "goblet squat hold" in gym culture, resets the hip capsule and prepares the adductors for the lateral work to come. The whole warm-up takes roughly eight minutes and leaves him warm, loose, and noticeably less creaky in the change of direction.

Standing and dynamic stretches between points

On the tour, you rarely have a full hour between matches, and the minutes you do have are gold. Danai's between-point routine is built around three standing stretches he can do at the back of the court or even at the changeover bench. The first is a standing hip flexor stretch, with one knee on the ground and the opposite foot forward, gently tucking the pelvis until the front of the back hip opens up. He holds each side for the length of a slow breath cycle, switching when the chair umpire calls time.

The second is a standing figure-four, sometimes called a standing pigeon. He crosses one ankle over the opposite knee and sits back into a mini-squat, hands on the net post for balance. This stretch targets the deep external rotators — the piriformis and its neighbours — which take a beating on hardcourts like those at Sydney Olympic Park or Brisbane's Pat Rafter Arena. He keeps the chest proud and the breath steady, never collapsing forward, because the stretch he wants lives in the hip, not in the lower back.

The third standing drill is a slow, controlled hip hinge with a soft knee, sometimes paired with a light resistance band. He hinges forward as if reaching for a low volley, then drives the working hip back, feeling the glute switch on as the hamstring lengthens. This is the only part of the routine that uses any equipment, and it travels in his kit bag everywhere from local Thai clubs to overseas Challenger events, including the courts featured in his favourite tennis venues outside Thailand. The dynamic element keeps the stretch active, which suits the way the body needs to move during a match.

Floor-based deep stretches after training

Once the day's hitting session is over, Danai shifts into the deepest part of the routine. These are the stretches that genuinely change range of motion over weeks and months, not minutes. The cornerstone is a long-hold pigeon pose, with the front shin angled across the mat and the back leg extended straight behind. He breathes into the stretch for a minimum of ninety seconds per side, often longer during the off-season.

The second floor stretch is the 90/90 hip rotation, where both legs are bent at right angles and the torso sits between them. He rotates gently from side to side, spending about a minute on each rotation, which simultaneously opens both internal and external rotation in a single posture. For Australians who sit at desks between training sessions, this is often the stretch that reveals how much range has been lost to modern life.

The third is a frog stretch on the forearms, knees wide, feet in line with the knees, sinking the hips slowly back towards the heels. He avoids bouncing here, preferring to use his bodyweight to settle deeper over time. Ten minutes of these three postures, repeated two or three times through the week, is the foundation of his long-term hip health, and the part he credits most with extending his career well into his thirties.

The breathing pattern that supports each stretch

A stretch is only as good as the breath that accompanies it. Danai learned early that holding tension in the ribcage during a hip stretch actually closes the joint, because the psoas and the diaphragm share fascial connections. His rule is simple: inhale to find the shape of the stretch, exhale to settle deeper into it. He never holds his breath, even when the intensity rises.

He also uses a four-count box breath during the longer holds, particularly in pigeon and 90/90. Four seconds in, four seconds hold, four seconds out, four seconds empty. This pattern calms the nervous system and allows the protective muscle guarding to soften. In the Australian summer, when the heat makes the heart rate climb even during a quiet stretch, this breath work also keeps the body from overheating mid-routine.

For the dynamic work — the swings and lunges — the breath stays rhythmic and slightly faster, syncing with the movement. He treats dynamic stretching almost like a moving meditation, which is a habit that translates well to match play when the crowd at a venue like Melbourne Park starts to rise in the third set.

Adapting the routine for different climates and surfaces

One of the reasons Danai's routine has aged well is that it adapts. In Bangkok's humidity, he shortens the static holds and lengthens the dynamic work, because muscles stay warm and pliable for longer. In cooler Australian winters, he spends more time under a jumper before beginning the floor sequence, because cold tissue resists lengthening and increases injury risk. The breathing component stays the same, regardless of weather.

He also adjusts based on the surface. On clay during the European summer, the hips tend to rotate more during slides, so he leans into the internal rotation stretches. On the hardcourts that dominate the Australian summer swing, the demand shifts towards external rotation and lateral stability, so the standing figure-four and the banded hip hinge become priorities. The routine itself never changes; the emphasis shifts.

Travel days, which Australian players rack up during the January-February block, get a stripped-down version: hip circles, walking lunges, and the figure-four stretch, all done in a hotel room with shoes off and a towel under the knees. It is enough to keep the hips from seizing up on a long-haul flight or a six-hour drive up the Pacific Highway.

A sample weekly structure players can follow

The full routine is best spread across the week rather than crammed into one long session. Danai's typical in-season week uses the warm-up sequence every day he trains, the standing drills on match days, and the deep floor stretches on rest days or after the toughest hitting sessions. Below is a compact comparison of the main stretches and how they fit into that week.

Stretch	Main target	Hold time	Best time of day	Difficulty
Hip circles	Joint lubrication	30 sec per side	Pre-training warm-up	Easy
Walking lunge	Hip flexors, quads	8-10 steps per side	Pre-training warm-up	Easy
Lateral leg swing	Hip abductors	20 swings per leg	Pre-training warm-up	Easy
Standing hip flexor	Psoas, rectus femoris	45-60 sec per side	Between points or sets	Moderate
Standing figure-four	Piriformis, glutes	45-60 sec per side	Between points or sets	Moderate
Pigeon pose	Glutes, external rotators	90-120 sec per side	Post-training	Hard
90/90 rotation	Internal and external rotators	60 sec per side	Post-training	Moderate
Frog stretch	Adductors, inner hip	60-90 sec	Post-training or rest day	Hard

For Australians fitting this around a club competition in mid-summer, the practical week looks like this: a fifteen-minute warm-up plus standing drills before every match, a deep floor session on the lighter training days, and the breath work folded into a cool-down shower at the end of the night. Within a month, most players notice cleaner lateral movement, less lower-back tightness after long rallies, and a small but real edge in the third set.

Danai built this routine across two decades of professional travel, from the sweaty indoor courts of Asia to the sunbaked show courts of the southern hemisphere, and he still swears by it. Give it a fair trial through a full Australian summer season, and the hips will repay the attention with every serve, split-step, and sliding retrieval for years to come.