Fremantle forward Bailey Banfield has leaned into the summer of tennis over the offseason, hoping to use traits of the sport to help take his game to the next level in 2023.

Identifying speed and evasiveness as features of his game he wanted to improve upon, Banfield trained alongside a tennis coach and players during the break to enhance his performance on the football field.

Banfield kicked 18 goals from 21 home and away games in purple last season, with nine of those starts as the medical substitute.

Embracing his role as predominantly the third forward, Banfield decided to focus on developing his speed around the contest to help give him greater opportunity in front of goal.

“I’ve had a pretty big offseason and preseason block where I have been working on some of my footwork and speed around the contest,” Banfield told SEN WA's The Run Home.

“Not necessarily in terms of power and brute speed, but my quick speed and shiftiness which will help me defensively and also offensively.

“I did some work with a tennis coach over the break and John Peers who is playing in the Australian Open at the moment.

“Myself and a couple of boys were down there working with some of those tennis players on their agility work and their foot work and learning some lessons from them and I’m starting to put that out on the track at the moment which has been pretty cool.”

Banfield was presented the opportunity by Fremantle’s High Performance Manager Phil Merriman, and praised the experience to learn from fellow elite athletes.

“Phil came to me with the opportunity…they gave us the drills they give to their tennis players from young kids all the way through to the seasoned pros,” Banfield said.

“We adjusted them a bit to be more footy related and played around with what works.

“It was a really cool experience and great to connect with some other high performing athletes in another sport.”