Novak Djokovic Forehand Analysis

By closely observing Djokovic's forehand technique, we can discern that his follow-through varies in three instances. Twice, his follow-through extends above his head, while on the third occasion, it remains closer to the shoulder.

Interestingly, none of these follow-throughs align with the commonly taught method of finishing over the shoulder.

Furthermore, his forehand technique incorporates different stances, with a neutral stance on the first shot, a neutral stance on the second, and an open stance on the third.

This adaptability in his stroke is necessary due to the diverse situations he encounters, including the type of ball he receives and the desired shot he intends to execute. 

Thus, it becomes clear that fixating on minute technical details is futile, as one's technique must constantly adapt to the unique characteristics of each ball. No two balls are the same, and therefore, one must approach each shot with flexibility and adaptability.

I recommend that you also check out the Holding Your Ground video article as I go into much more details on how much the strokes have to adjust depending on the distance to the ball, direction of the ball and contact point height.

A Forehand Stroke Explained By Feels

After I hit the forehand, I'll explain what it feels like and break it down for you. We're not going to focus on technique, such as the position of the racket head or elbow, but instead, we'll focus on biomechanics and feel.

So, what am I doing? First, my body is rotating.

When I hit the ball, my body has a large mass, so I cannot move it very fast. Therefore, I push my right hip into the ball. This creates a steady, continuous push through the ball. 

What is my arm doing? My arm is swinging before contact.

When the ball is higher, I swing less, and when the ball is lower, I swing more.

What I feel is an element of letting go. I don't completely control the movement; there is a partial swing.

My wrist has a lag, and when I hit the ball, I'm slapping it. I feel the slap through my hand and the racket face as if I am slapping the ball with a big hand.

When the ball makes contact with the racket, my arm is driving and keeping the direction.

All ground strokes, including two-handed backhand, one-handed backhand, and forehand, follow the same components.

To summarize, I'm pushing with my body, swinging with my arm, slapping with my wrist, and driving the ball if it's a normal forehand or a backhand groundstroke.

These four sources of power and control are present in every groundstroke I hit except that they vary in the amount, meaning how much I apply each of them.

If you focus on feeling and using the 4 major "feels" of the stroke you will find it much easier to develop good strokes as you will not be focusing on small irrelevant details of the stroke that cannot be always replicated. 

8 Major Mistakes Related To 4 Feels

I will now demonstrate the forehand hit incorrectly showing you 8 different ways you can execute it wrong when it comes to body rotation, swinging, using the wrist and driving through the ball.

See if you recognize yourself in one or more of them...

1. Body Rotation

The main purpose of body rotation is to give you a stable source of power and good control of the arm and racket as it stabilizes the contact through the push.

a) Not enough body rotation

In this case, the hips tend to stay back, resulting in a stroke that looks something like the image below.

This is one of the most common problems at recreational tennis because players hit the ball too late and the hip is not able yet to rotate forward by the time player hits the ball.

b) Too much body rotation

You may also overdo body rotation and stepping into the ball and you keep pushing the hip and body too much into the ball.

That prevents the arm from swinging well as the arm will accelerate only if the hip decelerates at some point. Strokes hit like that have good control but no power and very poor accuracy.

2. Arm Swing

Swinging your arm provides you with the biggest source of effortless power as you use gravity to help you accelerate the racket. 

a) Not enough swing

What does it look like when a player doesn't feel the swing? They just move their arm back and forth with stiffness, and the racket doesn't swing.

If your strokes don't have a component of swinging, you will struggle with generating power.

b) Too Much Swing

On the other hand, what happens when the player swings too much? They lose control, and their arm goes all over the place.

So the player might have good power but they have very poor control of the ball meaning that they make a lot of unforced errors.

3. Wrist Lag & Slap

The "slap" is another source of effortless power as it allows you to use the trampoline effect of the string bed and bounce the ball off the racket easily.

In order to use your wrist and hand well you need enough wrist lag in the first place.

a) Not Enough Wrist Lag & Slap

When a player lacks wrist lag, they will have their racket head on the right side (for right-handers) of the hand, making it difficult to slap the ball.

This results in a pushy motion, limiting the player's ability to spin or accelerate the ball.

 b) Too Much Wrist Lag & Slap

Overusing wrist lag & slap leads to a loss of control. While it may feel powerful, excessive slapping can result in poor synchronization with other components of the swing, such as the drive and push of the body.

Therefore, it's important to find the right balance between wrist lag and other components to achieve a perfect swing.

4. Arm Drive

Driving the arm forward towards the target area is the key to good accuracy of the stroke and the key to "taming" the swing and the wrist lag that brought a lot of power into the contact.

Power is great for tennis but it needs to be controlled to be consistent and that's the role of the arm drive.

a) Not Enough Arm Drive

If the arm is not driving, the player tends to hit the ball like in baseball, and the moment they hit the ball, they release the arm.

This usually happens because the player feels very good power and they hope that eventually they will learn to control the ball despite not controlling the follow-through - but that actually never happens.

b) Too Much Arm Drive

On the other hand, if the arm is driving and pushing too hard, the stroke is too linear and too pushy, the arm moves too slow. 

In this case, the player is too controlled and afraid of missing the ball, resulting in the arm being pushed too hard. Also, if the arm is the only driving force, the hip tends to stay back.

Summary

This is a brief overview of the four major biomechanical components of a stroke or swing, which are commonly referred to as "feels." 

Rather than focusing on minor technical details of the stroke, it is more beneficial to concentrate on these sources of power since the stroke needs to be adaptable to a variety of situations.

The objective is to sense each "feel" being present and applied with the appropriate amount of force while hitting the ball. 

You can use the eight common mistakes as a reference point and then practice repeatedly and play in different scenarios to identify the ideal adaptation of each "feel."

Non-Dominant Eye And Sports

While those 20 milliseconds slower visual input make no difference in our daily life that’s not the case when it comes to sports where accurate ball tracking is the key to timing the stroke.

If you then consider that we have around 50 cm (20 inches) of the ideal zone if hitting the ball where we’re not too late and not too early, then that translates to around 50 milliseconds of time.

Now you can see how being off by 20 milliseconds can be quite detrimental to your timing when playing tennis.

And those 20 milliseconds can easily happen if your non-dominant eye is positioned in such a way that it has become the dominant one to judge the ball.

Practical Tips For Better Ball Perception

There are two ways you can minimize the negative effect of the non-dominant eye in the game of tennis.

The first one has to do with seeing the ball well in the first flight, meaning from your opponent to the bounce, and the second one has to do with seeing the ball well in the second flight, meaning from the bounce to your racket.

a) Optimal Depth Perception In The First Flight

When the ball leaves the opponent’s racket we start tracking it and judging its speed, height and direction so that we can predict where the ball is going to end up so that we can position early and prepare our stroke in time.

The key to depth perception (3D vision) is that both eyes are pointed straight towards the ball. That’s how we get stereoscopic vision which allows us to judge distance to an object really well.

What we need to do in the game of tennis when it comes to most strokes is that we need to turn our body in order to start loading up energy which we will then release into the ball to hit it with power.

What tends to happen is that as we turn our body around 90 degrees to the side, our head wants to follow and also turn somewhat to the side.

But as the head turns to the side we can lose 3D depth perception.

If we happen to turn our head in such a way that our non-dominant eye is positioned more “behind” the line of sight towards the ball, then that eye is now tasked with being the dominant eye for judging the ball.

And that’s when the already existing problem of poor depth perception is exacerbated by our non-dominant eye being tasked with ball judgment.

So one of the most practical tips you can do to eliminate both these problems is to make sure your head is really oriented forward towards the ball as it’s in its first flight.

Realize that there is no point in having the head slightly to the side yet as the ball is still far away when we begin stroke preparation.

The ball is in most cases well in front of us with a very small angle from our head to the ball.

Only as the ball comes really close to us (within a few feet) we actually need to turn the head and eyes to the side in order to track it well. 

In my case I happen to turn my head more to the side on the backhand side and that unfortunately exposes my left non-dominant eye to the task of judging the ball and therefore I happen to misjudge the ball here and there.

It doesn’t bother me now since I am not playing competitively any more.

When I became aware of this issue many years ago I corrected it quite well by practicing keeping my head oriented really straight forward in the first flight of the ball and that helped me perceive the ball really well and rarely mistiming it

Note how Wawrinka keeps his head oriented forward even though he turns his body to the side.

I highly recommend you first test yourself in front of the mirror (or record yourself from front view - place the camera at the bottom of the net and zoom in) and then practice turning the body but not the head as you repeat forehand and backhand unit turns in front of the mirror.

b) Clear Focus In The Second Flight

The second time your non-dominant eye can cause poor timing of the ball is after the bounce.

If you happen to orient your head incorrectly so that your non-dominant eye is looking at the ball better than your dominant eye, you will get slower data transfer of its position and speed in space to your brain and that will make it much more difficult to time it well.

One of the most prominent tennis coaches at the moment Patrick Muratoglou suggests different stances and head orientations towards the ball based on different eye dominances, but I don’t think that’s practical for an adult recreational tennis player who plays tennis twice a week on average.

Adult tennis players simply do not have such good skills in using different stances and they don’t have the time to specifically train head different head positions based on their eye dominance.

I recommend a more practical approach which is trying to see the ball clearly in focus after the bounce.

Most adult tennis players obviously see the ball otherwise they wouldn’t be able to hit it but they don’t pay attention to it well enough.

In other words, they don’t see the ball clearly in focus. In some cases, their eyes and brain are simply not skilled enough to track a really fast ball but in other cases, it’s simply a lack of focus.

So if you really try to see the ball clearly in focus after the bounce then in my experience your eyes and brain will naturally find the best way to orient the head toward the ball in order to accomplish the task of seeing the ball clearly.

So you don’t even have to know which of your eyes is the non-dominant one and you don’t have to think about how to position your head differently in relation to each stroke you’re hitting, you simply do your best to see the ball clearly in focus after the bounce.

I have previously posted an article on how to practice watching the ball better which also includes a more in-depth explanation on what it means to see the ball in focus.

You will also find 15 drills to help you practice watching the ball better in both the first flight before the bounce and in the second flight after the bounce.

Summary

We all have a non-dominant eye which transfers data through the optic nerve into the brain around 20 milliseconds slower than the dominant eye.

If we happen to orient the non-dominant eye too much towards the ball in the first flight before the bounce and / or in the second flight after the bounce then we are not perceiving the ball’s speed and depth well and that will likely result in hitting it too late.

A simple way to make sure you eliminate the "dominance of the non-dominant eye" in the first flight is to make sure your head is oriented as forward as possible as then both eyes are pointed at the ball and the dominant eye will naturally take the leading role in reading the ball’s flight and judge it well.

You will likely have to practice that for several weeks or months (sorry, 5 minute solutions don’t exist in any sport or music, so don’t fall for such clickbait titles on Youtube) before you ingrain the correct head position so that you don’t have to think about it.

The second part where your non-dominant eye can trouble you is after the ball bounces. The goal is to clearly bring the ball into focus as that will naturally orient your eyes in such a way that the dominant eye will take the lead.

Use the 15 Ball Watching Drills to continuously work on your ability to see the ball clearly and to get into a good rhythm with the ball.

That will help you bring the ball into focus well after the bounce which will naturally orient your head and eyes correctly towards the ball so that your dominant eye will be the one judging the ball more.

Drill #1 – Bring the Ball into Focus After the Bounce

Try to see the ball clearly (in focus) as it comes out of the bounce, as if you were taking a clear photo of the ball with your phone.

Call out a “yes” to confirm to yourself and your subconscious that you saw the ball in focus every time you see it well.

Drill #2 – Bring the Ball into Focus on Top of its Flight

Bring the ball into focus as soon as you can after your partner hits the ball, and call it out again with a “yes.”

Extra attention should be paid to how clearly you see the ball around the top of the ball’s flight.

Drill #3 – Bring the Ball into Focus Before and After the Bounce

The previous two exercises were combined by trying to see the ball clearly in focus around the top of its flight and as it came out of the bounce

Call out “yes” or “no” for each of the two periods of the ball flight to make sure you’re completely focused on the ball and on this task. (as the mind can quickly wander somewhere else).

Drill #4 – Say “Hit” when your Partner Hits the Ball

The most common mistake with this drill is that players observe the hit and then call it out, which means that two sounds are heard in sequence: the sound of contact and the sound of your voice.

We need to be more precise in tennis, and anticipate and read hits and bounces more accurately. Therefore, your goal is to say “hit” exactly when your partner hits the ball.

Drill #5 – Say “Top” when the Ball passes through the Top of its Flight

One of the main reasons why players prepare late is because they don’t pay attention to the first flight of the ball.

By calling out “top” when the ball goes through the top of its flight, you are forced to observe the ball’s flight really well and that will help you read the ball’s flight much earlier and can therefore prepare the stroke earlier.

Drill #6 – Call Out “Hit” and “Top”

Combine the previous two drills and call out your partner’s hit and the top of the ball’s flight.

When playing mini-tennis, the hit and top will follow very quickly in sequence, but when you play from baseline, you’ll find it easier to call them out.

The quick sequence of events that you need to be aware of will help you raise your alertness and concentration levels, helping you perceive the ball’s flight much better.

Drill #7 – Call Out the Bounce on your Side

Call out “bounce” when the ball bounces on your side.

As with previous drills, do not wait to observe the bounce and then call it as your mind needs to work faster and anticipate events in tennis.

Your goal is for the sound of the bounce and the sound of your voice to overlap when you call out the bounce on time.

Drill #8 – Call Out Bounce and Hit on your Side

This is a famous exercise invented by Timothy Gallwey, who wrote The Inner Game of Tennis, and will always be one of the foundations of getting into rhythm in tennis.

Call out the bounce and your own hit of the ball, and pay attention to the timing of your calls so that it is exactly at the moment of bounce and contact with the ball.

Drill #9 – Call Out your Partner’s Hit and Bounce on your Side

You can play with variations of the rhythm, mixing up the hits and bounces that you want to focus on.

In this example, you call out your partner’s hit by the ball and the bounce on your side. The key is to match the sound of the ball bouncing with your voice.

Drill #10 – Call Out your Partner’s Hit, Bounce of the Ball, and your own Hit

This is the most complex task that requires the highest level of concentration, and that’s how focused you should be during every ball exchange in tennis.

Most players are not really in a sufficiently alert and focused state until they are about to hit the ball, which is not good enough because you need all your brain power to judge the ball very early in its flight.

This exercise is a final test of how well you can track a ball and the accuracy of your timing.

Drill #11 – Observe the Spin of the Ball After the Bounce

The next set of drills are designed to keep your mind focused on the ball by asking yourself to observe something on the ball.

We all see the ball, but how well do you pay attention to it is the real difference in how well you will time the stroke.

In the first drill, we only want to notice whether the ball is spinning after bouncing. Confirm with a “yes” when you see the spin.

Drill #12 – Observe the Spin of the Ball on the Other Side

Your next task is to try and see the ball spin as it comes over the net before the bounce.

Paying attention to the ball and reading its flight characteristics early allows you to judge its flight well and predict with good accuracy how it’s going to bounce, so that you are in position early and can prepare your stroke early.

Ask your partner to vary the spins (topspin, flat, and backspin) so that you remain focused on the task.

Drill #13 – Call Out the Spin Type Before and After the Bounce

Combine the previous two exercises and read the spin of the ball before and after the bounce.

Have your partner vary the types of shots so that you remain fully focused on
reading the ball’s flight.

Drill #14 – Compare the Rate of Spinning Before and After the Bounce

You are still looking to read the type of spin before and after the bounce; however, you must observe the spinning rate.

You can start with “fast” and “slow” but as you become better at reading the ball’s spinning rate, add the “medium” rating as well.

Drill #15 – Observe the Sunny and Shady Part of the Ball

On a sunny day, you can try this fun task: observe which part of the ball is sunny and which part is in the shade as it flies towards you. 

Note this before and after the bounce, and remain focused on that for one or two minutes.

Tracking the Ball Better

As you can improve by paying attention to the ball, you can try to track it for a long time.

There are two ways you can think about it:
- take multiple snapshots of the ball as if using a phone or camera or
- think of continuously tracking the ball as if recording a video.

Taking snapshots is a useful approach to testing, as you can ask yourself how many images of the ball you remember and see in your memory after you hit it.

I can almost always recall 3–5 clear images of the ball (from bounce to contact) stored in my short-term memory.

If I try to recall images of the ball from the partner’s hit to the bounce, I will see somewhere between 5–8 images depending on the speed of the ball.

The more images you can see, the more time you will perceive and the slower the ball will appear.

This will make you feel that tennis is a relatively slow game and that there is a lot of time to move and prepare for the stroke.

While you can give yourself more time at first to practice watching the ball, like 15-20 minutes per session, never completely stop with the focusing exercises.

Use them even just for 2-3 minutes at the start of your tennis session, whether it’s free hitting or a match to ensure that your eyes and mind are fully alert and ready to track the fast moving small yellow ball through space.

Step 1: Hit Along The Track

The first concept to have in mind is the "track" that starts at the contact point and leads all the way to your target area. 

This track is roughly the width of the doubles alley and it helps me visualize the racket path through contact that extends long towards the target.

This narrow track / path also affects how you execute the stroke technically as it makes you swing longer through the contact point as you extend along the track.

It's very similar idea to bowling where we have a long track and we extend along it towards the target. 

To me hitting a tennis ball is like bowling in the air. The track is in the air and I also have to add some trajectory to the ball compared to bowling which I will explain in step 3 - having a window.

If you don't have a mental image of a narrow track and you just hit the ball with a more vague general idea of where you want to hit it, then your tennis technique will adapt to execute such a shot and consequently you won't be hitting the ball cleanly.

Step 2: Spin the ball on the horizontal axis

While I point out the spin axis here as step 2, you can easily add that later as step 3 if it requires too much of your mental focus.

Most of you reading this article already hit groundstrokes with topspin so you're already on the right track.

But what you may not realize is that spinning the ball EXACTLY around the horizontal axis really helps with ball control and accuracy.

It's quite easy to just hit topspin but in most cases you're hitting the ball a bit too much across which makes the ball spin in an axis that is slightly tilted.

While you still get most of the benefits of topspin, you are not hitting the ball as cleanly as possible and you are not hitting it the most accurately.

Step 3: Aim into a window above the net

The "window" is something that most tennis players don't visualize well. 

While most players have some vague idea about height above the net, it's too generic and does not make the player control the accuracy of their height better.

In many cases players have no idea about the height at all as they are making their shot, they think just in 2 dimensions, meaning they are just deciding whether to hit the ball left or right without any height parameter.

Visualizing a window above the net helps with accuracy and depth control.

I approximated the size of the window I visualize with the space between the two umbrellas so that you have a better idea how big the window is.

It of course must depend on your skill level. Lower level players should visualize bigger windows and higher level players can visualize smaller windows.

Why Do I Aim Into A Window Rather Than A Target On Ground?

While I of course know the area on the court on the other side where I would like my ball to land, I don't really feel I can aim accurately because that target is so far from me.

The window above the net is way closer to me and it doesn't feel that difficult to me to hit it.

So I feel much more confident when I make my shots as I can "feel" much better where the window is above the net depending on whether I am hitting down the line or cross court.

To better understand what I mean by "feeling where the window is", start with drop hitting and stand at around the service line and aim into a window.

You'll see that it doesn't seem that difficult to hit such a big window. Then gradually move back and keep hitting into a window.

Note that in tennis we cannot watch where we hit but we need to watch the ball. Therefore we need to have some kind of orientation in our mind in which direction to hit the ball.

And since the window is closer to me than the ground target I find it much easier to orient in space and know in which direction the window is in relation to the ball and therefore I can play very accurate shots.

One more thing: once you define the height with the window, all you need to figure out is the speed and spin parameters that combined with the height give you good depth.

Good depth is the key to consistency and neutralizing your opponent from attacking.

And once you have the window and the right speed (assuming your topspin rate is mostly the same) then depth is the result of those parameters.

As you tweak the parameters of depth and speed you also control depth.

Summary

In tennis we can make an analogy to driving a car - tennis technique is like an engine and aiming in tennis is like being a driver.

No matter how much you improve your technique, if you're not "driving" it the right way, meaning you don't aim your shots the right way, then technique is not going to be effective.

You've learned about the idea of tracks, horizontal spin and a window above the net.

If none of these are currently in your mind as you are about to hit a forehand or backhand, then I suggest you start with a window idea first.

It will give you a direction and height parameter.

Refine it later with a track parameter and lastly refine it with a horizontal spin idea.

And just like in driving it was tough the first few driving lessons to keep all the instructions in mind but then in time they became subconscious, so is the same process in tennis.

Learning to aim like described above will take more of your mental effort at first but eventually your subconscious will take over.

I invite you to incorporate the right way to aim in tennis into your game and return to this article after some time to share your feedback with the rest of us.

Once they have to hit in a situation that they haven't practiced enough and are not comfortable with, there's a high likelihood that they will miss or hit a poor shot.

In this article, you'll learn how you can use a certain type of baseline movement and positioning in tennis that will challenge you to practice most of the types of incoming balls that you will encounter in a match.

Understanding Variations In Hitting A Tennis Ball

To better explain most of the variations a tennis player has to deal with in a tennis match we'll use an example of Novak Djokovic playing one point at Roland Garros 2022.

Special thanks to the Inside the Game YouTube channel for letting me use the footage and images from their video clip.

While there are many variables in relation to a tennis ball that we need to adapt to in a match, we'll focus on three major ones in this example:

• position of the player in relation to the baseline (close, medium, or far)
• contact point height (low, medium, or high)
• trajectory of the ball at contact (on the way down, on top of the bounce, or on the way up)

If you've watched the video above, then you have seen Novak hit the ball in many different situations; in fact, of the seven shots he played in that one point, he never hit the ball in the same situation twice.

With just three different variables each having three different categories, we can already see that there are 3x3 = 9 combinations possible.

This, of course, doesn't take into account the speed, spin, direction, and time from the bounce of the ball. 

It also does not take into account the type of shot Novak decided to play off each incoming ball, as he varied the speed, height, spin, speed, and direction of his own shots.

So, the main takeaway from this first part of the article is that we need to able to adapt to many different types of incoming balls and hit them well at different contact point heights, distances from the baseline, and flight trajectories.

The 3 Most Common Mistakes In Movement And Positioning

Now that you're aware of how challenging the game of tennis is, see if you can spot yourself in one of the examples of common mistakes players make when it comes to their movement and positioning on the baseline.

a) Always Stepping In

In my work with adult recreational tennis players, I see this pattern the most. 

I don't blame the players. Instead, I blame the coaching community who have over-simplified the complexity of tennis and brainwashed tennis players into believing that stepping into the ball, transferring weight into it, and taking it early is the best way to hit.

What they fail to tell you is that this way of hitting the ball is very risky and that one needs to carefully decide on which type of the incoming ball is stepping in really worth the risk or necessary if the ball is really short.

They also don't know (as they don't practice) how to hit an open stance forehand well, so if it does happen, it's executed poorly and the ball usually ends up in the net or short.

If we now look at this movement pattern from the point of view of many variations that happen in a tennis match, we see that the player who constantly steps into the ball limits themselves to generally just medium contact point height and hits most balls on the rise or on top of the bounce.

Again, if you've been told a million times that this is the best way to hit the ball, then the above description sounds great to you.

But if you remember what Novak Djokovic had to deal with in just one point and extrapolate that to the whole match, you'll see that one also needs to be able to cleanly hit balls that come into the high and low contact zones, far behind the baseline, and often in a downward trajectory.

To give you a simple table to show what the player hits most of the time and what they miss out on:

HIT MOST: position: close, contact height: medium, flight: up and top

MISSING OUT ON: position: medium and far, contact point: high and low, flight: down

b) Always Moving Backwards

Many tennis players tend to move backwards all the time so they can gain more time from the bounce of the ball and hit the ball at a low contact point, which feels very comfortable to them.

In addition to missing out on practicing the other variations of hitting the ball, they also tire themselves out because of the constant movement.

They have almost no chance to apply pressure on the opponent, as they are hitting the ball so far behind the baseline.

So, not only do they play a lot of long points, but they also wear themselves out with constant forward and backward movement.

This raises the questions: what do they mostly hit, and what do they miss out on?

HIT MOST: position: far, contact height: low, flight: down

MISSING OUT ON: position: medium and close, contact height: medium and high, flight: top and up

c) Crowding/Hugging The Baseline

This type of player is similar to the first one, but they don't always step into the ball. They are also able to play open stance. 

They stand very close to the baseline, taking all the balls very early, and they make no forward or backward adjustments to the ball. Instead, they only move sideways parallel to the baseline.

The problem with this type of playing is again a very high risk of mis-hitting the ball.

There is a very short amount of time from the bounce of the ball to the contact, and it's very likely that the player will hit the ball late and off center, which results in short balls and missed shots.

So, what types of shots do these players hit the most, and what do they miss out on?

HIT MOST: position: close, contact height: medium, flight: up

MISSING OUT ON: position: medium and far, contact point: low and high, flight: top and down

I'd like to quickly mention the fourth incorrect way of positioning, which is to stand very far from the baseline and wait for all the balls to reach you.

This is not a common type of baseline positioning because the player is vulnerable to short balls. 

As a result, only players who have really good ball judgment skills and are quick on their feet can afford to spend most of their time far behind the baseline.

The majority of adult recreational tennis players do not fall into this category, so I see this pattern rarely. 

Since you're now much more knowledgeable about the variations in tennis, you can already see what this type of player would be missing out on playing like that.

Holding Your Ground And Challenging Your Timing

So, what is the best way to position and move when playing from the baseline in free hitting sessions?

The best way is to position yourself at a medium distance from the baseline and make small adjustments forward and backward when necessary.

My typical “home base” position is about 1.5 meters (5 feet) behind the baseline.

In other words, I will hit at high, medium, and low contact points, and at the same time the incoming balls' trajectories will include balls on the way up, on top of the bounce, and on the way down.

While I will be hitting mostly at the medium distance to the baseline and I will vary that parameter the least, I will still move out of my zone here and there to play the ball close and also far from the baseline.

We obviously cannot practice all the elements and variations of a tennis game in one single approach, but what I mostly want to challenge myself with the Hold the Ground concept is to hit balls at different heights, flight times from the bounce, and trajectories.

When a player keeps repeating one of the above three incorrect patterns of positioning and movement on the baseline, they are basically making themselves comfortable in hitting one pattern of timing.

Players who keep stepping in and crowd the baseline don't know how to wait for the ball and give themselves more time, while players who keep moving backward don't know how to hit the ball early.

By playing at the medium distance from the baseline and not constantly adjusting your position and movement to the ball, you can challenge yourself to adjust to the ball by hitting it with different timings, heights, and trajectories – and that's what will actually improve your general skill of playing tennis well.

Having weaknesses in your game means more than having a “weak backhand.” 

It can also mean “not being able to hit a forehand at a high contact point” or “not being good at hitting the ball at a low contact point with a downward trajectory.” 

Your opponent can exploit any of these weaknesses and win the match.

Since tennis is such a demanding sport where we have to deal with so many different situations, we need to practice them as much as we can.

Hold your ground the next time you have a free hitting session. Intentionally challenge yourself to hit balls that you're not comfortable with and give it some time.

If you regularly do that, you will see improvements in your timing and ability to hit the ball cleanly. Then you'll realize a simple fact: you're now a better tennis player. 

A typical sign of poor forehand shoulder rotation is the disengaged non-dominant arm, which tends to dangle down alongside the body.

That tells us that the left shoulder (for right-handed players) is disconnected from the right shoulder, and therefore they do not rotate together as the forehand is being hit.

The result of this disconnect is that we cannot transfer power from body rotation into the ball and we also cannot control the ball well, which I will explain in a bit.

The two-handed backhand with poor or no shoulder rotation looks very similar to the forehand, as the hitting shoulder stays back and the player uses only their arms and wrists to move the racket through space and hit the ball.

On the one-handed backhand, lack of shoulder rotation is not as common because the body tends to coil and uncoil more naturally as players hit the backhand.

The lack of shoulder rotation typically happens when the player has been instructed to stay sideways as they are hitting the backhand and they’ve taken this instruction too literally or too far.

As the player is swinging towards the ball, they don’t allow their shoulders to rotate at all and they force their body to stay sideways.

That again prevents any force from body rotation to be transferred into the ball.

Another stroke that often lacks shoulder rotation is the backhand slice as the player focuses too much on the arm action and tries to hit the ball by flexing and extending their elbow.

This action results in so-called chopping, which makes the ball float and have no depth or pace.

How To Help The Player Feel The Shoulder Rotation

It’s one thing to just theoretically explain the importance of shoulder rotation in tennis and another thing to actually teach it effectively, which means that the player learns it well and fast.

I like to teach with feel. In this case, I actually demonstrate the incorrect and correct way of using shoulder rotation and have the player feel that.

For the forehand, the player needs to create some resistance against my left shoulder with his hand. I show him how there is no force into his hand and arm if I don’t use shoulder rotation.

Then I also execute a forehand with correct shoulder rotation which will push my player away as there is such force created through rotation.

The next step is to switch roles and have the player execute the incorrect and correct forms of forehand shoulder rotation as I create resistance against his non-dominant shoulder.

I also show the player one key point when it comes to shoulder and body rotation and how they connect to the stroke: if I prevent the player from rotating by pushing against him strongly, he should not be able to execute a forehand.

Most player will initially try to hit a forehand with only their arm since they can’t rotate their body, but I explain that they should not be able to do it.

Using their arm alone without the body makes the forehand unstable and weak.

They should be locked in place and unable to move and execute a stroke if I prevent them from rotation.

Only when I release the pressure to the point that they can rotate their shoulder can they swing and hit the forehand stroke.

The same principle applies to all backhand strokes – the one-handed, the two-handed and the backhand slice.

I have the player resist my hitting shoulder first, and I demonstrate the strokes first without shoulder rotation and then with correct shoulder rotation.

That helps the player feel the difference in force, and the amount of force almost always surprises the player.

Then we switch roles and the player has to try and execute the backhand stroke correctly with the right amount of shoulder rotation.

Why Is Shoulder Rotation So Important?

Shoulder rotation is important for two main reasons:

• source of power
• source of stability

If we don’t use our trunk and shoulders by rotating them as we’re hitting a tennis groundstroke, then all we have left is our arm with its joints and muscles.

We can play tennis by mostly using our arm, but because the arm is much smaller and lighter compared to the body, it will have to work more. That results in arm muscles fatigue quite quickly.

The player has to strain the arm muscles all the time while playing tennis whereas a player who rotates the body into the stroke can play with a very relaxed arm.

How does the shoulder and trunk rotation provide stability/control to the stroke?

If you just use the arm to hit a forehand or a backhand, then you will engage a lot of smaller muscles in the arm and you will tend to use all three joints of the arm – shoulder, elbow and wrist.

Having all three joints move with many small muscles being engaged causes the racket angle to constantly change throughout the stroke, which results in spraying the ball all over the place.

The player will find it very hard to angle the racket consistently with so many small movements happening all the time, and this results in a very inconsistent and unreliable stroke.

But if we hit from shoulder and body rotation, we will get a lot of power from the body.

When our arm “feels” that there is a lot of power already available, it doesn’t need to engage so much.

Therefore the arm is much more calm throughout the stroke, and the player finds it much easier to consistently angle the racket as they rally.

The same principles apply, of course, to all types of the backhand stroke.

Summary

Shoulder rotation is one of the fundamentals of tennis forehand and backhand technique, which means that it’s always functioning regardless of the style of the stroke.

If the player is not engaging the shoulder area correctly, they will lose on power and control of the stroke.

While it’s instinctive to use the arm a lot since we hold the racket with it, we need to learn to make the arm a bit more passive and engage the body more as the main source of power and stability.

This video article shows you the general approach on how to help a tennis player improve their shoulder rotation for both forehand and backhand strokes.

In the next article, we’ll go a bit deeper into the forehand stroke as many players engage their arm way too much and struggle with ball control on their forehands.

We’ll discuss the role of the non-dominant arm on the forehand and I will show you many more drills that help improve the power and stability of the forehand stroke, so stay tuned.

Update

Here’s an exercise you can do in the gym to feel the shoulder area engaged properly.

The main mistake in terms of shoulders is that players engage the hitting arm shoulder always MORE than the other side. That causes tension and imbalance in the body.

You need to engage both sides equally!

As if you don’t hold the racket in your dominant hand but you just turn your body around its axis.

So this machine helps you feel that since it gives me resistance in front of one shoulder and in the back of the other.

Why Is Hip Rotation A Biomechanical Fundamental?

One of the definitions of the word fundamental is “forming a necessary base or core; of central importance.”

Hip rotation is one of the bases or cores that drive a tennis groundstroke.

One way to illustrate that is this sequence of three pictures with four different tennis players who all hit their forehands slightly differently.

They can prepare the stroke slightly differently, they have slightly different grips, they swing in a slightly different way, and they have a different follow-through.

But they all engage hip rotation in the same way.

Their hip/pelvis engagement is always present, regardless of the style of the stroke.

That makes it fundamental, and it should be one of the main priorities when correcting tennis strokes.

With poor hip engagement, you cannot possibly play any decent level of tennis.

Images credit: All images and video clips of the pros in this article have been used with permission by Essential Tennis Youtube channel.

How Groundstrokes Are Affected Without Hip Rotation

To better illustrate how the stroke technique looks when the player is not engaging their hips, let’s take a look at a few examples.

In the forehand example, we can see that the left player’s hip is staying back while the shoulders are going forward. Compare that to my forehand, where my hips and shoulders are connected and in sync.

Next, let’s take a look at the difference in the two-handed backhands of a recreational tennis player on the left and a former pro tennis player on the right.

You can see the same problem – the left hip of the recreational player stays way behind the upper body and is out of sync with the body.

Tennis players have the most problems with the forehand and two-handed backhand strokes when it comes to hip rotation (pelvis engagement) and not so much on the one-handed backhand, where it’s less pronounced and also tends to happen more naturally.

Simple Hip Correction Exercise

One of the main reasons hips don’t rotate together with the upper body is that the back leg is holding them back.

I call this “the leg is the boss.” If the leg decided to get stuck on the ground and not move forward, then the hips are also unable to rotate forward.

But it should be exactly the opposite – the hips need to be the “boss,” and the leg needs to follow.

If the hips want to rotate forward together with the body, then the leg needs to let go and follow along.

When teaching this on clay courts, I tell players to drag the tip of the shoe on the ground and make a visible line in the clay/sand.

That helps the player feel and hear the action the foot makes, and they can also see the length of the line after they’ve hit the ball.

It’s important to stay in balance as you execute the stroke like that, as loss of balance will result in loss of ball control.

Another important point is that you should not over-rotate and step forward with the back foot.

It may happen when you observe the pros in competitive situation, but when we hit a forehand or a two-handed backhand in typical rally conditions, the back foot does not come in front of the front foot.

Demonstrating The Power Of Hip Rotation

I’ve asked my friend Peter to help me with a feel-based demonstration so you can better understand why hip rotation is so important.

When I hit Peter’s hand with my hand and do not engage my hips/pelvis at the same time, he doesn’t feel much power coming from the contact.

That’s how most players hit the ball, and that’s what the ball would “feel.”

But I can also hit Peter’s hand by sticking my arm forward and driving the hips forward, and this power is then transferred through my arm into Peter’s hand.

If you watch the video, you can see with how much force he is hit and how it pushes him backward.

That’s because he is now feeling the mass of my body pushing against his hand, creating a strong force.

When we hit an actual ball, we have already swung the racket before that.

Players tend to stop the hips right at contact because they anticipate collision with the ball and contract their muscles in expectation – even though the force of the ball’s impact is actually minimal to the way bigger mass of the body!

They may also be feeling a fear of missing as they hit the ball, so they hit it cautiously, which shows physically as holding back their body, especially their hips.

One way to work on correcting the lack of hip rotation is to visualize that your hips are moving continuously exactly as you are making contact with the ball.

I have already isolated a clip of Roger Federer in the video above when he is hitting the ball like that, but I suggest you also watch him play for a while in this complete video and focus your eyes on the red stripe on his shorts.

You will see how that red stripe moves continuously forward (actually in rotation, but you would need to be above Federer to clearly see that) as he is making contact with the ball.

The Hip Deceleration And Arm Acceleration Technique

Some of you who observe the top players well may have noticed that, in some instances, the players actually stop the hips (decelerate) before contact as that allows them to whip the arm very fast.

The top players are simply using the transfer of momentum effect that is used in many sports where the player wants to accelerate the arm.

This is used in baseball, golf, javelin and discuss throw and, of course, also in tennis.

The problem with this advanced technique of arm acceleration is that you need great body and hand–eye coordination and excellent timing.

I can demonstrate a stroke like that, and I know how it works. I can feel my arm whipping fast as I block the hips from rotating, but I can’t play consistent tennis like that because I make too many errors.

I haven’t practiced 4 hours per day for 10 years to master that kind of technique at higher speeds of hitting.

Actually, even if you try, you’ll likely do it the wrong way as you will stop the hips from moving too early and disconnect them from the upper body.

As I have shown with the Federer example above, even he executes forehands with continuous hip rotation as he is making contact.

How To Start Working On Integrating Hip Rotation Into Your Technique

I suggest you start working on hip rotation during mini tennis as you start warming up.

It’s actually quite difficult for many players to play mini tennis with good control as they are afraid (consciously or subconsciously) to rotate their body as they play at short distances.

They fear that they will hit too hard and too long if they rotate their body.

It’s an instinct or intuitive feeling as it makes logical sense that putting more body weight into the ball will make you hit it harder.

But the instinct is wrong this time.

You will hit too long only if you rotate too fast.

It is, in fact, easier to control the speed of rotation of your body than it is to control the speed of movement of your arm and hand because they are relatively light compared to the body mass.

It is easier to suddenly and rapidly accelerate a small mass than it is to accelerate a big mass.

So, players tend to lose control during mini tennis because they use only the arm and the hand. Their logic tells them it’s the right way, but that logic fails here.

The real logic is that controlling the speed with a bigger mass is easier than with a smaller mass.

If you start your session by engaging your body rotation in the first 5 minutes during mini tennis, you’re already priming your body for the correct movements once you get back to the baseline.

It may be difficult at first to figure out the speed of rotation, but keep experimenting and you’ll find it. Then playing mini tennis will be very easy.

You will also learn a skill of controlling a fast incoming ball, either on the baseline or perhaps return a serve because the approach is the same – slowly rotate with your body while making contact.

Summary

When adult recreational tennis players come to see me for lessons, they typically identify a problem with their stroke.

So they might say, “I have trouble controlling my forehand. What is wrong with my swing? Do I need to change my grip? Do I need to prepare with the racket head up? Do I need to change my follow-through?”

In 9 out of 10 cases, the problem is poor balance and lack of hip rotation.

I almost always correct hip rotation as the pelvic region is completely out of sync with the rest of their body.

And remember, we only talk about hip rotation when it comes to correcting tennis stroke.

There is no need to single out hip rotation if the player has integrated hip rotation into their stroke.

A skilled tennis player has no awareness that they are doing anything special with their hips/pelvis because they are completely in sync with their upper body.

That’s why so many tennis coaches fail to correct the problem with the hips – they simply are not aware that they are doing any special movement with their hips.

But if you were to take their hips out of sync, they would immediately realize how important that segment of the body is.

Another thing to keep in mind is the mental side.

Players tend to hold back their body because they are constantly in a state of fear of missing.

They can be afraid to miss, afraid to lose, afraid to be embarrassed by a loss, afraid to be criticized after a miss or a loss, etc.

The paradox of tennis is that, when you play cautious and hold your body back, you actually have LESS control over the ball than if you move your body DECISIVELY through the contact.

So, as you work on your hip rotation and putting more of your body into the strokes, also work on your mind and investigate if there are any fears holding you back.

As you release those fears, so will your body be released to move more freely, and the surprising result will be that you will play better.

2. Core activation – choose one of the 10 core activation exercises shown below (or even find many more online) and engage your core for 20-30 seconds.

3. Pelvis/hips activation – position yourself in a semi-open stance, hold the racket with both hands at the tip and at the handle and try to keep the racket mostly still while you twist your pelvis back and forth. Then position yourself in an open stance and engage the outside leg with the pelvis twist.

4. Feel the ground and weight transfer:
– neutral stance: hold the racket in the same way as in #3, but this time swing it in the shape of a smaller horizontal figure 8. At the same time, transfer weight from your back to your front foot.

– open stance version 1: transfer weight from leg to leg as you keep swinging the racket like before.

– open stance version 2: keep your weight on the right leg and bend and extend it while twisting your hip. After 10-20 repetitions, transition to transferring weight with a delay. Observe how I do it in the video above.

– Feel the ground with NEUTRAL stance foot shifts: you can choke up on the racket handle and hold it with one hand. In a neutral stance, keep shifting your front foot to different positions (left and right) while you transfer weight and simulate a shortened forehand stroke.

– Feel the ground with OPEN stance foot shifts: we are practicing the variation of the weight transfer in the open stance which depends on the direction of movement. When I move to the right with two steps (as a right-hander), I balance on my right leg as I am executing the stroke. But, when I move to the left with two steps, I will be transferring weight to my left leg while I am executing the stroke.

. Feel the legs (stairs exercise) – perform neutral and open stance forehands on the stairs as shown in the video below. Pay attention to good stability before, during and after the stroke.

6. Feel the chest and shoulder stability – hold the racket at the tips with both arms parallel and apply some pressure. You should feel your upper chest area become more firm. You want to maintain that feeling of firmness (stability) while you perform simple swings back and forth, stopping the racket at shoulder height. Practice in neutral and open stance.

7. Core activation – perform core activation exercises again for 30 seconds in order to prepare the body to lead and the arms to follow in the next exercise.
8. Feel the arm swings – start without the racket and swing your arms in a horizontal figure 8 shape while keeping them parallel. Practice in neutral and open stance. This drill has been shown in more detail in the Universal Swing video article.

9. Feel the wrist lag – hold the racket very gently with the index finger through the throat. Perform figure 8 swings by the side of your body. The goal is to always lead with the butt of the racket and allow it to flip at the extremes of the swing (at the back and in the front).

10. Put everything together – try to connect and coordinate all the movements together in a smooth manner. You can now hold the racket by the handle as usual and also perform the forehand technique as you usually do with your own style.

Fixing The Most Common Mistakes Performing The Exercises

The exercises work only if you perform them correctly. While they look very simple and easy to copy, there are some nuances that you need to pay attention to.

a) Proper posture when transferring weight

You may want to lean backwards as you transfer weight on the back leg as that’s how you interpret or imagine the weight on the back leg.

But if you lean back, you will lose balance and power. It will also take a split second longer to transfer weight forward as you’re fighting your own weight.

Instead, you need to always maintain a forward-leaning posture even when you transfer weight backwards. This principle applies to all three strokes demonstrated in this article: the forehand, the one-handed backhand and the two-handed backhand.

We don’t transfer weight to the back foot by leaning backwards but by rotating the upper body and coiling the hips.

You will still feel most of the weight on the back foot, yet you’ll be leaning forward which will make it easy, quick and strong to initiate the stroke forward.

b) Stable foot on the stroke finish

A common mistake is to transfer weight so far forward that the heel of your front foot leaves the ground.

At that moment, you are very unstable as most of your body weight has to be balanced only on the balls of the feet.

The correct way of stabilizing yourself is to keep the whole foot on the ground with the weight equally distributed over the whole foot.

You can find more detailed explanations of the importance of balance and how to work on balance in previous articles.

c) Coiling the hips

This problem happens mostly in the open stance forehand where the player bends their knees but doesn’t really coil the hips/pelvis backwards.

Only when you coil the hips well can you connect the lower and upper body well.

That means that when you drive upwards with your legs, the force will transfer well through the pelvis to the upper body.

d) Releasing the heel in open stance forehands

Sometimes when players are not used to the open stance forehand, they will keep their heels on the ground as they transfer weight from leg to leg.

This is a problem because, in doing so, they block the pelvis rotation and cannot execute the stroke well.

The heels need to leave the ground as the foot pivots a bit because this lets the pelvis and the rest of the body freely rotate.

e) Swinging the arms freely

Sometimes players are unable to relax and swing their arms since they have so much tension in them.

If you have this problem, try the jacket trick first. Wear a sports jacket but don’t put your arms in the sleeves, just keep them pressed against your body.

The sleeves are now freely dangling down, and if you start turning your body left and right, the sleeves will flail around and follow the body movements.

That can give you a clear mental image of what should be happening with your arms and also help you really focus on body movements since your arms are not engaged.

After a while, take the jacket off and try to repeat the figure 8 arm swings and see if you can relax your arms better.

f) Being able to engage and twist the pelvis

Not engaging the pelvis is probably the most common mistake at the recreational level when hitting forehands. It’s part of the “hitting the ball late” problem.

When you contact the ball late, you have to twist your body in a certain way to still make the ball go over the net.

Of course, players may play tennis like that for years with a stroke that is powerless and uncomfortable and therefore inaccurate.

I correct pelvis rotation with 95% of the recreational tennis players I work with. That’s why it’s so important that you perform the exercises shown in these at-home tennis forehand workouts in order to retrain your body to move in new ways.

Correcting pelvis rotation is usually done through some isolation exercises or exaggeration exercises so that the player really feels the pelvis and is well aware of it.

A simple exercise to start with is a crossover warm-up drill that is used in many sports as a part of the warm-up routine.

A more advanced exercise is to get into a “bear” position – see the pic below – and twist your pelvis and legs left and right.

For those who want to go deeper into the biomechanics of the forehand and feel that they are very uncomfortable while playing, check out the No-Thought Tennis Biomechanics course.

One-Handed Backhand At-Home Tennis Workout

The one-handed backhand workout follows very similar structure to the forehand, so we’ll just skip the open stance weight transfers and put a bit less focus on the core.

I will also shorten the descriptions when they are the same as for the forehand.

1. Reset exercise
2. Core activation
3. Pelvis/hips activation – same as the forehand, just do it on the backhand side of your body.
4. Feel the ground and weight transfer drills – same as the forehand
– Feel the ground with NEUTRAL stance foot shifts
– Feel the ground with OPEN stance foot shifts – no need to do this as it rarely happens on the one-handed backhand.
5. Feel the legs (stairs exercise)
6. Feel the arms movement – hold the racket as usual for your backhand and perform figure 8 swings by the side of your body without releasing the racket. Make sure your pelvis and the rest of your body are moving in smooth, gentle sways as you swing the body by your side. Also pay attention to the vertical swings of the racket. Observe carefully in the video and images how I do it.

7. Feel the back – this exercise is unique to the one-handed backhand since we engage more of the back muscles when we play a one-handed backhand. Extend the arms as shown in the picture and squeeze together your shoulder blades, firm up your upper back and hold for a few seconds. Repeat 10-20 times.

8. Put everything together – try to connect and coordinate all the movements together in a smooth manner.

Common Mistakes On The One-Handed Backhand

Players tend to repeat the mistakes from the forehand side so let’s take a look at a couple of examples.

a) Proper posture when transferring weight

The same principle of forward-leaning posture applies here. Even though you transfer weight on the back foot, you shouldn’t lean backwards but maintain forward posture with your upper body.

b) Not engaging the pelvis

The pelvis twist is not as obvious and pronounced as it is on the forehand side, but it’s still there.

Players often focus too much on the upper body and miss the leg drive that connects with the pelvis and twists it.

So, I’d like to offer one more reminder to always perform the pelvis activation exercises even for the one-handed backhand.

c) Keeping space between the racket and the body

Players sometimes pull the racket too close to the body as they go through the backswing, and that prevents a nice loop at the side of the body that allows you to easily generate power.

If you follow the exercises as shown in the workout above, you’ll be on the right track to correcting this mistake.

d) Using the wrist to flick or to attempt to apply topspin

Players mistakenly believe that since the wrist is allowing movement of the hand on the forehand side, there’s also an active wrist movement on the backhand.

Even more sad is to observe a tennis pro teach it like that.

There is no active wrist movement on the one-handed backhand except in emergency situations.

While the pros may release the wrist a bit more (there’s a difference between releasing and actively engaging it), recreational tennis players should not actively flick the wrist as they play backhands.

The wrist should be nicely firm and stable. While there is some small movement while accelerating towards the ball, this movement is not active.

It’s best to focus on engaging mostly your arm from the shoulder joint. Your legs and pelvis of course engage first, and finally you drive the racket through the ball mostly from the shoulder joint using the whole arm.

One reason why players want to loosen up their wrist is to get under the ball. But tt’s just an optical illusion that the racket got below the level of the ball by relaxing the wrist.

The wrist actually stays firm in the same position, but it’s the whole body that tilts, which positions the shoulders in an upward direction and also positions the racket at an upward angle.

Two-Handed Backhand At-Home Tennis Workout

As you will see, the the two-handed home workout follows almost exactly the same structure as the forehand since the two strokes are biomechanically similar.

It’s as if we wanted to hit a forehand with the non-dominant hand and we just added the dominant hand for extra support.

1. Reset exercise
2. Core activation
3. Pelvis/hips activation – neutral and open stance
4. Feel the ground and weight transfer – same as the forehand, using the neutral stance and the open stance with one or both variations
– Feel the ground with NEUTRAL stance foot shifts
– Feel the ground with OPEN stance foot shifts
5. Feel the legs (stairs exercise)
6. Feel the wrists lag – Perform figure 8 swings by the side of your body and make sure to always create an impulse from your hips. The movement is exaggerated, so observe carefully how I demonstrate in the video. This is not a final technique. It’s just an exercise to help you loosen up the wrists.

7. Feel the arms extension – extend the non-dominant arm fully in the follow-through and don’t bend it. You should end up with the racket in a vertical position.

8. Put everything together – try to connect and coordinate all the movements together in a smooth manner.

Common Mistakes On The Two-Handed Backhand

I would point out two of the most common mistakes that specifically apply to the two-handed backhand.

a) Not engaging the pelvis (and hitting the ball on the side / late)

As it’s the case on the forehand, pelvis not engaging / rotating is very common on the two-handed backhand.

I already explained that in detail in a separate article on correcting the two-handed backhand so I recommend you follow the link.

b) Not allowing the wrists / hands to move

Because players have two hands on the racket they feel they can be really “strong” and they tighten their wrists too much.

But while you may feel strong, your two-handed backhand isn’t because you are eliminating one joint area that can contribute to power.

That’s why it’s very important to do the wrists drill for the two-hander in order for you to loosen up that segment and allow it to be part of the whole stroke.

Observe carefully the pros in slow motion and you will see how much movement there is in the wrists on the two-handed backhand.

In summary, I wanted to share with you that I learned tennis groundstroke and volley technique on my own by practicing at home doing shadow swings.

I never had one single tennis lesson in my life, yet I developed such good technique that I passed all coaching certifications on the first try.

I didn’t know all the details I am explaining to you now, but I intuitively practiced in a very similar way and also did a lot of shadow swings in front of the mirror.

So, while these exercises may not look very exciting, they are very effective in helping you coordinate your body better in order to produce controlled and effortless tennis strokes.

They will really prove their effectiveness if you stick with them for an extended period of time, and the best part is that you can practice these workouts at home or even in a hotel room if you’re traveling.

Drill #1: Drop Feed The Ball And Hold Balance

The first drill for improving your balance in tennis is to just drop feed the ball to yourself, hit it and maintain balance for a couple of seconds.

Do not pay much attention to the ball, but pay attention to how stable you feel on the ground and how the weight is distributed on your foot.

If you’re falling off slightly to any side, you’ve lost balance.

On easy balls like this, you should be able to stay on the spot, stabilizing on the foot/leg that is used mostly for the stroke.

If you play a neutral stance forehand and you’re a right-hander, then you stabilize on the left leg that is in front.

I suggest you try the neutral and open stance for both the forehand and the backhand groundstroke and observe how stable you feel in each situation.

You can find a more detailed demonstration of a forehand drill in a recent article.

Drill #2: Hold Balance Until The End Of The Follow-Through While You Rally

The next progression of improving your balance in tennis is done while you rally cooperatively with a partner.

Your goal is to maintain your balance/position until you complete the follow-through.

Higher skilled tennis players do this automatically without really being conscious of it because they feel that controlling their balance and body movement in space allows them to control the ball better.

You may feel at first that there is not enough time to hold your position for a second longer, but you will soon realize that that’s not true.

The sensation of not having enough time usually comes from playing competitive tennis all the time and being rushed and jerked around by your opponent.

Once you settle down in a nice cooperative rally with your partner, you’ll see that there is more than enough time to pay attention to balance at the end of each stroke.

Observe the pros in their warm-ups and note how long they maintain balance in relation to their follow-through.

Here’s a wonderful demonstration by Roger Federer of how to practice and reinforce good balance every single time you warm up for a tennis lesson.

Do NOT look at his racket or stroke technique, look at his feet!

Drill #3: Learning To Plant Your Foot Well

If you want to balance well on one foot, which is necessary in the game of tennis, then it’s very important that you plant that foot firmly on the ground.

There is a special technique for this in tennis, and you can develop this technique as well as gain more awareness of how to do it right with this simple drill.

Take a softer tennis ball and put it on the ground. Step on it and position your shoe so that the ball is in the middle of the front half of the shoe – that is, in the middle of the ball of the foot.

Choke up on the grip of your racket so that your attention will not be on your hands and stroke technique but rather on your feet and legs.

Squash the ball by pressing on it and simulate your stroke gently. You do not need to exactly execute your stroke technique because that’s not the focus on the exercise.

Very important – keep your heel on the ground!

If your heel gets off the ground, you will lose balance.

When we plant the foot down in an actual tennis game, we need to put the heel down first and then place the rest of the foot down. The foot needs to stay on the ground if we are positioned well on the ball.

Practice applying pressure on the ball and simulating your stroke repeatedly for about 30 seconds. Then, remove the ball and execute the stroke normally with your foot on the ground.

Note if there’s any difference in your awareness of the foot on the ground and if there’s any difference in how stable you feel on the ground.

Since you have removed the ball, imagine squashing down the rubber sole of your tennis shoe.

Apply force down to the ground.

If you do it right in a springy fashion, you will feel the upward force from the ground as Newton’s third law explains.

Apply this drill to neutral and open stance forehands and backhands during practice 2-3 times per week.

I am quite certain you will have a different awareness and ability to stabilize yourself after even a week or two of practicing.

Drill #4: Balancing On The BOSU Ball

The BOSU ball is a very good training aid for improving balance and performing other exercises especially for improving your core strength.

Similar to the exercises on a soft ball from drill #3, you can practice your groundstrokes on each leg standing on the BOSU ball.

Observe carefully how I demonstrate in the video above. Practice this drill in the gym if you have the opportunity.

Drills #5: Go Pro – The Higher Level Balance Training By The Tennis Pros

If you want to work on your balance on an even higher level, then you’ll have to hire a conditioning coach and have them design specific balance exercises for tennis.

You may not be aware of how much emphasis the tennis pros and their teams put on balance, so I deliberately wanted to show you a few video clips of what’s being done on the pro tour.

To see tennis-specific balance training, I recommend these YouTube videos / channels from Duglas Cordero, especially the drills with Fabio Fognini:

Check out the Better Bodies Tennis Factory channel, where there are short video clips from training sessions of the pros, including some balance training.

I hope that these videos give you some insight into the importance of balance in tennis as was my intention with this video article.

In summary, I believe balance is the most important fundamental of tennis groundstrokes, and I always correct balance first, especially when working with an adult recreational tennis player.

In almost all cases, players control the ball much better with no changes to their stroke technique (which is difficult to change in a short amount of time!) just because they balance better while executing their strokes.

After the player gets more awareness of their balance and is stabilizing better before and during every groundstroke, we can progress to correcting other elements of their strokes.

The Primary Problem Of Playing Tennis

To better understand the importance of balance/stability, we need to go one level deeper and ask ourselves: what is the actual primary problem of playing tennis (or any sport that involves balls)?

That problem is controlling the ball.

We would like the ball to go in a way that we want, whether that’s into a target area on a tennis court, into a basketball hoop, into a golf hole, or past the block into the court in a volleyball spike.

In all these and other sports that involve balls, we try to make the ball go in a certain trajectory to reach a certain target.

And in none of such sports is complete control of the ball possible.

In other words, no one can play tennis with zero unforced errors, just like no one has a 100% shooting percentage in basketball or even in putting on the green in golf.

We only deal with probabilities. That’s how all sports were designed, and that’s why they are exciting to the audience.

Spectators are never 100% sure that their favorite team or player will win since they are not in complete control of the outcome.

If they were, it would cease to be a sport anymore.

Back to tennis…

Tennis is an especially difficult sport because we hit the ball with a racket, which makes it much harder to control than if you were holding the ball in your hand and throwing it.

The Common Sense Instinctive Solution To Controlling The Ball

As soon as you started to play tennis, it became painfully obvious how difficult it is to control the ball, meaning how difficult it is just to rally cooperatively with your partner while keeping the ball in play.

You were immediately faced with the “ball control” issue, and you also likely realized that the ball goes in the direction of where the racket face is pointing at the moment of contact. (We’ll ignore heavy topspin and slice shots for now since they are more advanced.)

The instinctive way to control the racket head is to stiffen the wrist and control the arm movement since the racket is obviously in your hand.

Logic dictates that, in order to control the ball, you need to control the racket angle. You do that by holding the racket really tight, not allowing it to flail around or wobble, and therefore you also stiffen the wrist.

The entire focus of the player then goes into the hand and the arm movements as they seem to be the key to controlling the racket angle and the trajectory of the ball.

So, the player is basically just trying to reach the ball, not paying attention to balance and calm and steady body movements.

The player does not realize that it is the loss of balance during the hitting phase that contributes mostly to the loss of control of the racket head and therefore loss of control of the ball.

A higher-skilled tennis player already knows and feels that they will have good racket head control (and therefore ball control) if they control their body well.

And by “controlling the body,” I mean mostly dynamic balance.

Even though I move while hitting the ball, I am not thrown off balance through various forces, such as from my movement or because of my own swings.

Because you never really fall down when playing tennis – which would be a really obvious message to you that you lost balance – you don’t realize that you are often losing balance somewhat and then regaining it by “catching yourself.”

It is this short loss of balance that I want to make you aware of because this loss of balance happens right when you’re hitting the ball, which makes it affect the consistency and power of your strokes.

The Disadvantages Of Losing Balance

In what ways does this loss of balance negatively affect your strokes? It affects your play in at least 4 ways:

a) Unstable base

Imagine shooting at a target with a rifle while you are standing on a boat that’s rocking on sea waves.

You would surely not be accurate, but it’s not your rifle’s fault. Instead, it’s that your base/foundation is moving while you’re shooting.

In the same way, it’s not your forehand’s fault if you miss a shot. It’s more likely your loss of stable base that caused inaccurate forehands or even mistakes.

b) Inability to rotate the body fully into the ball

If you are off balance, falling off slightly to the side or backward, and you attempt to fully rotate your body (from hips to shoulders), you would fall on your back. Feel free to try; just have a soft cushion on the ground for landing.

We subconsciously feel that loss of balance, and the brain will simply stop body rotation at some point before it’s too late to recover.

When we cannot fully rotate the body into the ball (which is the key on forehands and two-handed backhands), then we lose the consistency and power of the stroke.

We have no other way to hit but mostly with the arm, which results in muscling the ball and inaccurate shots.

c) Tension in the body and arm

When you’re stable and balanced, there is no real stiffness in the body and arm because stability allows you to be comfortable.

When you’re off balance, you’ll be tight in various segments of your body and you’ll execute strokes in a jerky way, which means you’re losing control of the racket head and therefore of the ball.

d) Panic or anxiety as you’re hitting the ball

When you’re losing balance, your mind goes into a short period of panic since you’re actually beginning to fall.

The brain then has to react quickly by triggering certain movements to keep you balanced.

If you’re in a temporary state of panic or anxiety exactly as you’re hitting the ball, then you’re likely losing a clear intention of the shot and not really watching the ball well.

Again, you can see how this will negatively affect your ability to control the ball and hit it well in the sweet spot with the right timing.

But, when you are well balanced and stabilized before and during the stroke, you will feel calm!

Stability of the body doesn’t in any way excite the mind, and you can calmly process the incoming ball flight and execute the stroke.

Why Aren’t You Balanced (In The First Place)?

Before we go into how to improve balance, it’s good to become aware of the causes of poor balance and stability in your game of tennis.

a) You play points before you develop fundamentals.

When you play competitive tennis before learning about the importance of balance (and actually feeling the difference!), then you’ll only be focused on reaching the ball rather than positioning well for it.

Since the tennis scoring system is very harsh in that the opponent gets a point if you make a mistake, getting the ball into play and not missing seems to be the most important part of the game.

When that’s your mindset, then all you want to do is to reach that small, fast tennis ball flying away from you.

As you play like that and repeat your movements to the ball and stroke movements to hit it, your brain keeps memorizing them. You’re creating a habit.

That hurts your game in the long term. In time, you may track the ball better, feel more time, and not feel so rushed, YET you still won’t try to balance yourself well before the stroke.

I see that every time with a new adult client that I work with. Most of them are not beginners, yet they are still losing balance and falling off even though they are now perfectly capable of balancing better.

It’s the habit that holds them back – and, of course, their lack of awareness, which I am attempting to create now with this article.

b) Your feet are too close together when hitting a stroke.

This problem is simply physical and can be improved relatively quickly with awareness and training.

When players move toward the ball, they end up in a position where their feet are close together.

That provides very poor base/stability once the player swings their racket because their own swing creates inertia that throws them off balance.

If the players are more advanced, they can learn to keep their feet wider relatively quickly.

A simple rule of the thumb for an adult male is to be able to place a racket between their feet on the ground. (from the handle to the top of the racket head)

That’s how wide you should stand before initiating your swing toward the ball.

For a female, the width of the stance is a bit less on average; of course, it all depends on height.

I know from experience that players feel very strange when I ask them to place their feet so far apart, so don’t immediately reject this idea when you feel somewhat uncomfortable.

Encourage yourself to play in a wider stance (whether neutral or open), and see how you’ll adjust to it and what benefits it gives you.

c) Your posture is too upright.

When you are not in an athletic position, then you’re not really well balanced when you move around the court.

If you are too upright, you can get away with it when the ball is short since you’ll step forward.

In the process, you’ll learn forward slightly and end up in a good athletic posture (unless your knees stay completely straight).

But, when it comes to open stance strokes or moving backward, then a too-upright posture will end up with you leaning backward when hitting a stroke, and that will cause a loss of balance and loss of ball control.

In sports like basketball, soccer, and volleyball, participants maintain an athletic forward-leaning posture even if we move backward – and the same applies to tennis.

Those who have played more sports in their life will likely do that naturally correctly, and those who don’t come from sports backgrounds and have started to play tennis in their adulthood will have to be taught specifically how to move around the court and how to maintain an athletic posture even when moving backward.

d) You would like to conserve energy 

Players don’t position well or attempt to balance for the stroke because they are lazy – or, said in a nicer way, they would like to conserve energy.

They may simply avoid the physical discomfort that all people feel when we move more intensely or for a longer period of time.

As soon as they get signals from their body that the current activity is causing this discomfort, they will try to consciously or subconsciously avoid it or lessen the discomfort in some way. This attempt translates to less movement, lower intensity movement, or not really using the leg muscles fully.

A person who went through a lot of physical training in the past also feels discomfort, but they are used to it and they simply ignore it.

They know it’s a LOOOONG way from this current discomfort they feel to the discomfort caused when their body is signaling them to stop with the activity before some serious injury or complete depletion of energy reserves happens.

A person who has never trained will feel immediately that their level of discomfort is already dangerous to their health and their energy reserves – but they are very wrong.

They simply haven’t tested their limits, and they have no idea what their body can take in sports activities.

We coaches face this issue every single day when working with tennis juniors because they are always resisting hard work.

We don’t really need to call them lazy – it’s a derogatory expression and simply lowers their self-esteem and their self-confidence.

Rather, we just need to understand that there are levels of sensitivity to physical discomfort and that a junior is just at the beginning of their “desensitization” process.

In the long term, they will accept physical discomfort as part of the game and will not avoid it anymore.

This same thought process applies to adults who never trained hard, except that, in this case, there is no one to push you through such sensitivity levels. You have to do it yourself.

Again, you were likely not aware of such thing as different sensitivity levels of physical discomfort and how we need to desensitize players to them so that they care only about the highest level of performance they strive for in order to play tennis to the best of their ability.

Getting to the ball early enough to position well and balance takes more effort than just to reach it!

So, until the player feels the benefit of balance and stability, they will likely just keep reaching for the ball and playing tennis off balance while blaming their strokes for mistakes rather than their feet. As a result, they will never get to the next level.

Yes, really never.

For many years, I have been observing some local tennis players that play on the courts nearby, and they have no idea that it’s their loss of balance that causes poor shots.

They still reach, lean, and lunge for balls and never figure out that this hurts their consistency and power.

I hope this article helps you become more aware of the importance of balance because, in my view, you cannot play any decent level of tennis without stabilizing really well before and during the stroke.

e) You have weak legs.

If your legs are weak, then they cannot act as springs.

When we hit a neutral stance forehand or backhand, which means we step forward into the ball, leg strength is not a key issue unless the ball is really low.

We can easily stop our forward momentum with the front leg acting as a brake without needing much leg strength.

But, when we play an open stance after we have been moving to the side (which is a very common situation in tennis), then the outside leg has three functions:

• it needs to stop you first from the sideways movement;
• it needs to bend and load to store energy;
• and it needs to extend and release that energy upward through the pelvis.

All this happens in a split second. If the leg is weak, it cannot do all those three functions.

You will feel that in some way and have one of two reactions. You might keep the leg very stiff as you’ll know that, if you bend it, you won’t be able to extend it to push most of your body weight up.

Or you might bend the leg somewhat, but then you’ll just fall off to the side and lose balance as your leg won’t be strong enough to push you up.

The issue is not just physical but also technical/biomechanical.

When you learn to play tennis incorrectly mostly using your arm, then you neglect the lower body and it simply doesn’t function.

Many tennis players do not feel that their forehand or backhand starts from the ground up.

As a result, they don’t use the legs not necessarily because the legs are weak but because they don’t know how to engage them into the stroke. Even worse, they may not know that legs are the first link in the kinetic chain of tennis strokes.

So, hopefully, this first article of balance in tennis gives you more awareness of why balance is so important and why you may have not paid enough attention to it.

In the second part, we’ll look at some simple ways to work on improving balance and stability for better control and more power in your tennis groundstrokes.