How To Fix Your Tennis Forehand Fundamentals (By Yourself)

Do you want to work on your forehand fundamentals but have no one to play tennis with you?

Is it possible to improve your forehand technique (preparation, swing, neutral and open stance, etc.) just by yourself with a basket of balls?

Yes, in fact, it’s very beneficial to work alone with a basket of balls because you’re not going to be rushed. You’ll have time to check key forehand positions and feel the swing, weight transfer and other parts of the stroke.

Fixing Your Forehand Fundamentals

#1 – Have A Clear Intention

While this whole video article will focus on the forehand technique, you must not forget what you actually want to do with the ball, meaning how you want the ball to fly.

First, picture the right trajectory. You need to have a rough idea of the height of the ball above the net as well as the direction and the depth you would like to hit.

Without a clear intention, you could be mindlessly hitting forehands and blaming your stroke technique for mistakes when in fact it’s your lack of intention that causes mistakes.

#2 – Neutral Stance Forehand Footwork (easy and advanced versions)

Contrary to what you may have heard about development or improvement of your forehand, we are not going to start with a unit turn or a backswing. Instead, we’re going to start from the ground up.

If your forehand is not being executed on a stable base, you’re going to likely miss the shot and it’s not your forehand’s fault.

If the base is shaky, you won’t be accurate as it affects your whole body. That shakiness is shown the most through the movements of the racket face.

Start in the neutral stance forehand with your feet shoulder width apart. This is not a very wide stance, but it will allow you to rotate your pelvis/hips easily.

The main objective is to keep your front foot on the ground.

If you lift the heel of your front foot as you hit, you’ll likely lose your balance.

The heel of your back foot should come up, indicating that you also rotated your hips.

If you’re comfortable hitting a forehand in this stance and you’re able to keep your balance, place your feet wider apart and hit a forehand.

In this case you need to pull your back leg forward as your hips rotate.

The most common mistake in this situation and in general as players hit forehands during play is that they leave the back foot behind since they don’t rotate the hips, which means the leg is not pulled forward.

Players not only keep the foot back, but they sometimes keep it flat on the ground and completely block the hip rotation.

A more advanced way of hitting a neutral stance forehand is to begin in a ready position, start with a unit turn and have your weight on your right leg (for right-handers).

I see so many mistakes just in this phase of the forehand because players don’t stabilize first on the outside leg first.

They either step backward first with the outside leg, which makes them lose balance and waste time with unnecessary steps, or they step immediately forward with the left leg again, somewhat falling into the forehand.

I believe the main cause for these errors is playing points way too early before having solid fundamentals. In match play, the player is rushed most of the time and has no time to be aware of losses of balance or how to properly manage weight transfers for effortless play.

Once you have stabilized on your right leg, drop the ball and step forward into a neutral stance to hit a forehand.

Your objective is again to maintain balance on your front leg and pull your back leg forward as a result of hip rotation.

Note that there is a rhythm to the sequence of stepping forward and hitting the ball.

You can step forward and hit the ball in a wrong rhythm that will again feel very rushed, so I encourage you to experiment with different rhythms and see which one feels best.

Observe me in the video above. Watch how I do it and try to find a similar rhythm.

So the word “groundstroke” finally has meaning to the players as they want to feel the rhythm between the GROUND and the STROKE.

#3 – Hip/Pelvis Rotation (it HAS to be part of the forehand)

The pelvis must rotate as you hit a forehand as it’s the key biomechanical foundation of a forehand.

The pelvis connects the lower and the upper body. If it doesn’t sync with the rest of the body, then it will in fact disconnect the lower and upper body and cause problems with consistency and power.

Lack of hip rotation is one of the most common mistakes in the forehand technique, and I correct it with almost every adult recreational tennis player I work with.

When the pelvis doesn’t rotate, the back foot stays far behind. That’s the easiest way to tell that something is not right.

When you have correct pelvis rotation, your back foot will be pulled forward closer to your front foot and it will rest on the tip of the shoe. If you weren’t wearing shoes, you would rest the back foot on the tip of your big toe.

Of all the tips in this video article, the hip/pelvis rotation is the most important. It’s priority #1.

#4 – Comfortable Arm

The arm needs to be comfortable. Observe how I position my arm into a very comfortable position.

Once you position your arm, there should be no more backswing.

When you drop the ball, you should only execute a downward and then forward motion, as if you were going down a slide or a roller coaster.

The most common mistake when drop feeding the ball is to do additional backswing as you release the ball. That causes trouble with timing, mishits and poor accuracy.

Where exactly to position the arm is explained a bit further below.

#5 – Comfortable Wrist (racket vertical)

The wrist is comfortable when the racket is vertical. That’s because gravity is not pulling the racket head in any direction, so your wrist doesn’t have to fight that pull.

A simple way to feel that position is to put your pinky finger under the butt of the racket as you hold it vertically.

You’ll see that you can just gently hold the handle with the rest of your fingers and it’s very easy to “balance” the racket like that with no strain to your wrist.

If your wrist is in a comfortable position once you begin the downward swing, then your wrist will naturally lag and get into a correct position during the backswing.

You will then feel that you can accelerate your wrist if necessary with either a “slap” feeling into a flat stroke or vertically into a topspin stroke.

If your wrist is already stiff in the preparation, it will not fall into place naturally and you will lack power and accuracy.

#6 – Positions Of The Backswing, The Ball Drop And The Follow-Through – 3×45

The 3×45 is a simple guideline to help you better orient in space.

These are not exact degrees but just approximate angles in space. You can find your own variation of the angles, but try not to deviate too much.

(Note: all positions are described with right-handers in mind.)

Your hitting arm should be positioned at around a 45-degree angle behind you and to your right.

You should aim to drop the ball at around 45 degrees in front of you and to your right.

Your arm needs to be at full stretch, and you should not toss the ball up in the air. Instead, you should simply open your fingers and let the ball drop.

The follow-through can finish at around a 45-degree angle in front of you and to your left.

While the momentum of the swing can take the follow-through a bit further, try to feel how the essential forward movement that gives the ball its trajectory actually finishes at that 45-degree angle.

Players commonly swing too much around the body, meaning too much from right to left, instead of swinging in a more straight linear fashion which controls the ball better.

This 45-degree guideline for the follow-through can help you correct that mistake.

#7 – Open Stance Forehands (2 variations)

I regularly notice in my work with adult recreational players that they are uncomfortable in open stance forehands.

Their coaches have often “forced” them into a neutral stance position for too long. Even though they may have been playing tennis for years now, they still don’t feel how to comfortably and effortlessly hit a forehand from an open stance.

There are two ways we hit an open stance forehand:

• without weight transfer, driving more vertically up from the right leg and holding this position (the weight transfer and recovery happen after the contact) and
• with weight transfer from the right to the left leg as we are executing the stroke.

The first instance happens typically when we move to the right and the second when we move to the left, for example moving around the backhand to hit a forehand.

We are hitting an open stance forehand in both cases, but there is a difference in how the weight transfer syncs with the arm swing.

I suggest you practice both approaches in these easy conditions so that your mind stores these movements into the subconscious. The mind will then use the right movement during your play without you being aware of which variation happened.

Summary

Practicing forehands and backhands alone with a basket of balls is, in my view, an underrated way of practicing.

I personally have hit many thousands of balls from the basket in my teens. At that time, I was unknowingly working on my fundamentals like balance, weight transfer and correct contact point.

I believe that if you cannot execute a stroke perfectly from a drop hit, and do that consistently over many repetitions, you will not execute strokes well during the actual live ball exchange.

If I’ve missed anything or you have any questions on this topic, just let me know in the comments below and I’ll do my best to clarify.