So, you’ve read and watched the introductory video article on tennis fundamentals and decided you want to improve the fundamentals of your tennis strokes.
As you know by now, you’ll need to focus on fundamental biomechanics of forehand and backhand groundstrokes as well as the rhythm and timing that control your movements in relation to the incoming ball.
But, in what conditions should you practice?
Is there such a thing as a fundamental position behind the baseline, ideal height of the contact and appropriate rally speed?
Yes. In fact, if you don’t work on your strokes in the right conditions, you may improve very slowly or not at all.
The Fundamental Baseline Position
Here’s a fact I’ve garnered from the last two years of teaching adult recreational tennis players: 100% of them stand too close to the baseline.
I have to tell every single player that I work with to stand further behind the baseline.
(This principle of more space and time begins already in the first few minutes of playing mini tennis.)
And every single one of them tells me that they heard either from TV tennis commentators or from their coaches that they need to stand closer to the baseline and take the ball on the top of the bounce.
I am afraid you have been badly misinformed.
First, taking the ball early on top of the bounce AND executing the stroke technically correctly with the right timing is very, very difficult and, in my view, unattainable for most recreational tennis players.
Taking the ball early on top of the bounce usually results in hitting it late.
Second, this type of hitting the ball suggests attacking the ball, yet you will not be in a position to attack in more than 50% of the situations from the baseline.
You will be in a neutral position from where you need to play the ball deep. Then why take the risk of hitting it on top of the bounce if you can’t apply pressure on your opponent?
You should then hit the ball at the height that is the comfortable for you—and that surely is not above the waist.
Many of you play with not very skilled partners / opponents who constantly play the balls short in the middle of the court. In that case you can stand closer to the baseline.
But don’t take that as the “correct” position. The “correct” distance from the baseline depends on the average depth of the ball you are receiving.
If I play a good player, I stand further back. If I play a less skilled player who plays short all the time, I stand closer to the baseline.
I position myself in a way where I can get lots of balls in ideal contact zone.
Third, if you want to work on your strokes in terms of improving your fundamentals, then “attacking” the ball is not what you’re after.
You need to be in such conditions where you have enough time to calmly execute your technique without rushing and, at the same time, be able to think about your body and make some corrections.
This is my default / fundamental distance to the baseline.
In order to have enough time, you need to step back from the baseline so that the ball flies longer to you.
You will also feel much more free to swing as now there is much more distance to the other baseline. You don’t have to hold back in fear of hitting too long.
Here’s Roger Federer starting a practice session. Note the distance to the baseline…
Standing well behind the baseline also creates a lot of opportunities to hit the ball at a low contact point, which brings us to the second fundamental condition of working on your groundstrokes…
Fundamental Contact Height
As mentioned above, you have likely been told that you should be hitting the ball at waist height and at the top of the bounce.
Well, that’s an advanced way of hitting the ball, and it will happen many, many times naturally, even if you stand further behind the baseline.
But, one of the main goals of standing 1.5‒2 meters behind the baseline is that you receive plenty of balls at a low contact point around your knee height or even lower.
I try to get as many balls as possible at this height.
Why would you want that?
It allows you to swing the racket downward with the help of gravity and develop one of the most fundamental elements of a tennis stroke—a swing.
And by “swing,” I don’t refer simply to the racket path or completing the stroke with a full follow-through as some of you may understand the term “swing”.
By “swing,” I mean the pendulum-like sensation we need to feel and develop over time as we allow the arm with the racket to swing downward, which in turn allows gravity to build momentum along the downward swing path.
This downward swing is one of the key fundamentals that allows us to hit the ball effortlessly.
Simply put, you are using physics to help you create more forward momentum instead of doing everything yourself with your muscles.
Once you feel and know how to harness the physics of the swing and time it correctly, hitting a groundstroke, especially a forehand, is effortless.
Second, by hitting the ball at a low contact point, you will feel more distinctly an upward swing, which is also fundamental to tennis technique.
The downward swing will naturally transition into an upward swing as it simply follows the natural swing path of your arm.
That upward swing will then naturally produce a ball flight in an arc (trajectory), which is another foundation of playing tennis.
The downward swing, upward swing, and ball flying in a trajectory all happen quite naturally if you hit the ball at a low contact point.
But, if you receive most balls around your waist and higher, you may likely imagine hitting the ball horizontally toward the other side instead of picturing a trajectory (arc).
You will have no gravity swing, no low-to-high swing (unless you muscle it), and no trajectory, which means you will lose consistency in your strokes.
(Note: I rarely ever use the “swing low-to-high” instruction with players as they usually misinterpret it. There is a better instruction that develops the right swing path.)
So, there are many reasons why you need to position yourself well behind the baseline and get plenty of opportunities to hit the ball at a low contact point.
I do NOT recommend moving backward when you see a higher ball coming toward you so that you would get it at a lower contact point.
Hold your ground at around 1.5–2 meters behind the baseline, and never move further back from there if you are in a cooperative tennis session.
If the ball comes low, great! Play it at that height (but never lean or reach for the ball!). If the ball comes at waist height or higher, then stay where you are and play it at that height.
Move forward only when really necessary. If you do move, recover back to your original position behind the baseline after you hit your shot.
By hitting lots of balls at a low contact point, you will develop a much better ability to swing your racket like a weight. Then you will be able to partly use that ability and sensation when hitting the ball at higher contact points.
If you observe carefully the pros in practice sessions you will see very often that they hit the ball at knee height and do not move forward to get the ball at a higher contact point. Why? Because it’s the most effortless to hit the ball at that height…
But, as I see recreational players now, they have found no way to “swing” at the ball if it is arriving at waist height or higher, which means they only know how to muscle it.
And if you are reading this now, I assume you’re really interested in learning the correct way to hit a forehand and a backhand. Surely you cannot be happy with yourself knowing and feeling that you cannot hit the ball effortlessly.
My advice is this: hit thousands of balls at low contact points while you work on the fundamentals that I will further explain in this series of video articles. In doing so, you will discover how tennis strokes are actually played at a higher skill level.
Once you feel how to hit with effortless power, you will no longer seek so much power. That brings us to the third condition you need to work on and keep in mind.
Fundamental Rally Speed
Here’s another fact from the last two years of teaching adult recreational tennis players: 90% of them hit the ball too hard/too fast for their current skill level.
(This time the percentage is not 100%, but it’s close….)
And I don’t mean that they hit the ball too hard when they get a short ball and they try to hit a winner.
They hit too hard almost every ball in a warm-up situation, just rallying with me from the baseline or hitting balls that I feed to them from the basket as we work on the strokes.
One of the most common instructions I have to use all the time is “Hit with just 50% power.” or “Slow down.”
We won’t go into the WHY there is such an obsessive desire to hit the ball hard. Perhaps we can open this can of worms next time in a whole new article, but I do invite you to spend some time contemplating this on your own and see if you can uncover something you don’t want to know.
In any case, I strongly suggest you stop trying to hit the ball hard and simply just rally with your partner.
Don't fight the ball, just hit it nicely towards your partner.
Remember that, in a cooperative rally, the goal of your shot is that the ball reaches your partner at a comfortable height for them.
It does not need to reach them at high speed!
It just needs to reach them.
If you give them a nice ball, they will likely be able to send you back a nice ball, which is what you really need if you want to work on your strokes.
You need hundreds and thousands of nice balls flying right into your ideal contact zone so that you can calmly work on grooving your strokes without much running around .
I am NOT suggesting that you hold back on your strokes and apply the brakes as you begin your forward swing. Do not brake.
What I am asking is that you do not ADD power to the natural swing speed that happens when you execute the stroke.
Don’t accelerate additionally as you are hitting the ball, but imagine that the racket head speed through the contact zone is CONSTANT.
Remember, unless you play a very skilled tennis pro, they will not be able to tame and control your erratic, inconsistent shots and return a nice ball. If you play a fellow of roughly your skill level, they will only be able to control the ball well if they receive a nice ball.
Exchanging “nice” balls repeatedly grooves in your technique. It builds a strong, biomechanically sound foundation that will not break down later on in the first situation where you won’t be positioned perfectly or don’t receive the ball at perfect height.
We need to hit many balls in ideal conditions in order to stabilize the technique, develop the sensation of effortless hitting, find our ideal contact zone in terms of height and distance from the body, and develop good ball control.
This approach not only builds the technical foundation of your strokes but also your confidence.
When your strokes don’t work, you feel terribly insecure, and this insecurity and fear further affect and ruin your stroke technique in subsequent shots.
You need to develop the base confidence in your ability to control the ball, and you can do that only by rallying consistently over long periods of time and hitting balls in ideal comfortable conditions.
If you plan to play a match with someone or even if you are going have a free hitting session, make sure that you begin the baseline rallies at low speeds and maintain them for at least 5 if not 10‒15 minutes.
Here’s a nice video where Roger Federer walks on the court to start a practice session and you can see at what speeds he starts to rally from the first ball exchange.
Every pro starts their tennis session rallying at slow speeds in very comfortable conditions, and they try to execute their groundstrokes in a very relaxed manner.
They all know that this is the foundation they need to refresh every single day for a few minutes before they start speeding up their shots.
Summary
In order to work on your fundamentals of forehands and backhands, you need to be in the right conditions.
You need to have enough time to think and play the ball, you need to develop the gravity swing, and you need to hit many balls repeatedly in order to build up confidence in your tennis skills.
That’s why you need to:
- position yourself 1.5–2 meters behind the baseline;
- allow the ball to drop to your knee height and hit it on the way down (when possible); and
- rally at slow/neutral speeds.
And, if you are still not exhaling as you are hitting the ball, then start working on your breathing as that is as fundamental as it gets in tennis.
Coming up next: why is balance/stability so important for executing the groundstrokes correctly?
Excellent instruction. Same stance behind baseline for clay courts?
Yes, same distance. Again, the distance needs to be adjusted so that in rally conditions or practice conditions you get the balls low to your ideal contact point around knee height.
So it depends on the opponent, how high the balls bounce (surface, new balls vs old balls), wind, etc,
Over the years I keep coming back to you for your “Sports” advice because it’s always to “relax, enjoy, take it easy, be smooth and don’t try so HARD!” At 76, I’m playing my best tennis ever BECAUSE I’m no longer trying to KILL the ball, and in the Florida 75’s, it really works. Why is it a major sin to let the ball bounce twice in warm ups? Beats the hell out of me! You keep up the good work, and I’ll keep learning! Best, Q
Thanks for the wonderful feedback, Q!
As a senior 4.5 player I agree with all these points. I play doubles with a group of guys every Sunday. Some are great to warm up with and some not so much! It’s a big help to warm up with someone that hits smooth shots without too much pace with balls that land between the service line and baseline.
It’s funny but not a lot of people are willing to hit smoothly and cleanly in warmup. They often want to rip the ball immediately or try and hit aggressive shots right away. I like the idea of standing way back and just hitting easily around the knees. I have never tried to hit it that low on purpose but I do notice that at that height it is not very hard to hit a nice easy deep ball. Thanks as always!
Do try, Arturo, it’s the easiest way to hit the ball once you get it. It relaxes the body and guides you towards effortless strokes.
This is true and improves the technique.
But if such a style (hitting the downward ball) becomes a habit, then how to speed up the answer and learn how to hit the rising ball
Hi Andrey,
These are fundamentals. As you saw even Federer hits ball at low contact point when the ball is falling down.
And even if you stand 2 meters behind the baseline as you saw me, most of the balls are still waist high and not low.
So hitting at low contact point will not become a habit. Unless of course the player keeps moving backwards which is why I point out that you need to hold your ground.
Many other situations then need to be trained to master them: hitting on top of the bounce, moving backwards, moving forwards, hitting the ball on the rise, hitting incoming slice balls, hitting sitters, etc.
But in all this chaos one needs to know what is the foundation as that gives you the base from which you develop everything else. That’s what I am pointing out in this article.
Thank you Tomaz, your explanation is very usefull.
Andrey
For me the key is something mentioned in the article:
“Many of you play with not very skilled partners / opponents who constantly play the balls short in the middle of the court.”
Every time I play or rally I notice how many of our balls land short, and, more importantly, how late we intermediate players are in reacting to the variation in depth of the incoming ball. In my opinion, this is a much bigger problem for us than stroke mechanics is.
If you’re lucky enough to be rallying with someone who is giving you nice, consistent, relatively deep balls, by all means, stand farther back and wait for the ball to be at the ideal contact point and work on your stroke mechanics.
However, the truth is that for many of us rallies are much more chaotic, both in practice and in matches, so lately I’ve been prioritizing movement toward the ball over stroke mechanics. Is there anything more fundamental than reacting quickly and efficiently to whatever is thrown at you?
Hi Zach,
Perhaps calming down, getting into a good balanced position before the shot and of course finding the right distance to the ball so that you can hit it in your ideal strike zone.
Hi again Tomaz,
Today I tried what you’re suggesting here and got a much better idea of what you’re talking about. Not only does it give you more time to get into position and hit with a relaxed stroke, it also makes it easier to give your hitting partner a nice ball, which makes it easier for them to give you a nice ball in return, etc, so that the length and quality of the rally go up overall.
It’s funny, I had a teacher years ago who always told me to let the ball drop in order to be able to brush up on it and impart topspin. This got me into the habit of waiting for the ball or even backing away from it, which other people later commented on, advising me to move toward the ball.
Coming back to this now, I think I’ll be more aware of it as an exercise or a phase of a hitting session and it won’t lead me back into any bad habits.
Hi Zach,
If you can convince your partner to practice like this with you for periods of time, you will both improve in tennis.
Ball judgment has to improve and the ability to hit the ball deep has to improve. You can swing more freely but at the same you have to hit the ball cleanly to get good power so you have to pay attention to the ball well and try and get as many clean hits as possible.
Fantastic as always.
I also notice that even (especially!) the pros, who are amazing at taking balls off the rise, back up significantly behind the baseline quite often to give themselves more time. (not just in the warmup)
Wawrinka, for example, tends to start his matches returning serves way behind the baseline, and as his timing improves through the course of the match he sometimes moves in.
I saw this tip of yours a while ago and began warming up much farther back, even in the brief warmups before my matches. It actually IMPROVED my ability to take balls early once the match begins, because I was more fundamentally sound – I was hitting the ball in a more relaxed way and with better timing.
Thanks Tomaz. As usual it makes good sense what you say, and is a relief to read: ie I’m thinking, “ok, I don’t have to belt the hell out of the ball, why do I keep forgetting that”. One thing though I worried about as I was reading this was a fear that my opponents will drop shot me. I guess I have to be more alert to their postures and ready to come in. Any thoughts on that?
Hi Paul,
Good question that haunts so many of you.
I am explaining FUNDAMENTALS.
You do this in practice sessions and warm ups, NOT IN MATCHES!
In matches you need to move back and forward depending on the situation.
I still have a base quite far behind the baseline. If someone drop shots me, I have to read that, I have to anticipate when is a good situation / opportunity for my opponent for playing a drop shot.
When I assess that they have a good position for a possible drop shot, I move closer to the baseline.
And finally, I would be way more worried of hitting normal rally balls late and not cleanly than not getting to an occasional drop shot.
You will hit over a hundred balls from behind the baseline in a match and receive a handful of drop shots. Which of those are more important to be played well?
Update-I’ve been practicing this way and it helps SO much! The knee height contact point has been especially great. It seems paradoxical but I’m actually BETTER able to react to fast/high balls if I start out this way.
Thank you!!
This article is 100 percent beautiful advice. Thank you Tomaz.