“Correct tennis technique does not put the ball in.”
That’s the statement with which I start the conversation with Colin, who was really interested in understanding how and why we work on tennis stroke technique.
I begin with this statement because I know from my experience working with hundreds of tennis players that, in most cases, they fall into a trap of incorrect thinking.
In the past, I shared a very extensive article on the myth of tennis technique, and I invite you to go over it again because I still see so much confusion even with players who are familiar with my work.
So, the incorrect thinking I refer to is that players think that, if they execute the stroke correctly (or better), then the ball will go into the court.
Also, when they miss a shot (into the net, long or wide), their first thought is about what they did technically wrong and what they should correct on their next attempt.
In other words, they are looking ONLY into the mechanics of the stroke. They are looking for a problem and a solution there, and they almost never look for a problem and a solution in their own mind.
What needs to be present in the mind in order to have a high probability of hitting the ball in the court is a clear and early intention of how exactly you want the ball to fly.
Do you have a clear picture of the ball trajectory in your mind?
In fact, the lack of a clear and early intention is the most common reason for missing a shot and NOT incorrect mechanics!
The proof of that is right in front of your eyes; there are literally millions of tennis players with poor tennis technique who regularly win matches.
What is the secret to their success?
They simply PLAY tennis, meaning they only read what is coming towards them and respond with their clear and early intention of what they want to do with the ball.
While their imperfect technique limits them in achieving higher speeds and higher precision of their shots, it is still good enough for them to execute what they had in mind with high consistency.
That’s why it’s so crucial that you are aware of BOTH possible reasons for hitting a poor shot: stroke mechanics and intention.
There are of course many other reasons why you hit a poor shot like poor ball judgment resulting in poor timing in poor distancing from the ball, poor balance, anxious mind causing jerky movements at contact as you look away from the ball, etc. But the main reason for missing is still lack or clear and early intention that I am pointing out in this article…
And in this talk with Colin, I use an analogy of a car and a driver that best describes the combination of stroke technique and intention.
Correcting a stroke is simply tuning the car’s engine and steering mechanism so that the car can drive better.
Improving technique is like improving a car's engine and steering...
But, that doesn’t mean that the car will automatically and autonomously do that.
YOU need to drive it.
You need to look ahead on the road and drive the car, paying attention to other cars, pedestrians, traffic lights, crossroads and other things that happen on the road.
You need to "tell" your car / tennis technique what you want!
You are constantly monitoring the situation in real time and responding as quickly as possible to all events unfolding in front of you.
You are not concerned with how you operate the car; rather, you simply “want” the car to go left, and your arms turn the steering wheel.
You simply want the car to go slower, and your foot pushes on the brake pedal.
So, yes, when you were learning to drive the car, you had to do both: learn how to operate the car for the first time (levers, switches, shifting gears, etc.) and at the same time drive on the road.
You could not possibly just think about how to operate the car and not pay attention to the road; otherwise, you would crash in a matter of seconds.
Yet, now that you play tennis, you may be making that exact mistake – whenever you “crash” your shot into the net or go long or wide, your first thought goes to the mechanics and what went wrong there, rather than your mind and what went wrong there.
Your first thought goes to what was wrong with the car that you crashed and not to what the driver did wrong to cause that crash.
Hopefully, you can see the ignorance of doing that, especially considering that (in my opinion) most mistakes happen because of a lack of clear and early intention and not because of poor mechanics.
Do poor mechanics contribute to missing shots in tennis?
Yes, of course, that’s why we keep working on improving tennis technique, but we must always also check for the poor mental skills that contribute to hitting poor shots.
That’s why I point out in the video above that we must CHOOSE to control the ball (speed, depth, height, spin) once we improve the technique.
Stroke technique itself is simply a complex movement of the body and limbs without a purpose.
What better technique gives you is simply a more efficient and effortless way of hitting the ball – but it does NOT determine the ball’s trajectory!
A better technique also enables you to better control the ball – but only if you choose to do so with your intention!
With a better one-handed backhand technique you can create topspin more easily and more effectively – but only if you decide to do that before you swing towards the ball!
Or you can hit the ball flatter. Or you can control depth and height better.
But only if you decide to do that in your mind early and clearly enough!
Please let me know if you really understand what I am saying here! This is crucially important to understand – otherwise you will be confused and frustrated for as long as you play tennis not really knowing what causes mistakes and how to minimize them.
You need to prepare a response to every single ball that flies towards you and know at what speed, height and spin, and in which direction you want to hit that ball in order to effectively use your newly improved technique.
And, you need to prepare that response in a split second before the ball lands on your side of the court. Otherwise, your body will not have enough time to adjust the stroke technique to the purpose you just imagined.
As I point out in the beginning of the video above, tennis is not a sport like artistic skating where you get points for executing the technique correctly.
In ice skating you get points for correct form. Not in tennis...
You get points only for causing your opponent enough trouble that they miss the shot or by hitting winners.
Of course, you also get points for your opponent’s unforced errors, but you have no hand in those.
Your opponent simply misses the shot, “losing” to the sport of tennis by not being able to put the ball in that huge 100-square-meter court over a 1-meter-high net.
So, my main point in this first part of the technique talks with Colin is that, while we are working on his one-handed backhand technique to improve it, he won’t magically start hitting all the balls in.
We are simply “tuning” the engine of his car and upgrading his steering mechanism and adding 4-wheel drive. This better engine will not magically drive better or make correct decision on the road.
Colin needs to make sure he is able to read the incoming ball quickly and early enough and make a clear and early decision on how he wants to play it back (having a clear intention on the exact trajectory of the ball).
Only then can his improved one-handed backhand technique (engine, steering, 4-wheel drive) do a better job of executing that task than he was able to do before our lessons.
In the upcoming parts 2 and 3 of our discussion, we’ll look at the importance of biomechanics in learning tennis strokes and how it helps us develop more effortless and consistent tennis strokes.
Hi Tomaz. I enjoyed this discussion and the related youtube video on clear and early intention. I have started to introduce this into my game and seen improvements. My question is when you are receiving a serve that is not too fast/powerful do you have 2 different intentions depending on whether the ball comes to your forehand or backhand?
Regards, Fraser
Hi Fraser, yes, I know beforehand where I will play if the ball comes to my backhand and where if the ball comes to my forehand.
Must first have muscle memory to stroke the ball automatically so I can focus on the ball coming towards me to position myself & decide what I must do to put the where I want it to go
Hi Tomaz. I get what you are saying, but when I decide beforehand where I want the ball to go, my intention seems to override the technique that I have just learned, and I execute the stroke incorrectly, forget to look at the ball and not the target, and the shot goes somewhere I did not intend it to go. Sometimes it still goes in but not where I wanted it to. This happens to me a lot. Will this not improve if I focus more on my technique?
Yes, Richard, that’s why we need to keep going back and forth between technique and intention. The article’s point is that better technique alone does not make the ball go in.
But players often times get so focused on correcting technique that they have no intention at all. They don’t know the height, direction or depth of the ball.
So they focus on technique, have no idea whatsoever how they want the ball to fly, then make a mistake and focus even more on technique and blame it even more rather than checking with themselves whether they actually had an idea what they wanted to do with the ball.
Because if you haven’t had the idea of what you want to do with the ball then don’t blame your technique for missing the shot.
Unfortunately you have to do both, just like when you were learning to drive a car: you had to think about how to operate the levers and switches and pedals and at the same time you had to drive and pay attention to the road. The same applies to learning tennis…
Another way of saying is like this, Richard. If you execute the stroke with better technique, then you will hit the ball better, more effortlessly, more efficiently.
You will feel that, it will feel better.
But that’s all. A better stroke technique simply gives you a much more effortless way of hitting the ball.
Once you have that feeling you have to try and RETAIN it and now you need go back to clearly imagining the ball flight and direction and attempt to play such a ball with this new feeling.
So again, better stroke technique does NOT put the ball in at all, it simply allows you to hit the ball with less effort. For technique to function it needs an intention in the same way as a car needs a driver in order to function well.
This is great stuff. It’s kind of like the idea of being more task oriented rather than process oriented. In other words, you think about the result you want and not so much about the details of technique. So, for example hit the ball deeper and crosscourt. If you’re having trouble doing that consistently, then you take a look at one thing at a time you can change to make it easier to do that. But always with the intention and vision of where and how you want the ball to fly. I would say that’s a very good approach for a lot of people, and for all people at some point to take a break from the relentless focus on minute details of technique and start visualizing every shot. Maybe stay with one type of trajectory for a while. Let’s say high loopy crosscourt forehands. But obviously they have to have a minimum repertoire of technique to achieve this. But it’s good to approach it from the “results” and “intentions” side, even though we are routinely told to “ignore” results and focus on process.
It’s also important to have reasonable intentions. Maybe to start with direction and height vs too much power and spin. I sometimes get a short forehand that I try to hit like a frozen rope down the line. Almost inevitably I hit the net or blast it long. Always, afterward I know that intention was wrong based on my actual capabilities. I could roll into the corner, or not so close to the corner, down the line with almost the same effect on my opponent.
Good points, Robert, thanks for sharing. It all helps to really understand the connection between technique and intention.
Nice article and thought agree none of technique or intention alone can put the ball in…for example last I was playing the match I got high ball on the back and wanted to clearly play it down the line winner but I have never practiced that so not sure how to exactly do it and I hit the ball long…. technique and muscle memory I guess are like educational qualification/degrees and how u use it or purpose is like intentions.. Clear intentions with good technique or skill can make u successful…Nice article tomaz…I guess you should also try to do YouTube live sometime it’s so interesting reading ur posts or learning from videos, talking/discussion will be awesome…keep them coming nice videos…
Thanks for sharing, Rohit.
Yes, I’ll definitely try a live YouTube session as an experiment to see how it goes.
I do agree with the importance of intention and I have to admit that many times I hit regular rally balls with a blank mind. It still goes in because I have a decent technique, but after the shot, I’m realizing I could have done better if I had a clear(er) intention before I’ve hit the ball. Also, sometimes I still fall in the trap of trying to correct technique when I play points and think more about the stroke then what do I want to do with the ball. Believe me that doesn’t help. 🙂 Technique should be corrected during practice sessions.
Also I would appreciate if you can offer some insights about the following situation. What happens with intention when you have to deal with aggressive, fast balls. Most of the times you barely have the time to react and hit the ball. There is definitely no time to get ready mentally and have a clear intention. Still, some of the technique teaches us to get ready physically(before we hit the ball, split step, body turn) and when we hit it’s mostly muscle memory, hopefully with good technique developed over time.
Thank you!
Hi Daniel,
On fast balls the intention is the only thing that should be present. Your mind cannot process thinking about technique and intention at the same time while having very little time.
You simply aim deep down the middle when you receive a fast ball.
Once you do that for thousands of times, it will be automatic just like the intention of keeping the car in the lane is not automatic and subconscious for you and yet it is constantly there, no need for you to consciously think about it.
Some more tips here:
https://www.feeltennis.net/how-to-deal-with-fast-balls/
Hi! Thanks, very interesting articles. I guess that understand your point. But I think you agree that very often it is the technique the reason of the mistake. For example, it is two different techniques to strike the balk deeply to the baseline or make shot strike left/right before service line.
Hi Vladimir,
As I said above, stroke mechanics and intention are two main reasons for mistakes. All I am trying to say in this article that simply focusing on correcting your stroke without having a clear idea of what you want won’t work.
Strokes don’t put the ball in as we need to adjust our swing in angle path and adjust the angle of the racket face slightly on every single ball in order to control it and this only happens if we AIM.
Aiming means having an intention. And by aiming I mean 3D trajectory with height included and not just direction which is what most players do.
Hi Tomaz,
that’s a very interesting analogy.
You said that we are not given points for good technique which is totally true, however it feels so much better (on an emotional level) to do things with the right technique.
Sometimes you can win a point with a jerky an lucky gesture because you were somewhat taken aback by the speed, effect, depth or direction of the ball. It never feels right and I really hate to win a point like this.
It doesn’t make sense and I know many competitors will disagree with me on this but for me there is almost an artistic dimension on the way we perform shots. I think I prefer to lose a match playing “perfect tennis” (which I don’t of course) rather than winning one with an awful technique (which can happens sometimes when the opponent finds your weak spots and exploits them but you somehow manage to prevail in the end).
When I watch professional tennis players I admire the shots they can pull out as well as their technique. I take no pleasure watching a tennis player if I think his technique is somewhat ugly.
Yes, there is a wonderful feeling when we hit the ball right, Gregoire.
But don’t try to do that during matches because you cannot improve your technique during a match. It is what it is.
Attention to technique will also distract you from having full attention on the tactics of the match.
Work on finding that feeling in https://www.feeltennis.net/free-hitting/free hitting sessions so that you ingrain it and that it will be present even in matches even if you don’t pay attention to it.
But don’t try to do that during matches because you cannot improve your technique during a match. It is what it is.
Attention to technique will also distract you from having full attention on the tactics of the match.
Perfect tip !!!!
Whit the short time to decide, play pattern is fundamental or (in your words) clear and early intention.
As always, thanks Tomaz for the tips.
Regards.
Very good points. I often play doubles (senior, 4.5 level) with guys that have excellent technique but too often go for difficult shots. When they are on they play like a Ferrari but when they’re a little off…it’s like a Ferrari that’s out of tune. Way too many unforced errors. Tennis, especially doubles, is a game of error management. Better technique is certainly helpful but only if it is matched with good judgment
This is a good lesson. I was just in court this morning training my backhand for a weekend match and something stood out when I focused on just going deep cross cut.
The balls were flying correctly and my mind was clear. All I told my self was just watching the ball, make good contact and good follow through.
I was not even thinking about my foot work, though my correct stance each time I hit the ball told me I was in order, all because my intention of going cross cut was all I had in my mind
Good one, Tomaz
Hello Tomaz,
Good article. Since I am a big fan of the book “The inner game of tennis” I very well understand what you
mean.
However when I was younger I practised my backhand that much, that it has become a better stroke than my forehand.
As I tried today to aim more with hight, speed etc. I felt that this works much better with my backhand than forehand. And yes this made me think a lot about my forehand techniques. Conclusion: more practicing the forehand?
BR
Rob
The Netherlands
Practicing good technique allows us better “odds” of making a shot efficiently, so in match play we can concentrate on placement, strategy, enjoyment of the game.