Tomaz, I have been following your channel more than any other online coach for about 1.5 years. We’re trying to assist our daughter (age 9) to learn tennis in addition to occasional pro coaches. We, both decent tennis players, hit with her often to drill and play. Also with our son ( 7). She has quite a natural backhand.

However, her forehand persists to be disconnected from leg and hip power. It might happen occasionally, but only on accident. I’m now confident she’s arming the ball and not maintaining the torso firmness to channel any hip rotation. As an ex-swing and tango dancer myself, I equate this to maintaining “frame.” For dancing it’s essential and without which one really has no hope of dancing well. I tried focusing on non-dominant arm, but that’s not helped much.

I fear we need to rebuild her forehand. Neither of the two pros have made this diagnosis. In fact they led me to believe her forehand is right on track, no problem. Do they shy away from working on that because it’s too challenging??? I cannot believe I’ve allowed it to persist this long. I always thought with time it would just improve, but it’s not.

Sorry for the large windup. Question is this: should I put a stop to my daughter’s free rally time and forehand drills and go off court to develop the biomechanics of the hip/leg/torso relationship? What steps would you recommend considering her age and 2 years of training (one 1.5 have been very serious).

Hi Dale,

If you’re looking at your wrist bend just at home and how much you can bend it (not really swinging a racket), then wrist won’t bend that much. I can bend it around 50 degrees or so.

But when I swing the racket the wrist will bend close to 90 degrees. So your wrist will likely bend more during the swing.

What matters is not much exact degrees but that the wrist comes to the end of its movement, so to the maximum bend position where it stabilizes.

I have the problem that my wrists are not very flexible. They don’t bend back more than about 20 degrees. For the drop technique you are demonstrating the wrist goes back close to 90.

Can I still use this technique or is there a change to it that would suit me and my wrists better?

Thanks for your great videos and advice!

Dale

Thanks for the nice feedback, Robert!

Great to hear tennis technique and natural movements of tai chi have things in common.