Hitting an open stance forehand may sound a like an advanced type of a tennis forehand that you use only in some specific situations but I would like to show you that every forehand initially starts as an open stance and from there it transitions to a neutral stance when necessary.
One of the biggest problems in tennis, especially on the forehand side, is hitting the ball late. When you hit the ball late, you have no choice but to break down your technique in order to still hit the ball over the net.
Hitting the forehand late robs you of power and control because your technique is incorrect.
One of the main causes of those mistakes is that the player steps into a neutral stance forehand before they read the ball.
There are two main reasons why players just step into a neutral stance without reading the ball:
- They have been taught to do that by inexperienced coaches who failed to teach them open stance, and they have therefore ingrained the forehand preparation in such a way that they automatically step forward as they turn the upper body.
- They step into a neutral stance because they believe it’s better to play neutral stance than open stance. These players are more aware of their choice of stance, and they are forcing it because of their belief rather than letting the brain subconsciously figure out which stance is better for each new situation. What is interesting about these players is that even though they can play open stance well, they don’t realize that it functions better on deep, high or fast balls. Perhaps they are stuck in their belief system.
When players steps into a neutral stance too early without reading the ball and the ball happens to be slower, lower and shorter, then the neutral stance forehand works out just fine. Those few instances unfortunately give these players a false sense that this is the right approach.
When they step in early and the ball happens to be deep, high or fast, then in most cases they will hit it late with incorrect technique.
While they may realize that they were late, they don’t realize that the cause for that late contact was their early neutral stance positioning.
This raises the question: what does a higher skill level player do differently?
They always assume a difficult situation – meaning the ball coming in deep, high or fast – and they prepare just with the unit turn while staying in open stance.
Every forehand starts as an open stance and then possibly…
They make necessary sideways adjustments to align with the ball’s flight.
As the ball is flying towards them, they then read it and decide whether they will stay in open stance or step into a neutral stance in order to reach more comfortably that lower, shorter or slower incoming ball.
… transitions into a neutral stance forehand if necessary.
Keep in mind that that decision of whether to stay in open stance or step into the ball is by now completely subconscious.
In other words, the player’s subconscious processes the situation this way: if the ball will reach me at a comfortable height (not too low or too short), I will stay in open stance. If I see that I can’t reach the ball in open stance, then I will naturally step towards it and end up in neutral stance.
Open vs Neutral Stance Side by Side
If you’ve watched the video above, then you’ve seen the side by side comparison of neutral vs open stance forehands and how they both begin the same.
So, here are just a few shots from that video to show you those similarities and differences in still images:
a) The initial unit turn as I react to the ball looks almost identical.
In both cases, I am still in open stance just after the split step.
b) By now I have read the ball. On the left side, I read a deep ball whereas on the right side, I read a shorter ball.
You can tell that by looking at my feet. My right foot has shifted slightly back on the left side, and in the right image, my left foot is being released as it will step forward.
c) In the open stance forehand version, I have simply stayed in position and just used leg drive and body coiling and uncoiling to hit the forehand.
Conversely, in the neutral stance version, I have now stepped forward to reach the ball and also to transfer weight into the ball.
The Difficulty Of Timing And Precision In A Tennis Stroke
Tennis is a very demanding sport as it requires accurate timing and precise movements to control the ball, especially at higher speeds.
In the following example, I want to show why a skilled tennis player never steps into a neutral stance without first reading the ball.
If I am receiving a fast ball that also lands deep in the court, then in one of the above examples of hitting a forehand, I have only 0.18 seconds from the ball bounce to the contact with the racket.
The yellow box is where the ball bounced and it reached me in 0.18 seconds.
I stayed in open stance exactly for that possibility – namely if the ball was fast and deep.
If I would have stepped forward into a neutral stance without reading the ball, I would have shortened the distance to the ball’s bounce and have had even less time to precisely guide the racket into the contact with the ball.
Hitting in these conditions pushes my skill level to the absolute limit for me to maintain consistent and clean hitting of the ball. I surely don’t want to make tennis even more difficult by stepping towards the ball and giving myself even less time to hit it and to see it well.
Again, a skilled tennis player almost always prepares to hit the ball in the open stance forehand and steps into a neutral stance only when they read that the ball is shorter and too low to reach it well in an open stance.
Some exceptions to this rule occur when one decides to approach the net or to go for an attacking forehand inside the court because the opponent is way outside of the court in a defensive position.
Then again, the player has once more read the situation very early and acted accordingly rather than just stepped into a neutral stance forehand without reading the ball or the situation.
Stepping Too Early And Losing The Weight Transfer
There’s another problem with stepping into a neutral stance too early without reading the ball.
When a player steps too early into a neutral stance and then has to wait on the front leg for the ball to reach them, they have lost a dynamic weight transfer, which is one of the benefits of hitting in neutral stance.
Stepping too early robs you of the weight transfer and therefore of power.
Neutral stance has to be timed right in order for us to transfer weight into the ball as we are hitting it.
We time the weight transfer on the outside leg, meaning while we are still in open stance.
As the player positions in the open stance and reads that the incoming ball is going to be low, slow and short, they wait slightly with most of the weight on the outside leg until they feel the right timing to step into the neutral stance with the weight transfer.
We often need to delay the step in and we do that on the outside leg.
When the timing is right, then the weight transfer helps with adding force and stability to the contact of the ball, therefore making the shot more powerful and more consistent.
So that’s another reason why we don’t want to just blindly step into a neutral stance forehand without reading the ball first.
Summary
One the biggest problems, especially on the forehand side, is hitting the ball late.
A primary cause of late hits is that the player steps into a neutral stance forehand before they read the ball, shortening the distance to the ball and giving themselves less time to hit it.
In other words, they are making tennis even more difficult than it already is, and that’s why they are often late.
A skilled tennis player assumes that every incoming ball can be difficult – which means high, deep, fast or some combination of these factors.
A skilled tennis player also knows that handling these difficult balls is easier in open stance forehand because that gives them more time and also makes it easier to execute the forehand, especially on high balls.
That’s why a skilled player always prepares in an open stance in case the ball is difficult.
If they read that the ball is not really difficult – meaning it’s shorter, lower and likely slower – then they naturally step towards it into a neutral stance in order to reach the ball comfortably.
Waiting in open stance also helps them with the timing of the weight transfer if they need to step into a neutral stance, as that well-timed weight transfer will help with the power and control of the shot.
I invite you to experiment with this approach and see that every neutral stance forehand that you play actually starts as an open stance forehand in the first place.
As you master this approach, you’ll also hit many more balls in the ideal contact point and have better power and control over these shots.
Note that, in this video article, I am demonstrating forehands, where this situation happens most commonly.
It usually does not happen on the one-handed backhand much because if the player is late on the ball, then they basically cannot play at all. As a result, they learn very quickly to hit the ball on time.
This problem does happen very often on the two-handed backhand. However, it is trickier for a recreational tennis player to learn an open stance two-handed backhand to handle this balls better the same way as the pros do.
Playing tennis in an hour will try it. Never heard of this concept before, you are brilliant. Thanks for your passion.
Very much appreciated!
Great video, thank you!
Hi Tomaz, So is this also true for the backhand and even the 1hbh. Is the back foot the one that sets the stage? I see that some people hit open stance 1hbhs. My son Nikolas used to do that when he was younger. Does the front step then come later and facilitate weight transfer? If so, are there any differences between the 1hbh and the forehand with regard to the open stance as a starting point?
Hi Arturo,
Yes, the outside foot always sets the stage (if you’re not on the run) for all strokes.
But open stance 1h backhand is very tricky because in open stance we coil the upper body a lot and it naturally wants to uncoil.
So that works well for forehand and 2h backhand because they are hit with a lot of body rotation but 1h backhand is not hit with that much rotation.
So it’s tricky to stop the rotation of the body and stay in open stance on the 1h backhand. It is usually used just in emergency and on the returns of serve.
But again, in terms of a starting point there are no differences between forehand and 1h backhand especially when you’ll transition into a neutral stance.
You never cease to amaze me Tomaz! You have confirmed what I always suspected, but was never sure of! As always, THANKS!
Good to hear, Andy, tennis always has its mysteries…
Before I got coaching, I was naturally playing open stance with sub optimal technique. I played my flat mate and we would split wins for the games we played more or less. I then decided to get coaching to try get more wins. But the coach I got said never ever play open stance, only play close stance as you will get hip injury if you play open stance all the time. So I did that and you know what happened? I lost about 15 matches in a row trying to play closed stance to every shot on my forehand. So many weak shots and bad positioning, weird foot work. I now don’t use that coach anymore. I have to take a break from tennis and do a factory reset on my forehand so I play open stance when it is appropriate to play it and then closed stance when its appropriate to play it. I completely agree with your assessment after my experience.