Improve your tennis game.

1. A 5 minute warm up is a must.

• 20 jumping jacks – Puts you on the balls of your feet and stretches out the body.
• 20 alley shuffles – Start in the alley and side-shuffle across the doubles, then singles side lines, until you have crossed a line 20 times.
• 20 quick feet – Step over a line with your right foot then the left rapidly. Each time the right foot crosses the line counts as 1, repeat until you reach 20 quick feet steps.
• 20 helicopters – Extend your arms out shoulder high. Pivot off your right then left foot as your arms swing side to side like helicopter blades.
• 20 practice swings – Go through all your ground strokes, volleys, overheads and serves 20 times to get your body ready to play.

2. Serve into the fence or wall.

Practice serving against a practice wall or even better, into the fence on the court.

• Focus on your technique as you go through your service motion. By serving into the fence while standing on the singles side line, the ball will most of the time come back to you. Therefore you will need only a few balls to practice your serves.
• Next stand on the baseline and face the back fence. Now practice serving into the back fence having created a little more space between you and your target.
• Next stand on the deuce court service line and serve cross court into the opposite deuce service court (you can add a challenge by putting 3-4 balls in the opposite service court to divide it in half – therefore creating a left and right target).
• Now serve halfway between the service line and the baseline with the same challenges.
• Finally, go to the baseline and serve into the opposite service court with the focus still more on the technique than power.

3. Practice with a ball machine – with a purpose.

• Have a remote control or limit the number of balls in the machine to about 50 or 75 balls (most ball machines hold about 2-300 balls – way to many to hit at one time effectively).
• Have a target (one of the 4 squares on the court on the opposite side of the net).
• Focus on control of the depth and spin on the ball rather than power. Your game will improve when you learn not to lose before your opponent does.
• Any balls that do not make it over the net becomes balls that you serve over the net so you practice ground strokes or volleys and serves.
• When you pick up the balls – do wide based squats for each ball you pick up. Personal trainers will have you do squats and lunges to improve your strength and flexibility, so get your work out in while picking up the balls.

4. Use the time between points to your advantage.

• Following a point, you need to return the balls on your side of the court to your opponent so they can serve to start the next point. Use that time when you return the ball to the opponent to practice your forehand or backhand.
• Do a “drop & hit” with correct technique to give the ball to your opponent.
• This can be an “eraser” shot – to erase the feeling of the shot you just missed or a “builder” shot – to add to your successful feeling of hitting the perfect shot.
• You will typically return 80 or more balls in a match to your opponent so they can serve to you. That is 80 chances to erase or build your own strokes.

5. Beat the wall.

A practice wall is the perfect partner. It never gets tired, never talks back and gives you what you give it.

• Use a low compression ball or punch a hole in a regular ball so the rebound off the wall is not so fast as to destroy your technique.
• Set a number of balls you intend to rally off your forehand, backhand or volley’s.
• You can also serve against the wall then rally or move in closer to volley.
• Attempt to use complete swing paths and avoid punching or shortening follow throughs on your strokes.

Photo Credits: Pauline K.

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I am finding that my swing and my backhand grip are much better than my forehand. When I go for a forehand shot, it usually ends up with a tremendous amount of topspin making it difficult to hit. Still, my opponent on the other side of the net seems to see it coming every single time. What am I doing wrong? On the other hand, when I hit with a backhand swing, I feel way more comfortable. I keep my eye on the ball, I swing low, and I have excellent follow through, control and power. How can I create a forehand that is as effective as my backhand and swing?

Answer:

It may be the case that as a tennis player will develop one hand more than the other. In many cases, a player’s backhand grip will far exceed his or her forehand, creating a miss-balance in their play. Common problems include a large top spin or bottom spin, which may make the ball seemingly hard to strike but is actually very easy for the opponent to return. This is in contrast to a comfortable, easy feel to the backhand, and because of such, play with that grip will have much more power behind the ball, more control, eyes are kept on the ball and there is real follow through. A key to good tennis play is to balance the fore and backhand grips.

The best way to begin to improve is to remain calm during the forehand shot. A lot of times what happens is there is a slight imbalance, which causes stress and anxiety and leads to more and more of a difference. Taking ones time throughout the stroke and making sure that technique is followed instead of speed will provide a foundation upon which the player can then work on developing speed. That way, when the player gets up to speed, the technique is sound, it is just a matter of calibrating hand eye thought coordination. This will lead to less stress and more successful swings.

Loosening the grip is also a good way to remain calmer and less tense throughout the stroke. One can develop a scale of grip by hitting a racket that is held tightly and while held just tight enough not to fall out of the hand. Assigning a one to ten scale, many players whom are professionals will use a tension of 40 ~ 60, or half way. Make sure to hold the racket just off perpendicular from the ground. This will better guarantee less of a spin and more power being placed in the delivery of the ball, making much harder for you to strike. This will give the strike much more versatility than simply by relying on spins alone for the technique.

Once the grip issue is addressed, then there are addition areas to tweak, including direction of strike and depth of shot, both of which enable an easy means to target exactly where the ball will land. This will make the forehand much more powerful.

Photo Credits: 1

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