It sounds like your problems...
this might be kinda long. Im a 4.5 level player, I have a great backhand. a decent solid serve with variety. Im fast, good footwork, but latley Ive been all mixed up with my forehand. Just wondering if anyone has had this problem, and how he or she overcame it
The problem is through the years my forehand has constantley changed, while my backhand is a short compact stroke capable of heavy spin and flat shots. On my forehand Ive used an extreme western grip, an eastern, a semi western which is where im at now. I think the problem is there is too much option and I just cant get grooved on one particular shot, which is great for practice, but in a set where you have to choose your shots, this can be confusing.
there are benefits to each shot Example :
Extreme Western= I can really hit out, with good power and a huge amount of spin, I return well with this grip. the problem is hitting flat can be a real pain in the but with this grip!!!
Semi Western= alot of variety, I can flatten in out, rolling spin,driving spin,you name it, but Im having alot of trouble keeping the ball down at the moment. Any advice here? should I match the form and stroke of my backhand? I should put video but dont have any at the moment.
its just a mess at the moment,which sucks cause everything else in my game is pretty solid. Dont get me wrong I can still play smart tennis and still win some matches. But I hate this problem Im having with my Forehand.
All I know is im sticking with Semi Western grip. I think : /
...are kind of a mirror image of those of one of my hitting partners, and I've tried a bunch of ways of trying to coach him through them. Here's some thoughts:
- There's a school of thought that says you have to choose one grip/one style. I don't; I use whatever works for a given shot; more about that in a minute.
- I use a semi-Western most of the time, and I have the same kind of variety you do. If you're having problems keeping the ball down, I assume you mean you're hitting it long. You have some choices: if you want to stay primarily with the semi-Western, basically, you need more topspin. One thing my coach had me doing last year when I had the same problem was to do what Sampras did on his forehand, which is to swing through the ball, going out, then up in the same line as the swing through. It looks like a big Ferris wheel, the snap does
not go across the body (as Federer does, for example). You're really emphasizing the topspin this way, and the ball stays on the racket longer...less chance of an error caused by the kind of stroke where the ball just pings off the string, which is often what happens when the semi or full Western forehand goes off.
Along with that, however, make sure you're hitting low to high, as in
really low to high. If you haven't done the drill where you put a badminton net or something similar on top of the tennis net; do it, because it'll get your height over the net back in place. And the weird thing is, when you get more height by hitting more low to high, you automatically get more top spin...the air just wants to spin the ball to pull it down into the court. Whenever I start hitting too flat, I imagine that the court isn't flat...it's a hill, and I'm at the bottom, and I have to hit up and over the top of the hill.
- The other thing you can do to get more top, is to use all of the above clues but use more full Western, at least until you get your semi-Western straightened out. As I said above, my base stroke is a semi-Western, where most of the time I'm trying to hit hard through the court and punch the other guy's lights out. My main hitting partner, however,
loves that kind of stuff, so I'll throw in some Western with a lot of loop and topspin to keep him from homing in on my hard balls.
- Yep, it's often hard (not impossible) to hit flat with a Western or semi-Western. So next time you're out hitting, try hitting a few balls with an Eastern forehand grip and flatten out the stroke, too. You're experienced enough, you can handle that kind of experiment...so give it a whirl!
- Next, ain't nothing wrong with a Continental grip on the forehand...Fred Perry won 3 Wimbledons with it. I don't use Continental a lot on the forehand, but there are situations where it's invaluable...as in, you're run out of court wide to your forehand. I used to try to blast a winner...worked for Sampras, doesn't work very much for me. My coach had me try going to a Continental, block or chip the ball back like a volley to the middle of the court, and get back in position. So maybe there's nothing wrong with your base forehand, but you need some other options for difficult balls, as I just described.
I also a Continental chip forehand if I want to chip and charge, or on an approach shot where I either (a) can't get to the ball quick enough to hit over it or (b) purposely want to keep the ball down because the guy on the other side of the net
loves blasting balls that kick up and
hates dealing with low and away slice balls...
There are a couple of drills that can be real useful, too, that my coaches had me do to help me get out of the "great shot every 20th ball, errors on all the others" forehand problems. These are not really technique drills, but they will help enforce consistency and eliminate silly errors on the forehand:
- First, my coach back in 2004 was David Hodge, who was just off the ATP tour and was then Assistant Men's Coach at Colorado University in Boulder. One of the greatest serve and volley players I ever saw...but he could do what it took to win against a stubborn, steady opponent or if Dave was having an off day. I saw him in the semis of the Colorado Open, on a day when he couldn't hit a fat bull in the rear end on his 125 mph first serve, and his forehand, which is a rocket, wasn't dropping in. He won that match, in 3 sets, on the strength of his second serve, slice backand, and hustle.
So you won't be surprised when he subjected me to The Grind Drill. It's
real simple. You and your opponent rally until somebody makes an error. That is, you can't hit winners, where a winner is defined as a ball that the other guy can't get his racket on. So you can hit as hard, or easy, as you want. The winner is the first player to 21 points. So I immediately went out and started pasting balls. The score? Dave Hodge 21, yours truly...2. It took me a
whole summer before I could get up to numbers like Dave Hodge 21, Yours Truly 13. It taught me a lot about patience, and how much of an athlete you have to be to win a tennis match.
- The other drill, you've probably heard of, and this is also a Dave Hodge special. You start by setting a line of cones on the service line, and your job is to hit past the cones but inside the base line. Your hitting partner feeds you. You start by hitting right down the middle. Every ball you get in the zone, you get a point, every ball you hit short, long, or out, you lose two points. You win when you get to 11 points. Took me 3 sessions to get to 11 point. Once you get that down, the fun has just begun. Now you move the cones halfway between the service line and baseline; repeat the drill. Got that? Now move the cones to within three feet of the baseline. Got that? Now set the cones in an L-shape so you can only hit cross courts. Got that? Now set them in an L-shape so you can only hit down the line. You get the joke...
Good luck, and keep everybody posted on your progress!
