One Handers....

[Stitch626]

I was the one who had troubles on the high bouncing one-handers... I remember someone saying something about "supinate" but I have no clue what that means. Could someone tell me what and how to do this? I am willing to do anything to improve my one-hander. I'm practicing slicing and hitting against the wall. Oh and I could use some tips on slicing.

[chance]

Supinate is to turn your hand palm up as to the sky. It is the opposite of pronote which is to make your palm face the ground. W/ high backhands, I think the origional poster was trying to say this motion, supinating your wrist near the end of the stroke, would put more top on the ball bringing it back into the court--keep it from sailing long, especially since the racquet is now well above your head and should be cross your chest (for this paticuliar backhand stroke).

[andreh]

Don't forget to turn your hitting arm shoulder towards the net. You could even have your back almost fully towards the net. Your chin should almost touch your hitting arm shoulder. This makes the one-handed backand much easier, high or low.

/André

[Bungalo Bill]

Slicing is a bit different then your normal topspin groundstrokes. When I help tennis players I try to get them to envision that the slice is a feel shot not a power shot. Although you can get plenty of pace on a slice it is still primarily a feel shot.

Grip: Continental to an Eastern Backhand grip.

Setup: The shoulders turn as usual, and the non-dominant hand helps position the racket from the throat of the racquet. Your turning to your grip during this sequence. The racquet handle is placed firmly in the V of your thumb and fore finger and then adjusted to yoru preference.

Contact Point: off the front hip or a little more in front of it.

Swing: Swing mainly with your shoulder and do not contract your muscles for "power". The weight of the racquet has to do the work. This is why you must develop the feel of your racquet doing the work. Just bring the strings to the ball. Do not scoop.

Here is why you do not need to scoop at the ball.

Your string bed will be open slightly as it hits the ball. This creates the lift you need to get the ball over the net. You dont need to ADD lift by turning your wrists or going under the ball. While your learning to trust the shot you will feel like you need to get under the ball to "help" it over. You are only creating a bad habit and will have more tendency to air the ball over to the next county then allowing it to skid in the court.

The slice is a relaxed arm shot that is swung primarily from the shoulder.

Now here is the thing: If you think about what I said above (to allow the open string bed to lift the ball over instead of your efforts, this means if you play with the angle of the string bed you can create different effects on the ball with the same swing! Hence drop shots! Nasty bites, soft landings that stay low, spin aways with some cross spin, approach shots etc. etc.

The swing from high to low creates the spin or action on the ball. Your swing (from the backcourt) is much flatter or straight at the ball (remember your slightly open racquet lets it go over the net).

If your hitting from the backcourt you should aim for two things: the serivce line and about two to three feet above the net. What will happen is most of your slices will land in no mans land or a little deeper. Aiming for the service line will teach you about how much pressure needs to be applied to the stroke for an effective slice backhand. As you get better feel on the stroke you can experiment with more effort.

Be careful practicing on the wall. You need to learn how much pressure to apply first. This happens by going to the court and leanring the feel of how much. Then go to the backboard and practice that amount of pressure only! Over an over again. Pretty soon your going to love hitting slice backhands and will use it on your service returns and other things.

A lot of contemporary players that hit primarily topspin will hate you for it. However, they will respect you for it as well! You will be dangerous to them.

[Bungalo Bill]

One more thing. The follow through is not on purpose it happens just from the relaxing of the arm. That is all.

When you practice the slice. Do it this way.

1. Hold that pose: Balance yourself off your front foot for 5 seconds after you make contact. Hold it, hold it, hold it, then judge what happened. Did you maintain your balance? Did you have to make little adjustment with your feet to prevent yourself from falling down?

Do this until you train your body to hold your balance. Balance is very very very key to hitting an effective slice. I wish tennisforall.org was still available it had excellent pictures of Graff hitting the slice with excellent balance.

2. Hit it like a volley: During this exercise you want to stop the racquet at contact. This teaches you that you dont need to muscle the racquet forward. If you do you wont be able to stop the racquet at contact. Remeber this is a feel shot. Just guide the racquet into the ball then stop. Because your not adding muscle/momentum to the racquet during the forwardswing, your racquet should stop easily once you make contact.

3. All other aspects stay the same: Keep a fixed wrist position your arm at the elbow area is fixed throughout the forward swing. Aim the butt cap at the ball to prevent ot much backswing and too much cross step on wide balls. Hit with yoru center of gravity moving forward.

Do this over and over again. What will happen is you will develop a very natural smooth followthrough when you put it all together. But the follow through will be just an aftereffect of the compact stroke you created.

[Stitch626]

Thanks for all the advise so far, but can someone go into more detail about the supination because Im confused. And for the ones that bounce deep and go up to my head, will I be able to hit those with topspin still? I usually have no room to let it drop a little.