Practice Groundstrokes/Serves/Point Play

[epiczeko]

My friend compiled a video of some random clips during our casual hit. I was hoping fellow TW members could give me some tips/instruction.

Vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8A8rhrPJIY

Oh... I'm also thinking of switching to the Babolat Pure Drive Roddick. By watching my game, do you think it would suit me? My current racket is the Prince Ignite 95.

Thanks

[Limpinhitter]

Nice looking forehand.

On serve you are arming the ball too much. You have very little upper body rotation. At the peak of the toss, your shoulders should be turned so that your opponent can see your back, and tilted so that your left shoulder is well above your right shoulder. From there, you rotate your upper body around your spine in the upswing. This will add both mass and racquet speed to your serve which will result in more power and spin.

Your backhand also lacks sufficient upper body rotation. I would recommend getting rid of that loop and taking the hands straight back with the racquet head pointing up near your head. From there, it's basically a left handed forehand with the same kinetic chain of events starting from the ground up. Notice that, on your forehand, your chest turns to about 3 O'Clock on the takeback to about 9 O'Clock on the finish? That's almost 180 degrees of turn on your forehand. You should be getting that much turn on your backhand too. Maybe longer in the takeback and shorter in the finish because you are hitting from a neutral stance rather than an open stance.

[epiczeko]

Originally Posted by Limpinhitter

Nice looking forehand.

On serve you are arming the ball too much. You have very little upper body rotation. At the peak of the toss, your shoulders should be turned so that your opponent can see your back, and tilted so that your left shoulder is well above your right shoulder. From there, you rotate your upper body around your spine in the upswing. This will add both mass and racquet speed to your serve which will result in more power and spin.

Your backhand also lacks sufficient upper body rotation. I would recommend getting rid of that loop and taking the hands straight back with the racquet head pointing up near your head. From there, it's basically a left handed forehand with the same kinetic chain of events starting from the ground up. Notice that, on your forehand, your chest turns to about 3 O'Clock on the takeback to about 9 O'Clock on the finish? That's almost 180 degrees of turn on your forehand. You should be getting that much turn on your backhand too. Maybe longer in the takeback and shorter in the finish because you are hitting from a neutral stance rather than an open stance.

Thanks for the tips Limpinhitter. I'll be working on this all next week. You are 100% correct about my serve. I need my left shoulder above my right. I also agree with what you said about the backhand. I need to work on my upper body rotation. As well, I will try to remove that "loop" I have in my back swing. You were a great help.

[Cheetah]

Nice wide athletic stance. That's good.
Arming the serve yes. Need some work there.
Fh has a good swing path and gets the job done. has some top and side to it. accurate.

...however, it's pretty much all arm. If you want a good fh you need to incorporate the kinetic chain and hit the ball with your body and a loose arm. There is no whip currently. Your rhs is probably maxed out the way you swing now and as it is now it's on the slow side. It should be a lot faster and producing heavier balls.

[NLBwell]

Don't jump.
You seem to be jumping at the ball rather than the force from your lower body going into the swing. Connect the lower body force through the core to your arm and racket. Sometimes that may bring you off the ground, but it isn't a jump. Right now, the legs and the arm are doing two separate things.

[epiczeko]

Originally Posted by Cheetah

Nice wide athletic stance. That's good.
Arming the serve yes. Need some work there.
Fh has a good swing path and gets the job done. has some top and side to it. accurate.

...however, it's pretty much all arm. If you want a good fh you need to incorporate the kinetic chain and hit the ball with your body and a loose arm. There is no whip currently. Your rhs is probably maxed out the way you swing now and as it is now it's on the slow side. It should be a lot faster and producing heavier balls.

You're right my rhs is pretty slow. Ill definitely look into incorporating the kinetic chain into my forehand.

Originally Posted by NLBwell

Don't jump.
You seem to be jumping at the ball rather than the force from your lower body going into the swing. Connect the lower body force through the core to your arm and racket. Sometimes that may bring you off the ground, but it isn't a jump. Right now, the legs and the arm are doing two separate things.

Great tip. Looking at it now, I see that my legs and arms are working separately. Ill work on it. Thanks.

[cluckcluck]

Be mindful of your feet, you're foot faulting on your serves.

[LeeD]

You are athletic and fit, have great movement.
Try to stay grounded on at least half your groundstrokes...not every groundie, but at least the one's in your strikezone. You jump on every ball, and when you get tired, you will spray balls everywhere with mishits.
The problem with your serve is that you never achieve a trophy position. Your right hand is low to start, OK. But you raise it straight up to your right ear...WAAAAY too high.... and don't loop the backswing correctly, insteady, you push the racket thru to your forward slap at the ball.
LOWER your right arm at trophy. Or, DO NOT raise your right arm after your prep position. With your high right arm, you don't hit upwards or swing upwards at the ball, and instead just slap at the ball.

[ATP100]

Looks good so far.

Learn to approach down the line.
Learn in a rally situation to hit cross court, down the line is important, just not as important at this stage in your learning.
Learn to volley.

No particular order.

[LeeD]

Just watched the whole vid...
You hit like you can almost hang with 4.5's.
You can't.
You play like a strong hitting, good form, low level 4.0.
Your opponent in white another strong hitting, good form player at 3.5.
You need to hit CC more just to establish basic 4.0, or at least hit good forcing shots DTL.
Your hitting is there, you tactics, stategy, and mind set needs much more MATCH PLAY.

[epiczeko]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Just watched the whole vid...
You hit like you can almost hang with 4.5's.
You can't.
You play like a strong hitting, good form, low level 4.0.
Your opponent in white another strong hitting, good form player at 3.5.
You need to hit CC more just to establish basic 4.0, or at least hit good forcing shots DTL.
Your hitting is there, you tactics, stategy, and mind set needs much more MATCH PLAY.

Wow thanks for all the help guys.

Yes LeeD you are right. I also think their is lots of room for improvement in my strokes and what not. But the tactics, strategy, and mind set needs lots of match play like you said.