Forehand tips? (Video included)

[TennisNinja]

I know the date is a bit late but I went on vacation and with the beginning of school I never got around to taking the video from my iPhone.

So when I took this video my forehand just felt off for some weird reason and I really couldn't get much power behind it. I get the same feeling sometimes in matches or whatever, and it really throws off my game. I couldn't really find anything specific, even though I did notice a couple things:

1) My feet need to be more active sometimes, but this could be partly because I was on a ball machine and feeling a bit lazy.
2) Takeback could occur earlier.
3) My racket goes up above my head too much.

Background: I play DIII tennis and I'm a sophomore.

That's pretty much it, any advice would be great, thanks! No need to be gentle, some real criticism would be nice as I want to play a lot higher in the lineup this upcoming season.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3gwV-xlcNo

[LeeD]

Are you the same guy who posted around last year?
Nice hitting!
Prep is fine.
You start out just hitting, then target in, CC or DTL, good.
Nice 2hbh DTL.
You hit with nice RHS, and lots of topspin, so maybe you didn't flatten out any shots, but that's your choice.
Ball machine is time to work on placements. You did, after the first couple of shots.
Nice.

[Cheetah]

What you have now looks good and is working. Pretty good form.
Your left arm usage is good. Footwork is good.

If you want more power on the FH here are the issues:

1) your wrist is cocked and locked from starting at the unit turn and it stays locked throughout the whole swing. Losing a lot of power right there. Optimally it should neutral until forward swing. Some ppl like it a little less than neutral but imo neutral is best. Look at any big FH of a top pro. neutral.

2) You're not using your legs enough for power. You're using them more for support. You are pushing off, more like just 'standing up', but your legs are not loaded enough. You have to load a good % of your weight on your right leg. Big power loss there. But you are loading a little bit and you have built in recovery footwork so that's good. That recovery looks good actually... but you can also do that with a bigger leg push.

3) Because of issue 1 the butt of the racquet never points towards the ball. You are losing leverage here and also heavy spin.

4) Kinetic chain never really kicks in because of issue 2 so you are arming the ball. Although on some shots u have a bit of chain going and not arming it mostly.

5) Your arm is not loose enough (partially because of issue 1). It should be much looser. Your arm looks totally 'locked in place'.

6) Your elbow is way too close to your torso. You're losing rhs here. A good powerful controlled shot has to breath and flow. You have a locked wrist, locked hitting structure, stiff arm and elbow too close. It's suffocating the power.

7) Your form is a little inconsistent. Some shots looked pretty stiff. A few of them looked loose and good. And you seem to switch between open, semi open and neutral a lot even though the ball being fed is the same every time. But you have good footwork so that's a little strange haha. You might want to tighten that up. Go for a more consistent approach.

9) Your weight goes a little too much to the left. That will work for some spin and sidespin and consistency (your shots look consistent) but you lose power that way. Gotta go into the ball more. This is probably linked with issue 3. If you could figure out how to get the butt pointed correctly it would help you go into the ball more.

edit: watched again. actually sometimes the butt does point to the ball. But for wayyy to short of a time. You should be dragging the butt towards the ball. You have a butt point but then immediately your elbow goes into your body.
For example look at fh @28secs. Your elbow is scraping against your shirt. and @ 32sec the elbow is actually touching your ribs.
This is shortening your lever.

[TennisNinja]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Are you the same guy who posted around last year?
Nice hitting!
Prep is fine.
You start out just hitting, then target in, CC or DTL, good.
Nice 2hbh DTL.
You hit with nice RHS, and lots of topspin, so maybe you didn't flatten out any shots, but that's your choice.
Ball machine is time to work on placements. You did, after the first couple of shots.
Nice.

Thanks for the comments Lee, and yes I did post a short video of me hitting last year! Cheetah used RHS below later too, but for some reason I'm either blanking or I have no idea what that means. I also realized I accidentally cut out my down the line FH clip. Oops.

Would you say you need some point or match play video to really evaluate my game?

Originally Posted by Cheetah

What you have now looks good and is working. Pretty good form.
Your left arm usage is good. Footwork is good.

If you want more power on the FH here are the issues:

1) your wrist is cocked and locked from starting at the unit turn and it stays locked throughout the whole swing. Losing a lot of power right there. Optimally it should neutral until forward swing. Some ppl like it a little less than neutral but imo neutral is best. Look at any big FH of a top pro. neutral.

2) You're not using your legs enough for power. You're using them more for support. You are pushing off, more like just 'standing up', but your legs are not loaded enough. You have to load a good % of your weight on your right leg. Big power loss there. But you are loading a little bit and you have built in recovery footwork so that's good. That recovery looks good actually... but you can also do that with a bigger leg push.

3) Because of issue 1 the butt of the racquet never points towards the ball. You are losing leverage here and also heavy spin.

4) Kinetic chain never really kicks in because of issue 2 so you are arming the ball. Although on some shots u have a bit of chain going and not arming it mostly.

5) Your arm is not loose enough (partially because of issue 1). It should be much looser. Your arm looks totally 'locked in place'.

6) Your elbow is way too close to your torso. You're losing rhs here. A good powerful controlled shot has to breath and flow. You have a locked wrist, locked hitting structure, stiff arm and elbow too close. It's suffocating the power.

7) Your form is a little inconsistent. Some shots looked pretty stiff. A few of them looked loose and good. And you seem to switch between open, semi open and neutral a lot even though the ball being fed is the same every time. But you have good footwork so that's a little strange haha. You might want to tighten that up. Go for a more consistent approach.

9) Your weight goes a little too much to the left. That will work for some spin and sidespin and consistency (your shots look consistent) but you lose power that way. Gotta go into the ball more. This is probably linked with issue 3. If you could figure out how to get the butt pointed correctly it would help you go into the ball more.

edit: watched again. actually sometimes the butt does point to the ball. But for wayyy to short of a time. You should be dragging the butt towards the ball. You have a butt point but then immediately your elbow goes into your body.
For example look at fh @28secs. Your elbow is scraping against your shirt. and @ 32sec the elbow is actually touching your ribs.
This is shortening your lever.

Really good stuff Cheetah thanks. I've heard the comment about me being "stiff" a couple times before, but the way you broke it down really helps. I'm definitely going to try to smooth out the entire process. It'll be interesting to compare this video with one from a day where I'm feeling loose and relaxed. I guess it's like the "shining the flashlight" thing I've heard thrown around a couple of times.

Thanks to both of you again. Would you guys say my BH is pretty fundamentally sound then? (Or at least comparatively to my FH).

[Cheetah]

To me the 2hbh looks pretty fundamentally sound. But I don't know the intricate details of a 2hbh since I'm a 1hbh guy. Someone better qualified for that should chime in.

Good luck.

[TennisNinja]

Sounds good Cheetah. Also I just snapped out of it and realized that RHS=Racket head speed.

[boramiNYC]

on your forehand your stance is way too closed for your grip. more open stance and more weight bias to right foot. only slightly close the stance to neutral and do full weight shift to the left leg for very aggressive high contact point shots.

[Cheetah]

Originally Posted by boramiNYC

on your forehand your stance is way too closed for your grip. more open stance and more weight bias to right foot. only slightly close the stance to neutral and do full weight shift to the left leg for very aggressive high contact point shots.

Hey borami,
Been looking for you. Been meaning to tell you that you were absolutely right about the heel to toe weight transfer. It was weird at first but I kept messing around w/ it and the benefit was too good to pass up and eventually I got it down. I also asked an atp pro and a D1 full ride player from Univ of Hawaii and they both said toe to heel transfer and push off with quads. So I've integrated that into my stroke now and it feels good and natural. Definitely more power that way.
You're the man.
Thanks.

[boramiNYC]

cheetah, glad you found it useful. I knew you were up to the challenge. there are many things like that highly coordinated players don't think or know about but they do those things themselves. I started from much worse coordination than most players so I think I have a unique perspective. sorry OP for OT.

[TennisNinja]

Originally Posted by boramiNYC

on your forehand your stance is way too closed for your grip. more open stance and more weight bias to right foot. only slightly close the stance to neutral and do full weight shift to the left leg for very aggressive high contact point shots.

Thanks man, don't worry about the OT chatter. I just need to force myself when I go open to actually go into the court instead of twisting away sometimes, if that makes sense. That's partly the reason I did semi-open/closed mostly, but there's definite benefits to going open.

[Power Player]

I really like your footwork. You look like a tennis player. Agree that your forehand needs to flow a little more, but I think you look good out there.

[TheCheese]

Try and finish your shot before recovering.

You're also pretty stiff and it's making your lose power, but I feel like changing this now might mess with your stroke. If you have to play matches for the team, maybe don't mess with it until after the season.

BH looks good but you're pretty stiff with the wrists on that shot as well. It seems to limit your topspin, making you hit pretty flat.

[effortless]

The most important thing i noticed was that you hit the ball quite close to your body. This maybe makes your forehand easier to hit giving you more consistency, but you will never have a huge forehand hitting it that way. You should try to hit the ball further away from your body if you want more power.

[TennisNinja]

Originally Posted by boramiNYC

on your forehand your stance is way too closed for your grip. more open stance and more weight bias to right foot. only slightly close the stance to neutral and do full weight shift to the left leg for very aggressive high contact point shots.

Originally Posted by TheCheese

Try and finish your shot before recovering.

You're also pretty stiff and it's making your lose power, but I feel like changing this now might mess with your stroke. If you have to play matches for the team, maybe don't mess with it until after the season.

BH looks good but you're pretty stiff with the wrists on that shot as well. It seems to limit your topspin, making you hit pretty flat.

Season doesn't start until the end of January so I think that's enough time to tweak my strokes a bit.

Originally Posted by effortless

The most important thing i noticed was that you hit the ball quite close to your body. This maybe makes your forehand easier to hit giving you more consistency, but you will never have a huge forehand hitting it that way. You should try to hit the ball further away from your body if you want more power.

Thanks to everyone for the help.

[5263]

Originally Posted by Cheetah

What you have now looks good and is working. Pretty good form.
Your left arm usage is good. Footwork is good.

If you want more power on the FH here are the issues:

1) your wrist is cocked and locked from starting at the unit turn and it stays locked throughout the whole swing. Losing a lot of power right there. Optimally it should neutral until forward swing. Some ppl like it a little less than neutral but imo neutral is best. Look at any big FH of a top pro. neutral.

2) You're not using your legs enough for power. You're using them more for support. You are pushing off, more like just 'standing up', but your legs are not loaded enough. You have to load a good % of your weight on your right leg. Big power loss there. But you are loading a little bit and you have built in recovery footwork so that's good. That recovery looks good actually... but you can also do that with a bigger leg push.

3) Because of issue 1 the butt of the racquet never points towards the ball. You are losing leverage here and also heavy spin.

4) Kinetic chain never really kicks in because of issue 2 so you are arming the ball. Although on some shots u have a bit of chain going and arming it mostly.

I really like the parts above, but disagree about you moving too much left. IMO
if you up stronger off that outside rt leg, this won't be a problem as long as
you work to keep the head stable on the hitting side. Moving to the side is
not so much a problem as the way most do it...by leading with their head.
That ruins the effort and contact.

[Cheetah]

Maybe I shouldn't have used the words 'too much'. To me his going left looks good and fundamentally correct there.
But he said he wanted more power. So getting more weight forward will do that for him. His swing looks more like a
very safe rally ball and recover swing. Which is fine but I was giving him tips for power.

I think the bigger hitters don't go to the left as much as he does. They seem to be throwing their weight towards 1 oclock-ish (11oclock for lefties). More weight forward and thru and they use more ground forces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPP1R...elated&t=3m05s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=...ndscreen&t=41s

even murray here who has a big rotation and ends up totally on the left seems to still have weight going more into the ball and then just continues around. His right shoulder is really going into the ball here before the weight swings around. That's what it looks like to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YerH0-8n_0w&t=36s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s6o6...eature=related

Now look at OP's swing. It looks like his whole momentum is going to 11 or 10 o'Clock before he even makes contact. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3gwV-xlcNo

[MarinaHighTennis]

DIII? Why? you can play and beat a lot of players in DII.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SfqR...feature=relmfu

[TennisNinja]

Originally Posted by Cheetah

Maybe I shouldn't have used the words 'too much'. To me his going left looks good and fundamentally correct there.
But he said he wanted more power. So getting more weight forward will do that for him. His swing looks more like a
very safe rally ball and recover swing. Which is fine but I was giving him tips for power.

I think the bigger hitters don't go to the left as much as he does. They seem to be throwing their weight towards 1 oclock-ish (11oclock for lefties). More weight forward and thru and they use more ground forces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPP1R...elated&t=3m05s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=...ndscreen&t=41s

even murray here who has a big rotation and ends up totally on the left seems to still have weight going more into the ball and then just continues around. His right shoulder is really going into the ball here before the weight swings around. That's what it looks like to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YerH0-8n_0w&t=36s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s6o6...eature=related

Now look at OP's swing. It looks like his whole momentum is going to 11 or 10 o'Clock before he even makes contact. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3gwV-xlcNo

Thanks Cheetah. Wow, the sense of speed you get from those videos is just amazing.

Originally Posted by MarinaHighTennis

DIII? Why? you can play and beat a lot of players in DII.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SfqR...feature=relmfu

Haha thanks, but I really don't think I could. Some, but probably not a lot.

I chose DIII for the academics. Realistically I know I'm a student first and then an athlete. I'm not going to go to some mediocre school for tennis and gamble with my education.

[86golf]

-stay on right side a bit longer for forehand
- more shoulder turn during prep on forehand
- more spacing on forehand
- pull the butt cap more and hit more of the outside of the ball

[sunof tennis]

Originally Posted by TennisNinja

Thanks Cheetah. Wow, the sense of speed you get from those videos is just amazing.


Haha thanks, but I really don't think I could. Some, but probably not a lot.

I chose DIII for the academics. Realistically I know I'm a student first and then an athlete. I'm not going to go to some mediocre school for tennis and gamble with my education.

Good answer. Getting a good college education and at a good school is usually going to be a better investment than playing DII or even DI (except for the fortunate few).