Grip Change

[dtl2000]

Hello

My son started playing 2 years ago. He is 12 now and is not going to be tall.
He is very speedy around the court and loves the game.

His coach is pushing to change his grip from a semi-western to an extreme. His reasoning is due to his height (or lack of).

He seems to hit his forehand pretty good (in my limited experience).

Coach says that its fine now but as he begins to play nationals in a year or so and begins approaching college scouting age, he won't have the results that he needs.

Seems to make sense to me. He showed me the difference and I'm almost a "go" with it.

I have been eyeing this forum for a few months and it seems there are lots of opinions on grips.

Any tips are greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Rebekka

[TennisCoachFLA]

Is the coach saying to switch from semi western to an extreme western? If so than I am a little confused.

Smaller players need to hit through the ball more and not rely on just topspin. So in my experience the smaller players usually are better off using a semi western and penetrating the court more.

But if the coach is giving you the results you seek stick with his opinion. He is seeing things first hand while we are not.

[JLyon]

Agree with TCF, my opinion would be to stay with Semi grip if you go extreme that hinders the game in many other ways and that will hurt college more than anything.

[Orion3]

Think the OP has mistaken extreme with eastern.

A smaller player ordinarily generates less power and an eastern grip will help compensate; swing mechanics etc. being equal.

[donnymac10s]

Originally Posted by dtl2000

Hello

My son started playing 2 years ago. He is 12 now and is not going to be tall.
He is very speedy around the court and loves the game.

His coach is pushing to change his grip from a semi-western to an extreme. His reasoning is due to his height (or lack of).

He seems to hit his forehand pretty good (in my limited experience).

Coach says that its fine now but as he begins to play nationals in a year or so and begins approaching college scouting age, he won't have the results that he needs.

Seems to make sense to me. He showed me the difference and I'm almost a "go" with it.

I have been eyeing this forum for a few months and it seems there are lots of opinions on grips.

Any tips are greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Rebekka

Extreme grips are hard to justify. We need to make absolutely certain that the coach is advocating an extreme western grip (in a technical sense as opposed to grammatical). Semi-westerns will work just fine for any height. He just has to learn to be fast so that he can take the ball on the rise ad drive through it.

[NLBwell]

Of course there are pluses and minuses on each side. The ball bouncing head-high will be less and less of an issue as your son grows much over 5'. As your son grows and progresses and gets taller and learns to move to cause the ball to be in his desired strike zone at impact, the high bouncing balls will be less and less of an issue. Much more often, players move from a Western when young to SW as they grow.

[ninaz]

It is time to change coach now!

[tennis5]

Originally Posted by dtl2000

Hello

My son started playing 2 years ago. He is 12 now and is not going to be tall.
He is very speedy around the court and loves the game.

His coach is pushing to change his grip from a semi-western to an extreme. His reasoning is due to his height (or lack of).

He seems to hit his forehand pretty good (in my limited experience).

Coach says that its fine now but as he begins to play nationals in a year or so and begins approaching college scouting age, he won't have the results that he needs.

Seems to make sense to me. He showed me the difference and I'm almost a "go" with it.

I have been eyeing this forum for a few months and it seems there are lots of opinions on grips.

Any tips are greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Rebekka

I think good coaching looks at the end result when your junior is 18.....
A long term picture is better than a short term view of winning.

I would skip this coach.

[TennisCoachFLA]

Originally Posted by Orion3

Think the OP has mistaken extreme with eastern.

A smaller player ordinarily generates less power and an eastern grip will help compensate; swing mechanics etc. being equal.

I was thinking the same thing. I would think he would be moving the kid more eastern than western. Most coaches would not use the word 'extreme' when making a change either. As you said, more likely he said eastern, which would make more sense.

[gregor.b]

Originally Posted by TennisCoachFLA

Is the coach saying to switch from semi western to an extreme western? If so than I am a little confused.

Smaller players need to hit through the ball more and not rely on just topspin. So in my experience the smaller players usually are better off using a semi western and penetrating the court more.

But if the coach is giving you the results you seek stick with his opinion. He is seeing things first hand while we are not.

Agree. If he is smaller and quick he will need to get on top of the ball with footwork, not grip type. And he will need to get the ball through the court more,which is not easy with extreme western.

[Number1Coach]

Build his game around the most effective grip "semi-western" if he is gonna be small strengh train his leggs and have him stand one step off the baseline and have him learn how to find the ball when its peaking .

One of my players does that and is very efffective at 5'2

[onehandbh]

At 12, how do you know he won't grow a lot more? I was only 5'3" at 15 and grew to 6'.

[treeman10]

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[NLBwell]

Originally Posted by treeman10

Pediatricians have pretty good measures in place and can predict height fairly accurately at age 2-3. So most parents have an idea where their child will end up. Of course there are exceptions to every rule and some get much taller (or shorter) than predicted. But in general, you have a good idea using that combined with lineage.

The pediatricians were close to 4" too low on their predictions at that age for my boys.

[treeman10]

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[jigglypuff]

Originally Posted by treeman10

Funny you mention that cause frankly, they were off on mine to, but it sounded like a kid asking the question and I was trying to express some folks do know at 12 that their kid isn't gonna be tall (with or without pediatrician). But there are always surprises!

My daughter's shoe size went from size 6 to 11 in just 5 months then up she shot to just under 6'. (thank goodness to match those feet). No one saw that coming. Need any hardly used girls shoes sizes 6-10?

Just wondering, at what age was that? For people that have boys, that's like having a size 4 boys going to a size 9 mens in less than half a year!

[treeman10]

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[dtl2000]

Originally Posted by onehandbh

At 12, how do you know he won't grow a lot more? I was only 5'3" at 15 and grew to 6'.

Well of course just going on genetics. I am 5'2", my ex is 5' 10", my mother was only 5'1" and his uncles on his father's side never made it to 6.

Just being realistic on our goals and game.

[dtl2000]

The way it was explained to me was that since he is on the shorter side, the boys will try to roll the ball up high out of his hit zone and therefore the extreme western grip will give him a higher hit zone.

I suppose another question should be: how long should it take to change a grip? And, should he grow, would we change it back? Do the kids do that? Change back and forth?

I do like this coach and to a degree I trust his advice, however, I am always one to ask around.

I was ordering a racquet for him a few months ago and saw Tennis Warehouse had a message board so I began reading here. Seems there is lots of information and experienced coaches and parents. We are in somewhat of a remote area so its good to reach out.

[TennisCoachFLA]

His coach is correct, the western will give him a higher strike zone if he is going to be shorter. But at what cost? He will give up some court penetration.

If he goes ahead with it, I would advise that he become as strong as possible as he will need to generate as much top spin as possible to make sure his balls to not sit up to be slaughtered.

It is a trade off. He will gain some with the western and give up some things. I would not make him change but if you trust the coach, so be it.