How to close the racquet head on impact?

iChen said:

What I was having issue with was contact point and timing, not really closing racquet per say but when I hit.

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Pete Player said:

Where exactly is ”out”? Wide on fh side, long or wide on bh side?

Without knowing that, guessing, you are late.


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Taita87 said:

Hi, i have good mechanics, nice fluid strokes, i have been playing tennis for 13 years in my youth. I started again After a stop of 12 years, now from 2 months.

I am trying to correct my forehand in a Federer way (not that my previous foreh was bad, Just a bit old School). It takes some time.
...

One thing that i saw though, watching training video of myself, is that i tend to impact the ball with a perpendicular racquet head relative to floor. I don't close it by 5-10 degrees like you should.

Do you have any tip to re-work this aspect?

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golden chicken said:

I think he meant like, eastern, semiwestern, or western.

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Raul_SJ said:

I try to focus on a consistent contact point out in front and a consistent swing path. I believe my face is approximately vertical or slightly tilted closed but I don't think club players are good enough to consciously and consistently manipulate face angle with 5 degrees of precision -- the contact angle is a function of correct setup, swing path an contact point.

That said, I don't think anyone has answered your OP question on tips to ensure the 10 degree closed angle. Would be interested to hear tips, if there are any, regarding that specific issue of contact angle.

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Taita87 said:

A bunch of random strokes, not the best ones nor the worst.
Parallel face to the net and no closing in the First 20cm

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Taita87 said:

Uhm, now that you point it out it seems to me that i could be a little late on contact point...
I am for sure not at Nadal impact point position.

And yes, i am probably using my wrist to lead the stroke too much. That, however, is due to me trying to "modernize" my forehand as i was used to hit it with almost no top spin from wrist whippiness. (you Can see my wrist is somehow tight still now, Watch a Federer video and you will see the difference).

This is a video of me 2 months ago, 0 spin from wrist:

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FiReFTW said:

You seem to be under the impression that topspin is created via wrist, that is completely false.
Top spin is created from a low to high swingpath, and if you use ur kinetic chain properly and racquet drop bellow the ball, the racquet rotation around that you might mistake for a wrist snap is a natural side effect of pre streched muscles being released into the shot.
Its nothing close to being an active wrist rotation or wrist snap, the only thing similar to that might be sometimes on a shorter ball where you want to take away some pace so then you use less penetration but add some active rotation around but with ur shoudler and forearm not so much ur wrist, or very slightly.

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Taita87 said:

Uhm, now that you point it out it seems to me that i could be a little late on contact point...
I am for sure not at Nadal impact point position.

And yes, i am probably using my wrist to lead the stroke too much. That, however, is due to me trying to "modernize" my forehand as i was used to hit it with almost no top spin from wrist whippiness. (you Can see my wrist is somehow tight still now, Watch a Federer video and you will see the difference).

This is a video of me 2 months ago, 0 spin from wrist:

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Taita87 said:

We agree with that, don't take me wrong.
What I mean is that I was swinging with tight muscles resulting in a non moving wrist and a racquet head almost parallel to the net throughout the stroke (till the final too).

I know where spin comes from, I exaggerated the concept because I was doing the opposite till one month ago: kinetic chain stopping at the elbow caused by tight forearm muscles


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FiReFTW said:

I think ur going about it wrong tho, look at this comparison with Roger


Here is your forehand, look at the swing path of your forehand, the red is after these frames ( didn't wanna use too many pics), its the shape of your swing:

Now look at one forehand from Roger, where he drops the racquet similarly lower than the ball as you do:

As you can see he is swinging MUCH more THROUGH the ball than you do, so his forehand is much heavier and has much more pace on it than yours

Now here is one example of a forehand where Roger wants to add more spin to it and make it possible a bigger arc but most importantly more spin:

As you can see he drops the racquet much more bellow the ball here than you do, but his overall swingpath is much more THROUGH the ball still than yours is

The point is, u don't have any drive on your forehands, its only spin that you are producing mostly, with no drive and penetration.

Now its not like your forehand is WRONG, it is not, however for baseline hitting it is WRONG, because your shots will lack penetration and heavyness and will be more loopy and sure have decent topspin but very loopy and not enough on them.

Your forehand is a good one to use sometimes on shorter balls where you want more spin and control and less plow through to not hit it long, tho even for those short balls you might hit it with a bit more forward swingpath and more closed racquet face as opposed to such an extreme upward swing.

Its also a decent technique to use on balls ur late and have a late contact and maybe stretched outside the baseline, so you add alot of spin and take away pace to get the ball in with a late contact and also give urself more time to get back to the "middle" of the baseline.
Tho in cases where ur not so stretched and dont want to give urself more time a buggy whip followthrough might be a better option as it gives you the possibility of more drive and pace sometimes when you want to be more aggressive.

But most importantly stop forcing this wrist snap, if you drop the racquet lower enough and swing upward AND forward, it will happen naturaly if you use ur kinetic chain well AND your arm is relaxed and not TIGHT.

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nytennisaddict said:

ironically this vid looks 100x better than the first vid.
in the first vid, if you say you're not getting enough topspin,...
get under the ball more and close your racquet face slightly more.... think about driving the top edge of the racquet into the bottom of the ball...

if you're looking at "modernizing" by "adding" more "lag and snap", do so by adding that to your first-vid-stroke.
and accomplish that by gradually loosening your grip.
IMO, at your current phase of stroke development, just get your hand under the contact point more, and close y our racquet face slightly more.

my $0.02

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golden chicken said:

To me, the shape of your arm as you swing and your wrist position would again, lead me to suggest using a semiwestern grip or something closer to it than eastern. Your second video is way better looking to me too.

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Taita87 said:

A bunch of random strokes, not the best ones nor the worst.
Parallel face to the net and no closing in the First 20cm

Click to expand...

Taita87 said:

We agree with that, don't take me wrong.
What I mean is that I was swinging with tight muscles resulting in a non moving wrist and a racquet head almost parallel to the net throughout the stroke (till the final too).

I know where spin comes from, I exaggerated the concept because I was doing the opposite till one month ago: kinetic chain stopping at the elbow caused by tight forearm muscles


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Dragy said:

Extra to what’s said by guys above, I came to a conclusion that bent arm/tucked in elbow compromises racquet angle with easternish grips. You either work on better spacing, which enables you to really reach out and forward for the contact, or you settle with bent arm (Nole, Stan, Nishikori) technique, but turn your grip to SW to get naturally proper racquet position by contact.

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SinjinCooper said:

No.

The bent arm is the natural swing for all forehands, and eastern is the most basic of them all, putting the hand in the strongest position to support the racquet and redirect the ball. It's simply not an ultra-modern swing, and isn't overly focused on certain elements of modern technique. "Pat the dog" pretty much disappears. Not that lag isn't created - it's simply that the wrist and hand fall into position such that the racquet doesn't naturally fall at that angle, but rather hinges backward. You don't have to travel backwards in time very far to see it as the dominant stroke in all of tennis. Sampras, Lendl, Wilander et al. Still works great today, and is far, far far, far, far, far, far, FAR, far, far easier for most people to develop facility with.

What's more, the path to mastery of more advanced forehand techniques comes much easier if you work to understand the classic eastern first. Learning how it works is to the forehand what learning to throw is for the serve: a building block. It's THE simplest way to mastery of hitting forehands without arming them. (A skill most players never develop precisely because they want to skip the essential building blocks.)

Not that there's anything wrong with a straight arm eastern. It's an excellent stroke, and in many ways better suited to the modern game. But it's a forced hitting structure that requires manipulation of the body (and an enhanced understanding of what the body is doing) rather than simple obedience to biomechanics. The Sampras eastern is pure obedience to biomechanics in the same way the Feliciano Lopez serve is. Makes them ideal templates for learning in ways that, e.g., a Roddick serve or a Kyrgios forehand can not be.

If you want to progress from zero to Kyrgios on the FH, going through Sampras is a far faster route than trying to go straight there.

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Taita87 said:

Hi, i have good mechanics, nice fluid strokes, i have been playing tennis for 13 years in my youth. I started again After a stop of 12 years, now from 2 months.

I am trying to correct my forehand in a Federer way (not that my previous foreh was bad, Just a bit old School). It takes some time.

My forehand was my absolutely strong stroke, now i'm playing One handed backand stronger (i corrected that too).
The problem is that i hit lots of forehands out, sometimes mixing my previous mechanics with the new, sometimes doing it right. Training is a Little better, but i 'm losing matches cause of tons of forehand going out (probably during competitions its easier to mix the mechanics).


One thing that i saw though, watching training video of myself, is that i tend to impact the ball with a perpendicular racquet head relative to floor. I don't close it by 5-10 degrees like you should.

Do you have any tip to re-work this aspect?

Click to expand...

dominikk1985 said:

Closing the racket to create spin is a myth, spin is created by the rackets vertical acceleration. Federer has a flat arm path but the racket still goes up due to the arm rotation. The racket also doesn't further close, it closes if you hit below center and opens if you hit above center
This video here shows that pretty good

Pros still hit with a slightly closed racket head but that is mostly to counter the incoming spin and prevent the ball from going high but you want to maintain that angle before, at and after contact.

Btw I don't agree with the guy in the video that top pros intentionally hit the ball below center

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Taita87 said:

Today it went a lot better, I tried to impose not to open the face at all.
It's a compromise between my ex forehand and the modified one, I think I have to work again and again: I lost the compact coil, going back to a full stroke and sometimes I found myself hitting not sufficiently further causing the arm to be bent again.

Anyway, it was definitely better and I finally saw consistency and heaviness.

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dominikk1985 said:

Pros still hit with a slightly closed racket head but that is mostly to counter the incoming spin and prevent the ball from going high but you want to maintain that angle before, at and after contact.

Btw I don't agree with the guy in the video that top pros intentionally hit the ball below center

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RetroSpin said:

First off, most of the advice you have received here is either nonsense or useless. You have a nice looking stroke that is better than most of the people offering critiques. Stick with Pete Player and you won't go wrong however.

I see a few things, FWIW. The first thing is, you definitely have a hybrid old/new stroke. You do not get the racquet head laid back when you start the forward swing, which is pretty much the hallmark of the modern technique. The good news is plenty of people play high level tennis using your technique.

I agree with some others that your contact point is late. This is due in part to your wrist not being laid back enough. Compare the racquet/forearm angle at impact you achieve with Fed or Nadal.

Lack of lag coming into impact means you are compromised in generating power by pulling your hand across. So instead you have to swing your arm fast, which means all your timing becomes more critical.

It looks to me like you are not focusing on the ball through impact. Modern technique involves holding as much lag as possible as late as possible then releasing it by pulling your hand across and up. If you are not seeing the ball through impact, the timing of this becomes impossible and you will end up reaching for the ball.

Topspin is achieved largely through a tilted racquet face and somewhat by an upward path and the windshield wiper move. To get the proper balance, it is useful to hit drop feeds.

In summary, there is nothing wrong with your current technique, although I would not classify it as modern technique. You can work on tweaking it or you can go full bore on developing a modern stroke. Your choice and neither one is clearly right or wrong. Here is a great model for a modern ATP FH. You can see how he pulls his hand across and accelerates the face upward on a constant plane.

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