Closing Racquet Face on Forehand Drop?

mj49

New User
So, I've been having a lot trouble hitting long on my forehands, and after recording myself it looks like I'm leaving my racquet face open on the initiation of the downswing and through the impact. Hoping someone can clarify the racquet drop portion of the swing.

My current process is as follows (eastern grip btw), I unit turn and my strings are facing side fence. Now, when I swing to contact, what I'm doing is just basically dropping the raquet and swinging forward. My racquet faces the side fence at stop of unit turn AND during the drop/start of rotation forward.

I never have a point where my racquet face closes before I start my swing. My main question is, should I close the racquet face a little when I drop and rotate? Is this the ideal swing? I've heard of "patting the dog" and completely having the racquet face the ground, but I feel that much closing of the racquet would destroy my timing.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!!
 

Dragy

Legend
It’s more about racquet tip pointing diagonally towards the side fence instead of straight to the back fence. And it’s not likely to impact RF at contact.
Best bet would be to video your strokes. Eastern grip generally requires contact more to the side than much in front, and pronounced arm rotation (RH coming towards higher than handle) to avoid RF opening up.
 

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
Tennisspeed has some excellent displays of how closed the racket is as it moves forward.


Look for pictures toward the second half of this article. This is Part 9 of a long series. Green is impact.
ND+IZ+Pronation+007.jpg


Well before impact there may be variation among players in the orientations of their racket heads. Pat the dog is one orientation.
Find high speed videos of the side camera view for each player.

You should analyze your entire forehand as all the sub-motions have to mesh. The time that you probably are interested in is the lag portion where the arm and racket lag behind, the arm is loose and can take on its own orientation with a mixture of muscles, both loose and not loose. Straight arm or bent arm forehands and grips are important as well as other details.

Jack Sock - racket head faces toward the ball on take back,
Federer - Eastern Forehand grip and straight arm
Djokovic - bent arm and probably Semi-Western grip
Others- ?

Search for the composite videos of Anatoly Antipin on Youtube. Search for his composite forehand pictures on the forum. Poster - Toly. Unfortunately, many of his great composite pictures have links that no longer work.

 
Last edited:

ChaelAZ

G.O.A.T.
So, I've been having a lot trouble hitting long on my forehands, and after recording myself it looks like I'm leaving my racquet face open on the initiation of the downswing and through the impact. Hoping someone can clarify the racquet drop portion of the swing.

My current process is as follows (eastern grip btw), I unit turn and my strings are facing side fence. Now, when I swing to contact, what I'm doing is just basically dropping the raquet and swinging forward. My racquet faces the side fence at stop of unit turn AND during the drop/start of rotation forward.

I never have a point where my racquet face closes before I start my swing. My main question is, should I close the racquet face a little when I drop and rotate? Is this the ideal swing? I've heard of "patting the dog" and completely having the racquet face the ground, but I feel that much closing of the racquet would destroy my timing.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!!


Are you comfortable with the swing path, as in does it feel natural? If so, have you simply tried adjust your grip to close the face more? There are plenty of players from college to pros that leave the racquet face more open and still make correct contact, so might be worth investigating there before changing larger parts of the swing path. Would be helpful for you to post up a video of your FH to check out though.

Cheers.
 
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