Fixing things by swinging harder

[zaph]

My game has been a bit of a mess recently, backhand failed, forehand a shadow of what it was. Lots of misses, caught flat footed balls going long and in the net. The serve just turned into a complete mess.

I been trying to fixes things by being more careful, slow, deliberate, keep the ball in. Hasn't been working, so today I did the opposite, I decide to swing hard against every ball, however difficult.

At first I was missing like some sort of out of control ball machine, the guy I was warming up with was getting increasingly annoyed, but he is the sort of player who tries to win the warmup, so I thought turn about was fair play.

Eventually it started working, my shots started going in, I was actually hitting winners. I managed to crush a pushers dolly serve consistently. I even found more power on my serve than I had before, I was actually getting free points and holding my serve.

I think the problem was, I was so anxious about missing I was slowing the racket down and effectively pushing. By swinging harder on every shot, I got more spin and more consistency.

 

[StringSnapper]

Imo with the 5oclock takeback it forces you to swing hard with the body to add the spin. Otherwise it hits the tape or goes long

 

[FiReFTW]

You mean you were hitting faster.

Fast relaxed strokes, creating a ton of racquet speed and having a ton of control.

Hitting HARDER is a mistake, that means ur muscling the ball and tense, it usually happens when I get nervious during important parts of the match sometimes, then I lose all control and start missing because im hitting tense and hard and not relaxed and fast.

Slowing down swings also happens sometimes, specially when u start ur match and ur a bit tentative, and don't want to miss long, but its funny because when you slow down your swing and get tense u miss alot more and have less control and easier to overhit than when you let go and swing fast and relaxed.

Tennis is a funny thing.