How do you keep your wrist / racquet tilt angle consistent on forehands?

So after days and days of using the ball machine I'm still having major consistency problems with my forehand.

- For seemingly the exact same swing angle and speed, the ball can easily sail super long or go into the net.

- Sometimes I can feel where I went wrong, but often I don't. It sucks to have a ball sail long and go "well I honestly have no idea what I did wrong there compared to all the other shots that have been landing in."

- The times that I feel where I went wrong, such as having the face too open, I'm still not quite sure how to correct it. The wrist is such a flexible, mobile joint that it's hard to control its position precisely when you've got a lot of other things going on because a forehand has a lot of complex movements all strung together.

- My two-handed backhands are way way way more consistent than my forehands. I think this is because my racquet head angle is much better supported with my two hands and much easier to have a consistent angle from shot to shot.

Out of curiosity I went looking for a ball trajectory simulator and TW has one:

http://twu.tennis-warehouse.com/cgi-bin/trajectory_maker.cgi

With all things being equal, the racquet tilt is *by far* the main indicator of how long or short a ball will land. A difference of just 2 degrees on the racquet head tilt can send a ball 12 feet longer, for example, even at an insane 4,000 RPMs:

iWTFl3Y.jpg


You can vary your swing angle by 20 degrees and not make as much of an impact in distance as those 2 degrees makes on the racquet tilt angle. So I think I've found my problem. How do you keep your wrist angle consistent from shot to shot? I've thought about locking my wrist but:

- unless it's in the cocked back position, locking the wrist is painful from all the shocks of hitting a ball
- it feels really goofy striking the ball when the wrist is cocked back

If I allow my wrist to relax and move between the time I've wound up my shot and when I strike the ball, the results are not consistent.
 
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Keep your wrists relaxed and your strokes smooth. Once you've practiced and played enough, your muscle memory should be locked in. Just do what you're supposed to do each time and take it from there. No matter what you do, not all of your strokes will result in the ball going where you want and doing what you want it to do.
 

Dragy

Legend
Hey bunny, a few points:
1. With regard to your shotmaker picture, the spin values (below 1000) are pretty low for the pace values (over 70), for a rally ball. Your 4000 RPM you put into the table is incoming ball. Your outgoing figures are on the graph. I noticed those are default figures, and we discussed lately incoming balls have increased topspin after bounce, but still not sure if 4k is realistic. At 3k incoming spin your same shot is listed to produce up to 1400 RPM outgoing and easily land in.
2. Balls sailing long are mostly due to lack of spin. Varify your shots by video, do you swing low-to-high in real life? Try some exaggerated getting below the ball and brushing up with neutral/slightly closed racquet face.
3. Balls go into the net due to one of the 2 main reasons: (a) terrible mishits - well, watch the ball; (b) same lack of spin and therefore arc, low margin over the net, being afraid of hitting long. Give that ball more shape!
4. Now directly to your question, best way to get consistency on the racquet face is eliminating the effort around wrist and forearm. If you drive the thing with your big muscles and keep small muscles relaxed, stretched by created momentum, laid back, the position will be the same hit after hit. Just settle with the grip that puts your stick in a proper position for your swing, naturally.

Still, once again, key points to have better "good-shot-window" above the net and inside the opp's baseline is to swing for arcy drives with good spin and produce repeatedly clean contact. I would not care for the racquet face tilt angle for basic rally shots as long as you have eastern to strong SW grip - it'll sort itself out while practicing proper shots.
 
2

2HBH-DTL

Guest
i feel like my racquet head tilt/wrist and whatever are always around the same angle all the time pretty much. i use a semi western forehand grip and it naturally breaks a little in the wrist as i bend the racquet up when going for the take back and prepartion stage.
 
OK, so here's the thing:

In my other threads people have told me to switch from my full western grip to a semi western. I've played tennis inconsistently for 16 years. I'm 5'5".

I switched to the western initially *from* the semi western because it allowed me to keep my balls down. It's hard to make the racquet face too open on a western, so there's a built-in safety mechanism there for me against accidentally sending the ball long due to an open racquet head angle from wrist variation.

- because I'm short, I can't really swing from low to high unless I take the ball while it has already been dropping for quite some time

- my contact point is usually at the height of my shoulders to the bottom of my ribcage, again because I'm short

- my successful swings feel way more horizontal than "low to high." To me it feels like I'm just driving horizontally for 95% of my swing. If I go low to high the ball just goes way too high.

- when contacting the ball at shoulder height it is much easier to accidentally hit too high and long with a semi western than with a western

- lastly, because I'm driving horizontally for most of my shot, the western grip gives me greater wrist support. The shock to the wrist of hitting something horizontally is much less on a western grip when you're driving at balls that are close to shoulder height. A semi western isn't too bad. But an eastern grip just flat out hurts. It's simply painful for me.
 
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Gahhhhh what the hell.

So I'm with the ball machine and as an experiment I'm allowing the balls to drop further before I hit them, like to around waist height instead of chest height. The apex of the bounce is at shoulder to chest height, so I'm giving them more time to drop. My strokes are now much more consistent with a very stable and solid level of topspin.

So.... yeah. Allowing the ball to fall to a more natural hitting height where I can do more of a low to high swing helps with consistency, but at the expense of giving my opponent more time and pushing me further to the back of the court.
 

Dragy

Legend
So.... yeah. Allowing the ball to fall to a more natural hitting height where I can do more of a low to high swing helps with consistency, but at the expense of giving my opponent more time and pushing me further to the back of the court.
As far as I get this, hitting on the apex, apart from sitters inside the court, is most attractive but least effective choice. If you want to take time away from your opponent, hit on the rise. If incoming ball doesn't allow you to, let it drop to your hitting zone. Giving your opponent a diet of pacey spiny drives to the proper directions is a great approach and will give you enough UE and weaker shorter balls to capitalize on. Most of the times it's higher percentage than trying to crack shoulder-level balls flat into the opposing court.
 
We're the same height 5'5 too but I use Eastern forehand. I'm a baseline hugger mostly stays within 1 foot of the baseline and takes ball on the rise. On high balls make sure you have the right spacing between your body and the ball. I usually hit it further out the higher the ball bounces.

Here's a short clip of me hitting a neck level ball.

 

LeeD

Bionic Poster
On Chris Evert 2hbh, it's possible to keep the same racket head plane thoughout the stroke.
But on forehands, especially with some loop in the swing, the only important racket head face is during actual contact.
 
Man, yet another thing that I didn't realise in my 16 years of playing. My high school coaches always told me you should be hitting the ball close to the apex of its bounce because that's when it's most stable and easy to hit! This would also explain why you see so many ****ty high school teams with their players basically playing lob wars with each other.

All these years I've been hearing "low to high!" and when I go low to high on the apex of a ball bounce, which 90% of the time happens to be at shoulder or chest height, I always send it high and long. All these years I thought the problem was me, that I was somehow doing an awful low to high swing despite doing my best to have a perfect one - GUHHHHHHH!!!!

I finally realised I needed to just drill it horizontally to keep it low but now everyone is telling me that I should instead be aiming to hit the ball at waist height so that I can still do the low to high swing.

I currently don't have the skill or timing to hit the ball on the rise, so the ball machine is pushing me back quite a bit (at least several feet or more) if I want to hit at waist level... but the most important thing now really *is* to work on hitting at waist level so that I can develop consistency and hit low to high, right?

On a side note, immediately after reading this thread a couple guys who were easily NTRP 4.5-5.0 started playing on the court next to me. They were both your typical 6'6" lithe tennis players. I took a moment to observe their ball bounce and contact points and sure enough, the majority of their balls naturally apexed perfectly at their waist level, and man, they were absolutely whipping the racquet head and balls around, something that I've never been able to do with my horizontal drilling.

I also observed that the higher the ball bounced the greater the net clearance of their returns. There were a few times the balls bounced to chest height and even these 4.5-5.0 guys were sending these returns high and long as a result, just like me. So I guess that makes me feel better.

I then looked over at the other court where a coach was feeding a girl balls in a private lesson. The girl was around my height, and the coach (who was 6'6") was feeding her shoulder height balls and repeatedly telling her to go "low to high!!!" and she just kept sending them high and long until she too went to slapping at them horizontally just to get them to stay in. The coach, seeing that the balls were landing in, seemed happy and that was the end of it.
 

Dragy

Legend
I currently don't have the skill or timing to hit the ball on the rise, so the ball machine is pushing me back quite a bit (at least several feet or more) if I want to hit at waist level... but the most important thing now really *is* to work on hitting at waist level so that I can develop consistency and hit low to high, right?
This may be complex, however, all other things being equal, you'd prefer hitting the ball in your perfect strikezone, and the produced ball will be of top possible quality in such a case. Meanwhile, one can perform pretty well with shoulder-high contact, the cues being - more sideways spacing, very pronounced in-front contact, swinging accross the ball, not forcing yourself to get pure topspin.
Now would you always just wait for the ball to drop lower? Not likely. It's your anticipation and ball approach to get you to the best possible hitting posture for a given ball. Examples:
1. You get a rally ball landing ~2m short of the baseline and bouncing chest-high. Well, absolutely OK to pick it around apex. Given (my experience) aiming to hit the ball at the apex usually results in hitting it as the descend just began, you can give it a good rip to send back mid-paced well-spun rally ball.
2. You get a defensive high-topspin loopy shot landing just past the service line. It's expected to bounce to your head, but then go down soon enough. You step in to hit it at the apex, or setup ~1ft behind baseline and rip it around belly hight. It's a pretty good location to give your opponent a pressure shot - deep high-RPM FH with good pace - if you can place in either to where they aren't or to the BH side.
3. You get a low slice. Just get in as deep as possible, to pick it as high as possible, not at your shoelace.
4. You get a deep slow slice. Hit it like the 2, but remember the ball bounces lower and shorter, you'd better be there in time to catch that while in your strike zone.
5. You get a deep topspin semi-lob. It bounces within 1ft of the baseline and climbs quickly to/over your head level. You can fall back if the fence is not to close, but would be really deep. Many would step back like 2m and lob it back carefully, which is a decent reset shot, if done well. Another option (if the ball isn't overwhelmingly good with pace and spin) is to pick it on the rise. You want to be conservative with such a stroke not going for too much and limiting the range of takeback (like you would if you return a fast serve by FH drive, not just block back). Can do miracles against any type of opponent, really messing up their rythm and taking away time for recovery or net approach.

Generally, I wouldn't be afraid of backing up (but for maybe playing against a net crusher) if I get in return better shots. Even though my opponent might have more time, the pace, spin and margin for error I could produce hitting well-prepared and from the perfect strikezone would be at least neutrally-challenging for any peer.
 
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This may be complex, however, all other things being equal, you'd prefer hitting the ball in your perfect strikezone, and the produced ball will be of top possible quality in such a case. Meanwhile, one can perform pretty well with shoulder-high contact, the cues being - more sideways spacing, very pronounced in-front contact, swinging accross the ball, not forcing yourself to get pure topspin.
Now would you always just wait for the ball to drop lower? Not likely. It's your anticipation and ball approach to get you to the best possible hitting posture for a given ball. Examples:
1. You get a rally ball landing ~2m short of the baseline and bouncing chest-high. Well, absolutely OK to pick it around apex. Given (my experience) aiming to hit the ball at the apex usually results in hitting it as the descend just began, you can give it a good rip to send back mid-paced well-spun rally ball.
2. You get a defensive high-topspin loopy shot landing just past the service line. It's expected to bounce to your head, but then go down soon enough. You step in to hit it at the apex, or setup ~1ft behind baseline and rip it around belly hight. It's a pretty good location to give your opponent a pressure shot - deep high-RPM FH with good pace - if you can place in either to where they aren't or to the BH side.
3. You get a low slice. Just get in as deep as possible, to pick it as high as possible, not at your shoelace.
4. You get a deep slow slice. Hit it like the 2, but remember the ball bounces lower and shorter, you'd better be there in time to catch that while in your strike zone.
5. You get a deep topspin semi-lob. It bounces within 1ft of the baseline and climbs quickly to/over your head level. You can fall back if the fence is not to close, but would be really deep. Many would step back like 2m and lob it back carefully, which is a decent reset shot, if done well. Another option (if the ball isn't overwhelmingly good with pace and spin) is to pick it on the rise. You want to be conservative with such a stroke not going for too much and limiting the range of takeback (like you would if you return a fast serve by FH drive, not just block back). Can do miracles against any type of opponent, really messing up their rythm and taking away time for recovery or net approach.

Generally, I wouldn't be afraid of backing up (but for maybe playing against a net crusher) if I get in return better shots. Even though my opponent might have more time, the pace, spin and margin for error I could produce hitting well-prepared and from the perfect strikezone would be at least neutrally-challenging for any peer.
Amazing. Thanks for the tips. I wrote an update on my perfect strike zone experiment in the short tennis players thread. It indeed is a good idea for me to just let the ball drop. When attempting to hit the ball on the rise the chance of failure for me increases exponentially, but the ball machine was giving me normal shots. I guess if it was a really junk shot I might be able to hit it well on the rise, but for any kind of normal shot I don't have the skill to pull it off.

This kind of worries me because in my experience most amateur players like me tend to hit high bouncing balls because they have a hard time keeping the ball low, so this kind of exacerbates my problem. I actually tend to play better against people who can also keep the ball relatively low. I fall apart more against "worse" players who can't keep the ball low.
 

atp2015

Hall of Fame
From my experience, the wrist stays stable if the objective in the mind is very clear. If my mind says try to brush the back by reaching the outside of the ball (around 4 o'clock on the ball) , there's only one way for the body to execute the instruction. It will keep the wrist laid back and elbow stable and use the shoulder to brush up. It's all in the mind in my opinion/experience. The mind has to come up with the mission to accomplish and state the goal very clearly - the body will find a way to make it happen (of course, if it has the ability). The same thing is with serve and any other stroke - the mind is the king and the ruler. Luckily, there's no legal branch in the body to stop the executive ! (probably the fear of missing comes in to stop the body sometimes, but if you are able to overcome that, there's no stopping).

A lot of times the mind says 'go hit a winner' or 'time to attack' etc, especially when the ball comes to the forehand. The forehand allows us to do many things and the mind wanders off. My coach said a long time ago - hitting winner or forcing errors from opponent should never be the goal - winners or errors just happen when you execute proper mechanics. The goal in the mind should always be to hit the right shot and the focus should be on executing the right mechanics - preparation, footwork, brushing up, swinging fluidly, follow-through etc. If you miss a shot, move onto the next. If executed properly you will get a lot of points.
 
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