Thanks for all your responses so far!
. I'll respond to each in turn.
I thought you looked solid. You have nice shape on your shots. I had a teammate at the University of Michigan named Dan Goldberg. He lost in the finals at the NCAA and he had a very handsy style like you. I thought his junior coach must have been a genius because I would have suggested many changes. I think you lay your hand back farther than most on your forehand and I would recommend accentuating hitting through the ball because your elbow is a little tight to your body. I also think you're better with your closed stance, so I would do the work to get yourself into that position when possible. I'm a very classic player, but I think technique is often emphasized over results. Your results are good. You just need to discipline yourself to be as repetitive as possible.
Thanks, I'll try to work myself more into closed stances and accentuate hitting through the ball. At times, when I make an error I do remind myself to hit through the ball actually.
I would keep the left hand on the racquet longer on unit turn. Leave the hand out like you are going to catch the ball and pull it out of the way using shoulder muscles as you start the forward swing. Everything after that, you are doing great! If you are going to have the striking string bed “open” all of the time during the swing, you could use a bigger loop to get more momentum, but no biggie.
Edit: Actually, the more I think about the bigger loop on that forehand with the vertical/open face throughout, I think you need to do it. I guess we are calling it the WTA forehand. You will see the people using it with the racquet further away from the body and sometimes even behind them. Not only does it create momentum but it provides a good stretch in the front of the shoulder and pec that when you rotate your torso you can really forget about the arm but it will still fire with gusto toward the ball. You, currently, probably have to pay more attention than necessary to what your arm is doing because of this lack of length/stretch.
Alrighty, I'll try to extend my arm out to create a bigger loop on my forehand. I'll need to discipline myself to do this as sometimes I feel I might get caught out on faster paced shots but I assume I'd just need to practice and prepare earlier.
Before saying anything about my observation I wanted to see if it was already mentioned and thought your view might be similar.
Anyway I thought there was something not quite right with the forehand . This is just my opinion by the way, not making any big claims here. What I saw is the elbow not moving much during the take back, staying close to the torso, not moving back or up much, instead the hand and the forearm moves back/takes the racket back. Now is this compact or jammed? Looks jammed to me.
I actually do feel jammed sometimes, I feel its a combination of my elbow not moving back much during take back, lazy footwork and reading the line of the ball wrong. I'll try to move my elbow out more during take back.
Probably good for your level, but if you want to hit faster or more accurate or able to handle more different shots, I would suggest looking into wider stances as a start.
Sure, I never really noticed my stance was narrow. I'll attempt to widen it a bit.
OP may I ask you what is your playing environment? Do you play league or tournaments? What are your goals? What's the timespan for your goals?
You definitely have command over the ball and can play the game. Is there anything particular you are struggling with or want to achieve? Because we can offer all sort of advice with intent to further develop techniques, facilitate better awareness, movement and balance, but although entertaining, it might come out too broad and not focused.
I currently play in a weekend league and am looking to enter weeknight league as I want feel I need to be less lazy and practice more in order to improve. My goals is to tighten up my technique, work on footwork and positioning with no particular timespan.
There's a few things in my mind that I think struggle with: crosscourt forehands on the run, drifting to sit too close to the baseline during a rally, accidentally jamming myself, consistently hitting backhand drives up the line and sometimes on the forehand I end up planting my feet and lunging toward the ball instead of taking an extra step where I be in a better balanced position to hit it.
Nothing majorly wrong with your shots imo but what I'd suggest into doing next is to work on your movement and stance.
Your stance is a bit narrow and you are too static after you hit your shot.
If your opponent decides to take your balls early or approaches the net, I think you're done. (but still better than me
)
Yep, I'll be working on widening my stance and I do feel inconsistent with my movement after a shot. It's like sometimes I fall into the trap of observing the nice shape on my shot instead of moving back to a ready position
. You are correct that people whom have taken balls early coinciding to the times when I'm static after a shot have caused me trouble before. I've mitigated a bit with half-volley shots but it's not something I want to rely on!
Hopefully, this quote response post is still legible as I want to respond back to all your good advice and feedback.
