It doesn't appear that you're using your hips and legs to generate power on your forehand, they are kind of involved, but they are not leading the action, it's like an after-thought. There should be some separation of the rotation angles of your hips and shoulders, from what I can see, it looks like your whole torso is moving as one unit...and late. It kind of looks like you're letting your arm do too much of the work, as if you want your elbow to snap through and deliver power, also you seem to be recovering before you've finished your stroke completely.
I see what you mean! I want to get this fixed ASAP. If I have this in line, I feel like my game would be so much better. I'd really have the technique down and know how to derive my power.
I've had a coach comment on this same torso/hip twist issue too.. I'm supposed to drive my hips/legs first, then drive my arms/shoulders, right?
I definitely do agree with this over-arm use. Sometimes my arms get sore. Really, my legs/hips should be the ones getting sore.
Thanks for your feedback!! Really eye-opening for me!
From what I see in the video, it's a contact point and confidence issue. You step back about 3 feet as soon as the ball machine starts feeding to your BH side, hitting the ball over your shoulder line. You can't drive well from that position: the combo of taking the ball over the shoulder and far behind the baseline forces weak replies out of your BH side. Just get closer to the baseline, find your ideal contact zone (usually between the hips and the shoulder line) and drive through it with your shoulders and legs. Your body posture at contact needs to be rock solid so that you're not pushed back as you strike.
Even if you make a UE or FE, having a strong position at contact will give the cue to your opponent that she can't simply hope to push you back by hitting loopy balls to your BH side. Then you can dial in the pace and spin not to make errors. Don't hesitate to step if with a neutral or closed stance even if the ball comes fast or loopy to you.
On a side note, I wonder why you didn't go to Semi-Western FH (or Extreme Eastern) instead of Eastern FH. Steep change, so I won't comment on it.
OMG!! Yea I have been having a tough time with these on the rise balls. A couple lessons before I worked on on-the-rise with my coach. I ended up short-hopping balls or hitting balls weakly up.
You're definitely right, I need to work on them so hard. Going to go hit me some on-the-rise balls so I can be more aggressive and confident during matches later this week.
I'm going to try to drive balls waste level-ish w/ my hips/legs/shoulders (not arms).
Thanks for this moment of relevation!!
You have good strokes. For example of topspin fh that has good balance of spin and power, watch you tube of Svetlana Kuznetsova. Notice how she bends the knees, drives the shot with her back hip rotating foreward, and how she extends out through contact. She gets her racket head below contact and swings upward but she still hits through the ball. See if you can get the feel of loading weight into legs and using leg lift and hip rotation to drive the power into the stroke. Look for video of her with title below on YouTube. She has great spin for control and hits a heavy ball
Svetlana Kuznetsova | Forehand and Backhand #1 | Western & Southern Open 2014
WOW. Just watched the video and made me feel even more motivated.
I saw how her back hip for FH really drove the ball, but the back hip for BH didn't seem to do much. Most of her weight was on her front leg for BH.
Holy crap, yeah she loads up pretty solid. Doesn't even look like a HUGE loadup, but she still gets so much power and rotates her hip perfectly from it.
Also another thing I see is that she doesn't drop her racquet that much. However, I do see her swing forward/up and contact the ball----and the ball beams off hard and solidly.
I want to put these thing in my game soo bad now haha.
Thanks for sharing this video with me and offering your insight!
Forehand, use a stronger grip, then swing harder. You float too many shots.
Backhand, lean forwards towards the opponent, so you keep the shots lower.
No idea how you could see how hard I was gripping the racquet... but you're 100% right. I noticed my loose grip when I was playing yesterday. I think the forehand grip was kinda changing too between shots.
Partially I think it has something to do with the recent grip change (still feels a little weird when I hit FH). I always have to check to see if I'm still eastern or close to eastern.
Crap, I'll just try to keep a stronger hold on it and hope my grip doesn't change or soemething..
Thanks for your feedback!
OP,
IMO, your strokes' weaknesses are very subtle and difficult and beyond the capability of most people in this place to troubleshoot. For instance I don't know why you don't accelerate hard your backhand swing. Lack of balance, small errors somewhere?
For FH, you're keeping the racket too low. There's virtually no racket drop on the takeback, backswing. To me, that affects power. But then there are pro's (Gasquet?) who don't do racket drop!
I think I'm not accelerating too much in my backswing because my right arm isn't straight (would give me a bigger backswing), I need a little more open stance, I need to prepare more early, need a stronger grip, and I need to drive with my hips/legs and not my arms. Could also use a flatter swing for more direct power.
This is based on what I read, and I think it's very accurate in terms of what I need to work on for bH.
I tried a bigger racquet drop the day before, but the balls went flying..... Im going to keep working on it though and see if it's for the better or worse.
Tentative swings lead to floaters and weak shots.
Against a ball machine, swing with 90% effort, going for your shots, and going for specific targets DTL or CC, but never never up the middle.
You are what you practice. If you practice tentative, you will play tentative.
One thing for sure, I'm going to start playing a lot more harder against the ball machines, with more purpose. But one thing that annoys me is that when I start teeing away at the balls, I lose consistency. Should I just keep aiming purposely and hitting hard, regardless of missing? I want to be able to hit hard, with good technique, and consistent in the end. I just don't want to end up hitting hard, but missing many shots too.
Either way, this is a very helpful tip and I'll think of it when I practice.
I agree that your fh takeback is pretty short, robbing you of power. Another thing on the forehand is court positioning. If you want to learn to be a bit more offensive, especially when you have the chance, you have to get closer to the baseline. This alone will give you more offensive strokes, even without changing your technique and will suit your short takeback.
Most of your fh shots are happening very far from your baseline, you could easily take them right from the baseline on my opinion since those balls are not really powerful enough to justify staying far back constantly.
If you are so far back and try to hit more offensive you better hit really hard and your takeback is just to short for this. In general it is very hard to be more offensive from this position, even if you could it harder.
With your current strokes you simply can't be really offensive that far back, your shot is lacking penetration and you hit them to short for that. That's more tactics, but I think you would benefit greatly from practising taking balls early.
You have nice technique, though, so I am sure you can improve quite a bit on that.
Thanks for the advice!! Going to play more on the baseline and try hitting more on the rise in practice. I agree, I've seen really good players just take those balls I've been hitting right off the rise no problem. I'm going to practice more offensively and I'll watch my takeback as well. Hopefully my timing will adjust!!
Thanks again.
. One concern I have about having a more loopy swing is that my stroke would end up looking like my BH (loopy, high-ish, spinny, consistent... but not aggressive).
