travlerajm
Talk Tennis Guru
Three days ago I played a match with a semiwestern grip for the first time. The results surprisingly promising.
My usual fh grip is between eastern and semiwestern.
To recap my story, I never learned a decent forehand as a junior, but reached a high level of play, playing 5.0 level at times, and settling into a 4.5-5.0 level for most of my adult tennis life. My weak forehand was capping my level. However, I developed an excellent slice fh return that allowed me to compete and sometimes win matches against 5.0 players.
During the pandemic, I developed a fairly solid new fh technique that relies on a fixed wrist at contact. My baseline game level shot up a notch, and I started winning everything last year. But that was on hardcourt.
My fixed-wrist forehand is useless here on red clay in South America. So I am starting from scratch trying to learn a full lag forehand that makes it easier to adjust last instant to clay bounces, and easier to generate more racquet speed that helps for clay court tennis.
But it’s been a struggle, so I thought maybe I’ve got nothing to lose by trying a stronger grip?
On the plus side, I’ve found that when my semiwestern fh connects with the right timing, it generates a really heavy rally ball that gives my opponents problems. It helps that I’m using a slightly head heavy frame with 375sw that can really club it.
The number one obstacle is that I have tendency to meet the ball too late. My old fh has a contact point further back relative to my stance, and it’s difficult to adjust to a contact point further out in front. This becomes harder when I get tired. And my cardio system is working hard in these super hot conditions, so I’m often playing under extreme cardio stress.
The second obstacle is that my grip tends to drift back toward my old grip. So even if I meet the ball with the right contact point, the wrong grip will cause me to launch the fh into the fence.
The third issue is that as soon as the first two issues start to occur, I start to bail out to the trusty slice too often, passing up opportunities to create offense with the heavy topspin semi drive.
On Wednesday, I came within points of upsetting my nemesis for the first time, but I wore down at the end when my new semi grip fh broke down. Lost the set to her 7-5.
Then yesterday, I destroyed a 5.0 teaching pro who used to beat me most of the time. Again I started losing the fh feel though when heat exhaustion set in.
Any tips for reinforcing the right out-in-front contact point and ‘locking in’ the new stronger grip are welcome.
My usual fh grip is between eastern and semiwestern.
To recap my story, I never learned a decent forehand as a junior, but reached a high level of play, playing 5.0 level at times, and settling into a 4.5-5.0 level for most of my adult tennis life. My weak forehand was capping my level. However, I developed an excellent slice fh return that allowed me to compete and sometimes win matches against 5.0 players.
During the pandemic, I developed a fairly solid new fh technique that relies on a fixed wrist at contact. My baseline game level shot up a notch, and I started winning everything last year. But that was on hardcourt.
My fixed-wrist forehand is useless here on red clay in South America. So I am starting from scratch trying to learn a full lag forehand that makes it easier to adjust last instant to clay bounces, and easier to generate more racquet speed that helps for clay court tennis.
But it’s been a struggle, so I thought maybe I’ve got nothing to lose by trying a stronger grip?
On the plus side, I’ve found that when my semiwestern fh connects with the right timing, it generates a really heavy rally ball that gives my opponents problems. It helps that I’m using a slightly head heavy frame with 375sw that can really club it.
The number one obstacle is that I have tendency to meet the ball too late. My old fh has a contact point further back relative to my stance, and it’s difficult to adjust to a contact point further out in front. This becomes harder when I get tired. And my cardio system is working hard in these super hot conditions, so I’m often playing under extreme cardio stress.
The second obstacle is that my grip tends to drift back toward my old grip. So even if I meet the ball with the right contact point, the wrong grip will cause me to launch the fh into the fence.
The third issue is that as soon as the first two issues start to occur, I start to bail out to the trusty slice too often, passing up opportunities to create offense with the heavy topspin semi drive.
On Wednesday, I came within points of upsetting my nemesis for the first time, but I wore down at the end when my new semi grip fh broke down. Lost the set to her 7-5.
Then yesterday, I destroyed a 5.0 teaching pro who used to beat me most of the time. Again I started losing the fh feel though when heat exhaustion set in.
Any tips for reinforcing the right out-in-front contact point and ‘locking in’ the new stronger grip are welcome.
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