On one handed backhand are you supposed to be closing the racquet face at the moment you strike the ball?

[Raul_SJ]

Thats cool. Spin to win haha thats what freeskiers say.

Are you always trying close it the same amount on the backswing? Or do you vary the "load" (closing) on the backswing depending on whether you want to hit flat versus topspin?

Assume waist high neutral rally ball.

 

[socallefty]

Yeah i kind of thought this was obvious. I was wondering if theres a substantial benefit to sort of wraping the racquet over the top of the ball during ball impact. In other words, having the racquet face in the process of closing as the ball strikes the strings. My guess is that nadal does it to avoid letting an above center hit open up the face and send it long, or that he is doing it to get the frame out of the way so he doesnt frame it during his huge upswing

I’m not sure if I understand your comment and might be misconstruing it. All I know is that those with an ATP FH takeback have the racquet closed at takeback and then when they swing it forward, they start opening it up, but it is still somewhat closed (10-20 degrees from vertical) at contact. Those with a more traditional swing have the racquet face open during the take back and then start closing it during the forward swing until it is almost vertical (maybe 5-10 degrees closed) at contact. I remember seeing a study a long time ago stating that this swing style results in a more vertical racquet face at contact and therefore it needs more of a low-high vertical swing to generate comparable topspin to an ATP takeback with a more closed face.

With BHs, I think the racquet face is open at contact (like a traditional FH) during takeback and you start trying to close it more during the forward swing and likely have it slightly closed (maybe less than 10 degrees) at contact.

I also know that players slightly vary how closed the racquet is during an ATP takeback depending on if they are hitting on the rise, have more time, hitting harder/flatter trajectory etc.

 

[mxmx]

The reason the racket can sometimes look like its closing quite aggressively is because its hitting the lower part of the stringbed.

Because theyre swinging so hard and with a relatively loose wrist, any impact with a ball that itself is travelling at 50mph is gonna cause a jolt with the racket face after contact, unless you physically try to lock your wrist to not allow the racket face to twist when it hits the lower part of the stringbed, which is a no no.

Now even if they catch the ball sweet or even at the top half of the stringbed, whilst the racket face will stay facing the net for longer, the racket will still close a little bit after contact because the arm has run out of room to move forwards, and so with a relatively loose wrist, the momentum of the racket is carrying on moving forwards slightly beyond your arm, pivoted around your wrist, so it looks like its closing.

But this is happening naturally theyre not forcing this, its a side effect of the stroke.

I agree and disagree. What you are talking about does sometimes occur, but not always.

I definitely close my racket face against heavy hitters with spin. I guarantee you that most pro's playing against Nadal has to do this or else they may hit long many times.
On the rise shots applies to this especially. One has to counter the bounce angle and spin by closing the face.

To use an example: professional table tennis players has to exaggerate the closing even more due to the extreme bounces and spins they receive. And of course the table being so short.

 

[Dragy]

If you use formal logic, to have better consistency you want to get best RF angle around contact. So you strive to maintain it relatively constant around the zone where contact might happen.

Contact lasts 3-5ms. If you make some significant RF change in that timespan, imagine how off your shot will be if you mistime the contact by 10ms, for example? You either send it into the floor or into the back fence. Not likely if you do everything to have RF more constant for like 50ms pre- and post- expected contact.

Interesting aspect of this is, as we swing with typical FH swing, RF tends to open going forward and up. To compensate for that around contact high level players employ all-arm rotation from before to after contact. This makes RF appear significantly closed into extension and follow-through:

 

[a12345]

Heres an example of Nadal where the ball hits the top of his stringbed and the next frame shows it actually knocks his racket more open briefly straight after contact, before eventually the racket gets flung forwards and closes.

 

[a12345]

If you use formal logic, to have better consistency you want to get best RF angle around contact. So you strive to maintain it relatively constant around the zone where contact might happen.

Contact lasts 3-5ms. If you make some significant RF change in that timespan, imagine how off your shot will be if you mistime the contact by 10ms, for example? You either send it into the floor or into the back fence. Not likely if you do everything to have RF more constant for like 50ms pre- and post- expected contact.

Interesting aspect of this is, as we swing with typical FH swing, RF tends to open going forward and up. To compensate for that around contact high level players employ all-arm rotation from before to after contact. This makes RF appear significantly closed into extension and follow-through:

I agree, unless you hit every ball with a closed string bed so thats your standard shot, I dont think you can change the racket face angle on each ball and get consistency.

 

[ballmachineguy]

There is a big difference between moving toward contact with the racquet face somewhat closed and trying to increase this angle near contact. The latter will make it hard to improve beyond a 3.5 level. The language of the thread title insinuates the latter situation. I found the following article and while I didn’t read the whole thing it addresses this. It talks about the forehand, but I’m pretty sure it goes for any ground stroke.

The Biggest Mistake Killing Your Forehand Consistency

Last year, I worked with a 14 year old girl who had one of the most mismanaged forehand strokes I’ve ever seen. Her problem: “roll your wrist over/around the ball.” She turned to me, scoffed,...Continue reading

faulttoleranttennis.com

 

[Chas Tennis]

There is a big difference between moving toward contact with the racquet face somewhat closed and trying to increase this angle near contact. The latter will make it hard to improve beyond a 3.5 level. The language of the thread title insinuates the latter situation. I found the following article and while I didn’t read the whole thing it addresses this. It talks about the forehand, but I’m pretty sure it goes for any ground stroke.

The Biggest Mistake Killing Your Forehand Consistency

Last year, I worked with a 14 year old girl who had one of the most mismanaged forehand strokes I’ve ever seen. Her problem: “roll your wrist over/around the ball.” She turned to me, scoffed,...Continue reading

faulttoleranttennis.com

The entire tennis stroke results in the collision. Play this back at 0.25X and look for string movement and spring back.

The TW links above have many more very high speed videos of strings meeting balls. Some of the best very high speed videos that I have seen of the ball on the strings, I believe were in the TW collection of articles, under string testing?

Tennis Warehouse University

Some research has involved the effects of lubricants on the strings. Years ago a different method of stringing the racket, Spaghetti Stringing, was quickly outlawed by the ITF? after it was successful in ATP tennis tournaments. Search: Nastase Spaghetti Stringing

SPAGHETTI STRUNG RACQUETS

Ask the Stringer: What Is Spaghetti Stringing?

Q: What is "spaghetti stringing?" A: "Spaghetti stringing" is—in short—a method of stringing in which the main strings and the cross strings are not interwoven. It gained popularity in the late 1970s but was quickly banned by the International Tennis Federation. True spaghetti-strung racquets...

www.holabirdsports.com

The ball cups into the strings briefly during a hard impact. The strings stretch and the ball flattens and distorts. Lubricants or slippery strings may be in use. Rackets are sometimes strung with a mix of gut and synthetic strings. String tensions vary. Different collision speeds. Very high speed videos, thousands of frame per second, impress me with the complexity of impact and the number of variables. It looks like a very difficult interaction to understand.

When you try to find the ball squished on the strings you need will an extremely fast shutter speed to catch it because it is so brief. Look at many high speed videos and see how often you observe the ball squished on the strings. It may have occurred in that fame but if the shutter speed is too slow the motion blur will spread the flattened ball and hide it with motion blur.

 

[vex]

By closing i mean pointing the racquet face downwards/towards the ground. On my forehand i always am closing the racquet face at the moment of impact. I dont know if this is correct, but it helps me load up a ton of topspin on the ball. Ive been watching gasquet and fed ohbh slow motion vids and it seems like they might being closing the racquet face slightly at the moment of ball strike.

If you’re hitting with topspin AND power then YES before and at contact your racket face won’t be horizontal but instead slightly closed. Forget about your body mechanics and arm/swing. In the end the basic mechanics of strings brushing the ball are identical for your FH and BH. You probably don’t have anywhere near the same level of topspin on your BH as you do your FH so the racket face won’t be “as” closed but yes, you’re seeing Stan strike the ball with a few degrees closed because he’s ripping UP the ball as he plows thru it and to counteract that upward trajectory he needs to close the face a bit to keep the ball down. See @SystemicAnomaly ’s post #4 above

 

[vex]

I agree, unless you hit every ball with a closed string bed so thats your standard shot, I dont think you can change the racket face angle on each ball and get consistency.

I used to struggle with this a TON. Constantly overthinking what angle to hit balls of various height with. Eventually I learned to stop thinking about it and just let my experience and instinct take the wheel. The result is that every shot I hit depending on how far back or up close to the net I am, how high the ball is at contact, how much pace the ball has - has a slightly different angle at contact. But it’s all done subconsciously now. My muscle memory just knows what angle I need to hit considering the spin / depth / clearance I’m trying to get on any given shot