Some Forehand and Backhand footage vids

FiReFTW

Legend
Maybe some of you might remember me from my two previous threads:

https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/ind...rove-from-a-tennis-enthuisiast-part-2.575364/

A person requested that I make some vids from footage from behind my back, to see topspin on shots and all, so I finaly could make some footage of it, so I decided to make some forehand and backhand footage for you guys to see.

I did also take one private lesson, upon the advice of a guy from previous threads, but was a bit disapointed by it honestly, because we just rallied and did some forehand and backhand drills where he fed me the ball and I ran left and right and hit it, and said my shots are good just need mileage, didnt offer any feedback at all.
But anyway..

First my forehand
The consistency of it improved a bit from last time, and my wrist is more relaxed aswell during shots.
Im trying to focus on breathing out when I hit and to keep my eye on the contact point for longer till after the shot, so these are the two things im trying to implement into my shots now.
Anyway some feedback would be welcomed on how it looks and what could be improved further.


Second my backhand
I can hit my backhand with ton of spin if I want, as witnessed in the 2nd backhand shot in the 1st vid, and also with alot of pace.
I do however struggle with consistency, its very inconsistent and can break down aswell, as in my 3rd backhand shot in the 1st vid.
Not sure if its the technique at fault, or lack of play time, as forehand is mostly used for like 80% of the shots, hence it has alot more mileage.
So I would appreciate some feedback on it aswell.




Thanks guys!
 
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mad dog1

G.O.A.T.
For a beginner, you are doing great.

the coach you got a lesson from doesn't seem like a good coach. You generally don't feed alternating fh and bh to beginners. You feed a basketful of balls to one side to help the student groove their stroke Then switch to the other side. Making a beginner run around forces them to process too many things at the same time.
 
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S&V-not_dead_yet

Talk Tennis Guru
Suggestion: rent a ball machine and video yourself hitting the same shot over and over again. At the very least, tell your partner to just feed, not rally. it's difficult to glean much when there's not a lot of reps and when the incoming shots are so varied.
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
I would try to turn the power down and get it more from torso. In other words let torso rotation and weight of the racket do the job. I know it's easier said than done but possible.
 

NuBas

Legend
I think you are doing extremely well for someone who doesn't play often. Forehand looks great and you can really smack the ball because you're nice and relaxed.

Backhand just needs better footwork, bend the knees, hit the ball more in front, and extend your arm straight forward.
Otherwise, with time and better fitness and footwork, you will be a great complete player.

Also very good camera quality.
 

xFullCourtTenniSx

Hall of Fame
Stop. turning. the. damn. shoulders!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Holy Jesus you're trying too hard on the backhand. You lack consistency because you're opening up your shoulders like crazy. Keep the shoulders sideways through contact. If you want to rotate your shoulders through the shot, use a two handed backhand. The way the one handed backhand works if you turn the shoulders on the takeback, then they end up perpendicular to the net when you swing forward, and they stay that way until you finish the shot. Think about keeping the upper body quiet. Currently it's an absolute mess.

And the forehand could use more shoulder turn and hip action rather than the arm. You'd get more power for less effort.
 

FiReFTW

Legend
Wow thats some really good feedback for my backhand fullcourt, I didn't even realize that about the upper body, I thought I need to swing my body around to provide more power into the shot, thats really good advice!
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
Keep the shoulders sideways through contact. If you want to rotate your shoulders through the shot, use a two handed backhand. The way the one handed backhand works if you turn the shoulders on the takeback, then they end up perpendicular to the net when you swing forward, and they stay that way until you finish the shot. Think about keeping the upper body quiet.
Really important tip that I often forget doing, I will put into practice more. By the way this probably applies to backhand slice too, right? I mean keeping the shoulders perpendicular to the net or in parallel with the incoming ball.
 

Gyswandir

Semi-Pro
Agree with fullcourt and 1 more thing, it seems to me that you've taken the frisby analogy too far: even though your take back is up, your actual swing starts from the point your racket is dropped. It almost looks like you are using your left hand to hold the racket, while the right hand is pulling it, before you let go with the left. While this will generate a lot of rhs, it has minimal control and almost impossible to make into a repeatable shot. The effect is most evident on that 3rd backhand you completely missed. I think your opening up may be even a result of this type of swing.
The swing starts with the racket at the top of the take back. There is no pause at the bottom, before the racket moves forward. It is one continuous motion.
 

FiReFTW

Legend
Gyswandir that is some great feedback!
My swing was indeed like you said, at least I was focusing on what you said, dropping the racquet and holding with left, then starting my swing from the bottom by pulling, I just thought that was the proper way to hit it.
But now that you mentioned it and I went to analyze some vids of the pros I indeed notice that it is one continious movement.
Can't wait to see how it all works once I implement it, tho just from thinking about it I kind of can't imagine how I can create alot of rhs with such a motion, but im sure you can, just seems so thinking about it.
Its really interesting how wrong you can hit some shot if you think thats the way your supposed to hit, no wonder so many people are stuck at certain levels for 10 years, they learned something wrong and they keep repeating it because they think is right.
I will take note and fix this problem aswell as turning sideways too much, which I think might have alot to do with this swing as you mentioned, because it creates alot of momentum, so I think il have an easier time staying sideways with the new swing.
 

xFullCourtTenniSx

Hall of Fame
Really important tip that I often forget doing, I will put into practice more. By the way this probably applies to backhand slice too, right? I mean keeping the shoulders perpendicular to the net or in parallel with the incoming ball.

Any one handed backhand. It's necessary for driving through the ball. If you open up the shoulders as you hit or before, then you hit across the back and get sidespin. If you keep your shoulders sideways, it's much easier to hit through the ball and keep the racket in line with the shot, allowing easier and cleaner production of topspin.

And with the slice, keeping the shoulders sideways allows for better directional control and ability to hit with pace (if you go for a flatter slice like Rosewall).

Though, for volleys, it's less important, since there you mostly just need to block the ball, rather than actually swing it at. But any one handed backhand that has a swing, you want to hit it with slightly closed or neutral shoulders (includes the backhand overhead and high backhand volley, though backhand overhead is hit with very closed shoulders).
 

purdyd

Rookie
Great tips from everyone. You really crush the ball when it is up on forehand. Just my opinion, I think you could bend your knees and get lower when you take the ball low.
 

FiReFTW

Legend
Any one handed backhand. It's necessary for driving through the ball. If you open up the shoulders as you hit or before, then you hit across the back and get sidespin. If you keep your shoulders sideways, it's much easier to hit through the ball and keep the racket in line with the shot, allowing easier and cleaner production of topspin.

And with the slice, keeping the shoulders sideways allows for better directional control and ability to hit with pace (if you go for a flatter slice like Rosewall).

Very very insightful on the backhand technique indeed, this will help me a ton.
When I slice I always stay sideways so it should not be so hard to implement that to my topspin backhand, so its really great to know that I need to do that.
I was always under the impression that for the topspin backhand the upper body should help with the swing turning around, and many people on this forum commented how Wawrinka opens up his chest and rotates upper body, so I guess that missinformation got me confused about it and I thought thats the way its supposed to be.

Just a follow up question for my Forehand, you said I could use my hips and shoulders more, I assume you mean the rotation of the body needs to be bigger, meaning it needs to rotate more around in the end, at the start it rotates good enough tho or?
Because at the preparation phase if I rotate my body a bit more my racquet will almost end up in the view of my opponent (behind my back).
So its just that I need to rotate more around into the shot towards the finish right?
Need to work more on my footwork with that aswell, I find it easier to do with open or neutral stance, with open I just rotate my legs around, with neutral I step with my left foot and then step forward and around with the right foot, with semi stance its a bit akward tho, because I feel so planted and unsure how to really rotate well with footwork apart from jumping around, so need to kind of figure out how to do it more naturaly from that stance.
 

purdyd

Rookie
I think you are just opening up your shoulders too early on your backhand as it looks like you are cutting across the ball.
 

Moveforwardalways

Hall of Fame
the coach you got a lesson from doesn't seem like a good coach. You generally don't feed alternating fh and bh to beginners. You feed a basketful of balls to one side to help the student groove their stroke Then switch to the other side. Making a beginner run around forces them to process too many things at the same time.

d09530b0798d4f80697c69ce6536b392548862dbdd98f2bb5275e348a8df69b5_1.jpg
 

movdqa

Talk Tennis Guru
Forehand looks very nice.

Backhand needs practice and work.

On the backhand, I'd try to go for consistency over power. You do this well with your forehand but you're coming through your backhand pretty fast.
 

xFullCourtTenniSx

Hall of Fame
Just a follow up question for my Forehand, you said I could use my hips and shoulders more, I assume you mean the rotation of the body needs to be bigger, meaning it needs to rotate more around in the end, at the start it rotates good enough tho or?
Because at the preparation phase if I rotate my body a bit more my racquet will almost end up in the view of my opponent (behind my back).
So its just that I need to rotate more around into the shot towards the finish right?

How could anything you do after you hit the ball help you hit the ball better?????? The finish is a function of the stroke itself. People are told to finish over the opposite shoulder because there's very little way to do that besides having a low to high motion (yes, sometimes people can tack on an over the shoulder finish and it still won't fix things, but that's because they aren't getting the hidden message of swinging up and are simply tacking on the finish). You turn your body, then you swing with mostly the arm. And having more shoulder turn won't put the racket on the other side of the body plane. What happens on the forehand is the legs push into the ground, rotating the hips, rotating the shoulders, pulling the arm. Doing this, you can generate power with very little effort. If you add in a forward swing on top of it, then you get a very big stroke. The 2 largest forehands you hit were the only ones that got semi-decent hip action. If you actively used your hips on more shots, you can generate more racket head speed (and use the excess on spin to control the extra power).

Think of it this way, if you use your shoulders to hit the ball rather than your arm (using your arm just to meet the ball from below), you'll have an easier swing with similar power (or more if you use your shoulders well). Then what happens if you rotate the hips quickly? The shoulders will rotate quickly, and the swing gains more power.

And if you look at slow motion videos of Wawrinka, his shoulders don't move from right a bit before contact until halfway through the finish. Basically, through the actual hit, his shoulders stay quiet. But on contact, his shoulders are more open than most one handed backhand players. Most are neutral or slightly closed on contact except maybe when jammed.
 

FiReFTW

Legend
Ok, I understand completely what ur talking about, sometimes when I do use more hips it feels like my arm is not even putting any effort and yet I hit very powerful hits, it almost feels like my arm gets dragged by the momentum of the rotation of the hips and shoulders. I do know to do that, the biggest reason im not alot of the times is because I focus on alot of things I also need to add and then forget other things and vice versa, so I need alot more practice and groving, im sure il get there! Your feedback was insanely helpful fullcourt, thanks.
 

xFullCourtTenniSx

Hall of Fame
Ok, I understand completely what ur talking about, sometimes when I do use more hips it feels like my arm is not even putting any effort and yet I hit very powerful hits, it almost feels like my arm gets dragged by the momentum of the rotation of the hips and shoulders. I do know to do that, the biggest reason im not alot of the times is because I focus on alot of things I also need to add and then forget other things and vice versa, so I need alot more practice and groving, im sure il get there! Your feedback was insanely helpful fullcourt, thanks.

Pick one thing at a time, focus purely on improving that for a week (or master it, but working it on a week is better than nothing since mastery requires at least a month of dedicated practice), then move on to the next thing. Make a list, check it twice.
 

geca

Semi-Pro
fh is good... you just need to practice more and your anticipation will improve... right now you do look like a beginner who is surprised by how every ball bounces lol.

the bh is no good.. if you are thinking frisbee, you don't toss it forward! you toss it 45-60 degrees up in the air, that would be a motion more similar to a tennis bh (imagine the racket face being the flat part of the frisbee).... right now your racket face shuts down during the swing, and more practice will not help.
 

FiReFTW

Legend
Good tip fullcourt, I should focus on 1 thing and master that and then build upon that.

Geca that is true, thats one thing that is the hardest atm, when the ball bounces alot of times it bounces higher or faster or slower or shorter or whatever that I was expecting it to bounce based ont he trajectory, this will take a ton of play time to improve the anticipation!
 

FiReFTW

Legend
Just wanted to update you guys, went to play for 2 hours today and focused on a few things.

Forehand - Focused on loading on my back foot and pivoting and pivoting around and really turning my hips and shoulders
Backhand - Focused on keeping the swing in one fluid motion without stopping between aswell as staying sideways after the swing

Results
Forehand is much more powerful without any effort at all, just from the body rotation I get a ton of power and I feel like I don't even use my arm at all its so relaxed and calm
Backhand is much more consistent, im also toning the power down a bit to get more consistency, its rly consistent yet not so fast anymore, but will gradualy build it up

So thanks for all you guys and your helpful tips, its going to help me alot to improve!
 

FiReFTW

Legend

I saw this vid on youtube today, and I was wondering if I should try to incorporate that followthrough aswell into my swing, the rotation of the forearm/shoulder to create more topspin, or should I ignore that till I get a rly good consistent shot and then try to incorporate it? Is it even good advice to do this at all?
 

NuBas

Legend
I saw this vid on youtube today, and I was wondering if I should try to incorporate that followthrough aswell into my swing, the rotation of the forearm/shoulder to create more topspin, or should I ignore that till I get a rly good consistent shot and then try to incorporate it? Is it even good advice to do this at all?

For the one handed backhand, you need to have a very relaxed arm and swing from your body or torso more. Hit through the ball, use the weights racquet, if balls are going into the net adjust your racquet face angle. Another big thing is hitting the ball well in front of your body, that's all I worry about when hitting my OHBH, I don't worry about pulling across or or pull upwards cause for me the OHBH does that naturally.

I like that guy, its a good channel.
 
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