Some light hitting on the YouToobs

zasr4325

Professional
So, first time posting in this section, and first time posting a video of myself hitting, so be kind to me pwease :). I'm not really looking for any big tips or anything per se (not because I don't need them, obviously, but just not too bothered about it) but would be nice to get some feedback on any improvements I could make. A little bit of background first though. The video was shot in Dubai, and so (as I've stated in the description) ignore the lame bandana. It was uber hot and humid, and seeing as I hate hats it was the only thing I could use to keep the sweat from eating my eyes. I'm here for some work experience on my Gap year, and have always played in the UK. There, my official LTA rating is something crap like 9.1, because I had it done in about 2004, played 1 tournament in '05 and then moved out of the UK at the beginning of '06. About three years ago I went back, and been playing there regularly in our mens 1st team and National Club League teams, so at a pretty good level. I've got some more vids of match play and volleying and quite a bit of other stuff, which I'll get around to uploading. So yeah, just some feedback on any improvements you think I could make or anything else, just feel free to say it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9WHW3-9wgw
 
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Gonna give this a lil' bump, as it would be nice to get some feedback. I've seen the "experts" on here, so surely there must be someone who'll have a gander?
 
Sorry, the lack of a bandana at the start of the video threw me off. You hit a good ball--- I'm going to leave this to more knowledgable posters.
 
I'm still learning this game myself, so my comments aren't drawn from any deep experience...

your feet look really good. I also love the way you put your momentum into your backhand. You have a lot of athletic ability, and from what little I could see you seem to have good hands.

Body language looked a bit depressed at times...especially after missing balls.
 
I'm still learning this game myself, so my comments aren't drawn from any deep experience...

your feet look really good. I also love the way you put your momentum into your backhand. You have a lot of athletic ability, and from what little I could see you seem to have good hands.

Body language looked a bit depressed at times...especially after missing balls.

Thanks! Its actually weird you say that, because the coach I hit with in England always moans about my footwork, although I guess recently he hasn't been so much, so maybe its improved a bit. Yeah, I get VERY annoyed with myself if I'm missing, but just try to focus it on the next point. Never even think about smashing a racquet, but I'll sometimes pull a Murray and punch the strings or hurt some other body part. Not exactly the best thing to do, but its an inexpensive way of releasing anger!
 
Solid hitting but I see you tend to do something that I do as well on the forehand side. That is jump / hop off the ball when you are not in perfect position. You lean back and arm it. Pro's rarely do this and are great at getting low / behind every shot. Check this vid out by murray.

He hops at times but notice his rotation is always horizontal right through the ball and he stays nice and low. He seems winded too which furthers the point.

Something I am trying to work on at least.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpNFxnShJ9o&feature=related
 
Solid hitting but I see you tend to do something that I do as well on the forehand side. That is jump / hop off the ball when you are not in perfect position. You lean back and arm it. Pro's rarely do this and are great at getting low / behind every shot. Check this vid out by murray.

He hops at times but notice his rotation is always horizontal right through the ball and he stays nice and low. He seems winded too which furthers the point.

Something I am trying to work on at least.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpNFxnShJ9o&feature=related

Yeah, I've tried to stop doing that hop thing. I was doing it a lot after playing on clay during the summer; I would slide in with the right foot leading on the clay, and then strike the ball if i was being pushed wide. Obviously on a hard court you can't really do that, so I found myself leading with the right foot, planting it and then having to kind of jump to get contact to compensate for the slide. That murray vid is really good actually, where you see he really bends his legs, and then explodes into the ball, whereas I was just being lazy!
 
I don't think technique wise there is much wrong... you look like someone who's taken lessons and the move/hitting patterns look fine.

only question is how you play in matches (that is, if you play matches)...

one thing I noticed is that both of you don't hit the ball very deep... now you maybe doing that on purpose... but for higher intensity practice.... balls should go for about 2 feet inside the baseline.
 
I don't think technique wise there is much wrong... you look like someone who's taken lessons and the move/hitting patterns look fine.

only question is how you play in matches (that is, if you play matches)...

one thing I noticed is that both of you don't hit the ball very deep... now you maybe doing that on purpose... but for higher intensity practice.... balls should go for about 2 feet inside the baseline.

With the depth issue, which part was it? On the first part I was trying to flatten the ball out a bit, so it may have been slightly shorter than usual, although there was one forehand that painted the line cross court. But the bh cc drill my balls were easily past the service line, and pushing my hitting partner back. I was trying to hit with a bit more topspin in general, so the ball may have been landing further in than two feet, but it was still moving through the court. And the last part of the video I thought I was hitting with pretty good depth. I play a lot of matches, in both singles and doubles back in the UK, and last season we only lost two matches and got promoted to the top division for our area. This year we only lost once, with that loss coming against one of the toughest teams in the South of England; The West Hants Club (http://www.westhants.co.uk/). They had brought some ringers in as well, like a couple of former world ranked players (only like around 900, but still amazing) and they have basically every top ranked junior in our part of the country as well. Suffice to say, we lost 1-3 in doubles rubbers, but it was fun to play in.
 
^^ ok, maybe just a depth perception thing due to the camera angle.... I could tell your partner's balls were short, but wasn't quite sure if yours were.

like I said, you are a good player.
 
Pretty good arm action on your FH, but you should add some pop with more torso rotation (you need to crank up the torso and then release it like a spring).
 
This ain't a lazy, fat mans' game.

Always nice to hear the opinion of an 8 year old. My lazy fat mans game gave me the chance to meet Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and a bunch of other top pros. My lazy fat mans game gave me a sports scholarship (actually combined with an academic scholarship too) all the way through school. My lazy fat mans game allows me to play for one of the highest ranked clubs in the South of England, and it also helped to get that club promoted three divisions. And when I go to University this year, my lazy fat mans game allows me to play for the best tennis team in the country. So you know what? I'm pretty happy with my lazy fat mans game, and couldn't really care less what an uneducated, stupid and quite frankly pathetic little person thinks about it.
Everyone else, thanks for the useful input, please keep it coming.
As for tennis DUNCE - go make friends with traffic.
 
You know, Tennis Dunce usually doesn't post stuff quite like that. Makes me wonder if he has a little brother that got on his account or something.
 
Closed stance forehand.

Your open stance forehand is making the ball just barely clear the net, and your reverse forehand you still need to "push out" with otherwise you get topspin and little forward momentum (the momentum will come from the energy the ball impacts your racket with which isn't much).
 
Always nice to hear the opinion of an 8 year old. My lazy fat mans game gave me the chance to meet Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and a bunch of other top pros. My lazy fat mans game gave me a sports scholarship (actually combined with an academic scholarship too) all the way through school. My lazy fat mans game allows me to play for one of the highest ranked clubs in the South of England, and it also helped to get that club promoted three divisions. And when I go to University this year, my lazy fat mans game allows me to play for the best tennis team in the country. So you know what? I'm pretty happy with my lazy fat mans game, and couldn't really care less what an uneducated, stupid and quite frankly pathetic little person thinks about it.
Everyone else, thanks for the useful input, please keep it coming.
As for tennis DUNCE - go make friends with traffic.
He could obviously have been more friendly about it, but surely you could improve a lot by losing a bit of weight. Concerning your shots, they look pretty nice, although you miss a lot of forehands on the first shot in the beginning of the video.
 
hello from california.
so, i read the mean rude comment, and i thought 'what an unfriendly jerk!' then i saw the video, and i noticed something...
you clearly know how to hit as far as racket path, unit turn, nice width on your stance etc. nothing weird or 'wrong' with what i see happening ON TOP. however, ON THE BOTTOM HALF (of your body) you are not being 'athletic' in your movement. you are starting to the ball late and casually (i know it's a light hit but...), and are often still getting to the ball once your swing has already begun. that's fine if you are being stretched wide or jerked around by an aggressive opponent, but the guy at the far end is hitting a 55% ball at best. you need to be snappier in your movement to that ball, then set, load, fire, recover. you are casually getting to the ball that's been easily struck but are almost late, still sort of adjusting around during the hit, then not recovering at all, but sort of hanging out where you just were. i do realize this is a light hit though.
on the backhand your movement is even more erratic. on some you stay down through the stroke then recover nicely, but on most you appear tired and are pulling out of the hit and to the right way early, and you are not recovering snappily on most of them (but you do on some so i know that you know HOW to do it).
watch jimmy connors' light hits, there is some footage of him hitting with mcenroe from last year's US Open. he snappily moves to position, sets, loads, fires, recovers. he does not make any extra steps, his feet don't look heavy or undecided, he does not seem tired, and he does not ever over hit.
watch andre agassi's 'light hits' at his current age. he snappily gets his body into position so he can coil and unload. no bs. exactly like connors does but just a lot more racket speed. every shot looks about the same as every other. it's when we get lazy with our movement that our shots start getting 'creative' because we're just not in position.
the shots you missed were because you were not set and loaded in the right position. you were either crowded (bad, slow movement to the ball), or late (not set or loaded or both).
but anyhow, this video seems to be of a pretty good player who has just played 4 hard hours, then turned on the camera. what i mean is, you appear to be tired. moving late. not loading on all the shots. in a mad hurry to stand back up and not able to stay low during the stroke. did i see any crossover steps? not sure. don't think so. your strokes are NICE. really nice. you understand what you are doing man!
these are easy balls that this guy is hitting you. there is no excuse for hitting out of position so often. even on a light hit.
so here is what i would suggest: the experts can chime in here on how to speed up your movement and add 'athleticism' to your movement because right now it's tired looking. second, even for a light hit make sure you have some purpose because right now the balls are going all over the place. when i do a light hit, i am working on something (for example: i don't discuss this with the person i hit with so she/he can do whatever they want but i'll start with hitting all shots to his backhand - again, no matter what he does i am sending it deep to his backhand for several minutes-, then i'm sending everything up the line, then no matter what he does i'm hitting short slices, then no matter what he does him hitting 'high and heavy' crosscourt off both wings for a few minutes....
when i play a match, i can execute because my 'light hits' are always practices, where as their light hits are...an aerobics class or something.
i hope i have helped a little bit.
i promise not to use the word 'snappily' for the rest of the month!
so, the mean guy was indeed quite mean...but i actually agree with him. wait....was that brad gilbert??!
 
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I think most guys who post vids show extreme laziness, except the college recruitment tapes, which some show just too much fancy footwork!
I still like the lazy warmup vids of Federer, Youzny, and Murray just hitting the ball barely moving their legs, but the torso shows full early unit turn.
 
I think most guys who post vids show extreme laziness, except the college recruitment tapes, which some show just too much fancy footwork!
I still like the lazy warmup vids of Federer, Youzny, and Murray just hitting the ball barely moving their legs, but the torso shows full early unit turn.

uh...hmmm. you just said in few words what i needed a whole page to try to explain. don't i feel stupid now!
 
Not really. Most people understand your post because you explain it in detail. I've never been a detail oriented person, so I skim right to the summary. Different reference points, different learning styles.
 
Thanks for the comments guys. Quite clearly I could do with losing some weight, but that's not really the reason I play tennis, I play because I love the sport and want to get better. Just a couple of questions though. LeeD, not quite sure what you meant with your comments; are you saying I'm being lazy? Just a bit more detail would be better.
Schwuller: really great post! Fully agree with you on the fh side; definitely not moving and setting myself well on those shots there, which is why majority were sailing. You are right in that I was tired, as I'd already been hitting with pretty high intensity for an hour or so in each video, but I do know movement is a weaker area of my game. I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say the balls were going all over the place though. On the fh side, for sure it was erratic. But my bh was easily landing 3/4 length between service line and baseline, and didn't really miss that many. I'll get to uploading a video with some more forehands on it, so you can have a better look at it.
 
Thanks for the comments guys. Quite clearly I could do with losing some weight, but that's not really the reason I play tennis, I play because I love the sport and want to get better. Just a couple of questions though. LeeD, not quite sure what you meant with your comments; are you saying I'm being lazy? Just a bit more detail would be better.
Schwuller: really great post! Fully agree with you on the fh side; definitely not moving and setting myself well on those shots there, which is why majority were sailing. You are right in that I was tired, as I'd already been hitting with pretty high intensity for an hour or so in each video, but I do know movement is a weaker area of my game. I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say the balls were going all over the place though. On the fh side, for sure it was erratic. But my bh was easily landing 3/4 length between service line and baseline, and didn't really miss that many. I'll get to uploading a video with some more forehands on it, so you can have a better look at it.

hey! you're up early!
what i meant with 'balls going all over the place' was: from what i saw, i did not see you repeating any type of goal in particular with the shot. since i was in coach-mode (i'm not one, i only play one on tv lol), i was trying to suggest that if, when you have light hits, you focus a bit on repeating various shot patterns, you will be well ahead of your contemporaries. most club players don't do that, and if you do it will be a big help during matches.
i'm sure you already know this.
nice hitting. one thing i really like is that you didn't over-hit at all.
 
hey! you're up early!
what i meant with 'balls going all over the place' was: from what i saw, i did not see you repeating any type of goal in particular with the shot. since i was in coach-mode (i'm not one, i only play one on tv lol), i was trying to suggest that if, when you have light hits, you focus a bit on repeating various shot patterns, you will be well ahead of your contemporaries. most club players don't do that, and if you do it will be a big help during matches.
i'm sure you already know this.
nice hitting. one thing i really like is that you didn't over-hit at all.

I'd like to think it's early, but where I am it's 10:40 in the morning! You make a good point about focusing on one thing in particular, and I'll try and do that more in practice. In matches, I do make a conscious effort to do something. Like in doubles I'll tell myself to always hit through my returns cross court, rather than just slicing them back to give net players less of a chance to poach. And I try and drill a couple of things in, like 'height and depth' to begin with as a base, then try and implement others as the match goes on and you see certain weaknesses, like if they're struggling on the low ball, or can't handle high to the backhand. So are you actually a coach then?
 
I'd like to think it's early, but where I am it's 10:40 in the morning! You make a good point about focusing on one thing in particular, and I'll try and do that more in practice. In matches, I do make a conscious effort to do something. Like in doubles I'll tell myself to always hit through my returns cross court, rather than just slicing them back to give net players less of a chance to poach. And I try and drill a couple of things in, like 'height and depth' to begin with as a base, then try and implement others as the match goes on and you see certain weaknesses, like if they're struggling on the low ball, or can't handle high to the backhand. So are you actually a coach then?

thank god for the world i am NOT a coach. in fact i had very bad form, and guys here like bungalow bill helped me to correct it (them plus a LOT of ball machine and backboard hours). now that the strokes are good, like yours are, what's letting me down is my movement. being SNAPPY, efficiently getting into position, STOPPING hard, exploding up into the court for short balls. now that we understand how to execute, we need to work on always being in position so that we can hit the shot that we know how to hit.
having FAST FEET. a pros feet are almost cartoonishly fast. and they start moving very early. john mcenroe plays a lot at a certain public court in malibu. the first time i saw him playing near me what surprised me most was that even during light hits, he was moving almost before the ball came off the racket of the other guy. which made his movement seem effortless. how to do that? no f-ing idea! but i swear, when i would hear the pop of the guy's hit mac had already split and chosen a direction. i do not understand that. i'm sure many here do anticipate well.
 
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thank god for the world i am NOT a coach. in fact i had very bad form, and guys here like bungalow bill helped me to correct it (them plus a LOT of ball machine and backboard hours). now that the strokes are good, like yours are, what's letting me down is my movement. being SNAPPY, efficiently getting into position, STOPPING hard, exploding up into the court for short balls. now that we understand how to execute, we need to work on always being in position so that we can hit the shot that we know how to hit.
having FAST FEET. a pros feet are almost cartoonishly fast. and they start moving very early. john mcenroe plays a lot at a certain public court in malibu. the first time i saw him playing near me what surprised me most was that even during light hits, he was moving almost before the ball came off the racket of the other guy. which made his movement seem effortless. how to do that? no f-ing idea! but i swear, when i would hear the pop of the guy's hit mac had already split and chosen a direction. i do not understand that. i'm sure many here do anticipate well.

Yeah, the footwork of top guys tends to border on the ridiculous. I hit with a guy rated at 2.1 in the uk (British system goes from 1.1 down to 10.2 in increments; so 1.1, 1.2, 2.1 , 2.2, 3.1, 3.2...etc.) where 1.1 is the highest and would be a touring pro. I'm at about 6.2ish, which is around county standard, and good coaches tend to be around 5.1 or 5.2. So we started warming up, and I was hitting the ball well, just trying toget some rhythm going, both moving each other around. We were both hitting the ball at about the same speed, not much difference there, and still trying to get warm. So half an hour goes by, then we start doing some drills. The first one was where you started in the middle, moved to the ad side and hit an IO forehand, approached the net and played out the point. So I fed him a pretty tricky ball out wide. He not only gets round it, but hits a deep looping approach that I have to take on the half volley, but I manage to get it low. Doesn't matter. He's already at the net and has won the point with a sweet little stop volley. It was just silly how quickly he recognised what shot I was going to hit, and just moved in to cut it off. Later on we had a doubles match, and the degree of awesomeness was toned down, as there's only so much he can do. But after that we had a singles set, and for most of it I was just watching him. Didnt care I'd been bagelled, just watching him move was enough. But it's not like he was just out-hitting me with some Federer like power. It was more about his anticipation, his ability to instantly recognise where I was on the court and select the right shot from his plethora of strokes. To put it into perspective, we had to play his club in a match, and our number one is rated at about 4.2 or something really good. The 2.2 won 6-0, 6-1. It was a whitewash in the most brutal sense.
By the way, have you got any videos of yourself hitting? You sound pretty good.
 
So the second video of some more hitting. This one was a little more on the forehand side, but I'm struggling to use the videos I've recorded, as they're not playing friendly with iMovie. Also had to fiddle around with the videos to edit out the boring bits (basically the balls I missed! :) ) so not too sure about the order the clips will be in. Nevertheless:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9njhl10ts0

As before, any feedback would be appreciated.
Cheers guys!
PS. These videos are from a couple of months ago - before xmas. My hitting partner/coach has since left, and I've been playing with a new guy recently, where I've been getting a little more consistency from the back. I'll be playing tomorrow, so will try and get some footage then.
 
OP doesn't care about tennis...he is only using it for weight loss, a mere vehicle.

Just saw this little gem, thought I'd honour it with a proper reply. What exactly is your problem? You clearly have nothing constructive to say, so why bother even saying anything at all? Is your life really that empty that you feel the need to belittle other people? Looking at your previous posts, you actually seem like an older person; one would assume someone like that to act a little more mature. Frankly, to act their age.
 
nice vid
only comment from me is your non hitting arm on FH seems to be a passenger on the stroke, perhaps you could use it more to facilitate core rotation and whip on the FH

nice hitting
 
nice vid
only comment from me is your non hitting arm on FH seems to be a passenger on the stroke, perhaps you could use it more to facilitate core rotation and whip on the FH

nice hitting

Thanks mate. You know that's something my coach has told me about before, and once we used some Velcro handcuff things, to get both hands in sync during the takeback. It made your left hand mirror your right, and it did help with rotation, might try using that again.
 
stop hitting strokes off your back foot.

lean and explode into them with a nice knee bend and body rotation fluidly into the ball. watch any pro's forehand in slow mo.
 
nice vid
only comment from me is your non hitting arm on FH seems to be a passenger on the stroke, perhaps you could use it more to facilitate core rotation and whip on the FH

nice hitting

110%. OP your shoulder turn is minimal you drop your hand off the racquet rather early and could use more shoulder turn. Which would enable you to load more on your legs which seem powerful and use them To your benefit.

Hand to racquet stroke is very nice but adding the turn and load would greatly benefit your game.
 
Thanks guys, really good feedback. I find my backhand is my more solid shot, and I feel I can generate easy pace off it, which is why I try to stand closer in on it and take the ball on the rise. I find I really have to get myself into the perfect position to unload on my forehand, and so often will be hitting off the back foot. But I've never really struggled per se with generating pace off the forehand; the ones at the end of the video were just after hitting backhands cc, so was just trying to get clean contact on the ball. But I definitely need more rotation on that shot; I think as someone else pointed out I'm taking my non hitting arm out of the equation, so maybe following the path of the hitting arm would improve it. Other things I feel I need to work on:
- dropping some of that excess weight is first, and been hitting the cross trainer and swimming recently to help that
- better footwork; something I feel has improved recently, but still needs lot of work, especially on my forehand
- staying low on both forehand and backhand - watched some backhand videos of Murray, and think his is best example of this
- stop arming the ball off the forehand. As several of you guys have pointed out, need to get more of my body and legs into the shot to give it more weight, something which will be vital come summer when I go to Spain on the clay
- greater net clearance. Again, something I've definitely improved since these videos with the new hitting partner, but I really need to drill that in on my forehand so it becomes more of a weapon.
- get to net more. I'm never going to become a wall from the baseline, and I play a pretty attacking game, and have always had good hands at the net, so it seems stupid I don't try and do it more. Could try s&v as well, as I can usually place my serve well and mix it up, so it's always an option.
I feel at the moment that my forehand can become a much better shot than my backhand, but I'm just not getting into the right position and thus not using it to it's full potential.
Again, thanks for the feedback guys, I'll post some videos in a while after trying to work on those things. Ideally, I want to make this similar to Jo11y's diary thread, as it gives you definite goals and things to work on.
Z
 
OP doesn't care about tennis...he is only using it for weight loss, a mere vehicle.

People who use tennis for weight loss don't develop solid technique like this. The best way to lose weight playing tennis would be to push. No technique required, just tap the ball into play and run your ass off. The OP doesn't do that. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that his technique is better than yours, mine, and most people on this forum.

And even if it was just about weight loss, what's wrong with that?
 
Zasr4325, thanks for sharing these videos. You are clearly a quality tennis player. Solid groundies, but I am more impressed by your forehand; cleanly hit with lots of spin and power. I am liking that form as well.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but how old are you?
 
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Back to your tennis.
I did not mention that you hit good. No need, you know that.
I like you can hit right to your buds forehand, within ONE step, basically any time you want to.
I like your simple stroke and "spanish style loading the rear foot" I don't care if you hit a mix of closed stance and some semi open stance forehands, that's up to you.
There is nothing glaringly wrong with your game, and as such, you can be the best a recreational player can ever achieve with your strokes as is.
 
Most anyone just watching vids of Nadal, Verdasco, Gonzalez, or any of the Euro baseline basher contigent would say they hit off their back foot, so are not good players.
They play all right.
 
Zasr4325, thanks for sharing these videos. You are clearly a quality tennis player. Solid groundies, but I am more impressed by your forehand; cleanly hit with lots of spin and power. I am liking that form as well.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but how old are you?

I is of the age group 18. I get the "Really? You look a lot younger" a lot, although growing the beard out a bit is helping that :). Again, thanks for the positive feedback again - haven't really checked this thread out much as I've been posting a lot in my Dubai photos thread in match results. LeeD, that's an excellent observation, as I play every summer in Spain on clay - I guess that's where I get the back foot hitting from. It's been good having the players in Dubai recently, as it's given me a reason to stay in the gym for as long as possible, just so I can see as many of them as possible! Apparently one of the coaches at my club got to warm up Gasquet before a match, just very quickly to get him going with rhythm and such, but a lot of the women have been hitting with male coaches. Whilst the coaches haven't got the consistency to stay with them once in a match situation, they certainly give them a good ball to work with. By the way, does anyone know how old Tennis Dunce is? Honest question, as he seems like quite a frustrated person.
 
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