In today's video, I'm going to teach you how to hit a drop shot.
The forehand and backhand drop-shot is in the same family of shots as your
forehand and backhand chip return, as your forehand and backhand volley and
also your forehand and backhand slice. So if you're good at any of those shots for
example if you have a good backhand slice there's no reason why you
shouldn't have a good backhand drop-shot. So to be able to utilize the drop shot
in match situations, you must learn the fundamentals of a drop shot and let's start
off with the drop shot grip. It's going to be the same as your chip return, your
slice and your volleys. It's gonna be a continental grip with your base knuckle
at bevel number two. And there's going to be a slight take back on the drop shot.
This will depend on the pace of the incoming ball but generally speaking you
want your racket head above your grip and you want the tip of the racket to be
slightly behind your shoulder this is for the forehand drop-shot and the
backhand drop-shot. The swing path on the drop shot is crucial and it must be
performed high to low. So the tip of your racquet is gonna be above your shoulder
and you're gonna make contact somewhere between your chest and your hip area and
then once you make contact with the ball you're gonna continue to go down with
the tip of the racket like this. So the swing path has to be high to low. This is
the case for the forehand and backhand. It has to be high to low and the racket
has to continue to go down after contact is made.
Now to be able to create backspin on the ball meaning that once the ball lands on
the other side it's actually either gonna stop in place or if you hit it
really well it's actually going to start going backwards towards the net and the
way you do this is by making contact with a slightly open racket face.
So if you combine these two factors, if you go high to low, you continue going
down after contact and you make contact with an open racket face, you should be
able to get backspin on the ball.
A few things to keep in mind when hitting drop shots is that you must make
a soft contact with the ball. In other words, you don't want to hit the ball too
hard you must gently absorb the ball in your strings and when you make contact
and that's what's referred to in tennis as touch. And touch it's not something
that you can learn in a couple of days it does take a while to master. A great
way to improve your touch is to play a lot of mini tennis and also mini tennis
games. I have another video I'm gonna put a link in the description below you can
see some great mini tennis games that you can play which can definitely
improve your touch. Another important thing on the drop shot is that you hold
your body still. So once you go down after contact you must kind of hold this
position even keep your head kind of down. You can see Nadal doing this as he
hits drop shots he kind of holds his body position and this will give you more
control in this crucial period because there's not a lot of room for error on
drop shots. So you must hold your body still to give the racquet head more
control as it goes down after contact.
Another thing that's important to remember is that you do need pace of the
incoming ball in order to execute a proper drop shot. So if you feed a ball
to yourself it's very difficult to hit a proper drop shot because we don't have
no pace to work with. We have to hit through the ball a little bit more
in order to generate under spin. You don't have this problem when you
have pace of the incoming ball and the faster the ball comes to you the less
you have to do. So you literally do not have to hit forward at all on drop shots.
So you just basically go high to low and then when you make contact the racket
goes straight down and it doesn't go forward very much. So basically what
you're doing is you're using the pace of the incoming ball, you're deflecting the
ball back and the way you are doing this you are creating backspin. So you'll find
a lot of times the more pace the incoming ball has if you execute the
drop shot correctly, you'll get tremendous amounts of backspin. In some
cases you can even get the ball to bounce on the other side and then come
back to your side. Another great way to more effectively use drop shots in
matches is to do what's called the fake drop shot. You see this a lot on the
forehand side from professional players. So you're going to your regular forehand
grip and you do a regular forehand loop that you would do on a normal forehand.
And now once you hit this spot you're gonna change your grip, you're gonna
have to do the grip change with one hand which is a little bit unorthodox,
normally you change the grip with your non-dominant hand. So on the fake drop
shot you're gonna have to change the grip just with one hand and you do it
right here and then you make a drop shot. So the other person is not expecting the
drop shot, it can come as a surprise and is, therefore, a lot more effective.
The fake drop shot works on the backhand side as well. If you have a two-handed
backhand you simply take the racquet up like you normally do and as you're going
forward towards the ball, you go into the drop shot technique.
On the one-handed backhand, you do need a grip change. So if you have an eastern
backhand grip you would take the racket back and like you always do with a loop
and then as you come forward you would have to change your grip and then do a
drop shot. Now the placement of your drop shots is very important and the safest
way to do it is you just hit a straight drop shot. What I mean by that is no
matter what position of the court you're in you just hit the ball straight
forward and try to drop shot it that way and that is the easiest way to get
control over a ball, however, is also the easiest way for your opponent to get to
if you indeed leave the drop shot a little bit too high. A better way to do
it would be a cross-court drop shot like this or even better you do an inside-out
drop shot like that. The cross-court drop shots are a little bit more low
percentage because you are hitting the ball closer to the line, however, if you
execute them correctly, there are definitely more difficult to get for the opponent
because the ball is moving off the court. And the most difficult drop shot to
master and the most effective is the inside-out drop shot. So the way you do
this shot is you make contact with the tip of the racket positioned slightly
backward. So if you imagine me hitting in this direction I would make contact
with the tip of racket pointing slightly back and now what happens if I make this
type of contact is that the ball will curve to the left after it bounces. This is
what's called side spin. So if you hit a drop shot correctly this way there's a
very high chance that you're going to hit a drop shot winner of this type of
shot.
And here are the mistakes that I see at the recreational level when it comes to
hitting drop shots. Number one, you have to realize that the drop shot is an
offensive shot and not a defensive shot. In other words, you should never hit a
drop shot when you were behind the baseline or if you get pushed wide on
the run for example. I see a lot of players start drop shotting in
defensive situations and it works very seldomly. What you should do instead is
drop shot when you're in an offensive position in the court, inside the
baseline when you have the other person on the run
ideally pushed behind the baseline, this is when you can utilize a drop shot and in
this case the drop shot doesn't even have to be this good, it doesn't have to
be that close to the net and you can still hit a winner of this type of shot.
Another very common drop shot mistake at the rec level is players try to drop
shot low balls. So you should never take a drop shot that falls below your hip
level because what's gonna happen if I hit a ball let's say at my knee level
here I'm going to have to hit up on the drop shot and it's gonna make it sit up
on the other side of the court. Remember the drop shot is hit high to low and the
racket needs to continue to go down after contact. So if there's a low ball
it's very difficult to hit down a low ball because it's gonna be tough for you
to make the ball go over the net. So naturally on low balls we start
hitting up on the ball and that is not a good thing if you're trying to execute a drop shot.
And finally, it's very important for you to not fall in love with the drop-shot. I
see at the recreational level many players overuse the drop shot. So they do it
every other shot, now what happens as a result of that the opponent starts
expecting drop shots and therefore the dropshot becomes less efficient. Make
sure to utilize your drop shot very specific situations in a match and use
it seldomly maybe once every two games and therefore the opponent's is not
going to be expecting a drop shot and it's therefore going to be a lot more
efficient. So make the drop shot as part of your game, it is a fantastic shot that
is so much fun when you execute it properly. If you have any questions
please write a comment in the section below I'll be happy to respond. Hit that
like button and subscribe if you haven't already. I'll see you next time.