Hi guys Nick here from Intuitive Tennis. Do we have to finish our strokes in tennis
weather is to serve the forehand or the backhand isn't the ball already gone
after we made contact and aren't we just basically decelerating the racket so do
we have to finish at all and doesn't matter how we finish? Check out today's
video and find out. So let's talk about the finish or what some people call the
follow-through. What's it all about? Why is it so important? Well to fully
understand it we first must realize that we are human
beings playing tennis and not a machine
and so in theory it is true that once the ball leaves the racket it really
doesn't matter what the racquet does because the ball is already gone and
that makes sense. What many people forget is that as a
human being the reason why you must finish is there's a delay between your
intention and in this case your intention is to hit the ball as hard as
you can and the action of the muscle. So in other words if I tell myself to stop
right at the ball I'm going to start slowing down the stroke much sooner
probably somewhere around here. So if I hit this ball if I tell myself I'm not
gonna finish I'm gonna stop right at the ball I'm not gonna be able to go 100
miles an hour and then suddenly stop. That's simply too fast for our brain to
process so we're gonna start decelerating much sooner before the
contact in order for us to stop and so by telling our body and our mind to
finish the stroke we get maximum acceleration at the most important part
of the tennis stroke which is the contact. So let me demonstrate the delay
of our intention and the muscle or the hand executing this action
so on this forehand I'm going to try to stop right at the ball and let's see
what happens.
You see I didn't actually even manage
to stop completely at the ball the racket still went like this but I had to
slow down this movement tremendously in order for me to stop somewhere around
here and so now if I tell myself I'm gonna finish with my racket towards the
back fence I get free acceleration at contact
and there's no slowing down it's one continuous motion and I get my maximum
speed. This concept works for any shot in tennis and I'm going to demonstrate the
serve now and I'm going to tell myself on this serve I'm not going to finish
I'm just gonna stop right at contact so let's see what happens.
Okay so first of
all I wasn't able to stop right at contact my racquet still went to about
right here but for me to achieve this shortened finish I had to slow down
way prior to contact and because this happens in such a short amount of time
these are milliseconds. I'm unable to do this consciously so again I have to tell
myself I'm going to finish all the way across all the way to my left side in
order for me to gain maximum acceleration at contact. Something
like this.
So in this case I finish all the way and I get maximum acceleration
on my serve. So it is extremely important that you have the intention to finish
your strokes but is it important how you finish? Well yes and no and let's take
the forehand as an example so on the forehand you're gonna have your basic
rally ball finish in my case is the finish around the shoulder like this
this is something that you see on the WTA Tour most of the players on the WTA
Tour have this around the shoulder finish like this. Even many ATP players
like Djokovic will finish very often around the shoulder like this. However if
you have a finish like let's say Federer where you wrap the racquet around your
elbow like this this is fine too or even more extreme if you have a finish that
goes around your waist like this like Gael Monfils this is okay too. So it doesn't
necessarily matter how you finish but it's very important that you finish all
the way even in an extreme case like Rafa if you have this buggy whip
forehand where you go around the head and then back this way. This is okay too.
It all depends on your style of play. However, your finish might change from
shot to shot you can see the pro's. Somebody like Federer who is known for
this forehand going around like this. That even in
one rally he can hit three to four different finishes
depending on the situation of the point what kind of ball he's hitting what
intention he has with his shot so you'll see him sometimes going like
this you know behind his head if he catches the ball a little bit behind him
or sometimes you'll see him hitting more down on the ball like this if he's maybe
closer to the net and he has a high ball that hits down on. So your finish is
gonna change in each point many times this happens
subconsciously without you even noticing it especially this shot this is a shot
that comes out when the ball is a little bit behind us and we simply go back here
behind the head and we don't even know that we're gonna do it. We don't plan it.
It just happens naturally. Does the finish determine what kind of topspin
get on the ball? Yes and no. So if we have a low finish let's say for example the
Gael Monfils finish that's really very horizontal and it goes around the waist
like this he still gets tremendous topspin on his forehand
because remember topspin is determined by if you look at the tip of my racquet
if that tip of the racquet goes forward I'm not getting much topspin. I'm still
getting some, I'm not getting that much topspin like this. If the tip of
the racket goes over the ball this way and then down I'm still getting topspin
and not as much as Nadal and he goes very vertical
he has the tip of the racket go up like this and then back around this head like
that so that's a lot more RPMs being generated but it doesn't necessarily
mean that if you have a low kind of horizontal finish that you're unable to
generate topspin and maybe the trajectory of the ball might be a little
bit lower but you still can generate tremendous topspin with a low finish.
Thank you guys for watching this video. I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a
comment in the section below I'll make sure to answer. Like the video. Please
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