If you take your racket back early on the forehand you will hit it late
most of the time and i know what you're thinking this nick guy is crazy if i
take my racket back early i'm going to have a great timing
but there's a reason why you don't really see the racket back
early technique from the best players in the world what
you see instead is that the players are waiting
with both hands towards the side now some players will hold on to the racket
others will have their hands separated but the racket is positioned
to the side of the body
so what is actually a take back so what happens on the forehand is that we're
going to make a turn once we see the ball coming to our forehand side and now
the racket will be positioned to the side
like this and when the racket starts to go back this is considered
the take back if you make this movement early
this will severely hinder your stroke
and there are two reasons why this is the case if we take the racket back
early on the forehand we're going to make the setup process more difficult so
what should happen on the forehand is this
in a ready position when we see the ball coming to our forehand side we're going
to make a slight turn towards this side and our hands are
going to be closer together while we set up
if you ever watch sprinters they always run with their hands closer to the body
now imagine taking your arm back and now you have
one arm close to the body the other arm is back and now you're trying to set the
ball up in this way this looks very robotic and
it feels very inefficient.
and secondly the most important reason why you shouldn't take your racket back
early on the forehand is that it's actually going to hurt your timing
and you're going to hit a lot of forehands late i know it sounds
confusing but i'm gonna explain it so that it
makes sense so what happens on the forehand
is the following players will turn towards the forehand side
and now both hands are going to be towards the side and they will wait in
this position for a long time on the pro level especially on the atp players will
wait until the ball has bounced to initiate the take back
on a wta this might happen a little bit sooner
a little bit prior to the ball bouncing on the player side so you ask yourself
why wait that long why not take the racket
back when the ball clears the net or maybe even sooner when you see it's
coming to your forehand side well as i previously mentioned you don't
know where the ball is going exactly so you will have to set it up
with the racket already here and this is going to be a disadvantage
but in addition to that the way the racket accelerates when we do it from
this position versus taking it back early
is much different and there are two reasons why the racket is going to
accelerate faster when we wait longer number one when we wait longer to
initiate the stroke the racket will have to accelerate
faster think about it when the ball is already close to us there is no
other way but to accelerate the racket fast otherwise we wouldn't be able to
make contact
as opposed to taking it back early that's where you develop some hitches
where the racket gets stuck and the forehand all of a
sudden doesn't look smooth anymore
so by waiting longer the racket will accelerate faster and will therefore
look very smooth the acceleration is going to
be gradually increasing from slow to fast and this is
exactly what you see on the pro tour and the second reason
why the racket will accelerate much faster
if you wait longer is that it can build up momentum so think about it if you
take your racket back early and now the racket is sitting in this position
now the racket will have to pick up the speed from zero and this is why a lot of
players they take the racket back early and you
can take a look at some of the juniors at your local club you will very often
see them set up in this position they're waiting for the
ball this is a recipe to hit the forehand late because now the
racquet has no momentum to work with you will have to
pick up the speed from zero and you will indeed hit the forehand
late very often see what happens on the professional tour is that the racket
never sits in this position it's never a fixed
position it's a fluid position that the racket
comes in and out of very quickly in fact it is so quick that it's not
visible to the naked eye
so this is the reason why you should adapt the technique of the pros and
your timing is going to improve what needs to happen is the following
you're going to wait in this position and then when the ball is close to
bouncing you start initiating the take back and now the racket really doesn't
have any more time to stop and it will gradually accelerate so the
first part of the stroke is going to happen somewhat slowly and
as the racquet starts to drop it's gonna
increase the speed and then as you hit the forward phase you're actually not
even gonna be aware of the racket that's how fast it's going to accelerate
in relation to the ball and also because it has picked up some
momentum from going from your loop into the racket drop
so taking the racket back early on the forehand is not a good thing to do
but you should definitely prepare early so this is something that's extremely
important on your forehand you don't want to be late in your preparation so
when you're waiting for the ball in your ready position and
now you see the ball coming to your forehand you can do this first move
very quickly and the second move also needs to be quick and done with a lot of
intensity so that you set up the ball very fast but avoid the temptation to
take the racket back too early and having the racket sit here
this will not only cause harm to the continuity of your stroke but will
also very often hurt your timing so here are my recommendations for the rec
level see what you see on the atp tour is that
players will often wait for the ball to bounce on their side
to initiate the stroke in other words to separate the hands and start taking the
racket back in my experience a lot of recreational players feel a sense of
anxiety if they wait that long so what i teach is to wait until the ball is about
to bounce and this will still result in a more continuously accelerating
stroke and good timing as well so guys the next
time you're on the court try it out you're going to turn towards your
forehand side you're going to wait until the ball is about to bounce and then
once you initiate the stroke just accelerate and what you will find is
that your timing is actually going to improve
by waiting longer as crazy as that sounds taking the racket back early
will cause you to hit the forehand late.