In today's video I'm going to show you the top three worst tennis tips and
explain why these tips will hold you back as a tennis player. So one tip that
you've probably heard many times is stay low and this is a really bad tip because
staying low only applies to low balls. So if I get a ball that's very low for
example a slice then of course I'm gonna stay low in order to perform my stroke,
whether it be a volley, or a backhand, or a forehand, but any ball that's above the waist
staying low would be counter intuitive to
your technique. So it makes absolutely zero sense to stay low on a ball that's
above your waist. Just think about it if the ball let's say it's up here and if I
continue to stay low on a ball like this, this will bring the contact to my
head level. That's not what you want on a tennis stroke. Naturally on a ball that's
higher you are going to get low initially to load your stroke by bending
your knees but then once you start accelerating the stroke you need to lift
the body up and straighten the leg in order to accommodate the higher contact.
Now at the higher level there's a lot of spin being produced and players will
very often make contact above their waist because
balls with spin have a tendency to bounce higher. So what will happen
at the high level is that the contact is made above the waist somewhere between
the shoulder and the rib-cage and now players will of course lift into these
balls. If you watch high level players they very often will lift the dominant
leg and the non-dominant leg will go into the air usually. And on some
situations they might even become airborne. So when you're playing make
sure that you are staying low on balls that are below your waist. There's
nothing wrong with that and that is what you should do. However, if you get a ball
that's higher do not stay low but simply allow your body to lift and accommodate
the higher contact.
Another tip that you hear very frequently is take your racket back
early. And this is very logical. So the ball comes and if we take the racket
back early we have a better chance of timing the ball correctly.
But when you observe high-level players you will see that this is not the case.
The only professional players that will sometimes take the racket back early are
Venus and Serena and this is only in practice when you see them play matches
you see this less, but they will indeed take the racket back early, however,
all the other players will not take the racket back early and they will sequence
the stroke in the following way. They will be in a ready position observing
the incoming ball and now they're gonna make a turn once they make that
observation to either side. And let's assume the ball is coming to my forehand.
So as soon as I see it coming to my forehand I'm gonna turn towards my
forehand side and now the next step is I'm going to set up the ball and you can
see that my non-dominant hand is still on my racket while I'm setting up the
ball. Now once that ball comes close to me I'm perfectly set up then I'm going
to initiate the stroke. And the initiation of the forehand begins when
that non-dominant arm starts to pull across the body and the racket starts to
drop so that once we hit the forward phase the forehand starts to
accelerate really fast. So here's the problem if you take the racket back
early, you're probably going to bypass a couple of steps. So if you see the ball
coming to your forehand side and the first thing you do is take your racket
back really fast, you're most likely not going to make a
turn, you're going to be too open and most likely you're going to be feeling
very awkward setting the ball up with the racket already back. See we don't
really move efficiently with one arm being down and the other arm being up.
It's more efficient to move like this. This is kind of like a runner's position.
See if we have both hands on this side this is how sprinters run and it's very
comfortable to set the ball up when both hands are across the body in this way.
And the biggest problem with taking the racket back early is that you're most
likely going to lack swing momentum and rhythm. So if you take the racket back
and racket just sits there you will have to accelerate it from zero. See on a
regular forehand we're going to gradually accelerate the racket by
dropping it and then going into the forward phase with a lot of momentum.
And if you put this in context of the incoming ball it will make even more
sense. So all high-level players will wait
until the ball has crossed the net and then it's either about to bounce or
already has bounced to start initiating the stroke. And just take a look when you
watch tennis the next time and you will see that players, for example on the
forehand, will hold the racket with both hands and now once the ball has cleared
the net they might start separating the hands but they're still haven't
initiated the stroke. So the racket head still hasn't dropped until the ball is
close to bouncing then they will start dropping the racket and accelerate.
And it's exactly this late timing that makes the strokes so effective and so
fast. But I know what you're thinking. If you do this method you're gonna think
you're gonna hit the ball late, but quite the opposite is the truth. You can easily
hit the ball late if you take the racket back early. And what does it mean to hit
the ball late? Well late contact would be a contact with the string bed pointing
towards the outside and the ball will shoot off to your right if you're
right-handed. And this will not happen with this timing because you are going
to accelerate very fast. In other words there's gonna be no time to stop. There's
not going to be any possibility of developing a hitch in your backswing
where you get caught somewhere along the way, but if you wait for the ball to
bounce and then you accelerate you'll have to do it real fast or otherwise you
will not be able to hit the ball and this is what all high-level players do.
And because this stroke accelerates rather fast players are very rarely
making late contact. So to summarize, the reason why I don't want you to take your
racket back early is because you're going to lack swing momentum, you're
going to lack rhythm and most importantly you're going to develop a
hitch in your stroke. And this will not look like a high level stroke. What you
should do instead is do the proper sequencing on the stroke which is, you're
going to be in a ready position and then you're going to observe where the ball
is coming and as soon as you see it coming for example to your forehand side
you're gonna make a turn and now you're gonna set the ball up perfectly and now
you're gonna be in the perfect position to strike and when the ball is about the
bounce you're going to separate and accelerate and you're gonna meet the
ball in the right place most of the time.
And finally the worst tip ever is hit through the ball. And this is something
that a lot of recreational players do but you will see no high-level players
hitting through the ball. In other words high-level players will always have a
circular rotational swing path on all their strokes. And high-level tennis
would not be possible if there wasn't a circular swing path, but what you see
from a lot of recreational level players is for example a forehand like this.
Just picture someone at your local club hitting in this way.
This is very common and players are indeed hitting through the ball on a
forehand like this. And the reason is they're not utilizing torso rotation. So
in a sideways position like this, if I make contact I'm almost forced to hit
through the ball because my body is blocking the racket so there's no other
path for the racket to go then to go forward through the ball like this. See
the strokes will accelerate really fast and you don't really have to consciously
manufacture a circular swing path on your forehand and your backhand. It will
happen naturally if you utilize torso rotation. So on the forehand for
example if I rotate and I have my non-dominant arm lead the way,
see if I continue this rotation naturally the racket will continue along
the same path and I end up with an intuitive circular swing path. It's very
unlikely that if I have a full rotation that I'm gonna continue going forward
like this. And this is very counter intuitive and it's not something
that's likely to happen. On the backhand is the same thing, if you're talking
about a one-handed backhand there is torso rotation involved. So players will make a
large turn usually with their shoulder blade pointing towards the incoming ball
and they will rotate into the contact like this. Now some players will continue
to rotate ala Shapovalov, Thiem or Wawrinka and some others like
Federer will rotate into the contact and then will hold the sideways position as they
finish. Both of these backhands will utilize torso rotation and the arm is
simply accompanying this rotation by going in a circular path across the body.
Looking something like this. On a two-handed backhand there's a larger
amount of torso rotation involved and players will make that same type of turn
with the shoulder blade pointing towards the incoming ball. And now the rotation
will start and contact is made with the non-dominant shoulder slightly behind
the dominant shoulder and then this rotation is continued until the chest is pointing
towards the side fence. So you have to utilize torso rotation to develop this
intuitive circular swing path and the advantages you will get from such a swing
path is number one you get more feel because you are connecting that ball to
your body and just feels a lot better to do a swing path like this. And doing it the
other way we are disconnecting the ball from the body and going forward. This
feels like we're losing the ball. Another thing you will gain from a circular swing
path is control and power. By going across the ball like this or on a backhand
like this, it's far easier to control the ball this way and we also can
generate more power in the same fashion because we're connecting the ball to the
body, we're using our core more. It's a lot easier to accelerate the racket this
way. On the other hand if you are making contact on the forehand for example and
you are in a sideways position, even if it be a minimal sideways position and
you hit through the ball, you are forced to push through this ball to
gently massage it and a lot of players are aware of this maybe even at the
subconscious level and they know that if from a position like this where the body
is blocking the circular swing path and you are forced to go forward. If you do
this too hard there's a big chance that the ball will
fly long on you. And it's not that you couldn't get power by hitting through
the ball, you could, you could be in a sideways position and swing really fast
like this but the chances of the ball going in consistently are almost zero
and this is why players that utilize the hitting through the ball style
usually don't play with power. They gently are massaging the ball and pushing it in.
So if you want to have a chance to play high level tennis and eventually hit the
ball with control and power you must utilize the torso rotation so you can
get that intuitive circular swing path.