When it comes to open stance versus closed stance I don't even want you to
think about it in those terms. See the truth is if I'm playing a match and I
play a long rally if you ask me afterwards how many open stance forehands
did you hit I would have no clue because I'm definitely not thinking
about how my feet are positioned. It's all happening completely intuitively. So
position yourself in the middle I'll explain it to you so it makes sense. So
it has to do with the sequencing on the forehand. So go in your ready position
and now what are you going to do if you see the ball coming to your forehand
you're gonna make a turn right? So look how your positioned and see your back foot
your dominant leg is behind the non-dominant leg and this is what people
call the semi open stance forehand and you're gonna do this on balls that have
a lot of penetration in other words the ball is going to come through the court
really fast and there's really no need to step forward on the ball like that
and you are simply going to wait for the ball in this position.
Yeah that's how most forehands are struck. I would say 95% of forehands at the
high level are struck like that simply because there's a lot of penetration on
the incoming ball. Okay. So players are just waiting on the ball they're not
thinking to set up this way that's just a natural set up on a forehand where the
first thing you do when you see a ball come to your forehand and is turning. Look
right away I'm in a position like that. Now I might be setting up further
but I'm not going to lose this position. I'm gonna use this position on 95%
of my forehands simply because I'm going to wait to hit the ball. There's no
need to step up to it. On the other hand if you get a ball with
no penetration let's say for example a backhand slice and where in the worst case
scenario the ball will bounce twice before it gets to you of course you have
to step up to a ball like that and how you gonna do that well go back to your
ready position. And now you gonna see a forehand you're gonna turn and now what's
natural to make a step with your non-dominant leg like that. You're gonna
step up to a ball that doesn't have penetration.
So let me feed you some and simply go by the incoming ball to position
yourself. You're gonna determine the penetration of the ball and you either
gonna wait for it or you gonna step up to the ball okay this ball right here
has no penetration yeah if you look up the the definition
of penetration is something it goes through something yeah Hey look there's
a short ball right here look where the second bounce is. It's inside the baseline
so that guy has to step up to that ball okay he won't be able play from the
baseline or he's gonna play it like this so he has to step up to that ball this
one this has a lot of penetration you see the second bounce is in the middle
of the back fence okay so in that one you might even have to back up or you
can play it by waiting for it okay do you see what I'm saying no no it's
different because action you're going to think about spin and slice think of it
as penetration how much the ball is going through the court extreme scenario
is a ball that would bounce twice before it gets to you. That ball has very little penetration.
it off your dominant leg well let's call it semi open stance and one exception is
a short diagonal ball and so imagine like a angled cross court or an
inside-out backhand slice where you hit the ball from here see if you do your
closed stance forehand with your non-dominant leg you're going to be
completely locked up and this can possibly cause you to hurt your hip so
in an instance like that you're going to do something what I call open closed so
you're gonna hit it off your dominant leg and then come through with the
non-dominant leg like this and it is also something that might happen on a
return to serve now I shot now another instance where
it's wise to hit the ball off the dominant leg is a high ball because
we're going to have a higher contact a more horizontal swing path it's very
awkward to do it off the non-dominant leg and it's much easier to do this type
of ball from the dominant leg.