(ball hit)
There's nothing more confident
than crushing short balls in tennis...
If you can do it.
But unfortunately,
most players at the club and junior level,
miss these easy balls.
And it can be one of the most frustrating shots in tennis.
And this of course, leads you to losing to players
that you know, you should beat.
So if hits a chord with you, don't worry.
I've got you.
By mastering your ability to finish short balls,
you'll be able to start putting together
clean serve plus one combos,
dominate pushers,
and swing with confidence.
The first thing you wanna do
when you recognize a short ball in tennis is to find out
whether it's coming to your forehand or backhand side
and then, get into the unit turn.
The unit turn basically refers
to the halfway turning position
that's gonna allow you to move in different directions,
as well as set you up
for an easy timing of your turning of way
and into your shot.
To get into this position,
with your off hand on the throat of the racket,
you're gonna start your turn about 45 degrees away.
This is basically halfway between
the side of the fence and the net.
From here, you're gonna get your racket tip pointing up,
and it's mainly driven from your off arm.
Now in terms of stances,
once you actually get to the ball,
you're gonna have to decide
how open or closed you want to be.
A lot of pros for higher balls, are going to get
in a variation of a semi-open or open stance.
But for lower balls,
they're gonna get into more of a closed stance.
So in your unit turn, along with where the ball is gonna go.
You wanna take a note of what height it's gonna be at
so that you know, whether you should get
into an open stance or a closed stance.
Now if you read the ball coming to your backhand,
you're gonna notice that ideally
the footwork pattern is going to be hit
from a neutral or closed stance
which we'll cover soon.
So now that we split, got into our unit turn
and we're ready to start moving forward,
pros are gonna use a unique footwork pattern
to actually move up to the ball
for maximum precision and efficiency.
Now, when your opponent hits you a short ball
it's really tempting, I know
to try and just sprint up to the ball
or to let go with your off hand
and just flail your arms around.
The problem here is though,
you might succeed in getting to the ball early,
but once you get to the ball, you're gonna turn late.
So instead, pros are gonna use a forward pattern
called cross-steps to get up to the ball.
This basically refers to your back foot
crossing in front of your front foot to move forward.
And this is done in several ways.
When you're moving straight up,
you're gonna split step
and then get into a variation of a semi-open
or a closed stance,
and then cross your back foot in front of your front.
And this is even the case
for when you're trying to get around your backhand.
But to move for an inside out shot
instead we're gonna cross our back leg behind our front leg,
just so that we can keep our body's orientation
in the right way.
And lastly, if the ball drops to your forehand side,
you're usually gonna do more of a forward shuffle
or more like a sprinting motion
because your feet are already aligned
in the direction of your path.
Now wherever you're going here, do your best to make sure
that you're maintaining balance throughout your movement.
And try and keep your body upright as you move.
And to get you used to the unit turn
and the prep footwork to get to the ball,
I have the perfect drill for you.
First things first,
either have a hitting partner
or a coach in front of you for this.
And if you're actually by yourself,
you can alternatively do all of these drills
while tossing them in front of you as well.
First off, I'm gonna have Daytri toss the ball
right in front of me,
and I'm gonna practice the unit turn,
and stepping in front.
And as you can see, I'm not gonna hit the ball
but instead, I'm gonna use my off arm to catch it.
This is gonna help you to engage your off arm.
And it's also gonna help you to move
in the precise way that we talked about
to get in position to the ball.
So again, I'm gonna split, unit turn,
cross-step, and then catch.
From there, I can start adding
a little bit of variation in height
so I can move up for a high ball
and set up in an open stance or a semi-open stance.
And then for a low ball,
I'm gonna move up in a neutral stance.
Once you get used to that,
you can start spicing things up and adding the inside out
where you cross your back foot behind your front foot,
and the forward shuffle with the forehand side.
And here's what it looks like by yourself.
I'm gonna toss the ball straight in front of me,
start my movement, and then catch.
It's gonna be hard to surprise myself here,
unless I'm like, I don't know.
I can drink like a couple glasses of tequila
before this maybe. (laughing)
And last but certainly not least,
you can have your opponent while you're doing these drills,
have them surprise you with a really short ball.
Now it's safe to say, that if you're doing
a lot of these drills moving up and back,
and unlocking new parts of your body and muscles,
like engaging your core.
You're probably gonna wake up sore the next day.
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For step number three, once you get to the short ball
there's a specific technique that pros use with their feet
during and after their shot,
that gives them more power and control over the ball.
And the best players in the world
will use dynamic footwork patterns
to maintain that forward momentum through the shot,
so that they can easily approach the net.
Now depending on exactly which direction you're moving to,
as well as things like your contact type,
the exact footwork patterns that you use are gonna change.
On higher balls,
pros are actually gonna set up
in more of a semi-open stance, which is where their feet
are about 45 degrees to the service line,
with most of their weight on the back foot.
And being able to set up
in a more open stance is gonna allow you
to raise your hitting arm shoulder,
which is going to raise your contact height as well.
Now as pros straighten their back leg against the ground,
this is gonna propel them into the air
and help them to accelerate their hip and torso
forward to the net.
Simultaneously, they'll take their left leg forward
almost as if they're taking a big step forward.
And this allows them to transfer their weight forward
for maximum power.
And with their weight already going forward,
they'll run straight into the net from here.
On lower balls,
pros are typically gonna set up in the neutral stance
with the feet perpendicular to the service line.
From there, they'll use what we call
the front foot hop technique.
This is where you hit a ball from the closed stance,
but because of your forward momentum,
you're actually gonna hop and then land on the same foot,
the front foot, as you rotate.
This allows players to maximize their forward momentum
while hitting the ball
and easily transitioning into the net.
And once you dialed in your footwork patterns,
you're ready to master your forward swing.
One of the most common problems
that I see when players hit high short balls is that
they go straight down
and end up hitting the ball straight into the net.
Now on the surface,
this kind of makes sense and I fell for this a lot.
Basically, the thought process goes like
well if I'm already short into the court
and I would to have this forward linear swing path
then wouldn't the ball just sail long.
But you see, the problem is that even on higher balls
this flat swing path is just gonna lead to a ball
that goes straight into the net.
And this is a problem that I had for the longest time.
I would stretch Daytri out wide beautifully
and get an easy chip ball back
only to just hit it right into the net every single time.
And it was so frustrating.
And if you've been in this situation before,
you've probably also gotten really tight
and ended up getting jammed in your shot
or even worse, just resorted to floating the ball
for a very slow safe approach shot.
So instead, pros are able to consistently finish
these short balls because they utilize topspin.
If you have enough topspin on your shot,
you could swing as hard as you want
and the ball will still dip down into the court.
And this is especially true for low balls.
When you don't have nearly as much net clearance,
you're gonna be relying heavily on that topspin
to get the ball to dip down
because you have a shorter margin in the court.
So back to the higher shorter balls,
we're actually gonna visualize
a straight line in front of us
and actually try and extend our arms
through our target going straight-forward.
And frankly, it's better
that the ball sails long than goes into the net.
Because last time I checked,
no one's gonna surprisingly call it in,
if it goes into the net.
And to dip the ball down into the court,
you're gonna focus on rotating your racket over hard
from your shoulder and your forearm.
And this goes the same for your backhand,
instead of the bottom arm,
you're actually gonna use your top arm
or for righties your left arm,
to rotate that hand and racket over,
to create massive amounts of spin and get the ball over.
Now at this point,
if somebody were to feed you a short high ball,
you should be able to perfectly execute
both high and low backhand and forehand short balls.
But as you start playing higher and higher levels of tennis,
being able to be strategic with this shot
becomes equally as important.
By far, the biggest mistake that I see at the club level
is going too big with this approach shot.
Now swinging aggressively is fine,
but when you're just hitting flat shots,
you're usually gonna miss.
The best players in the world,
don't use the approach shot as a finishing shot
but instead, as a set-up shot.
Here, your goal isn't to blast the ball off the court
and see yourself on the highlight reel.
But instead, to hit a strategically placed shot
with a good margin for error
and set yourself up for an easy volley finish.
This means putting more spin on the ball
and getting it deep, instead of going for the lines.
And this subsequently is gonna push your opponent back
and allow you to utilize more angles.
On most balls, the ideal place
to hit the ball on your approach shot is down the line.
This is because attacking cross-court
immediately opens you up
for an easy down the line shot for your opponent.
And they really don't even have to hit it hard
to pass you here.
So to cover this,
you'll probably end up rushing over to the side,
but because of how much momentum you already have,
your opponent could easily just hit behind you.
Now in some cases,
if your opponent is really bad like Daytri
and doesn't have a backhand, (laughs)
you can actually attack their weakness
because you're confident that they can't pass you,
especially under pressure.
But keep in mind,
that you shouldn't do this at higher levels.
So athletes, there you have it.
Go and take that drill out onto the court
and start thinking about these concepts.
And next time you see a short ball,
start thinking exactly how you're gonna respond.
The unit turn, the cross-step, the forward pattern,
the swing path and the strategy.
And remember, if you want $15 off your first month
of Gainful's protein and hydration blends,
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As always athletes, thank you so much for watching.
And until next time, go out and train hard.
I'll see you in the next video.
One more.
- [Daytri] That was so good.
- No it wasn't.
I think I need to do it again. (laughing)
(laughing)
- Stop making it, Jesus why are you making these.