Hi guys Nick here from Intuitive Tennis. How do we aim in tennis? How do we get the
ball to the desired location? Is this something that we are aware of, that
we're mechanically doing, or is it an intuitive process? Check out today's
video and find out. There are basically just two directions in which we can
strike a tennis ball. We can hit it straight or we can hit it diagonally. So
if we stand in the middle of the court and if we hit the ball straight. That is
a straight ball. If we hit it let's say inside out with the forehand to this
corner. This would be a diagonal ball or a cross-court ball and if we hit it
diagonally over to the left. That's a cross-court ball. Now depending
on where I'm standing on the court, so if I'm hitting a forehand from over here.
If I hit it down the line that is still a straight ball.
And the same goes for the backhand side. If I hit a backhand
from the middle of the court. It's a
basically a straight ball and this doesn't change if I go over here and hit
it down the line. That is still a straight ball. So there's a big
importance in learning how to hit down the middle. If you know how to hit down
the middle you will later on be able to hit down line
very easily.
So what are the mechanics behind directional control? Basically it's a
small change in the angle of your racquet. That's going to determine where the ball
is going to go and the further away from the net you are the smaller this angle has
to be. So for example, if I, you can look from this angle, if I was going to
hit a ball straight down the middle of the court. You see now this is would be
parallel to the net if we imagine the net being in front of me. So if my racquet
goes slightly this way from the baseline this would be enough to make the ball go
inside-out and then if my racket angle is slightly over this way, this
would be enough to send the ball from the baseline over towards the
cross-court side. If we are closer to the net however, and we're trying to do a
angled volley, this angle of the racquet face is gonna be more drastic. So if I'm
at the net and the angle of my racket face is like this. This is gonna give me a
nice cross-court angle towards the other side.
Therefore, the further away from the net I am the smaller this angle of
the racquet face has to be to give me directional control.
To illustrate how small this angle has to be, is basically if we turn the racquet parallel to the
baseline like this and this would send the ball straight down the middle of the
court and if I change this angle just a little bit. See there's a very small
degree of change, like the tip of my racquet is is still on the baseline and
if you follow this line and you can see here that the ball if we just follow
this line it's going to go basically towards the singles line on the other
side. So you can see how small this angle is that's going to determine the
direction of our ball.
How do we aim? Well it's a completely intuitive process and the opposite of
doing it intuitively would be to literally aim with your racquet towards
the intended target and this is what many beginners or even some intermediate
players have a trouble with. So basically the player would slow down the contact
zone of the stroke and literally aim towards the desired target like this and
what this does it takes the entire acceleration out of the stroke it takes the
racquet head speed out of the stroke and now you're left with kind of a pushy and
slow shot. What has to happen instead we must do this directional control
intuitively. In other words, we're simply going to select the desired location of
the incoming ball and then we're going to simply do it. We learned this very
early on and this is learned and maybe in the first two or three months of
playing tennis. We figure out how to make this small change in the racquet face
completely subconsciously and so basically we are simply picking the spot in
our head and we're simply going there and so this shot I'm going to go down
the line I'm not thinking how I'm gonna do it, but I'm simply gonna aim there and
I'm going to maintain my racquet head speed. This was cross-court and the same goes on the
serve. If you do it the other way around you will be forced to slow down and you
will lose your racket speed.
Many of my students are actually not aware that
they have this ability to aim intuitively and they're very surprised
when I tell them. Don't think about the target and simply pick the target in
your head and go there and it works like magic so try it out next time you're on
the court instead of thinking about what happens at the contact point, simply
select the desired location of the shot and then simply execute it without
losing acceleration and that way you can maintain your racquet head speed.
Thank you guys for watching this video. I hope you enjoyed it. Please hit that like
button and subscribe if you haven't already and leave a comment in the
section below I will be happy to respond. I'll see you next time.