Opinions of Tennis Coaches about the Forehand

Opinions of tennis coaches about the forehand, the second most important shot in tennis after the serve

I chose more interesting comments on the article “Increasing power on the tennis court with your forehand”.  Hope, you will find them interesting.

Tascu Cristian, the tennis coach and physical education teacher:

“The second most important shot in tennis after the serve is by far the stroke. I don’t know if many people agree with me but as long as you play tennis, there is always room for improving your technique in our case the forehand. Small changes in time can make a lot of difference. What I’ve seen that pro’s do more and more often is related with a proper preparation for the shot. Notice that I didn’t use the term early preparation – take the racquet back. For me early preparation means proper preparation of the shot, not of the racquet. With no doubt, in order to achieve a powerful forehand you must “tie” or “connect” all the body parts in one gradual (continuous) motion. The best term that everybody can use is the UNIT TURN “all together”. How to do this is quite simple. Just hold the racquet with both hands (the non dominant hand holds through of the racquet) and try to look at the ball over your left shoulder (for the right handed players). Once you can see the ball over your left shoulder your UNIT TURN is complete and the racquet goes back with almost no effort from your hands. From this moment the second more important part is the way our racquet is positioned. Naturally the racquet has “to rest” at 45 degrees tilted with the ground. So the racquet and the wrist is not laid back, but actually is laid forward. Once you decided to hit the ball, due to your speed of your forearm and arm the wrist begins to lay back with the racquet. Than the contact point is like we all know out and in front of the body. I like to say the racquet has nicely extended towards the target. The follow throw in most of the cases is around the body exept the “reverse forehand”. A complete follow through for me means, to uncoil your body in such a way that you look at the ball over your right shoulder “this time”. The best example of this is Roger Federer, Tomas Berdych, Novak Djokovic and many more. Another important part for a powerful forehand is to transfer your body weight into the ball by moving both sideways and towards it, with an angle. Like this you put more pressure on the opponent and you cut from his recovery time”.

Alex Yep 2, founder and instructor of physio technical tennis:

“I classify myself as a tennis technical analyst. I’ve study and analyze the techniques of many top players for years before implementing Physio Technical Tennis. When you suggested the comment on increasing power to the forehand, there is one thing I like to clarify. Many tennis players are mistaken between power and speed. Also, included in this comment is the suggestion from Tascu, which he mention the proper preparation instead of early preparation. In one of my recent postings on training for tennis specifics, I’d made a statement which I think should be one of the most important rules in tennis, which is “tennis starts with the feet”. In tennis, the first thing is properly setting up your feet. Then the rest of your body can follow the proper motion through your stroke. Now that is out of the way, we can go back to distinguishing power and speed. I belief every tennis player can generate power. Just as long as the player follow the proper techniques given by you and Tascu. However, my preference is how fast you can generate speed from your tennis racquet. The reason I’ve brought this up is, from my studies, while power can win you some of the points but speed can win you most of the points. This brings me to not how early or how proper is your preparation, but how fast is your preparation. What I’ve created has to be very compact, but explosive. I’ve given the forehand a shorter backswing, but a faster and longer follow through, giving the forehand more speed and extension. This will help get the ball over the net at an earlier and faster pace. From studying all the techniques, the conclusion are power do not win matches, but speed will. This is why I’ve included physics into the game. Simply, from the perspective of a power game which a good defensive player can utilize your power against you. However, I don’t care how fast you can run, when you speed up the ball and your forehand is traveling 80 miles an hour, how many balls can a human being defend. If you can hit 3-4 forehands at a good speed with the proper placement, your opponent will run out of time and running room. This is just my preference and wanted to bring up the difference between power and speed, from my experience and analytical standpoint.”

Now, watch Roger Federer’s forehand and enjoy!