Fatso Tennis

Posts Tagged ‘tennis groundstrokes’

When I’m at the club I see people pounding the ball on almost every shot. There is a lot to be said for hitting the ball easy. Not only does it save your energy, but an easy shot usually causes your opponent to burn lots of extra energy.

How does this happen?

Let’s take the drop shot. . . . When you hit the ball really easy, your opponent has to put out maximum energy to get to the ball. If he/she doesn’t, then you probably shouldn’t have hit the drop shot.

An easy sharp angle passing shot . . . Let’s say your opponent made a great approach shot that got you scrambling and the opponent is poised at the net to kill whatever you can throw at him. What would happen if you did a little flick dipping easy ball that just cleared the net cross court? (Federer does this all the time) Your opponent that was so comfortably waiting to kill your next shot now has to scramble toward the sidelines and get to a dipping ball…..maximum energy spent while doing it.

Opponent is deep in court and so are you. . . . If you know your opponent is not comfortable at the net, hit an easy short ball designed to get them charging forward. If they do get the ball back without overhitting, you now have them at the net where they aren’t comfortable.

Even an easy serve  . . . . can totally throw of an opponent’s timing. This is called a “changeup” in baseball. You see this on the tennis channel all the time when the server puts in a slow first serve and the returner hits it into the side stands because they were so early on the return.

So, don’t be afraid to hit easy and get a load of easy points.

When Coach Kyril and Coach Mauro were here in Virginia Beach doing their video shoot I heard Coach Mauro say something that has really stuck in my mind. He said that down the line shots are “stroke cleaners”.

I’m assuming what he meant was that a down the line shot is not as natural as a cross court shot and that you really had to execute your stroke mechanics properly to effectively hit down the line.

So, I got the trusty ball machine out yesterday and set up targets and I only hit down the line.  Right now I only have about 50 balls in the machine.

My goal was simply to hit past the service line on the down the line side of the court for both forehands and backhands. I would get one point if I accomplished the goal and zero points if I didn’t hit the ball to the proper target area even if the ball was still in.

The most I could get was 36 out of 50 and one time I only got 29 out of 50. This will be a drill I keep coming back to to increase those numbers.

I will tell you that after doing this that the cross court shots I hit after that were much cleaner. So, spend some time hitting down the line and watch your groundstrokes improve.

Note: our philosophy around here is to hit crosscourt because it’s a higher percentage shot and hitting down the line can get us in serious trouble fast, so I’m only suggesting this drill as a way to improve your stroke mechanics….not because I want you to have a down the line match strategy.

Yesterday I told you how I learned about hitting deep from Vic Braden. Today I want to expand on another reason it is good to hit deep.

Let’s back up a bit. When a tennis ball hits a tennis court it slows way down from the speed it was traveling while in the air. If you regularly hit really hard, to be consistent, you most likely have to hit shorter in the court to make sure you don’t hit the ball long. Even if you hit hard, the ball isn’t going nearly as fast by the time it gets to your opponent because it has hit the court and slowed down.

Let’s say you look at this a little differently. Let’s say you didn’t hit the ball nearly as hard but you aimed higher over the net to make sure you got great depth into the court while the ball was in the air. Guess what. The ball was probably going just as fast when it got to your opponent as it was when you hit hard and short.

What are the advantages of this tactic? A.) By not swinging as hard you will have better control, B.) A ball that lands deep in the court forces your opponent to either take the ball on the rise which is a much more difficult shot, or back up way into the back court to hit the ball in their normal strikezone which opens up the entire court for you.

Try hitting controlled deep shots and see what a difficult time it will create for your opponent.

I took two Nick Bollettieri clinics when they came to the Virginia Beach area. One of the clincs was packed and, fortunately for me, one wasn’t. At the sparsely attended clinic I got to spend extra time with one of the instructors, Miguel Rosa who helped me out on lots of things which I’ll cover in future posts. One of the best things he pointed out to me had to do with my one handed backhand.

My one-handed backhand has always been powerful and pretty reliable. I’d prepare with a high racket on the backswing and loop below the ball to really whack it.

Although Miguel was very polite in all his dealings with me, he was no nonsene when he pointed out to me that I was burning tons of energy on my backswing and also that I wasn’t coordinated enough to reliably duplicate the loop on the backswing. Also, he pointed out that I was too slow to use such a long backswing as the quality of opponents and pace of the ball increased.

He told me to simply take the racket straight back and low. This saved all the energy and time to make that big loop and the backswing was so short that I could duplicate it over and over without fail. It also allowed me to be more than ready for fast paced balls that I would have been pretty shaky on with the old backswing.

Try it out. I think you’ll like it.