Well, I slept on this, but I just couldn’t let it go. Yesterday I did a posting about Renata Marcinkowska and her cool tennis DVD. I spent a lot of time on her slider serve, but the other really cool shot she taught was the inside out slice backhand.

The reason I like this shot is that it almost falls into the “junk” category because it has such severe spin. The only reason it’s not total junk is that the spin is predictable, but if you want to know what I think about that, refer to the Billy Jack quote from yesterday:)

The inside out slice backhand puts a killer sidespin on the ball. When it hits the court it takes a sharp bounce to the left from your point of view and to the right from your opponent’s point of view . . . running them off the court if you are approaching down the line with the shot. . .  and we love running people off the court, don’t we? The ball jumps so sharply you can almost get it to jump 90 degrees to the direction of travel . . .  and that’s a darn sharp angle.

This stroke uses a severe grip.  . . at least Renata uses a severe semi western forehand grip. You don’t have to be so severe when just starting out. You could simply use a eastern forehand or continental grip.

The two main keys I picked up from the DVD were that you let the ball drop low as you’re approaching and you keep your shoulders almost parallel to the net as opposed to sideways to the net for a regular slice approach.

Another thing I noticed is that Renata wasn’t  hitting terribly hard. You’ll probably be able to pick this shot up quickly with a little practice because it still works without swinging wildly hard with a thin slice on the ball like is necessary for some junk type shots.

Take a look at yesterday’s post for the title of her CD and pick it up from Champion Productions.