Evolution of a Game

OK, so this is yet another tennis blog.

I've been trying to adjust my game for the last few months. I've been working on imitating a Federer forehand. Since Federer has a one-handed backhand, and I don't (though I do slice the backhand), I don't imitate his backhand. Finally, I just try to hit a better serve.

Sometimes, you reach a kind of mini-epiphany when playing, a moment where all of a sudden, you figure out something.

That moment happened to me on Saturday while playing tennis on a warm afternoon. Just as I was wrapping up a session of tennis, I decided, just for the heck of it, to practice my serve.

Instead of hitting the same topspin serve I had been hitting, I decided to toss the ball low, and then really snap the wrist down. Teachers of tennis claim that the wrist doesn't snap, that it pronates. Pronation is a tough concept to explain, even if you've played a lot of tennis.

But the wrist snap visual is actually quite useful, because it makes you really accelerate the racquet right at the moment of contact. When I think I'm snapping down, I'm sure the racquet is mostly perpendicular to the plane of the court.

The second thing that helped my serve a bit, other than the mere act of practicing it, is not to get the racquet in the classic back-scratching position (something, by the way, that's really hard to teach), but instead to have the hitting face of the racquet point to my back, making wrist pronation even easier. This was a tip I picked up watching a Oscar Wegner video.

My two-handed backhand was improved mostly by following the advice given in Hi-tech tennis. In particular, it helped me point the racquet down on take back, but more importantly, to turn the arm and shoulder to the ball, while leaving the angle of the racquet more or less the same and then following through. Most people have a shaky two-handed backhand because the tip of the racquet moves a lot, and they swing too soon.

This website suggested being restrained up until the point of contact, and that relaxation seems to get a lot of pace, surprisingly enough.

My forehand has had the most issues. Imitating anyone's stroke is a lot of work. You are watching a snippet of video over and over, and trying to find how you can hit the stroke the same way, and that's tough, because so many factors go into it, from the plane of the racquet, to when to take the racquet back.

I've gotten to the point where I think I'm getting kinda close to what I want to hit. Part of it, surprisingly, is keeping the racquet face down pointed to the right fence, then kinda whipping my forehand forward.

I think, the next step for me, is to learn to "lift" the racquet and turn the torso at the same time. I'm still having an issue hitting with power and also hitting it crosscourt. Oddly enough, my chop forehand is doing reasonably well, and I end up resorting to it, when I return serve.

Still, I think I'm having to work on torso turning and doing the windshield movement correctly.

So, overall, my backhand seems much better, as does my serve. My slice backhand is starting to feel decent, though I still need some pace, and my forehand is improving, but still not where I want it.