One shot that every good player absolutely must have is a solid forehand. The forehand should be one of your biggest weapons. Given the time and opportunity in a point you should be able to hit a forehand that both damages the other player’s position and puts yourself in a stronger one. There are lots of different options off the forehand. Being able to mix up heavy topspin and hard drives is also important to keep your deliveries unpredictable. The way that you hit the forehand can really determine and set up the way the rest of the point plays out. In the next section I’ll explain these different shots and general tennis forehand tips about how they change the dynamic of a point.
A Standard Forehand with Topspin
Closed Stance Forehand
The standard forehand is either an open or closed stance shot. For the closed stance step in with your opposite foot and follow into it with your other foot as you come through the shot. This is good for practicing your footwork because it forces you to take an extra step. The limitation then is that it becomes much harder to get in proper position for this shot and recovery is much slower.
Open Stance Forehand
The other option is open stance. Open stance allows you to get to the ball faster, but it’s very easy to be sloppy with the footwork. The power of an open stance forehand is moving to the ball on your natural side and planting with the same foot. This requires one less step than the closed stance, but small and quick adjustment steps should be a huge
Photo by: Frédéric de Villamil
part of preparing for this shot. Before you set your weight on your dominate side be very well positioned for the ball. This requires good judgment and timing that develops as you play more. Once you’ve planted, you can explode into the ball, and back towards the center of the court off of the foot on your dominant side. This creates a very effective way to hit both a strong shot and get back into the point as efficiently as possible.
When teaching beginning players I really think it’s a mistake to only teach an open stance style on both sides because it can promote lazy footwork. I make the blunder of having lazy footwork on open stance shots all the time and it isn’t a pretty sight. Watch a player like Roger Federer move to hit an open stance forehand. He is one of the quickest to get around the ball and position himself perfectly for the shot. Rafael Nadal also has a great open stance forehand, pictured above. He whips his light Babolat racquet quickly generating a tremendous amount of spin.
Inside In Forehand
The inside in forehand is really a very position dependent shot. It’s also incredibly dangerous because it requires you to sacrifice almost all of your court positioning and commit to hitting an all or nothing shot. The best example of an inside in shot is a right hander in the ad court. The right hander is engaged in an intense cross court rally and the opponent hits a shot that lands a bit short. Instead of continuing a back hand cross court rally, the right hander runs around the ball to hit a forehand, but that forehand is aimed straight down the line. The situation above is one of the best ways to utilize the inside in shot. Depending on the strength of your opponents shot and how far ahead you might be in the cross court rally this strategy can be extremely effective. A more dangerous example is off of an opponent’s second serve that is being constantly aimed at your backhand on the ad side. This situation is different because your opponent is not actually cross court, but will be in the center of the court awaiting your shot. If you choose to run around and hit an inside in ball in this situation it needs to be almost a winner to have any chance of success. If the shot isn’t good enough you’ve left the opponent with the entire court to hit to.
Inside Out Forehand
The inside out shot is more common because it is a higher percentage shot that will set your opponent up in a position where he should usually be hitting it back crosscourt, which is the direction you will run around towards. This is different from inside in because in that situation you are giving the opponent the percentage cross court shot as his best play. Inside out forehands are most effective when used with lots of angle. Step around the ball and generate both angle and spin to pull the opponent far off the side of the court. This becomes a game of gaining more and more control of the point until your able to step in and finish off the point.
General Note on Forehand Topspin
Topspin is achieved by brushing up on the tennis ball and creating spin that pulls the ball back down in the court. The spin also causes the ball to jump up on your opponent and if they are far back in the court this can produce a heavy ball that is above their strike zone. Getting sufficient whip or action on the ball is important when driving someone deep into the court with spin. To get enough spin to be effective you need to generate enough racquet head speed to create a shot that doesn’t just sit up in the court. Always think about hitting up and out when aiming for lots of topspin
Tennis Forehand Drills
Now that you know about different kinds of forehands you should incorporate them into your practice sessions. A really effective drill for forehands is to have a friend or your coach toss you balls. This may seem like a beginner routine, but it is actually incredibly effective at working on all the things you need to develop a strong forehand.
- Coach stands behind the deuce service box and tosses balls underhand around your strike zone. Let the ball bounce.
- The toss should be aimed approximately at the center of your body to start. As you progress he can toss them further towards your backhand side
- Run around and position yourself to hit a good forehand shot, practice both inside out (crosscourt) and inside in (down the line)
- Don’t hit your coach when hitting inside out shots, he won’t appreciate it
The best part of this drill is that you get to practice generating your own pace. In tennis we play off the pace of the opponent so much that it is easy for us to slow down the racquet and not hit shots with our full potential. This drill forces you to generate more racquet speed and really hit an effective forehand. If you don’t get enough racquet head speed on these balls they will just go in the net or you won’t get enough topspin to hit a good shot. Some frames like the Rafael Nadal racquet and Novak Djokovic racquet are very fast swinging and allow the player to generate plenty of racquet head speed. It’s also worth noting that Djokovic is said to have used this very drill.
Your forehand should always be a great weapon, but you need to practice diligently these different situations and understand when it is right to use them.