Professional tennis players on the other hand have tennis technique that is virtually flawless

This allows them to maximize their power, spin and accuracy potential. The important point to understand is that each tennis player will have their own hitting style, tennis strategy and tennis strokes, but they all adhere to distinct commonalities of tennis technique. These basic fundamentals of tennis technique are shared by high level tennis players, college tennis players and professional tennis players.

In Tennis Technique, I have broken the secrets of world class tennis technique down into three main qualities.

These foundational qualities make up tennis technique and which a player should strive to achieve.

Explosive

Explosive tennis technique is the first foundational quality necessary to play at a high level of tennis. Explosive tennis technique means that the tennis stroke, whether it’s your forehand, backhand or serve should have an element of explosiveness. Explosiveness can be seen in the tennis technique of the top professional players, particularly on the ATP tour. It’s easy to see how much racket head speed top pros achieve in all of their tennis strokes. Explosiveness in the ground strokes is accomplished through unique biomechanical elements.

Efficient

Efficient tennis technique is defined by smooth, effortless yet powerful tennis strokes that are able to achieve maximum racket head speed and topspin with the least amount of energy. Overly large backswings, hitches or unnecessary movement will hinder tennis technique. You’ll notice how top pros like Federer, Nadal, Safin, Roddick all have tennis strokes that are efficient. They are able to get the job done without wasting energy.

Watching professional tennis players practice can be a very eye opening experience. When you watch pros play, it’s easy to see how they are able to hit massive shots time and time again; while at the same time it appears like only a portion of their total strength. They are simply getting a lot more efficiency with a lot less work.

Inefficient or improper tennis technique can also result in injury. This is why the most common injury of club players is tennis elbow. Having poor tennis strokes and incorrect tennis technique, they will frequently be unable to maximize the power on their shots. Instead, they may be forced to muscle the ball and over time, this puts additional strain on the arm, eventually causing the condition known as tennis elbow.

The club players themselves may blame the tennis racket or the grips, or the tennis strings – but in actuality they have never seen themselves practice. While a head heavy, or oversize racket may be to blame, it is frequently a result of having faulty tennis technique.

At the pro levels, it is extremely rare to encounter tennis elbow. They may have other various injuries, but these injuries are normally a result of overtraining rather than faulty tennis technique.

Adaptable

The ability to adjust to adverse conditions and still being able to execute the shot is what constitutes adaptable tennis technique. There is always a day where the wind blows the tennis ball further than one would expect, or a day where the tennis balls don’t bounce the way they normally do on a warm day. This is where having adaptable tennis technique comes in. The ability to make fine adjustments without drastically altering the tennis technique makes up the key foundational aspects of adaptable tennis technique. Having flaws in tennis technique will prevent a tennis player from fully capitalizing on their maximum ability on the court. It may become difficult to adapt to certain conditions if there are foundational problems in the tennis swing shape itself. These problems usually come out during match play – – Which is why so many tennis players complain of playing “much worse” in matches than they do in practice. The weaknesses are exploited in matchplay, and they really come out to haunt you in key moments in the match – where your body may be tighter than normal.

Tennis Technique: Why It’s Important

Tennis Technique is one of the main areas to focus on if a tennis player desires to improve. Just as in Golf, players analyze their golf swing, Baseball players record their pitches, Quarterbacks work on their throwing mechanics, Bowlers fix their bowling technique – It’s the same for tennis. Tennis players (particularly at the club level) have the tendency to neglect working on their tennis strokes. The emphasis is by most mainstream tennis instruction is getting tennis players to learn the game and play the game, but rarely do these sources mention the exact methods of tennis technique.

While there are variations among professional tennis players and their tennis technique, there are striking basic commonalities that high level tennis players share. These commonalities seperate the elite from the amateurs, and why they are able to maximize power, topspin and accuracy. The irony here though, is that these commonalities often go unrecognized and very rarely taught to tennis players in traditional tennis lessons.

Tennis Technique can be taught and developed

So we all know that professional tennis players like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andre Agassi seem to have that special talent in tennis that makes them stand out from their opponents. Does that mean that the average tennis player has no chance of developing technically sound tennis strokes? Is having a powerful, consistent forehand out of the question for the ordinary player? Is developing an astute tennis serve reserved just for big strong giants like John Isner’s serve, or Ivo Karlovic?

The good news is that having technically sound tennis technique is not impossible, nor does it require that a tennis player be born with a special “gift.”

The key to having sound tennis technique is recognizing what the key elements of proper and efficient tennis strokes are, and reproducing them with positive repetition.

Learn Tennis Technique

Learning and understanding the fundamental key elements of tennis technique can make the difference between staying at the same level, or drastically taking a climb in terms of power and topspin potential. The reason most tennis player stay at the same level for months and years is simply because they are reproducing the exact same flaws over and over by swinging away with incorrect tennis technique

By swinging the tennis racket over and over with the flawed technique, all the tennis player is doing is burning the exact same muscle memory – the brain’s taking in the same stimuli resulting in the same poor results day in and day out

The Key to Improve Tennis Technique

The only way to improve tennis technique is to first recognize the tennis stroke that needs to be fixed. The brain is a very complicated organ, and the only way to improve is to feed it correct information through visualizing the ideal tennis technique or tennis stroke that needs to be mastered. Hitting thousands of tennis balls, playing tons of competitive matches and traditional tennis lessons alone may not be enough to reinforce the positive repetitions needed to really fix a tennis stroke. Improving tennis technique is a time consuming process, and the flaws in tennis strokes usually do not go away on it’s own without the proper work ethic and attention to the stroke that needs to be fixed

The Tennis Technique of Great Tennis Players

High performance tennis technique is a result of hours of studying and working hard. Having a good solid foundation is the only way to progress to a higher level. At the club level, we may see a tennis player with inferior strokes beat a tennis player with better tennis technique but the tennis player is still limited at the end of the day as to who he can defeat. That same club tennis player is unlikely able to defeat a college tennis player, or a junior tennis player with refined tennis strokes.

Development of Tennis Technique

Frequently, commentators on TV and in tennis magazines convince the audience that professional tennis players and having great tennis technique is something a person must be born with.

But in reality, it is a product of hours of refinement and practice. I was inspired by an older tennis documentary that revealed some of America’s Top Juniors. In that video, Andy Roddick was quoted for saying, “There is alot more training that is involved, because you’re still learning and building your strokes and technique – – That’s when the work is put in.”

Tennis Technique: A reality

It may be too much to expect that everyone can develop and produce world class tennis strokes even with the necessary refinement; however, even a slight adjustment can result in big improvements to one’s tennis game. The tennis technique involved may require a higher degree of athleticism that what you may be accustomed to, but a prerequisite to play better tennis.

Learn to Hit a Forehand Like Roger Federer

If you want to jumpstart your forehand and play like the PROS, check out my 70+ page Tennis Ebook that will immediately show you how you can take your forehand to the next level.

The Modern Forehand Domination Ebook is guaranteed to improve your tennis technique, and increase power, topspin and accuracy of your tennis forehand!

Modern Tennis Forehand Ebook
Learn How to Hit a Forehand Like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic

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In the tennis backhand, tennis players should focus on the most fundamental commonalities which the top pro players share in their own tennis backhand. By learning to model the tennis strokes of the pros, particularly the backhand shot – a tennis player can have a better grasp of the proper tennis technique.

Tennis backhand technique Explained

There are generally four strokes often seen in the game of tennis to start the game. The basic ones are the serve, the forehand shot, the backhand shot and the volley shot. The tennis backhand shot being the most difficult to be played and is of course difficult to learn. In the tennis backhand shot, there are the three distinct strokes to be played often: (1) the one-hand topspin stroke, (2) the two handed topspin stroke, and (3) the slice. As I already mentioned, the tennis backhand shot is the most difficult shot of this sport hence it requires intense intention, focus, concentration, hard work, and a lot of practice.

For most tennis players, the tennis backhand shot is an intimidating and the most difficult stroke to be played. For overcoming this difficulty, you have to be in perfect balance with a strong shoulder turn, the correct positioning of the racket and adequate time spent practicing the tennis backhand shot. There are some basic key points apply to all tennis shots that are as follows:

• Watch the ball with full concentration all the time.
• Always hit the ball using an attacking mentality by moving forward and making good forward momentum.
• Always try to hit the ball on the rise after being bounced, rather than late

Tennis Backhand Fundamentals

The first element of backhand tennis technique is the initial preparation. For recreational and club players, the preparation for the tennis backhand should start immediately. The preparation involves turning the body sideways as a unit. Typically, the hips will turn and the lower body will help intitiate the sideways turn of the body, therefore creating a coil. The racket should come along with the ride at this preparation stage.

The second element of the tennis backhand technique is to develop a fluid and efficient swing. Professional tennis players keep their tennis backhands simple, yet remarkably efficient. This means that throughout the backhand shot, there are absolutely no hitches, stoppages or extraneous motion.

The third element of backhand tennis technique is to have a full and complete shoulder turn. This allows for maximum power. The power must be loaded into the core (lower body) prior to hitting the shot, this will help to increase the potential of the weight transfer forward into the shot.

Can an average tennis player develop good tennis backhand technique?

How difficult is incorporating tennis backhand technique of the pros into your own tennis strokes? And why would a player even try to aspire to learn the tennis technique?

A recreational and club player most definately can develop good tennis backhand technique. Whether the tennis player uses a two handed backhand, or a one handed backhand the fundamentals behind the backhand shots remain the same. Hitting a powerful tennis backhand is not entirely based on athleticism, nor does it require that a tennis player be as strong as the pros.

Topspin Backhand Shot:

The topspin tennis backhand shot is becoming the most popular shot for every tennis player. The basics about this shot is very simple. This shot is played by bringing the racket close and brushing the ball from low to high upon hitting the ball. Then the shot will take an topspin effect, which brings the ball down quickly.

The position of sweeping the racket from low to high will tell about the trajectory of the ball. By getting in this position you are able to play any tennis shot whether it is the tennis forehand shot or the tennis backhand shot.

Tennis backhand Drill: Mini Tennis

One of my favorite backhand tennis drills is mini-tennis. In this drill, both players cooperatively rally back and forth to each hitting topspin backhands. The objective is to impart good topspin onto the tennis ball while keeping the tennis ball inside the service box. This backhand tennis drill tests the player’s ability to generate topspin as well as maintain good control while hitting the backhand shot. This backhand tennis drill requires both finesse and soft touch in order to keep the tennis ball within the service box.

This tennis backhand drill works on accuracy, precision, finesse as well as the ability to generate the correct topspin to keep the ball inside the service box.

Each player must hit only topspin tennis backhands to one another, teaching them to keep the tennis ball inside the boundaries of the opposite service box. The correct rotation and ball spin must be applied, and players who lack adequate topspin on the tennis backhand will experience difficulty with this drill.

Only proper tennis backhand technique will allow a player to keep the tennis ball inside the service box every time without missing. This will also expose other problems with tennis technique, such as the tennis footwork on the backhand or the balance and positioning of the player. Since mini-tennis simulates the full tennis court, the same fundamental flaws in tennis backhand technique will be exposed in this drill.

With this tennis backhand drill, a player cannot get away with slapping backhands or any flat wristy shots. Only a smooth, fluid and precise tennis backhand will suffice.

Positioning and Body Orientation:

Body orientation must be proper while getting into position, the weight of your full body must be your toes. Once you see the ball heading towards your backhand, you should take a split step and also adjust the grip of your racket to play the tennis backhand shot.

As soon as you get your grip on the racket for the backhand shot, you must bring the racket and your shoulders back so that the fingers of the other hand must be on non-dominant side of your racket.

Your shoulders should turn so that your upper body will slightly be away from the ball while playing the backhand shot and your toes must be pointing perpendicular to the direction of the ball. The foot that is closest to the ball while playing the backhand shot should be positioned slightly away from your body while the opposite foot turning back from your body helping to get you in a balanced position to play the tennis backhand shot.

The racket should be held slightly below the point of contact as mentioned earlier. Topspin on the tennis backhand is generated by following a strict swinging pattern (low-to-high). The face of the racket should always be perpendicular to the ground. If the racket face is tilted slightly, the chances to miss the shot increases which makes it difficult to get your body in the balanced position while playing the tennis backhand shot.

Maximize Leverage on the tennis backhand technique

The tennis backhand is about maximizing leverage to your advantage. Since the body becomes a series of links, or chains (hence the word kinetic chain), the idea of the backhand tennis technique is to synchronize and involve as many levers as you can to power behind the ball.

The tennis backhand technique is not relative to how fast you swing (as it is on the forehand) but more about making clean contact and maximizing the leverage and line of the shot.

The reason why most tennis players should try to model the top tennis backhands on tour is simple. It’s a tennis stroke that can make the difference between a mediocre backhand and a powerful backhand.

Contact Point

Your eyes should remain focused on the ball as you are getting into position to make contact with the ball. Full concentration is needed in order to attempt the tennis backhand shot efficiently.

While contacting the ball, your racket should be properly oriented. Your body and your footwork must be proper to get into the position while hitting the backhand shot. If your racket is tilted to some angle, then there are greater chances to miss the backhand shot.

Just prior to contact, many players just see the area where they want to play the shot. You mustn’t do this. You must watch the ball using full concentration and keep your eyes locked onto the contact point. In fact, the common mistake of pulling away from the shot too soon is being pointed out by many renowned coaches on different occasions.

Tennis Backhand Follow Through

Just like other sports, you must follow the ball through after you’ve struck the ball. Don’t stop right after hitting the backhand shot, because if you stop suddenly your body will lose its balance, giving an advantage to your opponent to strike at your backhand side. Hence you must maintain the balance of your body, and complete a full follow through. This in turn will help you to maintain your body in a balanced position.

These are some basic key points to learn about the tennis backhand shot. For more assistance you must watch different lessons and videos online to learn more about the tennis backhand shot. You must practice this shot more and more as this is the most difficult shot to be played by any tennis player.

Learn to Hit a Forehand Like Roger Federer

If you want to jumpstart your forehand and play like the PROS, check out my 70+ page Tennis Ebook that will immediately show you how you can take your forehand to the next level.

The Modern Forehand Domination Ebook is guaranteed to improve your tennis technique, and increase power, topspin and accuracy of your tennis forehand!

Modern Tennis Forehand Ebook
Learn How to Hit a Forehand Like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic

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3 Key Elements of World Class Tennis Techniques

After nearly a decade of studying the top pro players in tennis, I’ve been able to break down the key technical elements behind world class tennis players. While every player has unique idiosyndacacies in their strokes and slightly different stroke patterns, there are certain key commonalities behind ALL top pro player’s tennis techniques that are responsible for their ability to hit powerful, consistent & accurate shots time and time again. In general, every world class stroke has the following 3 key elements evident in their strokes.

1. Efficient – All top pro tennis strokes are efficient, meaning that the stroke should not contain any hitches or stoppages during the motion. The stroke should flow smooth and freely from the preparation of the stroke into the follow through. Any hitches or stoppages would be like a nascar driver slamming the brakes suddenly and then restarting the motion from 0.
2. Adaptable – World class tennis technique is marked by adaptable strokes, meaning the stroke should be able to hold up under pressure, during different playing conditions (wind, cold day, uneven court surface, an odd bounce, etc) because tennis is a versatile game. Quite often players have inefficiencies in their strokes (hitches, stoppages, unnecessary or excess motions/movement) that prevents them from hitting better shots under adverse or unexpected conditions. As an example, watch how effortlessly Federer moves around the court and how natural and relaxed he is during every shot. There is no tension or rigidness in his movement or his strokes. This is the same mentality and racket behavior you need in order to hit effortless and explosive shots.
3. Explosive – Every world class tennis stroke has an element of explosiveness in it. Today’s modern game is marked by a high level of power, topspin and explosiveness. Today’s player’s utilize their whole body in the kinetic chain to produce HEAVY topspin shots on all sides. A common mistake most lower level players do is they try to “arm” their shots, whereby they use their arm and wrist rather than their ENTIRE body to hit their shots, which results in weak shots.

Improve Your Tennis Technique 

Players that want to improve their technique must first iron out any inefficiencies in their strokes. This starts by first learning to ingrain the proper tennis technique. It can be helpful for players to visualize the correct technique in their mind by observing the top pros in super slow motion video.

Quite often, players do not even realize they are hitting with flawed tennis techniques – because the image in their mind of how their strokes actually looks is different than the reality of how they are actually hitting the ball. These flaws typically go unnoticed for years and years – sometimes even despite taking many tennis lessons from the “club pro.”

The best way to identify any flaws in your tennis technique is to video yourself hitting the stroke in question. Then, analyze your stroke frame by frame and then compare it to the pros. More than likely, you will be surprised on how different your stroke looks than the pros. You may have imagined your strokes to look a certain way – but in reality it looks completely different in actuality.

This contrast in perception vs. reality in a player’s tennis technique is quite a common occurrence.

Once you discover the top pros side by side and compare it to your own strokes, you will often realize the technical deficiencies immediately in your strokes.

The Concept of Muscle Memory in Refining Your Tennis Techniques

The concept of muscle memory is a crucial concept to understand if you want to improve your tennis game. Muscle memory is your mind’s motor ingrams or “memory” of how to hit the stroke. Just like when you were a child learning how to ride a bike – at first it was super difficult, but eventually over time – it became second nature to you as your brain started to learn and adapt. Your brain’s muscle memory started kicking in and pretty soon, riding a bike was as easy as a walk in the park.

The same is true for tennis strokes. As you learn certain tennis strokes, your brain will ingrain certain key body movements in your muscle memory, and over time – after hundreds or thousands of repetitions (hitting the ball over and over), your brain will ingrain the stroke like second nature so that it becomes a natural habit.

The problem with most club players is that they begin to ingrain bad habits into their muscle memory, without even realizing it. It could be something as simple as being flat footed, an excessive looping backswing, a wristy/armed shot, or any number of bad habits into their strokes. Many times, these deficiencies in your tennis techniques go on unnoticed or not corrected by club coaches simply because lack of awareness or lack of emphasis on the importance of improving a player’s tennis technique.

So if you want to improve your results on the tennis court, you must learn the fundamentals world class tennis technique. This does not require you to possess any god-like gifts ala Federer or Nadal, but simply the willingness and the understanding of what the proper tennis technique looks like.

As player go on and on with incorrect or technically deficient tennis technique, they often continue to ingrain these poor techniques deeper an deeper into their muscle memory to the point where making changes to one’s technique becomes a very difficult or nearly impossible endeavor without some serious dedication.

Improving your tennis technique can make the difference between winning or losing tennis matches, as poor technique will lead to weak or ineffective and inconsistent shots against your opponents. In contrast, the pros who possess world class tennis technique can hit consistent, powerful & accurate tennis shots time and time again not because they are naturally gifted – but rather they hit the ball in an optimal way biomechanically.

Fixing Your Tennis Technique

The key to fixing your tennis technique starts with awareness. After you have videotaped yourself and compared your strokes with the pros side by side, real improvement can begin. This starts by consciously ingraining the proper technique into your own game. It can be helpful for players to start by visualizing the correct technique in their mind, followed by shadow swings in front of the mirror with you hitting the shot with the correct tennis technique. At first, it may be helpful to shadow swing in slow motion, eventually you can train your mind of the proper “feeling” of the correct technique.

As you take these techniques onto the tennis court, you can practice in front of a wall or ball machine so that there is less added pressure for you to revert back to the old, but “comfortable & incorrect” tennis technique. It will be uncomfortable for your brain at first to change your technique, and you may initially play worse at first when attempting to ingrain the proper technique. This is just your mind’s resistance to change due to the years and years of you hitting the ball incorrectly. It will take many hundreds or thousands of repetitions to consciously ingrain the new technique into your brain’s motor ingrams.

In fact, you may even lose more games and matches at first. The process of improving your tennis technique can take months, and you will find that your brain may quickly revert back to what is comfortable during pressure situations in a tennis match or game play situation. But you must overcome this feeling if you want to improve your tennis techniques.

True success will not come for awhile, but the process of ingraining the proper technique into your muscle memory will play huge dividends in the long run in your tennis playing career – whether it is a weekend hobby or a full time endeavor for you.

Learn to Hit a Forehand Like Roger Federer

If you want to jumpstart your forehand and play like the PROS, check out my 70+ page Tennis Ebook that will immediately show you how you can take your forehand to the next level.

The Modern Forehand Domination Ebook is guaranteed to improve your tennis technique, and increase power, topspin and accuracy of your tennis forehand!

Modern Tennis Forehand Ebook
Learn How to Hit a Forehand Like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic

The post Tennis Technique – Learn World Class Tennis Techniques appeared first on Tennis Instruction.