Tennis Forehand Lesson - How To Hit Clean Forehands.

Hey everyone Simon here from Top Tennis Training and in this video I want to help you to find the perfect contact point on your forehand. Now a very common error is players making contact late. They're hitting the ball on side of their body so from the side view they're hitting the ball back here. Now this will cause many errors because of the timing. You're making contact over here. The other big issue is this is going to lead to a lot of stress on your wrist, your elbow and your shoulder. So if you're constantly making contact over here on side of you or behind your body's line that's going to be a lot of stress on the wrist, the elbow and the shoulder. So you want to avoid that by making contact out in front. Now not only is this bad for your body in terms of the pressure but there isn't much strength to actually make contact on side of your body and hit a powerful shot. Because all the stress is on the wrist, the elbow and the shoulder to produce power on this shot is very hard. There's no stability at contact whereas if we make contact out in front we have the stability of the whole body supporting that racket head. On side it's simply the arm and simply the shoulder. In front it's the whole body. So that's why we want to make contact out in front. The other big thing is when we make contact on side of our body truly only one eye, the eye closest to the contact point can really see the contact point. So my right eye in this case is going to be the dominant eye because my left eye simply can't look across quick enough to see a clean contact point when I'm hitting it on side or behind. Now when we make contact out in front three things are going to happen. Number one you're going to make contact much cleaner with the ball because both eyes are able to track that ball until the point of contact. So both eyes are focused on the contact point as we hit the shot. Number two because you have the support of the whole body you're going to have more power because you're able to really stabilize the racket head at contact because you have the support of the whole body. Now if someone was to push my racket back I'm very stable in this position as opposed to that position. From here I feel like I can really produce a powerful shot because of that stability and because of that balance within the body. And number three we're going to have more options on the shot. So if I make contact out here I can hit the ball cross, I can hit the ball down the line, I can hit a short angle. When I make contact over here those options are very limited. Most of the time when you hit the ball late you're going to hit it down the line or even wide because you're making contact so far behind to hit a cross-court shot from here is almost impossible. Out in front I have all the options open to me. Now if I were to throw your ball and you were going to catch it with your right hand as in hitting a forehand you wouldn't let the ball come here and catch it like this on side. So if the ball's coming from that direction I wouldn't do this and catch the ball over here. I'd go to the ball and catch it out in front of my body. This is the same feeling the same principle we want to have when we're making contact with the ball. We want to feel that we're finding the ball with the palm of our hand out in front and that's the ideal contact point. Now there'll be a big variation between a straight arm and extended forehand where you're hitting the ball really far in front of your body and the bent arm forehand where it's closer to the body and the grip tends to be further around to the semi or the full western. Either way you still want to maintain the contact point out in front of your body slightly so even if you're someone who uses a bent elbow forehand you can still make contact out in front of your body and hit a clean shot as opposed to hitting ball on the side of your body and hitting a dull shot. So how exactly do we find that ideal contact point out in front of our body? The number one reason that players hit the ball on side is because of late preparation. So if we have early preparation this means as soon as you see it's coming to your forehand you start that initial unit turn and you start that initial phase of the forehand. As early as possible this will create time later on in the swing so that we can actually extend out and make contact in front. So early preparation will help you to hit the ball out in front because you won't be jammed up you won't be late in making that forward phase of the swing. If I prepare late if I let the ball pass the net pass my service line and bounce and then I start my preparation I'm going to hit the ball late more often than not because of the timing. So it's that early preparation as soon as I recognize it's coming to my forehand early unit turn and getting the racket ready as early as possible. And number two shorten the swing. If you're someone who is struggling and hitting ball on side of your body shorten that backswing so that you're able to time it out in front. You want to feel that you're finding that ball you're catching the ball out in front when you make contact. So there you have it guys I hope you've enjoyed the video if you have give it a thumbs up click that like button subscribe to the channel and leave a comment down below. Also if you want more help with your forehand we have an entire forehand blueprint course and I'll leave the link below this video so that you can go and check out the free videos from that course. Signing off Simon from TTT all the best guys see you soon!