Hit Incredible Forehand And Backhand Volleys With These 5 Awesome Tips (Tennis Technique Explained)

Hello! It's Ryan from www.2minutetennis.net and in this video, I'm going to give you five tips that are going to make your volleys awesome. Tip number one has to do with your elbows and having your elbows out away from you. In fact, let me show you this from the side. Now when your elbows are out away from you, think of putting tennis balls under your armpits and you're going to raise your elbows so that the balls fall out. When your elbows are out away from you, it helps keep your swing small. One of the things I always hear coaches talk about is to keep your elbow in front of your rib cage. I completely disagree with that and I'll show you why. When the elbow is in front of the rib cage, that's when the racket lays back all the time. And if you're a coach, you'll see the elbow's in front, the hand's in front, but then the racket lays back because they've got no power. So the fix to that and the fix of having a racket that's laid open is to push the elbow out. When your elbow is out, look what it does to the racket. It makes your racket a wall. So when your elbows are out away from you, whether you hit a forehand or a backhand, two-handed or one-handed, having the elbows out helps keep your racket very square against the back of the ball. So I'm going to hit some volleys here and my focus is going to be that my elbows are out away from my body. I want you to see my elbows out, sticking out of the side. Good. So elbows out in your ready position are going to make a huge, huge difference in your ability to hit the back of the ball. Second idea is to split step. The proper timing on a split step is to be in the air as your opponent hits the ball. Now, I got Tyler here from Tennis with Tyler. Make sure you subscribe to his YouTube channel. I'll put it in the description below. But I want you to focus on the split step, but not just the act of split stepping, but that you're timing it correctly. So when Tyler hits the ball and makes contact, I need to be actually in the air for the proper timing of the split step. Watch the pros. This is how they time their split step. So I'm going to hit some balls here. I'm going to move over to the side a little bit so that you can see Tyler hit the ball. But you'll see I'm in the air as he contacts. You want to be in the air as your opponent makes contact with the ball because it synchronizes your brain and your reaction time with when your feet hit the ground. You want to be hitting the ground with your feet when your brain recognizes where the ball is going. It would not be correct to land as the opponent hits. And by the way, as a coach, I've said that to juniors and beginners, like, okay, split step when the opponent hits. But the advanced timing of the split step, the true timing, is to be in the air as your opponent makes contact with the ball. Tip number three. You want to keep your hand below the racket. As a coach, I've, in the past, said things like, you know, keep your racket head up. Keep your racket head up. But really, can I have a ball, Tyler? If somebody is hitting the ball like this with their volley, and the ball is in the middle of the racket like this, the problem isn't that my racket head wasn't up. The problem is that my hand wasn't down because I made contact with the ball. So a few years ago, I stopped teaching keep your racket head up. What I started teaching is keep your hand down. When you keep your hand down below the ball, below contact, that forces your racket head to be up, and that gives you the strong wrist position, which, by the way, should be in your ready position. You don't want to be like this in the ready position. You want the racket up with your hand below the ball, below the racket. So I'm going to hit some volleys, and I'm going to keep my hand below the ball. Now, when I made contact, in fact, I'm going to do one right here. When I make contact with the ball, you'll see that my hand is below contact. Just one ball here, Tyler. Look how my hand was below contact. That's what you want. It gives you a strong wrist position so you don't swing. Third tip. You want to put the racket face in the way of the ball. When Tyler is feeding this ball, the ball is going to arc with gravity. The ball is going to spin with topspin. So the ball, this parabola, is changing as it comes over the net. A mistake I see players make is they set the racket too high on the volley. Then the ball drops, and then they're forced to chop. Rather than setting your racket above the height of where the ball is going to arrive, see into the future. Know where the ball is going to arrive right off the opponent's racket, and set the racket there. Then you don't have to move the racket, and you can push flat through it rather than having to chop so much. So my goal, if you could feed the ball a little slower so there's a little more arc to it, maybe even a lower ball, you'll notice how I set my racket where I'm planning on hitting the ball. Now if I'm planning on hitting here, and if I'm going to attack it, that's a different story. Again, I'm going to put my racket where the ball is going to arrive. So watch this. I'm going to put the racket down. I set my racket here. That was a perfect feed. I set my racket where the ball was going to arrive. Do that again. Now, you might say, but Ryan, shouldn't you, one more time, shouldn't you attack that ball and go forward, you know, before it drops below net level? Yes. But I'm just giving you an idea of when the ball is coming to you, because I'm pretty close to the net here. If I were farther back, you would get the idea. Set your racket where the ball is going to arrive, rather than setting it high. I'll do one that's wrong. Setting it high, and then having to chop down, because I saw the ball out in front of me, and I set the racket up there, but the ball was going to arrive down here, then I've got to chop down to hit the ball. Put your racket where the ball is going to arrive. It'll be amazing how you're in the right spot and can just hit a flat volley. The last idea, I want you to finish on your volley with your strings still facing where you want the ball to go. There was a coach, it was a USPTA video I saw, I think it was on Instagram, and he was talking about, it was really good, he was talking about crush the can, like a can of Coke, crush the can and stretch the band, like those exercise bands, you know? And I thought it was great. But the idea is simple. You want to turn, elbows out, remember, that helps get your racket square against the back of the ball. You want to turn, and you want to move your racket, keeping the strings facing your target. You're going to do this on both the forehand and the backhand. Now another way to think of this is, have a tube on your wrist. So when you turn, have the tube point to your target. So right now my target would be Tyler, because the tube is pointing to Tyler. So you want to turn with both hands over, and then you want to move your racket towards your target and towards your, if you're right-handed, towards your left hand with your strings still facing forward. Let's just hit some forehands and then we'll go to the backhand. So I'm going toward my target, doing my best to keep my strings facing my target when I'm done. Will I be perfect at it? Absolutely not. But I'm going to try. Elbows out, split-step turn, have a lower ball, perfect. I'm going to move my racket. Are my strings facing directly toward my target? No. It's a feeling that I'm trying to have. I'm trying to keep my strings facing my target for as long as possible. I'll do some backhands. You can see my left elbow is up. If the elbow drops, that's when the racket opens, right? So coaches always talk about that back elbow being up. That's why we want the elbows out in the ready position. If your elbows are down, that's when you start taking big swings. Elbows out. Two more backhands. And then when I'm done, I point my strings to my target. My hands went apart like I'm stretching the band. Watch this video before you go out and play, especially doubles because there are so many volleys that are hit when you go out to play doubles. But review this video. Let me know what you think in the comments below, which tip is going to make the biggest difference in your volley game. But use these tips and there's no doubt. You're going to gain confidence, win more matches, and play much better tennis. This is Ryan Reidy from 2minutetennis.net. You got this!