Tennis Overhead Smash Technique - How To Never Miss An Overhead Again

So you're struggling to put away your overhead. Well, you're in the right place. Or maybe it's not just that you're not putting them away, maybe you're just scared of them altogether. Well, one of the quickest fixes is how you're actually setting up for the overhead. We've always been taught to point at the ball, but too often what ends up happening is that we point at the ball and then we don't get coiled enough or we don't get sideways. It's very easy for a ball to come in and we point here and then our body stays this way. So you can see that my chest is largely at a 45 or even straight forward. This would be egregious. I don't think many of you are doing that, but I do see this a lot. So a better way to think about it is to get your elbow up to the ball first. So instead of thinking like, I'm going to get my arm up and then my racket will follow, right? Like that's perfect for the serve but not on the overhead. I actually just want to get my elbow up to the ball first. So as the ball is coming in, I get my elbow up to the ball and then from there, I'm going to straighten my arm out. So in the footage of Rafa that you see here, you're going to see a very similar concept in what he's using. It's important that you get your racket and non-hitting arm up together and then we point up to the ball. So in other videos, we talked about practicing catching the ball, but as the ball is coming in, as you set up your feet to catch it, you're here. Just make sure that the elbow leads this before you catch. All right, so in summation, very, very simple. Keep the hitting hand and the non-hitting hand together. Lead the elbow up to the ball before getting the arm extended. This is going to help ensure that you get sideways and that you're underneath the ball for proper positioning and then work your way up to contact. Make sure that you don't go up with your left hand first as a righty, your right hand as a lefty, and your racket lags. That's good for the serve, but not for the overhead. If you enjoyed today's video, hit that like button, subscribe if you never want to miss a PlayYourCourt video. Thank you so much for watching. We'll see you next time.