After 20+ Years in Tennis, Here's What I've Changed My Mind About — SS #22

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20 years of tennis is a long time.

And for the majority of it, I used to think it didn't matter how you hit the ball.

That the top players all had "unique" ways that they had learned to strike the ball through a lifetime of playing and competing.

And that every player was different in their own way.

Was something weird in your technique?

It didn't matter because there are millions of ways to skin the cat!

For every “efficient” forehand you showed me, I could point out that player who had somehow managed to make it work.

“Yeah, but player X didn’t have the best forehand and they were in the top 100?”

“So? Player Y didn’t have an amazing serve, and they got into the top 50. What’s the big deal?”

But the more I played, the more I grew frustrated.

I spent hours on the court.

Practiced hard and well.

Increased my lifts.

At one stage I was deadlifting 315 lbs for reps.

Easily doing 16+ pull-ups.

If we follow the literature, I should have been excellent at utilizing ground reaction forces, right?

I should have had a massive serve, correct?

But the more I played, the more I grew frustrated.

Why couldn't I serve as big as them?

Hit as hard as them?

Coaches around me talked about people have “big serves” almost in a mythical fashion.

That it was something that you were born with.

Some fantastical mumbo jumbo like, “Oh yeah, but he’s just got a fast arm.”

Like it was all a big mystery.

At first it was frustration.

But after that it grew to anger.

Why can’t I step up to the line and serve fast?

I’ve been playing tennis for more than 20 years.

Why haven’t I figured it out by now?

Why can’t I get a ball on my forehand and absolutely crush it?

I’ve been a college player, college coach, and I know so much about tennis!

I grew increasingly frustrated with tennis.

Part of it was comparing myself with others, sure, I accept that.

But the other part was not understanding how they could hit the ball so well.

But then I got lucky.

I ran into some great developmental coaches.

Steve Smith and Andy Fitzell of GreatBase Tennis. They changed my mind on a few things.

Namely, that it matters how you hit the ball. Because the shape of the court constrains us and physical laws matter.

And more importantly, the pros at the top of the game are remarkably similar when we look past their stylistic components.

Fundamentally, they usually follow similar principles

Example: Forehand

For example, take the forehand. Rather than the players we see on TV all possessing unique techniques and flourishes, once you understand—or know just a little bit more—you start to see that they are amazingly similar. Though players may use different grips (within an acceptable range) and stylistic components, fundamentally, they usually emulate each other.

What foundational elements do the pros have that players at a lower level struggle with?

Separation

I have made many videos on forehands and one of the most important components of the “modern” forehand is the separation a player can generate between their shoulders and their hips. This is achieved by turning the shoulders more than the hips and as the ball approaches, using the ground to turn the body segments into the contact. I know this is easier said than done, and a lot more complicated than the general advice that even I’ve given out to club & recreational players, which is to, “turn the shoulders more than the hips.” That being said, learning to rotate your upper torso away from the incoming ball is an essential step to consistently hitting the ball hard and well.

Here’s an example:

Ground Reaction Force (Don’t Stay Down or Low on Purpose)

I have yelled angrily at the clouds before on this tennis teaching myth many times. Yet it persists and keeps coming back in many iterations.

Here I’m going to quote what I’ve written below in my 5 Myths & Misconceptions in Tennis guide. I’ll quote a substantial section:

—

Players will literally push against the ground as they turn their hips, torso, shoulder, elbow, hand(s), and then racket into the contact. (We’re talking about the groundstrokes here.)

As a result, their heads will actually rise anywhere from half a foot to more when they strike the ball.

If you’re imagining a roof over your head, a player’s head will often burst through it.

When you push against the ground, the ground pushes back.

Yes, when players are defending, prioritizing recovery, approaching the net, or there’s already enough power supplied on the incoming ball—they won’t lift as much.

As usual, the answer is probably, “It depends.”

But tennis is a lifting game.

And pros cannot violate physical laws.

When they want to move the racquet fast, the power has to come from somewhere. And that somewhere is the ground.

In fact, this has been common knowledge to coaches for over 50 years.

Not five, ten, twenty… but fifty.

Vic Braden covered this topic in Tennis 2000: Strokes, Strategy, and Psychology for a Lifetime.

“People often tell me that they’ve read, or have been told, ‘Stay down with the ball’ on groundstrokes. This always baffles me, since I’ve only seen one pro player stay down after contacting the ball, and that is Francoise Durr on the backhand. But I have seen great players get down to the ball and then lift their bodies in synchronization with their forward and upward stroke.”

Braden also adds,

“Many pros have told me that they stay down the ball, but when we film them in super high speed and digitize their movements, their center of gravity makes close to the same forward and upwards movement as their swing.” pg. 63

The idea of “staying low” is also contradicted by Dr. Bruce Elliot and Machar Reid in the “Technique” section of Tennis Science: How Player and Racquet Work Together.

If your objection was, “Oh yeah, Vic Braden, but that’s not modern tennis,” then listen to this. 

Elliot and Reid write,

“‘Leg drive’ initiates what coaches refer to as the ‘kinetic chain’—the flow of energy through the body from the feet to the racket. One of the most significant differences between professional and recreational players, irrespective of their sex, is how they use their legs to ‘push against the court.’ Professional players use leg drive to initiate trunk rotations [sic] to enhance power.” pg.44

So next time you’re hitting a ground stroke don’t “stay low” or “imagine a roof over your head.”

__

I have come to accept the reality that this is a myth that will never die. But if you’ve been actively trying to stay down during your forehand then you are blocking the transfer of energy up the chain.

Don’t do that. My advice?

Don’t think about it. Yes, if your head is flying up before contact, and you keep shanking a lot, keep your eyes at the hit. But don’t actively try to stay down.

Racket Head Below the Impact

Nadal, Nadal, Nadal!

People love to talk about Rafael Nadal’s forehand, but rarely do they ask why he’s able to hit the ball with such speed and also topspin. Numerous players and fans have noticed and commented on how his forehand has an insane amount of clearance.

Why?

Well one of the reasons is how low his racket head falls below the height of the incoming ball.

I get lots of… interesting comments on my YouTube and Instagram, and one person wrote that I was under a misunderstanding that getting the racket head below the height of the incoming ball was important to getting topspin… and that I was mistaken.

In fact, I think the commenter was quite mistaken.

Learning to get the racket head below the height of the incoming ball is one of the fundamentals that the best groundstrokes in the world consistently execute!

There’s a solid barrier in front of us which we as players have to clear. Which leads us to…

Hands High

Tennis is a lifting game. There is a net in front of us, and yes, it creates a visual illusion so that players think they can hit laser beams. The net is a solid barrier, so we have to swing accordingly. Which is why, almost universally, the best ball strikers extend away and outwards towards the target and also finish their hands high.

They understand, whether implicitly or explicitly, that if you swing “low to high,” your swing will match the shape of the court.

I know there have been some rabble-rousers recently who have made waves saying things like “Never Swing Low to High.”

But that does not accord with the physics of the world we live in. There’s a barrier in the way and gravity acts upon the tennis ball as it leaves your racket.

Unless you’re in a situation where you have to get super creative with your shot, both hands should finish high, with your hitting hand ending up around your opposite eye. Why? Well, tennis is all about lifting (as Vic Braden would say).

You need to reach out towards your target but also swing up and away from your body. Doing this keeps your strings facing the target longer, and, most importantly, sends the ball on a trajectory that clears the net—your first big obstacle.

The Caveat (Always)

If you’ve been reading my newsletter for a while, you’ll know that there are usually no absolutes, and there are always caveats and asterisks.

So here it is: all of this doesn't mean you spend endless hours doing drop feeding in blocked modes of practice, mastering the "perfect" technique and staying in this stage forever.

There's no such thing.

What you're striving for doesn't really exist.

Tennis at the higher and higher levels is a series of improvisations and decision-making that happens incredibly quickly, with balls that are not like the easy hand-fed ones that your coach might give you.

Rather you want to try and execute these fundamentals under increasingly variable, complex, and random scenarios. Until eventually you can hit the ball really well and everything is automatic and you're just reacting to the infinite variable of incoming balls.

Myelin

Myelin is a fatty material that coats neural pathways. The thicker the myelin layer around specific circuits, the more efficiently and swiftly you can perform a given movement or pattern.

Imagine hitting a forehand for the first time…

For the millionth time?

Faster.

Easier to recreate.

Automatic.

You want to myelinate the pathways so that efficient technique becomes ingrained... now once you have an understanding of what it is and can recreate it in blocked and variable modes of practice, it's best to do this through constraints-based and open scenarios—one could even say an ecological dynamics (ED) approach.

I'm aware of the literature on ecological dynamics, but I think there's a small gap in the learning phase when players can learn to make things work in inefficient ways and then build brain memory (automaticity) around those motor programs.

Sure, an ED proponent might say you can use constraints to develop quality biomechanics. And I agree! Sometimes, though, a player can benefit from feedback that is a little more explicit.

You don’t want to learn to hit the ball poorly, and then make those motor programs your brain’s preferred options for dealing with the incoming ball.

So What Should You Do?

Take the time to learn to hit the ball well.

And then absolutely, throw yourself into as many realistic and challenging scenarios as possible. Create score pressure for yourself, use different balls, and play on new courts so you have to adjust to speeds and bounces, temperatures, playing conditions, and opponents.

Set constraints and compete under them!

Don’t stay in blocked practice forever or work with a coach who will only ever basket feed you. For making a technical change to a glaring issue or inefficiency? Yes.

For everything else?

No.

Being able to hit the ball well is one of the best ways to move up a level (all other things being equal). Imagine your level now… and for a moment think where that level would be if you could serve like Serena or like Pete Sampras.

That’s the philosophy, at least.

It absolutely matters how you hit the ball.

Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.