Your dominant eye and your technique- TENNIS MASTERCLASS by Patrick Mouratoglou, EPISODE 3.

Today I want to tell you everything about a specific feature that plays a tremendous role in the construction of your technique in tennis. And actually this is true for all sports because it concerns everyone. This is called the dominant eye. Are you uncomfortable hitting your forehand in some situations? Do you feel lost in space hitting your serve? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, it is probably because you're in a position that is physiologically wrong. You'll see, it's easy to correct and this will change your life. Not many coaches know about it and as a consequence, many players develop technical mistakes. It prevents them from progressing. Follow me, I will explain you everything. Do you know what is a dominant eye? The eye that you dominate. That's a very good answer. All of us have a dominant hand, you know, some are righties, some are lefties. This everybody knows. But what we don't all know is that we also have a dominant foot and a dominant eye. As humans, we see in three dimensions. Each eye plays a role. The dominant eye relays information more accurately while the non-dominant one sees things laterally displaced. The neurons respond preferentially to input from one eye to the other. Knowing that, you can imagine that the consequences on your technique in sports can be major. If you want to see specific examples in tennis, follow me on Instagram. You'll find one-minute transformations with my players taking their dominant eye into account. So do you know your dominant eye or not? No? Okay, perfect. You're going to learn something about you. So please put your racket on the ground, you're not going to need it because you will need both of your hands. And I dropped mine also. Okay, first thing to do is to straighten your arms in the direction of your coach who is on the other side of the court. Now with your fingers, you make a triangle and you put your coach inside the triangle. So now the first thing you're going to do is close your right eye. Is he still in the triangle? He's out of the triangle. Is he in the triangle? Is he in the triangle? When you close your right eye, he's in the triangle. Okay. No? Okay. So we have two apparently left eye dominants because when you close your right eye, he's still in the triangle. And when you close your right eye, he's getting out of the triangle, which means that the accurate eye is the right one. Now you open your eyes and you close your left eye this time. Is he in the triangle? Wait, yes? Okay, you're right eye dominant. Confirmation. You are left eye dominant. You are right eye dominant. Okay. Oh, incredible. So we have two left eye dominant and two right eye dominant. It's quite rare because 67% of the population is right eye dominant. 90% of the people are right hand, 90%, but only 67% are right eye dominant. So there is cross dominance. And the two who are cross dominant can be very happy because there are two good players who are cross dominant. They are called Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. Is it a bad thing to be cross dominant? Now that you know that Roger is cross dominant, you can see it's more than an asset than anything else. Rafael is actually not a pure cross dominant player because he decided to play left-handed as a righty. But as a tennis player and a champion, he is cross dominant. Specialists in ophthalmology consider that it gives a special advantage. But don't worry, if you are not cross dominant, a large majority of the players are not. You just need to know your specifics so you can implement them into your upper and lower body technique. As you understood, one of your eyes relays information more accurately and your neurons respond more preferably to it. When talking about neurons, we are referring to your arms, your legs, and your hands. In other words, it has many consequences on your technique in regards to the position of your head. The general rule is to always have your dominant eye fixed on the ball. Why? If your dominant eye is not focused on the ball, you adjust your placement and have to move looking through an eye that sees the ball in an inaccurate position. You will see that using the wrong eye to adjust your footwork puts you in the wrong space with the ball and you don't want that. Secondly, nature will push you to favor your dominant eye. It will make you wait to see the ball and that will also impact your contact point. Champions have developed a technique that is dictated by their dominant eye. They usually each have a shot with a bigger shoulder rotation, a lateral contact point, and a strong transfer. They also have the other side, the other shot, with less shoulder rotation, a contact point more in front, and less transfer, but with more wrist action to compensate. Okay, let's start with the two left eye dominant and you're just going to hit some balls. I want to see if your technique is in accordance to your eye dominant. You are cross. Yeah, exactly. Both of you are cross-dominant. Which one is your best shot, forehand or backhand? Forehand. Yeah. The immense majority of the cross-dominant players have a better forehand than backhand and there is a reason for that. You can have a good, a big preparation and still have a very good perception of what's happening. That's why your forehand is better. You are always, I mean, much more often with a good placement. That's one reason. The second reason is because you can have a good, a big preparation, so you can go through the ball with more power. Okay, so when you are cross-dominant with your forehand, you will see that your contact point, and that's the case for both of you, I checked, your contact point is not too much in front. In general, it's more between your legs, you know, somewhere here, which is good also because you can keep the ball longer in the racket and you have a better control and more power. That's why both of you have much better forehands. Roger Federer is a righty and left-eyed dominant. His forehand preparation starts with a huge shoulder rotation, making a 90-degree angle with the net and bringing his head to the side. This is not a problem because his left eye keeps the ball in his eyesight all the time. His contact point is less forward than right-eyed dominant players and on the right side of his body. The big difference is when he hits the ball, his shoulders are not totally facing the net. They are making a 45-degree angle. All of these elements generate an opportunity for him to keep the ball longer on his racket, which leads to power and accuracy. His favorite stance is semi-open and sometimes when moving forward, he can get in closed stance position. When running to hit the forehand, his body is orientated to the side because it allows him to keep his left eye on the ball and start his preparation early at the same time. Righty left-eyed dominant players are usually very dangerous running to the forehand side. Show me your backhand without the ball. Okay, yes, okay. As you are cross-dominant, your head shouldn't move. If your head doesn't move, your left eye is always seeing everything. If your head moves in the preparation, your eye is there, the dominant eye, and this is not good for tennis, okay? You can be in closed stance also. That's not... Exactly, it's more difficult to keep the head. That's why I'm not a fan of closed stance backhand for left-eyed dominant, but you can do semi-open. Exactly, this is perfect, right? But let's do some trials. Your only goal is to keep your head always facing the net. Your head is turning all the time. Maybe you need more flexibility here. Do it. We do it slow. We do it slow. Yeah, okay. You're in closed stance. That's why it's... Yeah, okay. Let's do some with open stance. Don't try to hit the ball in or make a good shot. Try to feel comfortable with having your head in front. Good. How does it feel? Comfortable? Okay. You contacted all the balls well. How do you feel? We keep that. His specialty is that he also has great shoulder rotation on his backhand side, which I would not advise for a player with cross-dominant eye. But when you look in slow motion, you can see that his left eye stays on the ball all the time. He does his turn at the same speed as the ball. Let me explain. First, he makes a reasonable shoulder turn, keeping his left eye on the ball. He increases his turn when the ball gets closer to him and enters in his left eyesight. This is very difficult to do and requires incredible timing and an enormous capacity for adaptation to the speed of the ball. I deeply recommend that you avoid copying Roger on that shot if you are cross-dominant. Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure, sure. Okay. I've seen enough. So you have a very different serve. Very different serve. You serve like a right eye dominant and your left. And you serve like a left eye dominant and your left eye dominant. So your serve takes advantage of the fact that your left eye, your serve doesn't take advantage. So we're going to take advantage, right? Okay. I'm going to stand here so you see better. Even if you turn your shoulders, your eye is still and your head is still there. With your eye, you still can see, okay? So let's take advantage of that because then you can have a very good shoulder rotation, which increases the power and everything. And also you can have a toss that is closer to you, which is good too, like for the backhand. If the toss is closer, your contact point is also closer and you have longer contact with the ball, which is better, okay? You're doing it very well. You are turning your shoulders and you are tossing with the arm going parallel to the baseline. When you toss, you toss here. When you toss, you toss like a right eye dominant, okay? So this is what we're going to change in you. It's a big change, so no pressure. So your arm will go like this, okay? Of course, your head is still here because you still need to, no, not like this, but you still need to see, okay? And you can do it. Yes, exactly. One more. It's difficult to control the toss because you're not used to it, but yes. Okay, very good. More power. Yes, good. Good news. Wait, I'm going to make sure your arm goes where it should. No, yeah. And after you serve, no more. After you serve, no more. It's just your toss for the moment. Yes, it's much better. Okay, one more. Better, huh? More power, huh? Andy Rodic, nice to meet you. Great job. No, no, very good, no? What do you think? Yeah, it's nice. You feel better? Yeah, it's more comfortable turning like that. So great job because you did it already, I have nothing to do. The good news, both of your backhands are going to improve a lot. Your serve is going to be also better. Fantastic. Roger's serve is typical for a player with a cross-dominant eye. His right foot is very much on the left of his left foot, which generates his shoulder turn. He almost turns his back to the net at the start of it. This is possible because his left eye is still seeing the court in front of him. The goal of this is to deploy body rotation and generate more power, but also disguise the shot better. He tosses on his right side and his arm, when tossing, is parallel to the baseline. So if you want to be inspired by Roger's technique, make sure your left eye is dominant and righty. Otherwise, it can damage your game. When you're not cross-dominant like you, the best shot is backhand in general, but you adapted really well. I watched both of you. When you hit your forehand, your head stays here, so no problem. There is no work to do for you on your dominant eye for your forehand. So just for you, so you understand, your dominant eye has to face the net all the time. So when you hit your forehand, if you turn your head, then you'll be in trouble, and then you'll have a contact point that is always changing, etc. An example of right hand, right eye dominant that is a good example is Zverev. Alexander Zverev is right eye dominant and is righty. His forehand preparation is different from Roger's. His shoulder rotation is shorter to make sure his head still fully faces the court in order for his right eye to keep following the ball all the time. His contact point is on the right of his body, making space for his arm to extend in front of him. He starts opening his shoulders early so that when he hits the ball, his shoulders are totally parallel to the baseline. In other words, he doesn't hit the ball turned on his right side, like Roger, but facing the net. His stance is semi-open to open, and when he closes his stance, he is much less comfortable and often doesn't contact the ball as well. Now on the backhand, and that's what's interesting also for the backhand, your eye is here, so you can turn because your eye is still watching the net. So you can turn, so you can have a bigger preparation. Your contact point should be more between your feet than too much in front, because when it's more here, you keep the ball much longer in the racket, you have more power, and you also have a better feel of the ball. You can close your stance, no problem, zero problem, and we're going to focus on where to hit the ball, more here, and drive it. Great, yes, okay, very good. Okay, so I have good news for you, your new best shot is your backhand. Good, this one, very good, this one. Yes, whoa, that's a great angle. Do you feel the contact point here? Yeah, it's comfortable. Yes, you're doing great, and I can see that you have extra power. Just make sure once you contact the ball that your hands push, nothing else, not the body, just the hands. The body will follow, the body always follows the hands. Great, down the line, exactly the same, push with your hands. They refuse to miss the ball. Okay, in general, when I say that, people miss the next one, so good job. Bravo. You feel good? Yeah. Okay, we keep that? Yeah. The good news is your forehand is your best shot, and your backhand is going to be amazing for both of you. His backhand, just like Federer's forehand, has a much bigger shoulder turn, going over a 90-degree angle with the net, which is possible because his right eye is still facing the net. He rarely hits open stance and prefers to stay closed, sometimes in an extreme way. This is possible, again, because his right eye is dominant. His contact point is on his left side and not so much in front of him. His shoulders stay semi-open and do not face the net while making contact. This favors a long passage of the racket head through the ball, bringing both power and accuracy. Let's do some serves. Start slowly, because you're not warm. Good, last one. I just want to see your technique. I don't mind about it. Okay, good. So you have a perfect technique for a right eye dominant. Okay, we have to work with you. So I explain, and I go to you, why I said your technique is right and yours is not right, according to your eye dominance, which is good news, because you're going to improve your serve and blow. When you serve, if you turn your head, not good, and you are a bit lost in the space. You will see that once you keep your head in front, it's going to change your life. Your arm is tossing in front, so your head stays. Your arm is going on the side, your head goes. The arm, the toss, has to go in front, so your head is in front of the net and your eye is here. And then you hit, boom, in front of you. So you're doing perfectly. We're going to do a little work with you. Okay, do it again. Don't worry. I don't care about the result. I just want you to feel comfortable. Okay, so this is better, but your head turns. Come here. I want you to see. You tell me if your head turns to the side or not. It does. Yeah, that's why you don't hit the ball well. I'm here. I want you to see me all the time. See me, see me, see me, see me, see me. Much better. This one was better. See here, here, yeah, that's perfect. Here, here, here, yes. Better? Okay. She's a good coach. I'm here. Yes. How do you feel? Better? Just as a reminder, very simple. Tell yourself, I put the ball in front of me and I push it in front in the box. That's really the idea. Do it. I'll just make sure you're just really in front of you. Yes. Okay. It's clear for you? Yes. Perfect. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. So you have a work on the backhand, you have a work on the backhand and the serve. His serve is classic for a right-handed, right-eyed dominant player. Contrary to Roger, whose right foot is on the left of his left foot, Alexander's feet are almost perfectly aligned when he starts serving. He tosses in front and lifts his arm to face the net. His shoulders do not turn. They make a 90 degree angle with the net. His head faces the net and does not move from that position from the start to the end of his serve. What do you think? Come here, come here. I don't know, but I can guess just looking at her play. Yeah. You see in the backhand, the contact point is very much on the side. Yeah. You see? In the forehand, she was like more in front. Yeah. Knowing what you know now and watching champions, try to guess who is right-eyed dominant and who is left-eyed dominant. If you like this video and want to see more tips in the future, subscribe to my channel to keep learning with me. Together, we can take your game to the next level.