How To Kill Short Forehands in Tennis Lesson #2 of 2 (During Contact).

Now it's all about the response, this is all about where you're going to hit it and how you're going to hit it. Now we've got up to the short ball, there are many different ways that we can actually hit the shot, the different stances and the different footwork patterns, so let's take a look at each one right now. The first thing we're going to look at is the left to left. Now you see Federer, you see a lot of the players doing it, this is a transition shot into the net, this is where you know you're going to come forward, you know you're going to have to get close to the net and you're going to try and hit a volley straight after. So this is me using my left leg at the start, so I'm putting my left leg forward and as I'm hitting it I'm landing on the same leg and I'm continuing forward. Now the footwork here is I'm trying to cover as much distance as I can left to left but I'm also using my right leg as a balancer that goes back so then I'm actually creating a little bit of torsion with my body, so I'm twisting against that leg and it's giving me balance so that I don't fall forward onto the court. So this is when I use my left to left, the right leg is going back and then I can continue moving forward, so during the contact I'm using the left to left motion. The second one we're going to cover is when you use the right to left. This is particularly useful for those high balls when you have a little bit more time to set up and it gives you the most torsion in your body where you can actually rotate, you can actually twist your body against your hip because this is where you get the power from, the twist of shoulder against hip, so this actually allows you to do that the most, even more so than with a neutral stance. So by doing this you're going to give yourself as much chance to generate power, so this is usually a shot where you're going to actually go for it, you're not going to be placing it, you're going to be giving power, this is a great shot for generating power, that's the right to left motion, so you'll run up to the ball, right and then left and then continue moving forward or if you haven't hit a good shot you can also go back, you're going to go right to left to right and then you can push back, so you're not just expected to come forward after that shot, you can also move back. Now when the ball is slightly wider there are different footwork patterns to use on those wide ones, it all starts with that right leg, so again I can get to that ball, I'll get my right leg out and here whether if I'm trying to cut back into the court and I have a little bit of time I'll use the right to right and I'll push off back into the court, it's important that I use that right leg to actually come outside of my centre of gravity, so if my if my body's here I don't want to just go up and stay there because now I'm unable to push back into the court, what I need it to do is to actually push outside of on my centre of gravity where I can use the outside force to push myself back in, so as I as I get onto my right leg I push out outside and then that naturally then propels me into the opposite direction, that opposite force, now if I if I don't do that I'll actually get off balance and I won't be able to get into position, now going from that if you are feeling like you're going to get off balance you won't be able to use the right to right, there you're going to need to use the right to left which is almost like a crossover step during your shot, so as I get there I'm going to use my right leg and then do a crossover step during my shot and then I'm going to cut into the court, that is going to take a little bit longer so therefore you're going to hit a little bit of more of a better shot from that position if you want to still succeed in the rally. The last move we're going to cover is the pivot step, this is where you plant your left foot in front and then you pivot on it so you bring your right leg around and then you can either choose to continue forward with the motion so you can continue forward and moving in or you can go back so you go pivot and then cross over and back. A great way to actually move forward is once you do the pivot step is to do a side step as a transition move before your shot, so I will do the pivot side step and then I'm in, so it's pivot then side because a lot of the players will actually pivot but then they'll actually find it tough to start moving forward and then it takes you a little bit longer to then pivot again, so pivot side allows you to get closer to the net and become a better transitioner. Now you might be thinking all these different footwork patterns are great if you use something like a semi-western or even a western forehand grip but I use a continental grip or I use an eastern forehand grip. Now these footwork patterns and these stances will still work for you but all you have to adjust is the contact point so if I use a semi-western forehand grip I can hit the ball somewhere around my shoulder height and I can hit it quite effective using these footwork patterns. Now if I use a continental grip and I try to hit that same ball it's going to be very very hard for me to control that shot and get anything on it. The reason that the semi-western grip is so successful at getting those high balls is because I'm able to keep the racket flat onto the onto the ball onto the oncoming ball while not twisting my wrist too much. If at the same position I was in a chopper grip or the continental grip if I'm here my racket would be open I would have to either one make my contact later or two make my wrist turn so by turning the wrist I'm going to lose a lot of power I'm going to have less leverage on the ball so actually making the contact late and then you become a little bit more stiff you're not going to be able to generate quite as much power. As you can see there one of the big disadvantages of using that style of play and that style of forehand is dealing with the high ball. Now the balls are lower so a waist height down to your ankles the continental and the eastern you can get away with so if you are using those grips you probably want to hit the ball slightly lower so this will either be by taking the ball before it gets up or after it starts to drop. I talked about the racket path being a little bit more linear now you have to also make sure that you're finishing the shot so what you don't want to do is to stop the shot during contact because what will happen there is it's going to turn into more of a jab you're going to lose a little bit of control so even if it's a high ball I can still go through and hit it like my normal shot but I just start with the racket nice and high so the racket starts high and finishes high. I'm going to use a semi-western forehand grip so you can see how the ball actually comes off my strings and my racket path. Now because of the grip and because the strings are quite closed prior to contact I don't actually have to really drop the racket under the ball to generate spin because the strings are like this my ball is actually going to have some spin on it even if I come on off a linear path through the shot. Now I'm going to try the same with the eastern forehand grip. Now for me to make this work it's very important that I do something that Federer likes to do and that's actually turn the strings and turn his palm facing the ground so when I'm coming up to the contact my strings are down with this eastern forehand grip and as I'm making contact that's when the strings actually open. Let's have a look now if I hit it a little bit higher straight away with this grip I feel it's so much harder to actually come on top of the shot to come over the ball so I'd have to do something more for push to get this to work like so. Now I'm going to use the continental grip and if it's low I'm going to push through the shot if it's higher I'm going to slice the shot. Now if it's a high ball like you can see on that last one I'm able to cut it and it's going to stay quite low especially on these faster bouncing courts and it's actually going to put me in a good position for the volley. Now if you are using the continental grip and you do have a high forehand it's probably a better option for you to slice it so we're not doing too much with a slice we're just keeping the racket facing the direction that we want to hit and we're just cutting down on that high ball. Now if you get a drop shot it's very similar but the racket isn't going back so you have no backswing or very little backswing and very little follow through it's just a very small contact swing around that contact point. Because you're on the move because you're running you want to keep as few parts moving as possible so as you're running you want to keep control and keep your arm really steady quite still and actually do all the movement with your legs so as you're running you're running with your legs but you're keeping the arm nice and still in order to get the best contact and actually have a little bit of feel on that shot. If you're running with a backswing you're probably going to either jab it or hit through it and it's going to be really tough to control especially if you're on a full sprint for a drop shot. Another very important thing to mention is if I'm trying to hit this shot that my positioning to the ball varies depending on how high or low the ball is so if the ball is high I want to make sure that I hit the ball a lot further out in front so I don't want to be too close and the reason being if I get too close and I get jammed up here I'm now unable to hit certain shots so from here I can only hit the inside out forehand I'll be unable to direct this ball into the wide position and on the contrary if the ball is quite low here and I get jammed up here on the low ball then I'm not able to hit the ball inside out but I'm only going to be able to hit the ball cross court so a player that you're playing against and if they're a little bit more advanced and they're able to read you a little bit more if you're not giving yourself enough space around the ball and if you're getting jammed they're going to be able to predict where you're going to hit that shot so disguise is very very important on that shot so disguises on the shorter ball is one of the most important things and that's why players like Federer like Murray they can read the players so well because they know where you're going to hit it almost before you position yourself when as you position yourself because they know that certain shots will not be available to you if you got a little bit more jammed or if you caught the ball too close to you so if your ball is too close to you on the lower one as I said you're going to go into more of a cross court cross court shot again if also if you're running up to the ball and the ball is short where you need to always try and think about is holding that that position before the shot and almost sometimes allowing your opponent to move to make their step before committing to the shot this will allow you to catch the opponent off guard so sometimes almost just giving it a little hold you run up you hold and then you hit so that split second hold can be the difference between hitting a winner thank you so much for watching the video we hope you've enjoyed it and learned something new now if you have make sure you smash that like button make sure you share the video with anyone that you think will benefit from learning from this and also leave a comment under the video and let us know what you struggle with most in your game don't forget to subscribe to the channel as well and turn on the notification bell signing off Simon and Alex see you soon guys