Top 3 Tennis Footwork Mistakes: And How To Fix Them!

one of the key determining factors that separate average players from good tennis players to great tennis players is footwork and Roger federa agrees with me listen up the best movers are the best players it's been like this for the last 10 20 years already now and it's going to stay like this great tennis starts with great footwork and in this video I'm going to show you three of the biggest footwork mistakes that I see along with drills and tips that can help you to fix them let's get into it number one is spacing as I I see tons of players really struggling with this now the reason this is a really difficult area is when we play tennis every single ball that we receive is different and so our footwork patterns have to be different each time as well but it's a lot more than just the physical element of how well you move but it's actually a lot more about the way that you read that oncoming ball which is more of a cognitive skill now there is an exercise that I like to do with my players that can help them to start reading that oncoming ball a lot more effectively to do this exercise we need to understand that we're going to make contact with each shot in one of three different ways we're either going to make contact with the ball as it's dropping we're going to make contact with the ball when it reaches its peak or we're going to make contact with the ball as it's rising and the important thing to understand is there's no right way as in a tennis match you're going to make contact with shots in all three of these phases and so the key for you is to practice all three phases so the next time you're on the tennis court with a hitting partner or a coach spend a few minutes trying to let every single ball drop so as the ball comes towards you after it's bounced you're going to watch the Flight of the ball and you're going to space yourself further back so that you give the ball more time to drop before you make contact with it you'll soon find that you have to position yourself further back than you normally would be to let the ball drop and there will be some balls that are impossible to let drop unless you climb the fence but for a few minutes try to let every single ball drop before you make contact with it for the next two minutes you're going to try to hit every single ball at the peak this is going to require much sharper footwork as you're going to have to take the ball a bit earlier and you're going to have to time your movement perfectly so that you can hit the peak and for the final 2 minutes your aim is to hit every single ball on the rise now this is by far the most difficult of the three as you've got to get much closer to the ball really limiting your time on the shot but it's important to practice all three so that you can understand how that ball is traveling and to get you anticipating the oncoming ball as you won't be able to get into the right position unless you do that now I know that drill isn't that technical but by practicing it it will really really sharpen your anticipation and it will really help you with your spacing forwards and backwards but a bonus tip is to help you with your spacing laterally and it's ensuring that as you move to the ball you're already starting your racket preparation as I see tons of players sprinting to the ball first preparing their racket late then realizing that they're too close to the ball so my tip for you if you do get yourself jammed up is to try to prepare your racket As you move to the ball so that you've already got the right distance for your contact Point mistake number two is I see tons of players moving their quickest when they're moving out towards the shot and once they've struck the ball they move quite slowly on their way back to the middle however professional tennis players do the exact opposite they move their quickest after they've struck the ball as they want to give themselves more time to move calmly and gracefully to their next shot this really does link back into spacing as if you're confident with your anticipation you can move much more calmly to the oncoming ball rather than rushing and getting yourself jammed up but by focusing on your recovery it's going to give you a head start on that next shot whether that's your recovery after you've hit your serve ready for the next ball or it's your recovery after you've struck your return ready for the next ball if you start the point well with a really quick recovery you'll always be a split second ahead for the next ball giving you much more time to be balanced well spaced from the ball and have options on that shot before you get back to the middle quickly on the next one and so another drill that can really help you to get into good habits with your recovery is called beat the hit which you've probably heard me say multiple times before beat the hit is when you're playing with another player at the other end and your aim is to make your recovering get into your ready position before your opponent strikes the next ball hence beat the hit by doing this each time it's not only going to sharpen your your recovery but it's also going to help you to make smarter choices with your shot as if you're pulled really far out of court you're probably going to want to give yourself more time by hitting a higher slower ball to get back to the middle whereas if you're in a more comfortable position you can go bigger with your shot as you don't have so far to move for the next one a technical tip to help you with your recovery is to master the crossover step now what this is is once you've hit your ground stroke whether it be your forehand or your backhand you drive your outside leg into the ground to make a big crossover to get back to the middle as you saw there from this position a crossover step will get your outside foot all the way back to here whereas a side step will only get your foot to here so you're covering double the distance with one step the way this will look on your backand is once you struck the ball again you'll use your outside leg to drive back to the middle so remember beat the hit and master that crossover step just a quick one folks I've noticed that only 18% of you viewing this video are actually subscribe to the channel and if this man watches my videos I I saw you on YouTube I guess yeah then you should be subscribing too many thanks the third mistake that I see is improper use of stances now when I'm talking about stances I'm talking about the way that you set your feet up as you prepare for your forehand or your backhand and the main stances we're talking about are open stance semi-open stance neutral stance and close stance I've actually made a full video on stances with which I'll put the link in the description below but what I'm going to say is most people that I see when they're getting their stances wrong are usually using a closed stance anytime they're under pressure laterally a close stance is where you take your inside leg across your body here now the problem with hitting with a close stance is as you can see my hips are locked I'm unable to rotate into the shot it's inefficient this is most common on the backhand side where players step their right foot across if they're a right-handed player here and again they're really unable to drive through the shot they have to resort to a slice to give you a very quick Whistle Stop tour of stances anytime you're in a comfortable position striking the ball you want to try to get yourself either neutral giving you the ability to get your weight driving forwards or a semi-open stance which is where your feet are more diagonal here again this gives you the ability to really drive into the shot when you're pushed out wide ideally you want to be trying to aim for an open stance as this open stance gives me lateral stability and the ability to push off and recover back to the middle but also the ability to really coil and uncoil my torso generally speaking this is much easier to do on the forehand side so you may find that you're doing that already but on the backhand side this can be a real struggle for players now if you've got a double-handed backhand it's a really good skill to acquire but it is much much tougher to do for single-handed players so if you are single-handed it's really important that you try and get your outside leg behind the ball so that you can step in and drive through the shot now there's no one drill that can fix all of these things but what I would say is next time you're playing try to be more conscious of your stances each time you hit the ball just in your head say to yourself whether you were neutral so sideways on whether you were open Square onto the court or whether you were closed with your hips facing more backwards just by being conscious of your stances it will start to make you more aware of when you're doing the right stance and the wrong stance and in turn you're going to start correcting those time that you're doing it wrong but my number one tip when it comes to stances is to practice all of them just like what I said at the start of the video when we were talking about letting the ball drop hitting the peak and hitting on the rise we need to have the skills to be able to do all of those and all of the stances as we as tennis players need to be able to adapt to tons of situations and so my advice for you is if there is one of those stances that you really struggle with try to practice that one more often so that you're more competent with all of them and if you want to practice these in volume either get yourself a hitting partner that's willing to feed you in some balls or you can use a ball machine so go away and practice those drills and tips I hope you enjoyed the video if you did hit the thumbs up button and drop a comment and also a reminder that I've actually created an online course with a coaching buddy of mine who's a coach on the ATP Tour used to be coach of Liam Brody and now is the coach of KL Edmond his name is Dave samel and we wrote A Course called bulletproof at the Baseline which really helps you to become more consistent and more effective from the back of the court so if you're interested in that I'll drop that in the description below as well thanks as always for watching I look forward to seeing you in the next one take care