Have a Question for Me?

[gzhpcu]

True John, but what I meant was only firm at impact not during the whole swing...

[lukman41985]

The idea of getting firm right at contact, to me, has a couple of problems:

1.) It's hard enough to time the contact correctly to begin with, so asking someone to get firm at contact would make things even more difficult I think.

2.) The idea of getting firm at contact may introduce tension into the stroke at the most crucial moment. Maybe the thought should be to be as loose and relaxed throughout and to extend through contact.

3.) Overall it's probably better to keep things simple. Focus on the positons and achieve all of them throughout the stroke with a minimum of tension--stay relaxed! Everything else seems secondary.

Just my opinion. Interesting postulations though Phil!

[shootermcmarc0]

3.) Overall it's probably better to keep things simple. Focus on the positons and achieve all of them throughout the stroke with a minimum of tension--stay relaxed! Everything else seems secondary.

Agreed. If I think way too much about certain things I end up destroying my swing.

[gzhpcu]

Agree, but I did not mean to imply you have to think about it. I just meant that the impact will be heavier if the grip is firm. The tightening of the grip is a reflex action, but you can train to have more strength in your grip...

[jhm36]

Just to get it out specifically what I'm sure most everyone is aware of, the relaxed grip is clearly great if you're hitting the ball on or very near the sweet spot of the racquet, but I've found that if I hit the ball closer to the frame with that ideally loose grip that the racquet will twist in my hand and the ball fly out of bounds. So if I'm having a tough day timing the ball, watching it, focusing on where it will be, etc, then I have to increase my grip strength to get more control over those balls constantly hit too close to the frame. Along with this grip change I'll start hitting more off-speed balls, slices, approach the net more often, try to hit with less top spin and try to punch the balls into the corners, visualize the ball staying longer on the racquet and my guiding it more where I want it to go. Not the most exciting tennis, nor the most powerful or penertrating ground strokes, but it does help me keep the ball in play during those mis-hitting periods.

[lukman41985]

Agree, but I did not mean to imply you have to think about it. I just meant that the impact will be heavier if the grip is firm. The tightening of the grip is a reflex action, but you can train to have more strength in your grip...

I have some questions:

1.) Why would the impact be heavier if the grip is firm?
2.) What's a reflex action? and;
3.) How exactly is tightening the grip a reflex action?

[lukman41985]

Just to get it out specifically what I'm sure most everyone is aware of, the relaxed grip is clearly great if you're hitting the ball on or very near the sweet spot of the racquet, but I've found that if I hit the ball closer to the frame with that ideally loose grip that the racquet will twist in my hand and the ball fly out of bounds. So if I'm having a tough day timing the ball, watching it, focusing on where it will be, etc, then I have to increase my grip strength to get more control over those balls constantly hit too close to the frame. Along with this grip change I'll start hitting more off-speed balls, slices, approach the net more often, try to hit with less top spin and try to punch the balls into the corners, visualize the ball staying longer on the racquet and my guiding it more where I want it to go. Not the most exciting tennis, nor the most powerful or penertrating ground strokes, but it does help me keep the ball in play during those mis-hitting periods.

My opinion is that a better fix (better because resorting to increasing tension, to me, is never good in sports) would involve:

1.) Resolving where on the string bed you're tending to hit: Closer to the top cross string, the bottom cross string, the leftmost main, or the rightmost main?
2.) Make compensations with swingpath and/or body position to make contact near the sweetspot.

Here's an example scenario:

i.) A player is serving and on this day is tending to make contact high in his stringbed (near the top cross string).
ii.) As a result the player, the player is trying make compensations to make contact lower in the stringbed and closer to the sweetspot. I think there are a couple of options to remedy the situation (maybe there are more, but I can't think of them):

a.) Toss lower.

b.) Wait for the ball to drop lower on the toss.

So my opinion, again, is that it's better to make adjustments to swing path and body position than to increase grip pressure. To me, there are two reasons why increasing grip pressure is not a good fix:

1.) You're still mis-hitting which sacrifices accuracy and power.
2.) Increasing tension makes successful stroking more difficult. One has to hit the key positions, but flow through them in a relaxed fashion. Especially on a stroke like the serve. The server, by increasing body tension, may limit or debilitate his ability to hit key positions on the serve that can only be made if one is relaxed--a prime example is the racquet drop. Increasing tension also increases the chance of injury!

However, every player has his own way of getting out of ruts! Do what works for you. I fix myself in the fashion I just described and it works great. I'm sure tightening your grip works great for you too. This is just my reccomendation to you.

Hopefully more people jump in here. It's fun to see how players make adjustments during the course of playing.

Thanks for sharing everyone!

[tennisfan04]

Frame Speed (Regular and Slow Motion Video)

John,

Many thanks for a terrific website and awesome articles.

What frame speed is used for regular and slow motion video? I am trying to get a sense of the speed with which pro players complete different parts of their strokes. I am advancing frame by frame by using the right arrow key.

Best Regards

[jhm36]

Sorry, Lukman, I missed your earlier post. Your advice is right on for me concerning letting the ball drop. No doubt about it when I'm having a tough day serving, if I concentrate on being more patient with the ball drop and letting it fall more I make better contact. Thinking about keeping my left (non-hitting) shoulder up helps as well. Less knee bend too.

[johnyandell]

TF04,

Funny you should ask that now. The regular stroke archive is filmed at 30 frames/sec. The High Speed Archive is 250 frames a second. BUT it renders on the web at 125 frames.

There are some new options we just added, and actually I am going to be emailing everyone and solliciting their feedback about this.

The Safin Archive is 60 frames. Federer Version 2.0 is the same clips as the other high speed Fed clips BUT rendered at 250 frames.

The difference is a slight (but noticeable) loss of image quality.

I love the quality of Aaron Martinez's incredible compressions. Twice as many frames are good as well.

So I can see it both ways. What do you guys think??

[lukman41985]

Please stick with the new changes, John.

[awolf]

Open stance and injury rate

Are you aware of any correlation between injury potential and open versus neutral stance. My non-imperical observation of recreational level players as a teaching pro is that there seems to be greater injury frequency for players using the open stance versus neutral stance. These players are not in the same physical conditions of the pros and often misjudge contact point thereby hitting late or early. The juniors want to emulate the pros and therefore are reluctant to use the neutral stance.

Any comments?

Arthur
Toronto, Canada

[johnyandell]

There are a lot of knowledgable people that agree with you about injuries although the belief is it has as much to do with the grips which increase torso rotation, and to some extent the rackets, as stance per se. Paul Roetert of the USTA for example.

And there is another group that thinks the opposite. Open stance is completely safe and injuires come from incorrect use of stance--such as trying to step in with an extreme grip and twisting against the front foot and leg as we explored. Brett Hobden for example.

I don't know of any studies about this--or even how you could create comparative data bases. Doesn't mean they don't exist. One point to consider is the shift in grips and stances leads to more backcourt play and longer points and more pounding on hard courts.

But a lot of old time players with eastern grips who played on grass now have 1 or 2 artificial hips.

The extreme style is here to stay--I think that they only thing coaches can do when working with playere established in this style is try to make sure their technique is sound and that they do the off court strength training.

[tennismaverick]

June article

I thought the June article was excellent. I've been puzzled by the differences in stances and the explanations I have heard as well. I think your insight is far superior to many teaching professionals who usually give a blanket statement that you should always hit with an open stance or always hit with a neutral stance. Then when you point out that the pros frequently use both stances they retort with the “pros just have greater athletic skill.” That seems to be their answer for any anomaly for which they don't have a good explanation. Fortunately for us mere mortals, the answer is more complex and by dissecting the shots a person can cull information that will help them even if they are athletically inferior. Not everyone has the athletic or visual talent to mimic the pros successfully. Once again, great article. Thanks.

PS I hope I am posting this in the right spot.

[johnyandell]

Maverick,

Think you got it well. Thanks for the feedback.

John Yandell