Excess racket head drop on forehand groundies

[Gary61500]

John,

I was just re-reading your article on "Forehand common elements across the grip styles" and you talk about how one of the worst and most damaging tennis tips is the idea of dropping the racket head far below the level of the ball to create topspin. You then state that if you drop the racket head too far below the ball it impedes your ability to generate topspin, and destroys consistency and power. Could you explain why dropping the racket head too far below the ball does this? Thanks--Gary

[johnyandell]

Because, as it says in the article, you lose the shape of the hitting arm. That's what drive the whole motion. That what most people do when they think of getting the racket super low.

If you look at the video you can see that the racket is only slightly below contact, but then rises at an angle of around 30 degrees or so as it goes through the ball.
With a less extreme grip (see the Federer articles) you can rotate the whole hitting arm structure backwards and maintain the shape, and to some extent that's possible with more extreme grips too. That's the only caveat but it is advanced.

[gugawedge]

One other problem that an excessive dropping of the racket head below the ball (and the wrist), is a timing issue. You will misshit the sweet spot more often and that will lead to inconsistency.

It might also lead to wrist injury, because of the excessive use of the wrist on your shots.

am I right John?

[johnyandell]

Well could be. You lose the shape of the hitting arm. That is critical to the whole stroke so there are many things that could go wrong.

[malice]

While we're on the topic of forehands.

Hope you don't mind me butting in for a quick question

I was wondering if there are any additional methods/visualizations that i could use to flatten out my forehand to hit-through the line of the shot better or maintain the hitting structure longer ?

Currently , i use a mental imagery of swinging on a very linear plane.


Edit: Forget about this haha , found some cool footages to help me with my problem