True Alignment

Kerry Mitchell

Many coaches talk about the role of the shoulders and the arms in producing power. Many talk about different stance positions. But few have talked about the exact role of the legs during the swing in producing power in tennis shots.

What is the optimum position of the legs? How does this relate to the position of the hips? By this I mean not only how the legs set up, but how and when and where the legs move during and after the hit. To what extent are these positions critical in understanding how to hit a great tennis shot? What the high speed video shows may surprise you.

For years teaching professionals taught their students to step in to the shot with their front foot, creating what is called today a square or neutral stance. Many still teach this, but with the age of Borg and those that followed him, teaching the stances has become confusing and often a struggle for both the player and the instructor.

Now many coaches are teaching open stance almost exclusively, even to beginners from the first ball they hit. This has caused a new set of problems that often leads to poor leg position around the hit. Don't get me wrong, open stance is important for players at all levels on all shots. It should be taught, and every player should eventually learn it.

But even with open stance positioning, I say that the ideal position for the legs around the contact has not changed substantially. Only how you get there has changed. The optimum position remains similar to the neutral stance hit. This is a concept that I call True Alignment.

The most important time to look at the positions of the legs and hips is around the hitting zone, that is, just before contact, at contact, and just after contact. This is impossible to capture with the naked eye and just up until recently, difficult to see with normal video images. Now with high speed video we can see just what the legs and hips do in the most crucial section of the stroke.

Let's see what happens in the pro game, and see how this relates to what is sometimes taught. In this article I will look at True Alignment on the forehand. In the next article, I'll explain how true alignment works on the backhand. Then after that, I'll go on to the volley and the serve.

True Alignment:Forehand

As discussed in my open stance forehand article (Click Here) the alignment of the hips and legs are crucial for a successful shot. As I explained there, the first goal is to set up behind the ball on the outside foot. From that point, there are 3 general options on the forehand: neutral stance, semi-open stance, and open stance.

With a neutral stance the player steps into the shot from this set up behind the ball. Normally we see the alignment of the feet roughly parallel to the target line in the hitting zone. Sometimes the player will keep both feet on the ground aligned on the same line all the way through the swing. Usually (though not always) this is followed by a recovery step around and to the side.

The movement happens very fast and this confuses some observers who think the players are trying to rotate their hips completely around and step thru through the shot with the back foot. From the video this is quite obviously not the case. The recovery step happens when the racket is well out into the followthrough and/or wrap.

On many neutral balls the player will align to the target line as above, but then he will actually kick his rear leg backwards, to his left, and away from him after the hit. This is actually a less extreme version of the footwork kick back pattern we see in the serve. This foot and leg action unleashes the natural power of the swing. It also prevents over rotation, bringing the hips and legs into true alignment to increase the speed of the swing. We see the more extreme version of this leg action when the player is in the air with both feet. Again, if there is a recovery step, it happens after this kick back step.

Semi Open Stance

With the semi open stance, obviously the players don't step directly into the line of the shot. But the interesting thing is that the position of the legs and hips still comes back to the neutral stance hitting position at contact, or to a variation on that position. Before the contact, the left hip pulls or snaps the leg across and into the true alignment position. At the contact, you can see the same line of the feet along the target line as with the neutral stance, or something close to it. The big difference is that one or both feet are usually in the air.

A line along the stance is parallel to the target line. Again, the step through with the back foot comes after the hit.

With the more extreme grips it is true you will tend to see more shoulder and hip rotation at contact, and the line may be slightly more "open." The point is that the hips and the feet have not overrotated, spinning the body around and causing a loss of power. Despite all the effort that seems to go into this type of rotating swing, the player never produces the pace that he hopes for. In reality, it's the ooposite. When the player reaches true alignment it seems to naturally decreases the hip rotation.

The principle of true alignment applies even more in the full open stance. When the player stays down on the court, or only comes off the court slightly, the line of the feet will be more open to the target line compared to the semi-open stance, but the line is still at an angle to the baseline. The rear leg stays behind the front leg in the hitting zone, with the front foot closer to the net.

The foot comes around in the recovery step after the hit. When it lands the back foot can be even with the front foot, parallel to the baseline, or even ahead of the front foot.

In more extreme examples when the players are coming up off the court, the stance actually narrows in the air. The left hip pulls the leg around and into an alignment position that is again extremely similar to the neutral stance--a line across the back foot, to the front foot, and out to the target line. From this position you will actually see the legs scissor--with the front leg going forward and the back leg going back. Rather than coming around in a recovery step, the back leg is actually moving in the opposite direction.

What makes this position crucial is that it allows a freer arm swing. This produces more power and also maintains the correct pattern of the swing. It also creates greater potential to generate spin.

When the rear leg comes through too soon the result is the loss of this true alignment. This often causes the arm swing to come across the body instead of out through the ball. It also causes a loss of power. If the hips are moving too soon, this brings your rear leg around too soon.

We can see true alignment quite clearly on two of the most explosive shots in tennis. The first is the inside out or inside in forehand. This is actually where I would say that the concept of true alignment is seen most clearly. If you look at the animation at the top of the article, you'll recognize this and see the scissoring of the legs. Players set up on their rear foot in an open stance, then explode into the ball opening the shoulders at the same time the legs are snapped closed back into a neutral stance. This creates true alignment and incredible arm acceleration.

The second explosive shot is the running forehand. If open stance hitting and full hip rotation are the keys to power, how do we account for this shot? When the player is on the run, his last step before contact is with the rear foot. But as he swings, the front leg is pulled through closing the hips into alignment (perpendicular with the net). At the finish the hips and shoulders are still more or less square to the net. Now, the rear leg will swing all the way around so the torso is parallel with the baseline. Again, this is after the hit and the start of the recovery stage.

So in all the cases, we see the recover step happens after the swing is complete. It's true on all the stances from neutral to extreme open. This goes against current teaching which stresses rotating the hips and feet through the shot, including bringing the outside foot around for a recovery step during the actual swing.

Yes, the top players definitely bring the outside foot around to recover. But the video shows that the timing is different than often supposed. In virtually all cases, the rear leg stays behind until the completion of the shot. The players maintain true alignment well out into the followthrough, somewhere close to the start of the wrap. Then and only then does the rear leg release to the outside. The stroke and the recovery step are usually distinct not overlapping stages.

What To Do?

The common thread is that in all these cases, the back leg stays behind the player until after contact. How can this be achieved? Unfortunately in many cases it is a matter of undoing rather than doing. Once players have the idea and the habit of jumping through the ball, it can be difficult to develop the feeling of true alignment and the explosiveness that goes with it.

The first step is to go back to the set up and open stance as I discussed before. (Click Here.) The player then must relearn to how stay behind the ball all the way through the shot, keeping the back foot down, and not allowing the hips or feet to come through, no matter how out of balance he feels. To do this initially he should hit relatively low bouncing balls near the center of the court. Another alternative is to practice the neutral stance and the back leg kick back. For advanced players who leave the ground and explode up into high balls, you can experiment with controlling the left leg and brining it forward and in toward you as you swing. None of this will be possible without the use of on court video. As I said, it's just too hard to see with the naked eye.