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VOLUME 1: THE FOREHAND

Part 2: Rackets in Motion Now available on Amazon

The next step is to put your knowledge of forehand grips and contacts to some practical use, as we begin looking at correct ways to wield a tennis racket.
If you are going to make the ball move, you’ll need a racket head that’s also moving, so you’ll need somewhere to swing the racket from.
Obviously, a degree of coordination is now required to hit the ball with the middle of the strings, but if you are old enough to be reading (and making sense of) these sentences, then the chances are good.

Let's first of all look at a very simple way of generating racket head speed, using a basic forehand swing.
What follows is a selection of uncomplicated forehand preparations, which I've gathered together (and cut down to size!) to illustrate a straight take-back of the racket head.
Before we begin, I want to refresh your memory with the 3 constants of a good contact. The ball should be:
1, forward of the body,
2, at a manageable height and,
3, at racket's length-plus to the side of the body.
Not only are (variations of) the '3 constants' evident in each stroke on these pages, they are the very reason each player is in a position to hit a successful forehand, because good technique cannot be built on a bad contact.
It's that simple.

I realise that learning the '3 constants' by a form of brainwashing won't enable you to hit a good contact, but it will help you diagnose and correct the flaws in your own game, as well as those of practice partners and friends.
Jimmy Connors is one of the greatest players of all time, who won a total of 109 career titles and he was still playing on the men's tour at the grand old age of 40. Remarkably, Jimmy achieved what he did with some of the simplest strokes the modern pro game has ever seen.
In 1 you'll see Jimmy's first reaction to the oncoming ball was to turn. This sideways turn is an essential part of forehand preparation, and if they don't always take a full body turn, good players will (almost) always fully turn the shoulders.
Jimmy turns sideways to the net before he begins his forehand wind-up. In fact its not a wind up at all. The term 'wind up' suggests a continuous motion, like the circular winding of a watch. What Jimmy uses is a straight take-back of the racket head. He simply points the tip of his racket at the court back-stop behind him.
Preparation done.
Now roll 2 and you'll see he's dropped the racket head below the height of the oncoming ball, as he swings through towards his perfect contact.
In 3 and we see his lifted swing up-and-through, in the direction of the hit.
How simple is that?
I'm going to take a look at the full Connors forehand later. But before we move on, roll your way through the three letters again and see how the forward contact draws Jimmy's efforts through, in the direction of the hit. Don't look at any particular body part. Just absorb this one detail: that Jimmy's out-front contact draws his racket head, allowing his efforts to shift through in the direction of the intended hit.
This puts some meat on the bare bones of a forward swinging racket head.
This wouldn't be possible if the ball was not out front.

Unlike the previous stroke, where Jimmy's straight take-back of the racket head is very much his own, I've chopped a frame off the beginning of this sequence of Mary Joe Fernandez' forehand. I've also chopped frames off the next three short sequences too, for that matter.
To be honest, few players at the highest level play with a straight take-back of the racket, so I've chopped some sequences down to make it appear as if they do. For lesser mortals, a simple take-back is a valid way of hitting the tennis ball, even though it's a little old fashioned, and Jimmy Connors is living proof that you don't need to develop a stroke with a mega-loop to play good tennis, especially at club level.
The high, looped wind-ups you see at pro level give world class players lots of racket head speed, which they use to hit with both power and topspin. But if you are a lowly beginner or simple club player, with neither the natural talent, the on-court time (to train) nor the aspirations to rise up the State, National or Junior tennis rankings, you simply don't need all that racket head speed.
Nor do you need such a complex, hard-to-time stroke.

Beginners of every age can develop a high quality stroke from a straight take-back of the racket head, and if you get to show promise, or when young children develop some physical strength, a loop can be added as the learner progresses.
In 4 Mary Joe Fernandez opens the palms of her hands wide, as she points the tip of her racket at the court back stop. In 5 she has driven the racket head through to...what?
Do you still have the 3 'constants' in mind?
Mary Joe is hitting a forward contact at a comfortable height, as she fulfills all three 'guides' for a perfect contact.
In 6 she has driven the racket head through the forward contact, which once again serves to draw the racket head through in the direction of the hit. Sharp minds will have noticed a fundamental difference between this shot and Jimmy's in the previous frames.
Any ideas?
The ball that Connors is hitting is a falling ball, whereas the one Mary Joe has stuck her rackets strings to is much deeper and is still rising from the bounce. To rise to the higher, bouncier ball, Mary Joe hits off the back foot.
Basically, she pushes up and in to meet it. We'll take a first look at this part of a stroke in the next couple of articles.
In 7 thru 9 I've chopped quite a few frames off Tim Henman's forehand preparation, because there's more of it than Mary Joe's (and I was using a faster motor drive!).
Once again we see a scaled-down version of a forehand preparation. From a full sideways turn and a straightforward take-back of the racket, these abbreviated strokes also make good starter strokes for small children playing short tennis.
From this angle we see Tim's efforts wind through, from a full sideways turn to the net. Tim's racket is swung through to make a forward contact and it carries on in a full follow through.
But remember. None of this can happen without a perfect contact.

Yet again I've shaved some frames off the sequence in 10 to give the impression of a sawn-off, simplified take-back.
In 10 Pete Sampras points the butt of the racket handle at the impending contact point and in 11 he spins the racket head through a forward contact, which is also waist high and marginally forward of his body. Pete kind of leans in on the shot to give it some weight.
On the face of it, frames 13 thru 15 illustrate much of what I've been talking about.
In 13 Andre Agassi is fully turned, with the tip of the racket pointing to the back of the court. The butt of the grip is pointing towards the ball. You also get a good view of Agassi's grip in this frame.
In 14 the ball has just left the strings. Andre has driven the racket head through to a perfect contact, and his weight shifts forward with the racket head.
In 15 Agassi has powered the ball back across the net. Look how the forward contact appears to have pulled the racket, the hitting shoulder and the whole right side of the body through, in the direction of the shot.
In 16 thru 18 Gariela Sabatini makes contact with a higher ball, which is a variation on one of the three constants. Once again, we get clear evidence of how the forward contact helps draw the racket head through and into the stroke.