Tennis Forehand Tips

For most players their forehand is their strongest weapon. That’s why you should nurture it and improve on it to the best of your ability. Remember the great women’s tennis player, Steffi Graf? Her forehand was the most formidable in the women’s circuit in her heyday. So it pays to develop your forehand. Here a few tips.

Choose the grip that you’re most comfortable with. Essentially, there are 5 tennis forehand grips – the Eastern, the Semi Western, Western, Continental and Hawaiian. Among them, the Hawaiian is the most unconventional and hardest to master, so it is not advisable for beginners to adopt it. You can see what they grips look like and read more about them at Tennis Grips. Most beginners are taught how to play with the Eastern grip at first. But as you improve your game, it is important to master all the grips because each one has its own advantages and is suitable for playing on different surfaces. For example, the Continental grip is most suitable for courts with low bounces, such as grass courts.

If you have problems keeping your forehand down (the ball always lands outside the opponent’s court), then practice by laying some mats on the court and going on your knees and try to hit the balls across the net. This enables you to get used to getting your shooting angle right.

Once you can get your ground strokes into your opponent’s court, it’s time to add power to your shots without it going astray. How much power goes into your forehand depends a lot on your posture and follow through. When you hit your forehand, your shoulders should be at an angle with the net. This gives you the added ability to turn your upper body and shoulders as you strike the ball thus adding power from your upper body, shoulder and arm. Compare this with your shoulders being parallel to the net. If that is the case, you could only hit the ball with your playing arm, which would reduce the power of your shot.

Regarding your follow through, make sure your playing arm swing is fully utilized in your forehand shot. This means after you have hit the ball, your playing arm should naturally wrap across your neck with your elbow pointing forward and your racket behind your head. That follow through adds power to your forehand.

Get more tips on improving your forehand at Tennis Forehand Technique.