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Increasing Power on the Tennis Court with Your Forehand

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Increasing power on the tennis court with your forehand

For most tennis players, professional or recreational, the forehand is the most natural shot to hit. Over the years, plenty of male players have possessed powerful forehands and dominated the game with this stoke including Ivan Lendl during the 80’s, Jim Courier during the 90’s, and Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal today.

There are eight keys to hitting a powerful forehand:
  1. Proper footwork – allows you to get to the ball with balance and time
  2. An early backswing
  3. Bent knees
  4. 180-degree shoulder turn
  5. A relaxed arm and hand when accelerating the racquet head to make contact
  6. Uncoiling the hips and shoulders while transferring your weight from the back to the front foot when accelerating the racquet to hit the ball
  7. Contact point out in front
  8. A natural follow-through
Below are tips to achieving a powerful forehand:
  • To improve footwork and balance, jump rope as often as possible.
  • Early preparation – try taking the racquet back as soon as you recognize the ball is coming towards you. Remain alert, on your toes and focused on the ball at all times.
  • Do lunges and squats to develop stronger legs.
  • If you’re right-handed, keep your left hand lightly on the throat of the racquet to help take the racquet back, which will automatically bring your shoulders into a 180-degree position.
  • Try and generate maximum tennis racquet head speed when striking the ball while remaining relaxed, balanced and with your head still. Simulate this movement by throwing a medicine ball of appropriate weight, either against a wall or together with a partner on the tennis court. This exercise will help you improve strength and the uncoiling of the hips.
  • As you strike the tennis ball in front of you, continue hitting through the ball for 6 – 9 inches out towards the target you are trying to hit.

The post was written by David Lewis, Director of tennis instruction at Ivan Lendl International Junior Tennis Academy.

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Comments

Increasing Power on the Tennis Court with Your Forehand — 6 Comments

  1. Hi David,

    I’m do not agree on two essential points!

    1. you do not rotate your shoulders 180° but approx. 90°
    2. an early backswing will destroy your rhythm and thus your maximum power output

    An early preparation (= splitstep & initial unit-turn)is good

  2. The second most important shot in tennis after the serve is by far the forehand stroke. I don’t know if many people agree with me but as long as you play tennis, there is always room for improving your technique in our case the forehand. Small changes in time can make a lot of difference. What I’ve seen that pro’s do more and more often is related with a proper preparation for the shot. Notice that I didn’t use the term early preparation – take the racquet back. For me early preparation means proper preparation of the shot, not of the racquet. With no doubt, in order to achieve a powerfull forehand you must “tie” or “connect” all the body parts in one gradual(continuous) motion. The best term that everybody can use is the UNIT TURN “all togheter”. How to do this is quite simple. Just hold the racquet with both hands (the non dominant hand holds the throught of the racquet) and try to look at the ball over your left shoulder (for the right handed players). Once you can see the ball over your left shoulder your UNIT TURN is complete and the racquet goes back with almost no effort from your hands. From this moment the second more important part is the way our racquet is positioned. Naturaly the racquet has “to rest” at 45 degrees tilted with the ground. So the racquet and the wrist is not laid back, but actually is laid forward. Once you decided to hit the ball, due to your speed of your forearm and arm the wrist begins to lay back with the racquet. Than the contact point is like we all know out and in front of the body. I like to say the racquet has nicely extended towards the target. The follow throw in most of the cases is around the body exept the “reverse forehand”. A complete follow through for me means, to uncoil your body in such a way that you look at the ball over your right shoulder “this time”. The best example of this is R.Federer, T.Berdych, N.Djockovic and many more. Another important part for a powerfull forehand is to transfer your body weight into the ball by moving both sideways and towards it, with an angle. Like this you put more pressure on the opponent and you cut from his recovery time.

    • Hi Chris,

      Nice explanation of the sequence of the stroke.

      I would not use look over the left shoulder for completed preparation nor look over your right shoulder for completed uncoiling.

      In my opinion the Return of serve is the most important shot-situation in the female tennis and the serve is close second!

      In the men’s game the Serve and the Return of serve as second most important shot-situation.

      If you talk about strokes then I would say the attacking Forehand inside out and the attacking Backhand down the line are the most important in both men and women’s game!

  4. I especially agree with you on keeping a relaxed arm and hand while executing the forehand. I think many players, myself included, have a tendency of gripping the racquet too tight and end up losing power instead of gaining power.

  5. By the way great video guys … For me the secret of the forehand stroke begins with a perfect preparation phase. What really means this preparation after all ? A proper preparation HAS NOTHING to do with the racquet take back like, most of us we know. The preparation is generated by the coiling of the upper body or simply said UNIT TURN using both hands on the racquet. By using both hands one the racquet, not only our UNIT TURN is complete but also we can control the most important “tool” our racquet. If we take a close look at the best forehands these days of Roger, Nadal, Djokovic, Roddick, Berdych or even G.Dimytrov we can see a small resemblance: the position of the racquet on the preparation phase is almost 45 degrees with the court or sometimes more tilted towards the net. When Federer prepares his forehand we can clearly see that his racquet is lagging in other words, the tip of the racquet is pointing forward and the butt cap is oriented back and downward. When the incoming ball bouces the non – dominant hand starts to separate and the racquet is lead by the hitting hand and the elbow. From this position, the wrist begins to lay back (the but cap is pointing towards the incoming ball) due to the forward swin and created by acceleration of the upper body ratation and the hand which, I belive is a natural reaction of any object who is launched. Because of this fast movement, the racquet has a tendency to lag untill the contact point.
    I strongly belive that the secret of generating spin and the racquet head speed on the forehand starts with the way we use the wrist from this position ” \ ” of the racquet to this one ” / ” when the racquet begins to lay back …. that upside down movement of the wrist.

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