Tennis - Stop hitting the balls out of the court

See Tennis - Don’t Roll Over The Ball

How to stop hitting the balls out of the court?

Why you’re hitting your forehand long?

Hitting the ball long is one of the most common mistakes in tennis - especially on the forehand side. There can be a variety of reasons why you’re hitting the ball long. Lets look at the three most common reasons why you’re going to be hitting your balls long and some advice and tips on how to adjust your technique to ensure that you stop hitting the ball long and you start hitting them inside the court more consistently.

A quick run through of three reasons why you’re hitting the ball long and some tips to help you try and improve that.

Stop opening up your non-dominant shoulder as you come into contact

1. For a right hander, that’s your left shoulder opening up too early.
2. For a left hander, that’s your right shoulder opening up too early.
3. Hit some balls by exaggerating this movement and you can see why this is an issue, and what happens to the strings when you open up the left arm too early.
4. When you come into contact and lift up, drawing your left shoulder away, and lifting up your head, the strings open up.
5. So they point up to the sky as the racket head speed increases as you come into contact.
6. Having that racket head facing up means that all of the racket head speed is going to send the ball flying up high.
7. And you could see that all of the shots are going consider far long.
8. Now, hit some balls where you keep the left arm and the left shoulder engaged and to the side of the ball.
   1. Notice that you are not opening up too early.
   2. You are just allowing your left shoulder and arm to rotate naturally as the racket rotates forward as you swing into the shot.
   3. Keep the head still down.
   4. Watch the strings as you make contact with the ball.
   5. The left shoulder was pointing to the ball as it was incoming.
   6. And you are then rotating the upper body as one unit together with the hitting arm.
   7. You are not letting the left arm go and do its own thing.
   8. You are working together with your body, your right side and your left side.
9. This will really help you to keep the ball under more control.
10. You’re allowing your racket head to do the work for you.
11. And you will be able to see the real difference in your trajectory and also your consistency.

You are off balance when you are hitting your shots

1. You’re moving off the ball instead of getting your body weight onto the ball
2. When you are falling off of the shot,
   1. your strings come into contact with an upward-facing racket head.
   2. So there, all of the racket head speed, as it comes into contact, makes the ball fly upwards.
   3. So you are drawing, so the body weight was coming off the ball.
   4. The head was moving away from the ball.
   5. And this causes that open racket head.
3. So when you’re under pressure, when your opponent makes a deep ball and puts you under pressure, and you have to move back don’t just kind of stand your ground there and come off balance.
   1. What you need to do is, you need to move yourself back before the ball bounces on your side of the court to then give yourself enough time to adjust your feet and adjust your positioning to then come forward onto the shot - so you don’t feel rushed.
4. What should you be doing? How can you correct your mistake from hitting the balls too long on the shots where you’re falling off of the ball?
   1. For practice, throw yourself balls that are a little bit deeper than the baseline.
   2. And therefore, you have to move yourself back into position before you will then be able to move the body weight forward.
   3. So as you are throwing the ball back, you need to move yourself back. Allow the ball to bounce and come up.
   4. And because you gave yourself that time to be behind the ball, you will then able to move forward and get the body weight into the shot as you make contact.
   5. So that’s the real tip here.
   6. Move those feet, get yourself back behind the ball, give yourself time, allow the ball to drop into your strike zone, and move forward into the shot - keeping your head still in contact and allowing your back leg to rotate into the shot is really really critical.
5. So if you don’t have the time to rotate into the shot, then at least stand your ground.
6. Don’t be falling off that shot.

You are gripping your racket too tightly

1. Holding your racket too tightly doesn’t allow your forearm to be able to produce the correct range of motion, to produce top spin to get under the ball and to get that ball high over the net and into the the court.
2. A lot of players are gripping their racket very very tightly. And then, that there leads to a stiff forearm and a stiff wrist - which doesn’t allow your wrist and forearm to move freely at contact.
3. And you end up again with this open racket head position into contact.
4. Instead, you want to have a quite nice and loose grip to allow your forearm and your wrist to do the work at the contact point
   1. Out of 10, if 10 is holding as hard as you can, try and hold your racket about four or five.
5. To see the difference, hit some shots where you are hitting with a really really strong wrist.
   1. Try to hold the the racket is hard as you can.
   2. There, you will feel your arm is super super tight.
   3. You don’t have the freedom and the looseness that you need to allow the racket head to do the work for you.
   4. There, you feel like you are just too tight.
   5. You are trying to force the ball off of the strings and that’s why those balls are flying long.
6. Instead, hold the racket at about four or five tension, and then see the difference in the shots
   1. There, the balls will go inside the court.
   2. The grip is really really nice and loose with the racket
   3. Let the arm do the work
7. You might be holding your grip too tight because you feel like you want to control the ball over the net.
   1. But this isn’t going to result in a high quality ball.
   2. Try and stop being so in control of your racket and stop holding it so tight.
   3. And then, that will therefore lead you to gaining more control in your shots.
8. So lose control to gain control