Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Today's game, because of the ball pace, you're having to have shorter and shorter swings to deal with the amount of pace that you're getting. Also, to have a consistent forehand, you want to have a small stroke. In this video, I'm going to show you how to make your swing more compact, so you can have more consistency and deal with more power. The first thing we want to talk about with having a compact swing is your take-back. Now, what I think is really important when you have a compact swing is having a straight take-back. The difference is, I see a lot of players, and they take this huge upward swing. When you take that, it's going to take just as much time to get the racket down and to the level of contact. What would be better is just having this nice, compact, straight-back swing. You see guys like Roger Federer, and even Nadal, they take the racket straight back. You also notice players that have the bigger swings have to play further behind the baseline, making them have to cover more ground. What we want to do to have a compact swing? The key to having a compact swing is just making sure that when we take the racket back, we're going to take it back straight. I like to use the analogy is, having a table and just taking your racket back on top on the table. We're not going to lift the racket off of the table. If you find yourself taking the racket way up, you're going to also find yourself hitting the balls late, and we don't want that. Make sure we're taking the racket straight back. The second tip is keeping your elbow and arm closer to your body. Now, here's the key. This does not mean stuck to your body. This just means slightly closer to your body. When we take the racket back, we don't want to have the elbow way out here and the racket way away from your body. This, again, creates a big swing, that we're trying to make more compact. What we want to do is halve that. Instead of having the racket way out here, we're going to keep the racket here. I'm going to take the racket back with my elbow still not on my body, but close to my body. A good way of measuring this is I like saying taking your thumb and having a thumbs-up, and I'm just going to take my hand and stick it in here. When I'm taking my racket back, I want to make sure that I keep this distance, not too far, not too close. We want to make sure that we're not pulling the racket. It's nice and smooth. It's not going to get caught on my body, but it's not so far away that I can't get behind the ball. That's the key to making sure that we have a nice take-back that's not too far away from our body. The third and final key is making sure that you have your swing, what I call is, on the side of your body. A lot of times, I'll see a player, they'll take the racket back way behind them. I like to say, imagine you have a brick wall right here, and I don't want to take the racket back and hit the brick wall. The key is here, I'm keeping my hand on the side of my body here. I don't have to keep the racket completely on the side, but I'm keeping my hand on the side. When I take the racket back, then my swing is on the side of my body. Make sure that when you're taking your racket back, you're not crossing what I call the plane, that same brick wall. We're not taking the racket back here. See if we can keep the swing nice and compact, and on the side of your body, the entire swing here. Make sure you go out and use these tips to make your forehand more compact, more consistent, and more resilient against your opponent. Thanks for hanging out and watching this video. If you want more content on how to improve your forehand's power, consistency, and placement, make sure you check the link below and check out ForehandDomination.com to get all the latest content that I release on how to improve your forehand. I'll see you on the other side.
B1 US racket swing compact forehand body elbow Forehand Tennis Lesson: Should You Make Your Forehand Swing More Compact? 175 13 PS Casa posted on 2015/11/10 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary