CONGRATS GRANT AND ENDLESS THANKS, TOO. 40 YEARS IN TENNIS AND STILL GRAPPLING WITH MY FOREHAND. UNTIL I STUMBLED UPON THIS VIDEO OF YOURS. FROM TODAY, WILL BE A MORE CONFIDENT, BETTER, AND HAPPIER PLAYER!!!
The FH fwd swing starts with the torso/shoulders unwinding ... once torso is facing opposite court, it stops and the shoulders alone continue onwards ... this flings the hitting arm out powerfully
Mid 30's rec player (USTA 4.5) here. I've had some pretty good tennis level ups the past 2-3 years, but have been stagnating/worsening or maybe not committing my aha moments/changes to muscle memory over the past 2ish months. I was watching one of your vids and really liked your methodology for breaking down specific check points so I tried this out for 2 drill sessions (~4 hrs) and honestly wasn't finding any meaningful success. People were saying I already do these things and my forehand has plenty of weight (pace/spin) behind it. I went back and rewatched a different video of yours (older, 8 months ago) that showed the snippets of the pro's doing it and one thing I noticed that I haven't seen you talk about (but were doing) was your footwork/stance. I've always done an open stance, as that's what they always said to do, but my stance has historically been very horizontal. Wide, leg driven, but still very horizontal. I noticed in EVERY clip, you and the pro's were more semi-open 45 degree angled so I set out tonight to practice just that, every forehand contact I could reasonably do, semi-open, left leg slightly out in front, right leg behind angled approx. 45 degrees. In 2 hours, my consistency, shape, pace and spin all improved DRAMATICALLY. I am not kidding. My unit turn felt considerably more natural, my footwork felt easier. my rally balls were nearing my previous put away shots pace despite having noticeablly more margin. No one freaking told me I was doing this poorly/wrong so thanks for helping me get there. I did notice you didn't have ANY videos on the 1H backhand. I'd love to see a video on that as it's definitively my worst shot right now from a competition standpoint. It's okay as a put away, but falls apart under a deep/chest+ height heavy ball thrown at it repeatedly. I suspect there's probably a few missing "a ha's" I'm not considering on it. Sorry for the book. but helping my comment helps someone else or drives some value to you.
Hello! I'm Felipe from Brazil, and I'm writing to thank you for this video. After watching it, I practiced several times alone at home. The next day, I played with my friend and I can confidently say that I improved 100% compared to my last game. The tip about the elbow helped me immensely, and I saw a significant improvement in my speed ball game. Most importantly, I no longer experience any pain in my arm and elbow when I hit the ball.😁
This guy is a great coach. If you wanna develop these things... it really does take persistence and constant visualisation... re-evaluation and refining. Gotta be committed. But when you do get your technique down... it fuels your postivity on court allowing you to be more confident in your strokes and have a winning mindset.
02:15 shows internal shoulder rotation on the forehand setup. It is the exact same biomechanical motion that we see on the serve as we use internal shoulder rotation to swing up to contact from the racquet drop position.
Id add 4th drill that i learned from another video and it boosted my FH aswell. When you move from the starting position, make sure your hand is bend in approximately 90°. It was hard to focus on at first but after a few tens of shots i managed to shoot some serious bombs. Anyways i love your tutorials!
Excellent modern forehand description. Rick Macci trys to explain this in a word salad and over focusing on the "flip". This is much more visual, descriptive yet direct to the point. This is a $1000 lesson.
Thanks Grant! Most helpful for me was the first point regarding the arm being in line with the back hip. I was hit and miss on feeling the flip at the right time: this was a nice checkpoint which made the rest follow naturally since I had the right shape of the rest of the stroke.
Yes, there are three key checkpoints: (1) the hitting arm being in line with the back (right) hip ✅ (2) wrist in a slightly extended position ✅ (3) internal shoulder rotation of 45 degrees so that racquet is pointing to the side fence ✅ At 01:24, we see Djoker appearing to hit the first two checkpoints. From that angle, cannot tell if he has already met checkpoint #3 or if he does that later. 🤔 My guess is that Djoker is hitting all 3 checkpoints in the pic at 01:24. 🎾
@@GrantVanderHayden I had a different question. Why do you emphasize the straight arm at the point of forward acceleration? Other coaches do not. Do you think it helps with control? Power? Consistency? Spacing?
Thanks Grant excellent description and demonstration I am in my sixties but can still move around fast etc I am working on hitting a flatter ball to conserve energy I think I can use your technique to do that I may reduce some of the leg movement and just drive through the ball using my eastern forehand grip rather than up.
Thanks great video! Although, how come you didn’t address the other integral checkpoints? Like the “ready position”, “unit turn” and “follow through”, which together determine the path of the racquet?
Awesome video Grant! 1 question: At 8:40 you mentioned to grip racquet with pinkie off. That’s only part I don’t understand. You mean all the time? Or just for the drill?
Hey, I think this video is pretty good but here is some constructive criticism: If you add a hitting partner rallying towards you it's gonna help the concept make more sense, and show how it's used in a real rallying scenario. Overall your videos are really good but I think adding this little change is the key to your channel's success. Thanks for reading, best of luck.
Great points and explaination but you miss another essential aspect and that is the movement and stopping movement of the upper body. As without movement you're arming the shot without upper body rotation and with too much movement you don't get the whipping power bonus at contact. Before your racket reaching the on the line to the side of your body (parrallel to the baseline) your upper body starts and sets the rotation. After that point you slow down and stop your upper body rotation which transfers all that power as a whip towards your arm hand and eventually the racket face. I had the issue that my upper body didn't slow down, so all that energy was wasted after contact and not transferred.
oh, you forgot to mention that to achieve that wrist lag you must use a semi western or western grip .. you cannot achieve that stroke with an eastern grip forehand
Great tips/video but getting bit fed up seeing male pro examples only - please try to include female player examples - overwhelmingly, all of these TH-cam videos show male pros. Not difficult to find some!
None of this stuff makes a difference if the player isn’t holding the right grip. It appears you are teaching a western grip, which isn’t an ideal grip for none professionals, and even the majority of the professionals hit with a Semi Western grip, or a modified Eastern grip. You would teach little kids a Western grip, because the ball bounces to high for them, so a western grip helps them hit high balls. Western grips aren’t a good grip for low balls, unless you are Aaron Krickstein. Yes the swing looks pretty, but in a match, most players will not be able to hit low balls with the Western grip. Great job on the video, thanks for posting this video.
CONGRATS GRANT AND ENDLESS THANKS, TOO. 40 YEARS IN TENNIS AND STILL GRAPPLING WITH MY FOREHAND. UNTIL I STUMBLED UPON THIS VIDEO OF YOURS. FROM TODAY, WILL BE A MORE CONFIDENT, BETTER, AND HAPPIER PLAYER!!!
The FH fwd swing starts with the torso/shoulders unwinding ... once torso is facing opposite court, it stops and the shoulders alone continue onwards ... this flings the hitting arm out powerfully
Drill 2 is gold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A lot of teachers are good, but we need the breakdown like this.
Mid 30's rec player (USTA 4.5) here. I've had some pretty good tennis level ups the past 2-3 years, but have been stagnating/worsening or maybe not committing my aha moments/changes to muscle memory over the past 2ish months. I was watching one of your vids and really liked your methodology for breaking down specific check points so I tried this out for 2 drill sessions (~4 hrs) and honestly wasn't finding any meaningful success.
People were saying I already do these things and my forehand has plenty of weight (pace/spin) behind it. I went back and rewatched a different video of yours (older, 8 months ago) that showed the snippets of the pro's doing it and one thing I noticed that I haven't seen you talk about (but were doing) was your footwork/stance. I've always done an open stance, as that's what they always said to do, but my stance has historically been very horizontal. Wide, leg driven, but still very horizontal. I noticed in EVERY clip, you and the pro's were more semi-open 45 degree angled so I set out tonight to practice just that, every forehand contact I could reasonably do, semi-open, left leg slightly out in front, right leg behind angled approx. 45 degrees.
In 2 hours, my consistency, shape, pace and spin all improved DRAMATICALLY. I am not kidding. My unit turn felt considerably more natural, my footwork felt easier. my rally balls were nearing my previous put away shots pace despite having noticeablly more margin. No one freaking told me I was doing this poorly/wrong so thanks for helping me get there.
I did notice you didn't have ANY videos on the 1H backhand. I'd love to see a video on that as it's definitively my worst shot right now from a competition standpoint. It's okay as a put away, but falls apart under a deep/chest+ height heavy ball thrown at it repeatedly. I suspect there's probably a few missing "a ha's" I'm not considering on it. Sorry for the book. but helping my comment helps someone else or drives some value to you.
That shoulder/chest stretch is key! I started snapping some quicker forehand shots right after doing this (in VR). thanks so much!
Hello! I'm Felipe from Brazil, and I'm writing to thank you for this video. After watching it, I practiced several times alone at home. The next day, I played with my friend and I can confidently say that I improved 100% compared to my last game. The tip about the elbow helped me immensely, and I saw a significant improvement in my speed ball game. Most importantly, I no longer experience any pain in my arm and elbow when I hit the ball.😁
Great class, I knew that my problem was the backwing; and after this video, I understand how to execute it. Thanks so much. Congrats!!!
you are my best coach.No doubt
This guy is a great coach. If you wanna develop these things... it really does take persistence and constant visualisation... re-evaluation and refining. Gotta be committed. But when you do get your technique down... it fuels your postivity on court allowing you to be more confident in your strokes and have a winning mindset.
Wow I just realized I was misunderstanding the whole process of powerful swing! Thank you very much. No one told me about this
this lesson is excellent, you are a genius coach and very difficult to learn I love it
Tu Tran
love these tips. ive taken lessons for years. Never heard of half of this. Great stuff grant, this will get me over the 4.0 to 4.5 hump
This really changes my perspective, I really thought it was about using your wrist and arm but instead it’s actually the pecks. Thank you
Dude, the second drill made a breakthrough in my forehand which I have been struggling with forever. Thank you! Love the tips and the energy!
02:15 shows internal shoulder rotation on the forehand setup. It is the exact same biomechanical motion that we see on the serve as we use internal shoulder rotation to swing up to contact from the racquet drop position.
Id add 4th drill that i learned from another video and it boosted my FH aswell. When you move from the starting position, make sure your hand is bend in approximately 90°. It was hard to focus on at first but after a few tens of shots i managed to shoot some serious bombs. Anyways i love your tutorials!
Beautifully done - so many good take aways!!
Fantastic analysis and tips. Can’t wait to try it.
Sehr starkes Video👍👏 first class😊
Excellent modern forehand description. Rick Macci trys to explain this in a word salad and over focusing on the "flip". This is much more visual, descriptive yet direct to the point. This is a $1000 lesson.
Grant used to work for Rick.
Thanks Grant! Most helpful for me was the first point regarding the arm being in line with the back hip. I was hit and miss on feeling the flip at the right time: this was a nice checkpoint which made the rest follow naturally since I had the right shape of the rest of the stroke.
LOVE hearing that AT🙌🙌🏆
Yes, there are three key checkpoints:
(1) the hitting arm being in line with the back (right) hip ✅
(2) wrist in a slightly extended position ✅
(3) internal shoulder rotation of 45 degrees so that racquet is pointing to the side fence ✅
At 01:24, we see Djoker appearing to hit the first two checkpoints.
From that angle, cannot tell if he has already met checkpoint #3 or if he does that later. 🤔
My guess is that Djoker is hitting all 3 checkpoints in the pic at 01:24. 🎾
@@GrantVanderHayden I had a different question. Why do you emphasize the straight arm at the point of forward acceleration? Other coaches do not. Do you think it helps with control? Power? Consistency? Spacing?
This is wonderful I like it
Excellent!
I love your teaching thx uuuuuuuu
🙌🙌🔥
Thanks Grant excellent description and demonstration I am in my sixties but can still move around fast etc I am working on hitting a flatter ball to conserve energy I think I can use your technique to do that I may reduce some of the leg movement and just drive through the ball using my eastern forehand grip rather than up.
👌💪👌❣️thank you❣️got it ❣️
Thank you
Can you do a lesson about the wrist in forehand? I see all your videos, you put Passion in your work. Tank pino
Yes!
GRACIAS por el desgrane.
Explicación detallada y exhaustiva !! 👏🏽👏👏
Grande! Grazie mille!
Excellent 👌
Absolutely great! Thanks s-o much. What about the backhand?
For my best backhand content check out:
grantvanderhayden.com/tw-yt
Great video, what grip position do you use?
Thanks great video! Although, how come you didn’t address the other integral checkpoints? Like the “ready position”, “unit turn” and “follow through”, which together determine the path of the racquet?
We would like to see you play and execute all your technique and expertise. Please post a 10 minute video of you playing with a professional. Thanks!
Awesome video Grant! 1 question: At 8:40 you mentioned to grip racquet with pinkie off. That’s only part I don’t understand. You mean all the time? Or just for the drill?
Shoulder internal rotation ? Seem to be missing that one. Huge part of the FH
U didn't mention when u do the unit turn the tip of your racket should be pointing to the net it's the key for power & topspin
hi, should the wrist in contact with the ball be at 45 degrees or should it push the ball? thank you
Is this same for closed and open stance forehand ?
You mention a loose wrist, but does the grip have to be loose as well? Won't a loose grip result in an instable contact? Thank you
Loose grip before contact. Gently squeeze at contact for stability.
5-7/10 tension works best!🏆
i thought this was Seb Korda for a second haha.
Hey, I think this video is pretty good but here is some constructive criticism: If you add a hitting partner rallying towards you it's gonna help the concept make more sense, and show how it's used in a real rallying scenario. Overall your videos are really good but I think adding this little change is the key to your channel's success. Thanks for reading, best of luck.
Are you doing semi western grip in the video?
Ur forehand looks so much better than nick from intuitive tennis . I want u to challenge him to a one on one and let’s see who the best
Great points and explaination but you miss another essential aspect and that is the movement and stopping movement of the upper body. As without movement you're arming the shot without upper body rotation and with too much movement you don't get the whipping power bonus at contact. Before your racket reaching the on the line to the side of your body (parrallel to the baseline) your upper body starts and sets the rotation. After that point you slow down and stop your upper body rotation which transfers all that power as a whip towards your arm hand and eventually the racket face.
I had the issue that my upper body didn't slow down, so all that energy was wasted after contact and not transferred.
oh, you forgot to mention that to achieve that wrist lag you must use a semi western or western grip .. you cannot achieve that stroke with an eastern grip forehand
Step one: be an athlete in incredible shape.
Whats your UTR?
Great tips/video but getting bit fed up seeing male pro examples only - please try to include female player examples - overwhelmingly, all of these TH-cam videos show male pros. Not difficult to find some!
Doogie howser does tennis 😀😀😀
Arent you leaning way too much on ur back?
None of this stuff makes a difference if the player isn’t holding the right grip. It appears you are teaching a western grip, which isn’t an ideal grip for none professionals, and even the majority of the professionals hit with a Semi Western grip, or a modified Eastern grip. You would teach little kids a Western grip, because the ball bounces to high for them, so a western grip helps them hit high balls. Western grips aren’t a good grip for low balls, unless you are Aaron Krickstein. Yes the swing looks pretty, but in a match, most players will not be able to hit low balls with the Western grip. Great job on the video, thanks for posting this video.