Just a point, by taking the ball higher, your body weight also started going into the ball more effectively. If you look at the match much of your forehand energy was off the back foot. Great video.
Beautiful! You got it! Great to see someone who gets straight back out on the practice court to improve their game. This is real dedication. Now you gonna start taking that ball higher, you're also gonna be able to take the ball earlier, take time away from your opponent and be far more aggressive. 👍🏻✌🏻 Edit - I've just ordered a tripod so I can start some of my own matchplay recordings
Racquet speed, hip and shoulder rotation, and even the footwork is so different when going through this progress. Recording with video is incredibly useful at least for me. Ian is now officially the genetic freak; creating new neuropathways as he's teaching. Awesome video.
Minor nitpick, something I noticed because I fight the same tendency in my own forehand: your right arm is "dead" in a lot of your swings. After you load, it just kind of drops and hangs out in front of your body and doesn't move a lot, leading to a hunched "hugging yourself" chest position at the end of your follow through. You will get more complete and fluid trunk rotation if the lead arm pulls back more actively as you swing and ends up "catching" your racquet on the other side of your body on the follow-through.
Thanks for the vid Ian, I have the same issue. At practice this week, my coach pointed out to me that I was dropping my racket and had a low contact point. This helps a ton!
Hi Ian, very nice idea to show your viewers your efforts and progress to improve your game. Not many coaches are that transparent. As a full time coach and former proplayer here are my 2 cents to it: On the short balls, get your hips parallel first, stop the rotation of the hips for the very moment your racket enters the contact zone and let the arm just accelerate forward until contact. Your Right hip is lagging a bit atm, which slows down racket head speed.
Great video training session not only modeling how to do it but you're actually using it to improve your own performance. That makes it even more useful. It's one thing to see/hear "video yourself" but it's so much more powerful to see it demonstrated. Your commentary too - you feel like you're hitting 2' higher but the video doesn't lie - it's only a bit more. Reinforces why you need video. Finally, you tie it all together by assessing a particular development area from your recent Adam match, coming up with a practical game plan to address it, and then carrying it out.
I'm pleased to see you are trying to rotate earlier on your forhand as I think this is the key problem you have, and not just because of contact height. I think you need to be rotating earlier relative to your swing and not just relative to ball height. As I commented previously , I do believe you are initiating your torso rotation too late, which results in you having your hitting shoulder behind your non-hitting shoulder (the opposite of what the pros do most of the time). Notice how much behind your hitting shoulder is on your "before" forehand compared with your "after" forehand at 5.20. You should be initiating torso rotation as your racket drops and not once it has already dropped. If you wait until your racket has dropped, rotation is too late, and as you say it results in too low a contact. It also means you get a lot less racket lag. If you initiate rotation when the racket is dropping, the racket is not coming forward at that point, and so it lags. If you wait until it has dropped, the racket is already coming forward and so you get less lag. Earlier rotation on all of your forehands will result in you making contact with your body in a much stronger position, with your hitting shoulder in front of the non-hitting shoulder, giving you more power and more spin. I believe it could completely transform your forehand, but you need earlier rotation on all your forehands not just the high ones.
Thank you posting this Ian! I’ve been working on bringing my contact point up, and I think the drop feeds will really help, outside of me just working on it with a hitting partner 😎
Amazing lesson! I have been struggling to hit the ball early the last few months but this lesson helped so much with visualizing hitting the ball early. Thanks!
This is super helpful. Exactly what I'm trying to add to my game right now as a 3.5 who still struggles with beating defensive players and creating winners against stronger players.
I noticed watching the finals of the Volvo tournament today both ladies were hitting a fair amount of forehands chest high ... but for rec players is that a good idea? Asking for a friend. 😅
So, I'm an Indian love playing tennis . The thing is that you did make me understood how to play advance tennis, a better tennis, I just love the way you explain something more about the game we play"IN DEPTH". I just hope you start playing matches soon, and kick some asses. Thank you Ian and essential tennis
Great demo. Particularly starting simple before transitioning to the Playmate. (btw How many shots does the iGenie let you program? For Ben I think one would need 6-7 shots of varying heights and spin, and all to different parts of the court. After you play him, send us the program settings. Call it MEP cardio workout!)
Safe to say that you agree with the comments I posted after part 2 of your match with Adam! 😀 Contact point solves a lot of problems 👍🏻 Keep going Ian!
Ian. Just Two Technical Tips For you. 1.Spacing. Try and hit with a bit more space between your body and contact. This will give you increased leverage over ball on the swing and more spin. 2. Take back to lag. Look carefully at how your arm is bent throughout. You want to try when dropping the racket to the lag by extending the arm straight. The moment the butt of the racket is in the lag part of swing the arm should be as straight as possible and staying as straight as you can to the contact point. I slight bend is ok when contacting the ball most pros hit with a bent arm but in the lag phase always straight arm. I think a side by side comparison which you have done many times for your students will back up my tips. Anyway. Keep grinding Ian.
Thanks Ian! I’m doing the same mistake. What’s sad was my group (12-15) was one point away from losing against 7-10yr olds. After, Sanjana said well technically we didn’t win...They we’re taking it seriously while we were talking😂🤣Then we played doubles and my partner serves really fast, but they were going out. The returner complained how fast the ball was instead of looking at the ball placement😂We won that game so fast😂
Way to go man! Nice that you showed us how you train, and maybe that you’re human like the rest of us (well, I’m actually not, but you get my drift). Keep up the good work and good luck with your forehand!!
People often talk about the importance of hitting with topspin on very LOW balls because you have to "lift them" over the net. Hitting with topspin is just as important on "above shoulder" or shoulder height balls like the ones presented in the video. If you hit a flat "open string" shot, it gets launched OUT like what he said in this 10:09.
Pretty insightful. My takeaway is having a higher contact point not only increases your shot selection in terms of angles because you are taking the ball earlier and closer to the net but you also don't have to run as much trying to position yourself relative to the ball so that it's in your comfort zone. But now you have to solve a different problem, learning to play at a faster tempo and making the new contact point feel more natural. I think the rewards are well worth it though: shorter points, less running and more winners.
Love it, thank you. I feel like many younger players, like Medvedev and Sinner, play a lot like this and it always feels to me like they are sleeping the ball (real hard!).
Two years ago when I decided to get a tennis coach, this is exactly what I wanted to work on. But we never really did anything to address it. In hindsight I’m not too upset about it because there were plenty of other fundamental things to improve on. But I’ve always wanted to get these shots under control. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen every “How to put away balls” videos on RUclips and I’m still working on drills like these on my own with a ball basket. I think my biggest issue was that because I’m so comfortable at hitting lower balls, I would use the same low racquet preparation for the high balls, which never worked. I’d either overspin them, slowing down the ball, which would allow my opponents to easily put them away, hit them out due to slightly opening the racquet face, or spin them into the net. High racquet preparation was key for me. I still struggle with it due to being so conditioned to spin the ball. Flattening out my shot more would accelerate the ball making it near impossible for my opponents to run them down. I have a feeling I’ll be working on this shot for many years to come. I think it’s time for me to save up for a ball machine because I work afternoons and it’s hard to find a practice partner in the mornings, especially one that would like to do drills. Most people just want to play matches. Thanks for sharing this video. It’s nice to see others struggling with the same things as me, and seeing the improvement/journey. Mastering this shot would significantly increase your chances against MEP, but mastering it in 2 weeks is probably not feasible 😆 I have a question. I sometimes find myself leaning towards my left when executing this shot, and I noticed you sometimes do also. Is this a big concern? And what could be the cause? Poor footwork? Poor contact point aka too far forward or too far back? A bit of both? Goodluck and cheers!
+5 in optics. even though your journey to adapt this higher contact is in its infancy and you may not have reaped any technical benefits on court, the technique LOOKS NICE! can't wait to see this baby in action in your next match play vid.
Hi Ian, I think you should focus on getting a lot more topspin and acceleration, even if it means getting a little bit shorter. I like your forehand, but against players like MEP it is way to flat. Being a little bit shorter with more spin makes it easier to open up the angles. A bonus is, that when you hit it deep, players get pushed back more making the next shorter angled ball even more effective. Against players like MEP it is the best way to increase your consistency with more topspin and opening the angles more. Another effective means is to alternate between really deep loopy/lob like shots and short slices...
Ian - are you hitting with a semi-western grip? This would be consistent with wanting to hit the ball when it’s at chest level (versus using a eastern FH grip and hitting when the ball is waist level). It’s also interesting to see you focusing on getting away from the inside-out stroke you seem (?) to use a lot.
Very helpful -- I think I try to wait to hit forehands until I see where my opponent is going. But this shows it actually works against me, because I let the ball drop. Of course Ben is probably watching and making a mental note to keep the ball low low low.
Ian, this is the best way to steal time from MEP, which you'll need to do to win. But he won't give you many high bounces, so you'll need to stay low to the ground, while at the same time moving forward quickly to meet the ball before it descends. Good luck.
Interesting Ian! My problem is exactly the opposite because I can handle high balls but not those lower ones, close to feet. It might happen because my racquet is mostly parallel to the ground or a little up. Thanks for enlightening analysis
One golden tip for great results with this endeavor - to hit shoulder-height balls the way you wanna hit them, push your hitting-side shoulder more forward - rotate torso further before contact.
So I'm a fairly new player (less than a year) and I play around a 3.5-4.0 at least in my area. I find that when I use the "bolo" style finish for high balls it really helps me stay in the point and stay consistent. Is that alright, or is there a reason you seem to prefer not hitting in that style? I just want to learn the best way from the start so that I have fewer bad habits to correct later :) thank you!
First thing i noticed in the match on most if not all of your forehands you fell over backwards or had feet open stance but you don't have a full western -- on your side beside at 5:30 the left side shows feet open or semi open and the right side shows you in closed stance thus giving you a better contact and more power, control, spin etc -- WORK THE FEET!!!!
Hi Ian, great progression you made on such short notice! Reminds me to think of that too next time I might step on a court again. Maybe you might try a (Pat Rafter) split-step two steps before you strike your attack ball at the net?
Will take lots of hitting hours to create a new habit, at your level now. However, improvement is the goal of playing sports :) Btw, happy to see your wrist generating more top spin now, it should bring lots of benefits in matches.
Great advice for that short, high ball we rec players miss hit too often and a needed reminder for us to it practice more! I don't think it's a good idea to have the mindset to consistently hit balls at chest height from the baseline, that is an awkward position in which to try to generate power. And, if you are forced to hit high balls like that frequently (i.e. you are playing someone who hits with lots of topspin) all the experts recommend using a semi-western forehand grip. Making contact above the waist is a definitely a good goal however, I know I often let the ball drop too low. In your match against Adam on the forehand you were not always getting good racquet lag, rotation of your hip and legs, and following through like you normally do ... and you were going for the lines a bit too much. That was more the issue than the contact height of the ball in my humble opinion ... which is probably not worth that much LOL. BUT ... the improvement of your groundstrokes off both sides has been amazing, for a teaching pro to dedicate the time to improve THEIR game and share the journey with us is amazing and much appreciated, I'm like a kid in a candy store waiting for your RUclips sessions to drop.
At what NTRP level do you start to learn to attack? I've been playing for 20 years and not been taught how to attack from my coach. All I got was to defend and scramble to stay in the point.
@@headunits How do you find a new coach you can know is good. And teaches the playing style you play best as. Currently I'm being trained as a power baseline player even though I'm best as a net rusher.
Does it have to do with your FH grip? I too have an eastern grip and naturally tend to catch the ball low including the high mid court ball. I had to find old Pete Sampras clips trying to figure out how he deals with those short balls. I guess if you are > 6 ft tall, lower contact becomes higher naturally in relation to the net height. It seems that the higher the contact, the flatter he hits.
Looking good, Ian! Looks like you could use the right hand more to "pull" the shoulders and core around. It seems like you are still "chicken winging" that side and it might be limiting your easy rotation. Really digging the series and seeing you work, diagnose, drill and strive to improve. It's great inspiration!
Yes, you want to hit the ball higher. But the reason you hit the ball lower, it is because you wait too far behind the baseline and hit the ball on the fall. All you need to do is one word, "aggressive". Being aggressive, you step in, you hit inside the base line, you hit the ball on the rise, you use your feet to hit tennis, not just your hand.
I have a decent forehand and backhand when I'm rallying but I just don't know how to transfer that over to a match. Whenever I play a match I choke and my groundstrokes break down and become really bad compared to what I know I can do and then I start playing super defensively when I want to play more on the offense. Are there any drills that I can do to help me play better under pressure?
This is very very common. There is no drill for this. You have to allow yourself to “let it go” during the match. When you find yourself loose and flowing in a match, there is no better feeling. It’s called “the zone”. To start, you have to make this your goal in the match instead of just winning. My advice would be to play someone who you are friends with and let it be known, “today I’m going to hit confidently and aggressively.” A good friend/partner would be supportive of you and your goals.
After watching all your hits, I've noticed that you're trying to keep hitting the ball at the apex of the bounce. Is this a good rule to follow, regardless of the height of the bounce?
I'm not Ian, of course. But, if you hit the ball as it's rising or at the apex, you take time away from your opponent. Also, if you hit it at the apex, you don't have to work so hard to get past your first hurdle-the net. I must admit I don't give much thought to when I'm hitting the ball. I plan on hitting today, and I'll keep this in mind because I feel comfortable at the baseline and at the net. But, transitioning to the net is my biggest issue. Being able to attack the ball on the rise, or at the apex, will deter me getting passed on my way to the net if my attacking ball is not great or is not a winner. My usual hitting partner is very, very tall, and he has very good movement. I usually get most of my points against him when I vary a typical ball with either pace, spin or taking away time. Otherwise, he gets me.
I don't really understand what do you want to achieve, ian. Do you want to hit those high balls with flat shot, like winning shots? Or do you want to just topspin those balls, like rally shots? Just my experience, and advice from my coach; if you want to hit those balls flat, winning shots, you have to be in attacking position inside the court. Or else, you'd get more and more errors from those 🙈😂 .... But if you just want to hit rally balls with topspin, then waist high is ok, i guess?
Sure, hit the ball higher but is that feasible under the pressure of speedy balls? It would mean that you would have to step in more in the court and absorb the speed of the rallies while keeping the ball into play... this is theory and let’s see how it implements concretely
There's another fundamental difference I had observed between your forehand and the "proper"modern forehand. You are not uncoiling and leading the motion with the hips, dragging your raquet into the contact and adding arm motion to it. It's all arm and wrist. A symptom is the dominant shoulder being behind the non-dominant one most of the time, even in the finishing position. Interestingly, when you aimed to hit it earlier, your body IS uncoiling and you ARE leading with the hips. When you went back to the 2 lower balls + 1 high attack, the lower balls had again less uncoiling and hip rotation with them.
@@StephanBerenschot at 14:44 the clock reads 21:5 and this isn't an actual time that can be shown, the other scenario is that it reads 5:12 and the image is mirrored
Thanks for this video. I've scoured the internet for years trying to find a video on how to hit high forehands. Very tough to find, most address attacking the ball on the rise or moving back to allow the ball to get back into your confort zone, but that's exactly what you are trying to avoid. I too did the same exercises as you, but find in real game situations awhen I try, I tend to hit the ball long, my racquet face ends up opening and facing up. I'll be definitely watching to see if you can get this to work on real matches. Btw I finally recently found a decent video where I could really focus on technique watching the first few balls of Schwartzman as he catches them well above his sboulders ruclips.net/video/3gh7N5bRdfc/видео.html
@@igormorari380 To be fair, I don't know if his red one and his yellow one are the same model, but he usually uses a Yellow one, that he broke the string against Adam. So he pulled a red one out, presumably this one, and still hasn't went back.
Just putting some advanced technology and knowing some fancy words doesn’t indicate that you are a qualified coach or an analyser of the game. If you want to analyse ,do it for your satisfaction bit donor misguide other. You yourself do not have a stable forehand so how can you try to teach others. Thinking so much about the technique while hitting the ball means the opponent gets extra time to think to where to place the ball. I observed seen earlier too that you put these misguiding useless videos on RUclips and preach as if you have got all the secrets of the game. In reality you are showing these videos for your own purpose. If you were so qualified then the results would have been showed on the professional tour, and if your purpose is to preach the recreational players then you are wasting everyone’s time .
Just a point, by taking the ball higher, your body weight also started going into the ball more effectively. If you look at the match much of your forehand energy was off the back foot. Great video.
Beautiful! You got it! Great to see someone who gets straight back out on the practice court to improve their game. This is real dedication. Now you gonna start taking that ball higher, you're also gonna be able to take the ball earlier, take time away from your opponent and be far more aggressive. 👍🏻✌🏻
Edit - I've just ordered a tripod so I can start some of my own matchplay recordings
Racquet speed, hip and shoulder rotation, and even the footwork is so different when going through this progress. Recording with video is incredibly useful at least for me. Ian is now officially the genetic freak; creating new neuropathways as he's teaching. Awesome video.
Minor nitpick, something I noticed because I fight the same tendency in my own forehand: your right arm is "dead" in a lot of your swings. After you load, it just kind of drops and hangs out in front of your body and doesn't move a lot, leading to a hunched "hugging yourself" chest position at the end of your follow through. You will get more complete and fluid trunk rotation if the lead arm pulls back more actively as you swing and ends up "catching" your racquet on the other side of your body on the follow-through.
Thanks for the vid Ian, I have the same issue. At practice this week, my coach pointed out to me that I was dropping my racket and had a low contact point. This helps a ton!
Hi Ian, very nice idea to show your viewers your efforts and progress to improve your game. Not many coaches are that transparent. As a full time coach and former proplayer here are my 2 cents to it: On the short balls, get your hips parallel first, stop the rotation of the hips for the very moment your racket enters the contact zone and let the arm just accelerate forward until contact. Your Right hip is lagging a bit atm, which slows down racket head speed.
Great video training session not only modeling how to do it but you're actually using it to improve your own performance. That makes it even more useful. It's one thing to see/hear "video yourself" but it's so much more powerful to see it demonstrated. Your commentary too - you feel like you're hitting 2' higher but the video doesn't lie - it's only a bit more. Reinforces why you need video. Finally, you tie it all together by assessing a particular development area from your recent Adam match, coming up with a practical game plan to address it, and then carrying it out.
Did you flip the video over on purpose to show right-handed forehands for us? That's very considerate, I appreciate it.
I flipped it back while watching. Righty Ian doesn't feel right
I'm pleased to see you are trying to rotate earlier on your forhand as I think this is the key problem you have, and not just because of contact height. I think you need to be rotating earlier relative to your swing and not just relative to ball height.
As I commented previously , I do believe you are initiating your torso rotation too late, which results in you having your hitting shoulder behind your non-hitting shoulder (the opposite of what the pros do most of the time). Notice how much behind your hitting shoulder is on your "before" forehand compared with your "after" forehand at 5.20.
You should be initiating torso rotation as your racket drops and not once it has already dropped. If you wait until your racket has dropped, rotation is too late, and as you say it results in too low a contact. It also means you get a lot less racket lag. If you initiate rotation when the racket is dropping, the racket is not coming forward at that point, and so it lags. If you wait until it has dropped, the racket is already coming forward and so you get less lag.
Earlier rotation on all of your forehands will result in you making contact with your body in a much stronger position, with your hitting shoulder in front of the non-hitting shoulder, giving you more power and more spin. I believe it could completely transform your forehand, but you need earlier rotation on all your forehands not just the high ones.
Thank you posting this Ian!
I’ve been working on bringing my contact point up, and I think the drop feeds will really help, outside of me just working on it with a hitting partner 😎
Amazing lesson! I have been struggling to hit the ball early the last few months but this lesson helped so much with visualizing hitting the ball early. Thanks!
Glad it helped!
This is super helpful. Exactly what I'm trying to add to my game right now as a 3.5 who still struggles with beating defensive players and creating winners against stronger players.
Chest level contact is definitely ideal to hit crushing forehands...great lesson and practice 👍
I noticed watching the finals of the Volvo tournament today both ladies were hitting a fair amount of forehands chest high ... but for rec players is that a good idea? Asking for a friend. 😅
@@georgebasham2279 It's very much a good idea! 👌
Honest assessment. Was always curious as why u let the ball drop so far and not step in more.
So, I'm an Indian love playing tennis . The thing is that you did make me understood how to play advance tennis, a better tennis, I just love the way you explain something more about the game we play"IN DEPTH". I just hope you start playing matches soon, and kick some asses. Thank you Ian and essential tennis
Great demo. Particularly starting simple before transitioning to the Playmate. (btw How many shots does the iGenie let you program? For Ben I think one would need 6-7 shots of varying heights and spin, and all to different parts of the court. After you play him, send us the program settings. Call it MEP cardio workout!)
Well intuited and explained.
Safe to say that you agree with the comments I posted after part 2 of your match with Adam! 😀 Contact point solves a lot of problems 👍🏻 Keep going Ian!
Really great tips, Ian! Late contact is such a big problem for me too.
Ian. Just Two Technical Tips For you. 1.Spacing. Try and hit with a bit more space between your body and contact. This will give you increased leverage over ball on the swing and more spin. 2. Take back to lag. Look carefully at how your arm is bent throughout. You want to try when dropping the racket to the lag by extending the arm straight. The moment the butt of the racket is in the lag part of swing the arm should be as straight as possible and staying as straight as you can to the contact point. I slight bend is ok when contacting the ball most pros hit with a bent arm but in the lag phase always straight arm. I think a side by side comparison which you have done many times for your students will back up my tips. Anyway. Keep grinding Ian.
Ian. As soon as you said I am letting the ball drop instead of stepping in and taking it higher, I was like YESSSS. That's it Ian. :)
Thanks Ian! I’m doing the same mistake. What’s sad was my group (12-15) was one point away from losing against 7-10yr olds. After, Sanjana said well technically we didn’t win...They we’re taking it seriously while we were talking😂🤣Then we played doubles and my partner serves really fast, but they were going out. The returner complained how fast the ball was instead of looking at the ball placement😂We won that game so fast😂
2 minutes in: "Wait, he's right handed now?"
Looks back at match play: "HUH?"
Then sees the entire video is mirrored, wow ...
The racket is on his right side shoulder so it cannot be mirrored :D ??
Way to go man! Nice that you showed us how you train, and maybe that you’re human like the rest of us (well, I’m actually not, but you get my drift). Keep up the good work and good luck with your forehand!!
People often talk about the importance of hitting with topspin on very LOW balls because you have to "lift them" over the net. Hitting with topspin is just as important on "above shoulder" or shoulder height balls like the ones presented in the video. If you hit a flat "open string" shot, it gets launched OUT like what he said in this 10:09.
Pretty insightful. My takeaway is having a higher contact point not only increases your shot selection in terms of angles because you are taking the ball earlier and closer to the net but you also don't have to run as much trying to position yourself relative to the ball so that it's in your comfort zone. But now you have to solve a different problem, learning to play at a faster tempo and making the new contact point feel more natural. I think the rewards are well worth it though: shorter points, less running and more winners.
Love it, thank you. I feel like many younger players, like Medvedev and Sinner, play a lot like this and it always feels to me like they are sleeping the ball (real hard!).
Two years ago when I decided to get a tennis coach, this is exactly what I wanted to work on. But we never really did anything to address it. In hindsight I’m not too upset about it because there were plenty of other fundamental things to improve on. But I’ve always wanted to get these shots under control. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen every “How to put away balls” videos on RUclips and I’m still working on drills like these on my own with a ball basket. I think my biggest issue was that because I’m so comfortable at hitting lower balls, I would use the same low racquet preparation for the high balls, which never worked. I’d either overspin them, slowing down the ball, which would allow my opponents to easily put them away, hit them out due to slightly opening the racquet face, or spin them into the net. High racquet preparation was key for me. I still struggle with it due to being so conditioned to spin the ball. Flattening out my shot more would accelerate the ball making it near impossible for my opponents to run them down. I have a feeling I’ll be working on this shot for many years to come. I think it’s time for me to save up for a ball machine because I work afternoons and it’s hard to find a practice partner in the mornings, especially one that would like to do drills. Most people just want to play matches. Thanks for sharing this video. It’s nice to see others struggling with the same things as me, and seeing the improvement/journey. Mastering this shot would significantly increase your chances against MEP, but mastering it in 2 weeks is probably not feasible 😆 I have a question. I sometimes find myself leaning towards my left when executing this shot, and I noticed you sometimes do also. Is this a big concern? And what could be the cause? Poor footwork? Poor contact point aka too far forward or too far back? A bit of both? Goodluck and cheers!
+5 in optics. even though your journey to adapt this higher contact is in its infancy and you may not have reaped any technical benefits on court, the technique LOOKS NICE! can't wait to see this baby in action in your next match play vid.
Hi Ian, I think you should focus on getting a lot more topspin and acceleration, even if it means getting a little bit shorter. I like your forehand, but against players like MEP it is way to flat.
Being a little bit shorter with more spin makes it easier to open up the angles. A bonus is, that when you hit it deep, players get pushed back more making the next shorter angled ball even more effective. Against players like MEP it is the best way to increase your consistency with more topspin and opening the angles more. Another effective means is to alternate between really deep loopy/lob like shots and short slices...
Ian - are you hitting with a semi-western grip? This would be consistent with wanting to hit the ball when it’s at chest level (versus using a eastern FH grip and hitting when the ball is waist level). It’s also interesting to see you focusing on getting away from the inside-out stroke you seem (?) to use a lot.
@Essential Tennis - Lessons and Instruction for Passionate Players it shows your shots mirrored so I got confused when you were hitting righty
Very helpful -- I think I try to wait to hit forehands until I see where my opponent is going. But this shows it actually works against me, because I let the ball drop.
Of course Ben is probably watching and making a mental note to keep the ball low low low.
He certainly is, and he certainly will.
Ian, this is the best way to steal time from MEP, which you'll need to do to win. But he won't give you many high bounces, so you'll need to stay low to the ground, while at the same time moving forward quickly to meet the ball before it descends. Good luck.
Great advice. :)
Interesting Ian! My problem is exactly the opposite because I can handle high balls but not those lower ones, close to feet. It might happen because my racquet is mostly parallel to the ground or a little up. Thanks for enlightening analysis
One golden tip for great results with this endeavor - to hit shoulder-height balls the way you wanna hit them, push your hitting-side shoulder more forward - rotate torso further before contact.
So I'm a fairly new player (less than a year) and I play around a 3.5-4.0 at least in my area. I find that when I use the "bolo" style finish for high balls it really helps me stay in the point and stay consistent. Is that alright, or is there a reason you seem to prefer not hitting in that style? I just want to learn the best way from the start so that I have fewer bad habits to correct later :) thank you!
You're the best... as always
🙏❤
First thing i noticed in the match on most if not all of your forehands you fell over backwards or had feet open stance but you don't have a full western -- on your side beside at 5:30 the left side shows feet open or semi open and the right side shows you in closed stance thus giving you a better contact and more power, control, spin etc -- WORK THE FEET!!!!
Hi Ian, great progression you made on such short notice! Reminds me to think of that too next time I might step on a court again. Maybe you might try a (Pat Rafter) split-step two steps before you strike your attack ball at the net?
By the way, if attacking, imagine yourself being Serena Williams storming into the net with all her aggressiveness:) smashing such high balls
Will take lots of hitting hours to create a new habit, at your level now.
However, improvement is the goal of playing sports :)
Btw, happy to see your wrist generating more top spin now, it should bring lots of benefits in matches.
Great advice for that short, high ball we rec players miss hit too often and a needed reminder for us to it practice more! I don't think it's a good idea to have the mindset to consistently hit balls at chest height from the baseline, that is an awkward position in which to try to generate power. And, if you are forced to hit high balls like that frequently (i.e. you are playing someone who hits with lots of topspin) all the experts recommend using a semi-western forehand grip. Making contact above the waist is a definitely a good goal however, I know I often let the ball drop too low. In your match against Adam on the forehand you were not always getting good racquet lag, rotation of your hip and legs, and following through like you normally do ... and you were going for the lines a bit too much. That was more the issue than the contact height of the ball in my humble opinion ... which is probably not worth that much LOL. BUT ... the improvement of your groundstrokes off both sides has been amazing, for a teaching pro to dedicate the time to improve THEIR game and share the journey with us is amazing and much appreciated, I'm like a kid in a candy store waiting for your RUclips sessions to drop.
Great video ian
Great coach
At what NTRP level do you start to learn to attack? I've been playing for 20 years and not been taught how to attack from my coach. All I got was to defend and scramble to stay in the point.
Fire your coach
@@headunits How do you find a new coach you can know is good. And teaches the playing style you play best as. Currently I'm being trained as a power baseline player even though I'm best as a net rusher.
Does it have to do with your FH grip? I too have an eastern grip and naturally tend to catch the ball low including the high mid court ball. I had to find old Pete Sampras clips trying to figure out how he deals with those short balls. I guess if you are > 6 ft tall, lower contact becomes higher naturally in relation to the net height. It seems that the higher the contact, the flatter he hits.
Looking good, Ian! Looks like you could use the right hand more to "pull" the shoulders and core around. It seems like you are still "chicken winging" that side and it might be limiting your easy rotation. Really digging the series and seeing you work, diagnose, drill and strive to improve. It's great inspiration!
Good point re the non-dom hand. Helps drive the right shoulder into the shot, which should be in front of the left at contact.
Oops, I forgot he’s a lefty! When I say right shoulder I mean dominant. Sorry!
Yes, you want to hit the ball higher. But the reason you hit the ball lower, it is because you wait too far behind the baseline and hit the ball on the fall. All you need to do is one word, "aggressive". Being aggressive, you step in, you hit inside the base line, you hit the ball on the rise, you use your feet to hit tennis, not just your hand.
I personally only use feet.
I have a decent forehand and backhand when I'm rallying but I just don't know how to transfer that over to a match. Whenever I play a match I choke and my groundstrokes break down and become really bad compared to what I know I can do and then I start playing super defensively when I want to play more on the offense. Are there any drills that I can do to help me play better under pressure?
This is very very common. There is no drill for this. You have to allow yourself to “let it go” during the match. When you find yourself loose and flowing in a match, there is no better feeling. It’s called “the zone”. To start, you have to make this your goal in the match instead of just winning. My advice would be to play someone who you are friends with and let it be known, “today I’m going to hit confidently and aggressively.” A good friend/partner would be supportive of you and your goals.
@@dustyroot4708 Ok, will do, thank you
@@dustyroot4708 I just took your advice and it was so helpful. Thank you
@@shreyasvaranasi7629 Great! Keep at it. Get that confidence.
After watching all your hits, I've noticed that you're trying to keep hitting the ball at the apex of the bounce. Is this a good rule to follow, regardless of the height of the bounce?
I'm not Ian, of course. But, if you hit the ball as it's rising or at the apex, you take time away from your opponent. Also, if you hit it at the apex, you don't have to work so hard to get past your first hurdle-the net. I must admit I don't give much thought to when I'm hitting the ball. I plan on hitting today, and I'll keep this in mind because I feel comfortable at the baseline and at the net. But, transitioning to the net is my biggest issue. Being able to attack the ball on the rise, or at the apex, will deter me getting passed on my way to the net if my attacking ball is not great or is not a winner. My usual hitting partner is very, very tall, and he has very good movement. I usually get most of my points against him when I vary a typical ball with either pace, spin or taking away time. Otherwise, he gets me.
Very good
I don't really understand what do you want to achieve, ian. Do you want to hit those high balls with flat shot, like winning shots? Or do you want to just topspin those balls, like rally shots?
Just my experience, and advice from my coach; if you want to hit those balls flat, winning shots, you have to be in attacking position inside the court. Or else, you'd get more and more errors from those 🙈😂 .... But if you just want to hit rally balls with topspin, then waist high is ok, i guess?
Haha kinda trippy seeing Ian as a righty in the match clips
great stuff. now drill it til its subconscious!
Sure, hit the ball higher but is that feasible under the pressure of speedy balls? It would mean that you would have to step in more in the court and absorb the speed of the rallies while keeping the ball into play... this is theory and let’s see how it implements concretely
Useful, must try. But I was confused , could have sworn you were a lefty, then I saw it was mirror-image -crafty!
Adam was better in all aspects of the match, including FH.
Hopefully a coach will train Ian before MEP or it will be a quick match.
Good video where's Kirby?
There's another fundamental difference I had observed between your forehand and the "proper"modern forehand. You are not uncoiling and leading the motion with the hips, dragging your raquet into the contact and adding arm motion to it. It's all arm and wrist. A symptom is the dominant shoulder being behind the non-dominant one most of the time, even in the finishing position.
Interestingly, when you aimed to hit it earlier, your body IS uncoiling and you ARE leading with the hips.
When you went back to the 2 lower balls + 1 high attack, the lower balls had again less uncoiling and hip rotation with them.
*Me at the beginning* : Wow Ian is also good at hitting right handed
*Me at **0:14* oh never mind it’s mirrored. 😅
Eating taco bell while watching this. Sansait better watch out
The video is reverse. You are now right handed. I have the same problem, hitting low and late.
What a great demonstration of the power of video! Thanks for showing us self tossing for the less privileged.
Confused by right-handed Ian. Cannot focus....
Did Ian flip the video? He is left handed
Correct, you can see on the storage containers the word "UNITS" is mirrored
@@K4R3N How? Right ear = right arm. he is facing forward and still right side! can't be! its his right arm!
@@StephanBerenschot at 14:44 the clock reads 21:5 and this isn't an actual time that can be shown, the other scenario is that it reads 5:12 and the image is mirrored
I watched this video 2 days too late. Just lost a very close match because I couldn’t hit approach and attacking shots
Thanks for this video. I've scoured the internet for years trying to find a video on how to hit high forehands. Very tough to find, most address attacking the ball on the rise or moving back to allow the ball to get back into your confort zone, but that's exactly what you are trying to avoid. I too did the same exercises as you, but find in real game situations awhen I try, I tend to hit the ball long, my racquet face ends up opening and facing up. I'll be definitely watching to see if you can get this to work on real matches. Btw I finally recently found a decent video where I could really focus on technique watching the first few balls of Schwartzman as he catches them well above his sboulders ruclips.net/video/3gh7N5bRdfc/видео.html
Your a righty now??? Wtf
I think the camera is mirrored to make it easier for righties to follow.
Bizarro Ian
@@boaconstrictor4302 Agreed!
Hes a right hander now?
Or you could just bend your knees a little. You know, like an athletic ready position.
Hitting the ball at the top of the bounce or sooner also takes away time from you opponent.
Dear Ian, why do you think that forehand should be played effortlessly?
Hold on here horsey! When did you become a right handed player?
It looks like he hasn't restrung his signature yellow racket yet
What racket is he using?
@@igormorari380 To be fair, I don't know if his red one and his yellow one are the same model, but he usually uses a Yellow one, that he broke the string against Adam. So he pulled a red one out, presumably this one, and still hasn't went back.
I don’t think u need to flip the videos we can learn fine with you being left handed.
Agreed.
Shouldn’t you go for the kill when your close to the net or short balls. Being aggressive isn’t just an ordinary shot. Maybe you have a better advice
Weird seeing u play righty Ian
wait aren’t you a lefty?
1st
Just putting some advanced technology and knowing some fancy words doesn’t indicate that you are a qualified coach or an analyser of the game. If you want to analyse ,do it for your satisfaction bit donor misguide other. You yourself do not have a stable forehand so how can you try to teach others. Thinking so much about the technique while hitting the ball means the opponent gets extra time to think to where to place the ball. I observed seen earlier too that you put these misguiding useless videos on RUclips and preach as if you have got all the secrets of the game. In reality you are showing these videos for your own purpose. If you were so qualified then the results would have been showed on the professional tour, and if your purpose is to preach the recreational players then you are wasting everyone’s time .