Practice Court #2

5/4/09  Monday  11:30A.M.

Chico Racquet Club

 

On the practice court lately I have been working on my footwork. 

 

On my lesson of 24 April, Eldon and I decided that I was going to change my stance on my forehand drive from open to closed.  I think this was a very good decision. 

 

Eldon had video taped me hitting forehands with both closed and open stances and it revealed that I really wasn’t transferring my weight very well off of my right leg when I hit with an open stance. (Using the closed stance I naturally transferred my weight quite well.) I wasn’t getting my weight forward into my drive.  The video showed that sometimes this was due to the fact that my right leg often was planted too far forward and too parallel to my left foot. 

 

The fact that I wasn’t getting my weight transferred in the open stance gave me a reasonable explanation for why I ended up over hitting and getting a sore shoulder or soreness in my rib cage at times; I was trying to generate power almost exclusively with my upper body.  This lack of weight transfer also gave me  a good explanation for why I was having such difficulty in producing penetrating balls.  The open stance was clearly not working for me so a change in footwork was really logical and necessary.

 

Actually, this change hasn’t been that difficult although it certainly has meant that I have had to focus on my stance with almost every forehand I hit in practice and even in matches.  The cool thing is, though, that it is working out.  It’s starting to feel more and more natural.  With the closed stance I am naturally stepping into the ball when I’m properly set up to hit a forehand drive.  Consequently, I’m transferring my weight very nicely from my right leg to my left, not having to swing as hard and still getting good pace and penetration on many of my shots.

 

Of course on my two-handed backhand this is what I have always done very naturally:  I step into every ball, transfer my weight from my back leg to front and get a lot of good pace on my shots.

 

So what happened this past Monday was really interesting.  I was out hitting forehands focusing on my closed stance footwork on every shot when I realized that I was starting to get a feeling for the difference between a forehand drive that penetrates and a forehand drive that has more topspin.  This was such a great feeling and quite a bit of a breakthrough since I have been frustrated for weeks on end not being able to put these two strokes together in my repertoire.

 

Ever since Eldon started to encourage me to try to hit more penetrating shots with my forehand I have had difficulty in feeling the difference between these two shots.  In hitting the penetrating ball Eldon has been teaching me to take the ball out front and to extend my forearm as I make contact with the ball. This technique feels so different from my topspin shot and maybe that is where the difficulty has been coming from.  I’m not sure.  I just know that I have not been able to find a connection between these two shots and that is really essential if I want to have both in my repertoire. 

 

 But low and behold this past Monday on the practice court with the ball machine I started to feel that connection and what makes the basic difference between the penetrating drive and the topspin shot.  I began to feel and distinguish that zone I needed to hit through for a penetrating shot versus that zone or swing path that produces more topspin on the ball.  I began to alternate those two strokes, hitting some balls to penetrate and others to spin and bounce higher.  It was such a great feeling being able to reproduce those strokes at will.  I finally felt like I knew the difference and what connected those two strokes.

 

The strange thing here is, why did this happen? Why did I feel this today? Somehow I believe it had to do with my change in footwork, my switching from an open to a closed stance.  Using the closed stance and stepping into the ball affects my swing path to a certain degree and the way I see the ball coming towards me.  With this stance I feel like I can hit out though the ball more easily with an extended forearm for the flatter ball and yet at the same time I can hit out in a more low to high swing path to create more topspin if I so desire.  I can actually feel this difference now, whereas before with the open stance I had difficulty. 

 

So the move to a closed stance is starting to bear fruit.  And I think this may just be the beginning.  Now let’s see what happens in my matches.  Can I produce these two different shots there when I need them?

 

As a side note:  On my backhand drive I have always felt this difference.  When I want to hit a penetrating shot I know how to hit through the ball through a very specific zone that produces a flatter ball that can skip on the court surface when it lands.  At the same time, I feel confident that I can also hit a higher bouncing ball with more topspin by hitting through a zone that is longer and more low to high in its swing path.