Check our these great tips I found to improving your backhand. Taken from www.tennismindgame.com.
An effective and smart tennis backhand tip can make a big difference to your backhand shot. Backhand shot is very commonly regarded as a more difficult shot than forehand and many people have a lot of trouble with it.
There are a couple of main reasons for that. We will talk about right-handers but the same point stands for left-handers too. When a right-hander does something like pick up keys, open the door, clean up the table with a cloth or something like that, he usually does that on his right side of the body.
We unconsciously move our body in such a position that it’s comfortable for our right hand. And that is usually slightly on the right side. And since we have been doing that for years we develop very good eye-hand coordination on the right side. We can judge distances much better slightly on the right side than on the left where we rarely do any actions with our right arm.
Backhand shot is on the left side and we don’t have such a good feeling for that side. Not only with our arm and hand but also judging distances and coordinating our arm. That’s why we need to take some time and get used to doing things on our left side with the right arm.
Tennis backhand tip 1
Understanding this principle will hopefully take some pressure of your poor backhand shot that you have been putting down. Here’s what you can do:
Take time on the short court with 5 minutes of mini tennis every time you play. Play many backhands and be aware whether you hit the ball in the middle of the racquet or not. Be aware whether you set your self up for the shot in the correct distance from the ball or not. Just awareness of that will improve your judgment and coordination on your left side of the body.
Another common issue regardless whether one-handed or two-handed tennis backhand shot is that the body turn that we make before the shot turns our head too. And we often end up watching the ball with mostly one eye. And as you probably know we need to see with both eyes to correctly determine speed and distance (3D vision) of and objects.
The head and eyes need to be pointed straight to the incoming ball. As soon as we look at the ball a little sideways we cannot judge the speed and flight path of the ball. That quickly results in errors in a sport like tennis. And we usually think that something is wrong with our backhand shot.
Tennis Backhand tip 2
Become aware of your head position and how your eyes are aligned to the ball. If you tilt your head or watch the ball with one eye more than the other it’s very likely that you’ll mishit that backhand shot.
Observe the pro’s how they look at the ball, how their head is level and pointed straight at the ball. Even though they make extreme body turns in preparation for the hit they still manage to keep their head pointed straight to the ball. It takes great flexibility to do that.
Ask yourself before the hit – am I seeing the ball as clearly as I am on the forehand side? In my experience when I ask players that have some difficulty with one-handed backhands, about 80% say that they don’t see the ball as clearly as on the forehand side.
When you become aware that you don’t see the ball well you’ll soon find a way of keeping your head and eyes where you can do that very well.
Nr.1 reason why tennis backhand shot is usually weaker than the forehand – we hit it less times! As soon as you started to play tennis you might have felt that your backhand shot is a little weaker than your forehand and you tried to play as many shot as possible with your forehand. You might have hit 3 times more forehands in your tennis career than backhand shots.
Repetition is the mother of skill. It’s not the backhand shot that is weak, it just hasn’t received the same amount of training as the forehand shot.
I remember watching a father playing with his 8 year old son and the boy hit maybe 15 forehands and one backhand. The father of course didn’t want to see his son feel uncomfortable playing that weaker backhand so he played 15:1 shots to his forehand.
Good intentions for a short term good feelings, but unfortunately not the correct approach for a long term satisfaction.
Tennis backhand tip 3
Play backhands! This was simple. Do not avoid your backhand because it’s weaker at the moment. Start with mini tennis and keep hitting backhands. Just give your backhand enough repetitions and wait until it improves.
Do not run around your backhand. Keep playing it and don’t look for too much in the beginning. Just keep developing feel for the shot and wait for improvement. It will come.
Welcome those opportunities with players who keep playing to your backhand shot because it’s weaker. They are providing you with excellent opportunity to practic
e in real situation. Keep hitting your backhands and imagine what your tennis backhand technique will look like in 6 months!
Another reason why your backhand shot isn’t working is because you have developed a certain attitude towards it. May we say that it is negative? Yes, I think you’ll agree. This will probably happen with the boy in the upper example.
When you play that fewer backhand shots you quickly fall behind your forehand feel and control. You start losing trust in your backhand and eventually you treat it like some bad part of your tennis game.
This affects your backhand shot even before you hit the ball. Even when the ball is approaching you already feel uncomfortable and think that you’ll probably miss or hit a poor shot. And how does that affect your backhand shot when you actually hit the ball? Very negatively.
Tennis backhand tip 4
You need to start becoming a good friend with your backhand and be supportive with it. Talk to it like a good coach would to a young player who hasn’t mastered a certain stroke.
Your backhand is not bad it just hasn’t developed yet. Are babies bad walkers? No, they just need to practice. Adopt this attitude towards your backhands and treat it like some part of you that hasn’t developed yet.
Start seeing the good shots of your backhand too. We become so negative of our shots and abilities that even we hit good ones we tend to dismiss them as lucky.
Well that’s how we always start in something new. At first we don’t get it, then we get lucky a couple of times and later these lucky shots become so common that we change our perspective and decide that now we know this stuff.
The same will happen with your backhand shot too. Take a minute after each practice or match and remember and visualize your good backhand shots. Forget the misses, you don’t need them.
Fill your head with solid consistent backhands and you’ll be amazed how quickly your backhand will become your best friend!
If you are looking to improvement your backhand, speak to the coaches from Everton Tennis & Gear and also Shaw Park Tennis & Gear.
