Since the fixing your forehand video was well received, we did one on the one-handed backhand. How to improve your one-handed backhand.

The one-handed backhand

Many club players, including myself, struggle with the one-handed backhand. It feels like a complicated stroke with many moving parts, but once you get some fundamentals down, it’s not that difficult to improve your one-handed backhand. But you need to be patient because if you’re like me and have some bad habits built in, they can take a while to fix. You just need to focus on it and not give up if it feels frustrating.

In the video below, my friend Nikki Roenn gives some tips on how he hits his backhand so cleanly and what I can to improve my one-handed backhand. Nikki and I will create more coaching content in the future, so we’re keen to know what areas you’re struggling with.

Watch the video

Many online lessons do not have a student in them, but we believe it’s useful to be able to see closely what issues a club players struggles with. I left tennis as a kid and came back in my 20s and to play once or twice a week. In the last couple of years, as my tennis interest has increased, I am playing a lot more. Playing four times a week on average have raised my game, but there are still several technical issues that I need to resolve to steadily keep improving. That’s what I’m trying to do with this content.

I’m lucky to have friends like Karl (fix your footwork, shot selection), Nikki (who runs Unstrung Customs) and a few other coaches whose content is yet to come, to help me illustrate and try to solve some of my technical flaws.

But maybe you struggle with other things than I do? Please let us know in the comments below.

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Maybe your forehand isn’t broken. Perhaps it’s already a weapon. But there can be things to improve. We call it “Fix your forehand.”

I wouldn’t be able to do this Fix your forehand video without the help of my friend and excellent tennis player, Nikki Roenn. Nikki used to be a professional tennis player and sometimes hits with a certain Novak Djokovic and other profile pro players when they’re in Marbella, Spain.

Nikki runs Unstrung Customs, where he paints, strings, and customizes racquets worldwide for pros and club players. He has also created courses for stringing and painting racquets on the pro level. He has also coached strong players locally.

Tennisnerd is not only about racquets and strings (if you need help with that you can check out countless content on the site or my YouTube channel. But I also want to highlight other topics like amazing courts and venues, experiencing tennis live and tennis training content like the recent video about footwork, shot selection and this one about the forehand.

It’s in short, about all things tennis. I’m a journalist from the beginning and I’m trying to approach my passion with a sense of wonder and discovery, while also letting different voices speak and not just mine.

Make your forehand into a weapon

The above video features three essential tips to improve your forehand power. I am the student because I have some issues with over-rotating and having too many moving parts on my stroke. It also influences my control as I tend not to be a hundred percent stable when I hit the stroke. Nikki’s advice in this video is excellent, and I could almost instantly see the increase in power and penetration through the court.

You don’t fix your forehand in one session (or any stroke for that matter), but with dedication and discipline, I’m sure you can quickly improve your stroke with these tips.

What coaching would you want us to tackle next? Let me know in the comments below.

Coach Evan is back with a drill so you can work on your tennis this summer. It’s called Solo Box Training.

There are a lot of coaches who “need” to hear their voices. Whether they are unsure of themselves or are projecting so that other people ten courts away can hear them. When you are “Solo Box Training”, it’s essential for the player to “feel” the swing. Rather than talk too much about technique, I like to have the players find the location.

Why?
By the player “finding” the location, it “molds” the swing into their mind and body.

Why is this important?
Because the more the player has to be told what to do, the more the player will have to rehearse the swing over and over (and, in the long run, will never truly find their swing). If they take a day off from tennis, it would be as if they took a week or two off. Yet, if they mold their own swing, they will not need the constant feedback…

Don’t be a robot

“Am I doing this right?” Is a constant question players who have been told what to do their whole life ask. They never have a self.

This is detrimental in the long run. Not as much on the tennis court, but in life. Whatever they do after tennis, they will not be able to think for themselves. They will be robots.

I used to think these mental blockers came from other coaches (sometimes it is the case), but most of the time, it comes from the parents.

Sometimes I wonder what “Blockers” I am giving my daughter.
Many of my “cue” words on the swing are….” Spin….Speed….Faster,” etc….I don’t want to fill their brain with jargon.

And when it comes to the technique, I’ll swing the racket in the way I want the player to finish rather than “add” to the words in their head. It’s more visual-based. But for those verbal players, I will tell them to finish more or whatever technical advice they need.

Solo Box Training

1)

You can start out going from Box 2 to Box 2. It’s a middle line. You can use your base swing and “free ball” for a few minutes to get the ball deep. After a few minutes, you can work on depth. Maybe start with 20 in the box area. If that is too easy, try hitting 5 in a row or move up to 10 in a row to that box. Five in a row can be done in blocks of 5. Ten in a row can be done once or twice or whatever you think you need to do.

You can also do opposites by hitting backhands instead of forehands. This will help your return of serve and teach you to “hold” the contact point a bit later. I’m tired of hearing coaches say, “Out in front…Out in front!” Inside-outs teach the player to hold the ball, and it helps them become more of a student of the game, which is disappearing these days.

Hitting snappers and flicks to locations. I will describe that at the end. There will be a video too. Not every shot has to be one-way and one-dimensional.

2)

Box 1 to Box 1. Rather than tell the player how to get the ball to Box 1, let them try to figure it out at first and then guide them if they are struggling. For players who have the swing down, it’s good to “rehearse” this occasionally. This box teaches the player to approach the contact point around the outside of the ball.

Again, the player needs to learn this and not be TOLD constantly. Technically, the players who need to be told always don’t want to be on the court training.

Inside out Backhand to Backhand (for righties) is good also.

Hook Finish (Nadal swing). As a player, we learned this at Van Der Meer Tennis Academy (I’m sure all the academies taught this) back in the 90s. The contact will be later than normal on these shots, and you will think you are going up on the ball, but the swing is more like a lasso…which is why they call these buggy whips.

3) Box 3 to Box 3.

This is the same as Box 2.
The only addition is for righties to “cut” across the contact point to mix in another ball flight with the traditional topspin swing. The “cut” across the contact adds a ½ topspin, half side spin shot. I call these shooters. The ball flight is like a straight line and skids off the court.

4) Box 4 to Box 4.

This is the same as Box 1.

Games

Hitting to locations is fine. Free balling (just warming up) is fine to get the feel down or if you’re looking to get back into a rhythm. Warning! Don’t be the player who is always “practicing” something. You will never get it. Generally, the players who make a game out of it will “sear” the learning into their heads).

You can play groundstroke games for depth. Don’t be so focused on winning. Winning is a by-product of getting the ball deep. Too many players lose sight of this. Winning is the priority. When that is the case, the learning stops.

Also, work on two types of ball flight—heavy and Power. Ball flight above the head and below. A third ball flight is for slice (keeping the ball below the thighs).

Mixing ball flights allows you to jump a level, especially for club players who want to move up.