TENNIS BACKHAND TIP - Simple Tip That Will Immediately Improve Your Tennis Backhand

For everyone out there who are waiting for great tennis tip that’s going to help you with your backhand, especially if you have a two-handed backhand, then you don’t have to wait no more. 

If you have a one-hander, you are going to have to wait for another video for me to help you with your one-handed backhand. But go ahead and watch the video anyway because this tip is one of my top tips. It really jives with the tennis system that I’ve developed which is based a lot on relaxation.

The best athletes in the world know how to go from tension to relaxation. Just watch Roger Federer; he is a master at being graceful and relaxed on the tennis court.

Now, if you looked at last month’s Tennis magazine with Caroline Wozniacky on the cover, you might have noticed her fancy, you might have noticed the pose, maybe the footwork, or maybe the swing. But did you notice what her bottom hand was doing on the racquet at the end of the swing? Go ahead and take a look at that magazine and see if you can pick that up.

The key to what she’s doing with her bottom hand or her offhand on the racquet when she’s swinging is her fingers are opening up a bit. And that is showing me that she knows how to relax on her backhand and she’s using her non-dominant hand. In my case as a lefty I’m using my right hand to hit an amazing backhand with a relaxed bottom hand at the end.

I could have used this tip during my junior career. I had some great coaches that were having me hit righthanded forehands but I never really got the feel on my backhand of what I needed to do by using that drill.

The drill that made all the difference for me was actually swinging with two hands and then relaxing the fingers at the end of the swing so I still have the stability of both hands on the racquet with that relaxation component at the end.

I want you to go ahead and try that. Leave a comment if you like this video and you feel like this is going to help your game.

Then I want you to go out and try it and then come back and leave me a comment to see if it works because I want to learn with you; I want to help you get better at tennis and I’m pretty confident based on the results I’m getting with my own backhand and with the lessons that I give that if you relax your bottom hand at the end of the swing like Caroline Wozniacky, Andy Murray does it, David Nalbandian, and several other two-handers on the Tour.

If you do that, you’re going to have amazing results.

I look forward to seeing you at the next video and I really want you to go out there, improve your backhand, relax that bottom hand at the end of the swing and let me know how it goes. Leave me that comment because I really want to help you, I want to learn with you and find out what works best for your game.

We’ll talk soon and thanks again.

Roger Federer - Why I was DEAD WRONG About Roger Federer

 

Back in April of 2011 I predicted that Roger Federer would never be #1 in the world again. Let me tell you, I’ve taken a lot of heat since he became #1 after winning Wimbledon this year in 2012.

I gave my 5 reasons for why Roger Federer would never be #1. And of course when he did become #1 everybody jumped on YouTube, I should say a lot of people jumped on YouTube to tell me how wrong I was.

And in this case, I want to go through the reasons why I was wrong.

First of all, I said that he was older and that is a common theme in today’s game. As you get older, usually you decline. Just look at a guy like Andy Roddick, he’s getting older and he’s not playing as well.

But, really, what it comes down to, it’s not really age. Oftentimes it’s that commitment level and it’s that focus on training and getting the right people around you. And I think that’s what Roger has the past year and a half.

At the time that I said that he would never be #1 again, he had hired Paul Annacone about four to six months prior, actually back in August of 2010. They had been together for about six months.

And, really, it took him about a year and a half to two years to get Paul Annacone’s voice inside of his head to do more things – the chip and charge that he used at Wimbledon, moving forward more. That took some time to implement because for the two years prior, he was without a coach and that’s what I was noticing back in 2011. He didn’t quite have the direction that he needed.

So, that was one big shift that he made. He got great coaching and he obviously was a hardworker before. But I have a feeling that Roger Federer got in better shape than he was at the time that I made that prediction.

The other reason that I pointed out was that his family might, I wouldn’t say distract him, but his priorities would shift now that he had two children. The opposite has happened.

Many times, players have a family, a wife, a girlfriend, kids, and then they start to think about what’s life like after tennis. And the ranking drops and they end up moving on to other things in their life.

But Roger did the opposite. He actually surrounded himself with a great team. His wife is very supportive and his kids are in the mix. They’ve created a situation where they are actually together on this rather than him feeling like he’s on the road playing tournaments when he’d rather be at home. They’ve done a wonderful job as a family in making that happen.

I didn’t predict that. I thought that Roger had achieved everything he needed to achieve and that he would start to focus more on maybe being at home more, and that’s just not the case. I was completely wrong about that.

In short, Roger Federer, I was wrong about you. I really appreciate your work ethic, your commitment to the game, you being able to do it with your family, you wanting to get better at a later stage in your career, and getting a coach – that’s the big thing. He got Paul Annacone and I think that was the magic bullet. That and his fitness level, those were the things that helped him get back to #1 in the world and develop that consistency that he had several years ago.

Check out what I have to say about Roger in this video about why I was VERY wrong about him.

 

 

Tennis Kick Serve Drill: The Story Behind the “Dirty Diaper”

Ever wondered why this tennis serve is called Dirty Diaper? The reason why it’s called the Dirty Diaper is that one day I was going over this concept with a young boy and he said that the ending of it felt like he was holding his brother’s dirty diaper so we coined the name Dirty Diaper.

Basically, for people that want to learn how to hit topspin serves, we feel that this is a great drill to use.

Let me point out first of all by saying that if you’re a young boy under the age of 12 or 13 and you experience any type of pain in your shoulder or it doesn’t feel right, immediately stop and stick with more of the flat or the slice serve.

But I feel like if you do the right mechanics, if your body is relaxed and you do it at a slow pace, you should be okay. But just keep that in mind ahead of time.

The other thing that I want to point out is that you’re going to be finishing on the same side of your body when you’re done and there’s a tendency for people to be too straight with their arm and that could cause some stress as well. So it’s very important at the very end to feel relaxed like this.

This, again, is one of the go-to drills, whether you’re standing or whether you’re on the ground. The reason we’re going to put you on the ground is it’s going to teach you how to use your body correctly because too many servers are going to be facing the net when they hit the ball and they just come around and hit a slice.

But if you learn to stay more sideways on the serve and keep your shoulders tilted in this manner instead of facing like this, you’re going to keep it tilted in this manner, then you can learn the correct way to the path of the racquet moves.

This is different for a topspin serve. This is different than the flat serve where you pronate out like this. You’ll notice how the racquet strings are facing this direction.

When you swing and you’re done, you actually would want the strings to face towards you. This is how you can come up and over the ball like this. It’s almost like I’m swinging coming up and over like this.

I’m going to get down on my knees and I’m going to do the Dirty Diaper and go through this right now.

You can get down on both knees like this or you can find this position here with the back knee or back leg in this position; the back foot is on the ground. But I’m going to do this with both knees on the ground.

What you’re going to learn when you do this is that your toss might be too far out this way where you have to reach and kind of slice the ball. You’re going to be out like this.

But if you learn to toss it over your head, then you can get that Dirty Diaper feel. You can toss it over your head like that.

You’re going to notice that when you’re on your knees, your toss is going to be the biggest thing you’re going to learn about. You’re going to find that maybe your toss is out here and you have to reach and the racquet hits the ground.

You’re also going to find that it’s going to be hard for you just to relax and bend your arm like this.

Notice that most people are going to swing and their hand is going to be straight and it’s going to go down like this.

That’s a big change to make but that’s why we put you on the ground so you can learn that.

And really, it’s very simple. Once you get the mechanics down, the muscle memory, I know that’s a big disclaimer there, but once you get it down, it feels really nice because basically you’re just popping the ball up in the air like this.

Again, the reference points are: I’m going to start with my racquet here, strings are facing towards where you are going to hit the ball, I’m not in this position, I’m not scratching my back like this, I’m just relaxed right here, I toss it, and then I finish right here. If I tilt my shoulders a little more, then I can actually lift my elbow like that.

Start here, over my head, tilt my shoulders, notice the strings are facing like this, that’s it.

If I hold that too long, I will feel some tension on my shoulder because I’m holding it up. But, again, this is not something where you are swinging 100 miles an hour. It should feel pretty good if you get this right.

This is how you can start to develop that topspin serve.

Then you can stand up and do the exact same thing when you get the feel.

The big point that I wanted to drive home today is that I think you can learn the topspin serve, I know it, if you are willing to take the time. You can start on your knees and the key bullet points are again, how to start, obviously you have to have the right grip which is more of a continental grip but starting to move towards the backhand, and then you get the racquet start in the right place, you get your toss arcing over your head, and you find that spot right here.

Another good coach that I worked with talked about almost brushing, combing the back of your hair with the swing like that.

Now, you don’t want your hand too close to your head; you want it back here. But if you can brush like that off the back of your head, that’s a nice analogy as well.

And then you simply just finish on the same side of your body with the strings facing you.

Hopefully you enjoyed this Dirty Diaper drill and go out and try it.

For greater serve lessons, I want you to go ahead and click the link below and I’m going to help you absolutely transform your serve.

If you want to know more about this controversial tennis serve, read this post on the JST blog.