Building An Unbreakable One-Handed Backhand

How to practice the fundamentals for all stances of all strokes: Mastering The Stances


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7 Comments

  • Gordon Miller

    Reply Reply September 1, 2020

    Tomaz,
    What about balls hit right at you? What kind of footwork is most efficient? I know you have a great video on using fewer steps, but I cannot find it.
    Regards
    Gordon

  • Gordon Miller

    Reply Reply September 2, 2020

    Hi Tomaz, Please disregard my question. I discovered the answer – take one step back and to the side then swing away.

  • Arthur DavidsonJr.MD

    Reply Reply January 18, 2021

    Hi Tomaz,

    I would like to purchase a tennis racquet. I live in New York City and play five days a week in the summer and three outside in the winter. I played a lot of tennis when I was younger, and used a Jack Kramer wooden racket with gut strings. I started playing again last year. I am over seventy and in good shape. Could you please suggest a racket, strings, and tension?

    Thank you for your time and suggestion.

    Best regards,

    Arthur Davidson

    • Tomaz

      Reply Reply January 19, 2021

      Hi Arthur,

      This is one advice I cannot give because it all depends on the feel of the player and their playing style.

      There are NO bad rackets out there on the market, the competition of tennis brands is too great.

      Head, Wilson and maybe Dunlop have lots of rackets that are easy to play with, whereas Babolat, Yonex and other brands are a bit different, you need to get used to their rackets.

      You can aim for a racket weight of around 300 grams (10.5 ounces) that feels nice in your hand to swing.

      What strings and what tension – ask in a tennis store for advice. After that play and experiment with different tensions and strings every time you restring the racket to see / feel what’s the difference.

      Buying a racket is like buy a car. I can’t tell you which car is best for you.

      Strings are like tires on car. If you don’t do rally driving you really don’t need the best tires possible.

      If you don’t play ATP tennis high level expensive strings won’t make any difference to you.

      I play with Volkl rackets as they are very comfortable. I have no idea with what brand of strings I play, I leave that to my stringer.

      You can look to avoid polyester strings because they are tough on the arm after a while.

      Look for synthetic gut or multifilament strings. You can combine them with polyester.

      Again, all up to you and your feel…

  • Jai Prasad

    Reply Reply August 23, 2021

    Tomaz,
    I am new to tennis and have made great strides with your course especially with movement and footwork. I still routinely find myself late of the one handed backhand which I feel is the primary reason for the shot not working well. When I’m early in the stroke the execution is excellent, but often I find myself either late or too close to the ball. Could you suggest strategies that I can call upon to help improve upon that? Thanks
    JP

    • Tomaz

      Reply Reply August 31, 2021

      Hi Jai,

      Tennis is the most difficult sport in the world and if you didn’t train tennis from childhood you will be late in moving to the ball, reading the ball, anticipating the ball and timing the ball.

      The rate is improvement in adult stage in these skills is very slow.

      If you already know you are too close then I can’t say anything else than what is already obvious to you – don’t get that close.

      Learn through trial and error – and it takes long time…

      I will share more ideas in the future about timing but in the mean time check this video that talks about intercepting the ball, this applies to all groundstrokes:

      https://vimeo.com/384209186

  • Jai Prasad

    Reply Reply September 15, 2021

    Thank you. Your point about the aim for the contact zone is critical with the brain adjusting your stroke to the contact zone. It’s a learning process and the curve for now is steep (meaning that gains have been fast and rapid). At some point I will start plateauing. I played table tennis a lot as well as cricket, so I get the idea of timing!

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