Topspin Tennis Approach Shots
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The mechanics of either the forehand and the backhand approach shot are pretty much the same as either forehand or backhand ground struck.
Its how you move and close on the ball that diference.
Behind me we will start with my forehand when I begin to move to the tennis ball, I start by running just like I would on a normal forehand, but because I moving forward and closing on the ball, what I need to do is get myself sideways and still be able to move forward in to the court.
The way I do that is by taking, what is called a caraoke step, So from this position, what that is, I step across my front foot my right foot since I am a lefty with my left foot.
So my back foot, my left foot, comes in front of my right foot and that allows me to move sideways and move foreward and by staying sideways I can use the corect mechanics to hit my forehand and that whats I am doing here. Actually rewind it, play it one more time.
I can close on the ball, I can use the corect mechanics when I hit the tennis ball. So again take the caraoke step and that allows you to move and close at the same time.
The second thing you wanna try to do if you close on the ball fast enought Its catch it when the ball is above the net, because that’s gonna allows you both drive the ball and have more margin for air.
If you let the ball drive bellow the net then you will have to hit up on it and still put enought topspin to pull it back down, to get in to the court.
So what I am doing here, once I close on the ball and hit I catching in up around my shoulders,maybe a little bit bellow, that allows me to be agresive with the shot.
If we clip to the diferent diferent view, this is from across the net, because I catch the ball above the net when I make contact, I can drive the ball pretty well i can hit pretty agresive shot and then put myself in a good spot to hit a pretty easy voley on the next ball.
Acuity of approach is where you actually try to hit the ball.
Typicaly when you approach the net you wanna go down the line.
There are some situations where you may wanna go across court we are not gonna cover them in these videos because most of the time you just wanna go down the line.
Behind me here I am gonna hit the ball down the line and what I am aiming for is about maybe 5 feet inside either line between side line and the base line.
I am a little bit long on the deep, I am a little bit close to the base line.
Thats fine. If you aim for the five-by-five target you can be a little bit long, a little bit wide and still make sure that the tennis ball still goes in.
Also if we go back to my contact point, what you will see after I hit, I continue to close and then when I hit the split step, from this point I am a little bit right of the centre service line and thats where I wanna be, because I hit the ball down the line.
The backhand approach is virtually the same deal, there is one slight difference and thats the foot work as you hit.
I close on the ball just like I do on the forehand, but what hapens when I hit the ball is I take a slightly different caraoke step.
My back foot in this case my is now my right foot and instead of steping in front of my front foot, my left foot, I step behind with my right foot. So my right foot is now behind my left foot.
With the caraoke step your backfoot can step either in front or behind your front foot.
So either way it’s the karaoke step it’s just a little bit different.
If we clip to the view over the net, you can see that my placement again is the same, I hitting down the line and try to aim about 5 feet from either the side line and base line.
That’s an aggressive shot, but I still have some margin for air.
