Open Stance Footwork Variation
Titulek 1 In this video we're gonna look at some footwork that will allow you to hit an open stance forehand when you're pulled wide.
It serves as an alternative for the running forehand when sometimes your upper body rotation is limited and that is gonna prevent you from rotating your upper body all the way around when you hit.
What's gonna happen behind me I'm gonna move out to wide forehand and you can see my momentum is gonna keep my body moving to my left so what I do I hit that open stance forehand and then I push off my left foot, my outside foot and then land on it. So it's kind of a little hop I take then I push off my left foot, I can cross step and recover back to the middle of the court.
Again, because I'm hitting an open stance in this shot if we rewind it and play it again I take that little hop as I hit an open stance forehand my upper body can continue to rotate so I get more rotation than I otherwise would on a running forehand again, where my footwork prevents me from rotating all the way around like I would on a normal ground stroke. Let's look at an actual hitting clip and see how my footwork allows me to hit a normal ground stroke as oppose to a running forehand where my technique is little bit more constricted.
Behind me as I move out to hit a wide forehand when I get close to the tennis ball I load up on my outside foot my left foot like I normally would and then as I push off to hit, I'm actually now in the air and I'm able to keep rotating because I'm hitting with the open stance.
What happens when I start to recover as I land on my outside foot, again my left foot I can push off, take the cross step and then recover back to the middle.
Now, for comparision sake let's clip over to my running forehand and see how my footwork constricts my upper body rotation.
I had said as I move out because I'm runnig through this ball and in this case this is a close stance forehand my footwork is not gonna allow my upper body to rotate any further than about right here where I'm facing the net so I have to follow through a little bit differently follow through up high, and in this case over my head reverse forehand like Nadal and unfortunately I'm not as strong as Nadal so I can't hit an amazing forehand using this technique.
So, if at all possible, it's not always possible but if possible you that open stance footwork that modified footwork so that you can push off and then still recover quickly.