How To Hit an Open Stance Forehand

Tennis is a sport that has evolved tremendously over the past years. Players have become taller, stronger and fitter, turning a professional tennis match into a battle of powerful hitting. The now old fashion “serve and volley” game was replaced by powerful services and ground strokes exchanges. Slice shots are much less used than before and flat shots practically disappeared, giving place to modern and heavy top spins from both the forehand and backhand wings.

Perhaps the greatest symbol of modern tennis is the open stance forehand. The traditional “turn-step-hit” pattern that establishes a linear type of hitting with momentum coming from stepping into the ball, has given place to the modern “load–explode-land” pattern, which establishes an angular style of hitting. The open stance forehand helps a player generate more power and pace to the shot, in addition to facilitating recovery and direction changing after the shot is executed. Below are basic guidelines to hitting an open stance forehand:

Early preparation: start early by turning hip and shoulders as soon as the ball leaves your opponent’s racket and you are able to identify that it is coming to your forehand. Make sure your nondominant hand (that is your left hand if you are right handed, or your right hand if you are left handed) either holds the racket or stays close to it as you start rotating your body.  This is very important to helping with the rotation and for balance purposes as well.

Backswing: take your racket back with its head high, above your wrist.

Loading: as you take the racket back and finish rotating your hip and upper body, load all the energy into the outside leg (that is your right leg if you are right handed or your left leg if you are left handed) transferring your body weight to it. Make sure your nondominat hand is across your chest at this point, helping you to turn your body and keeping your balance.

Exploding: now drop your racket head below the flight level of the oncoming ball, as you want the racket to have an upward trajectory towards the point of contact. As you start the forward swing, the outside leg starts to explode into the shot, and hips and shoulders start to open up. At the moment of contact, you should be facing the net, as the weight continues to transfer to the front leg.

Follow Through: at this point you will have created an angular momentum, your body weight will not come straight forward in the direction of the shot, and your racket arm will produce a follow through traveling across your body.

Landing: Due to the angular momentum, your front leg will land to the side of your body, rather than in front of it.

The open stance forehand is a shot that emerged due to the necessity of players to adapt to the faster and more powerful playing conditions. It is widely used by professional and competitive junior players around the world, but it is by no means to be executed solely by advanced or high performance players. This is something you can definitely try at home!

Source: USPTA Certification Review Course