We illustrated the second defensive forehand in a previous lesson. That lesson was designed to illustrate the stages of this forehand. In the Walkabout Exercise, we demonstrate an exercise using this forehand from the service line designed to help you develop a clean forehand and to gauge how cleanly you are presently hitting the ball. This lesson illustrates the execution of the second defensive forehand from the baseline in both Shockwave and QuickTime video.

In the slow-motion animation below, we illustrate what additional effort is necessary to provide all of the power to hit a ball to the baseline using the second defensive forehand.

QuickTime Version (269K bytes)

The context for this illustration is that Becky gently throws a ball onto the court from the right side of the frame. This slow-moving ball requires that the player provide almost all of the power to send the ball to the baseline. We make minimum use of the legs to demonstrate that they are unnecessary for driving the ball to the baseline.

If you perform this as an exercise, be patient: it is almost impossible to send the ball to the baseline without a good acceleration stage and a fairly straight (but not necessarily perfect) strike stage. Also, you must develop a strong shoulder component to control the arm and a firm midsection to control the upper body during the motion.

This forehand is excellent for establishing a rally from the baseline when you are nervous. A key to doing this is to always keep the elbow in the contraction position in front of the body plane.