In this discussion, we reinforce our lessons on the strike stage of the forehand, although it applies to every stroke. The strike stage of three professional forehands are shown below. The photos capture the configuration of the racquets after the ball has been struck. In each case, the orientation of the racquet face is nearly unchanged from the moment when the ball was struck, confirming that the racquet continued in a near straight line from shortly before the racquet struck the ball until sometime after the ball was struck.

This point is so fundamental and important that we cannot say it often enough. The three photos below are blowups of the three full-length photos above. We provide them so that you can study the configurations more carefully than is possible in full-length photos. Note the elbow positions and the tension in the shoulder. As we have said often, the shoulder is key to stability and power.