Troubleshooting Your Stroke

The most fundamental problem with a tennis stroke is not hitting a clean ball. This is a metaphor for not achieving an optimal kinetic exchange between the racquet and ball. In other words, there were unintended energy losses between the racquet and ball.

If you get consistent clean contact with the ball, the second most common problem is not obtaining high ball velocity.

In this lesson, we discuss how to troubleshoot these two problems.

A discussion of clean contact is found on the Strike page. There are two major reasons that you might not be achieving clean contact. The most common is not having a good linear interval established just before contact time. The second is related to vision. The two types of vision that we use are discussed in Watch the Ball.

Troubleshooting these two problem areas is discussed below.

Checking Out Your Linear Interval

The basic method of checking out the quality of any stage of your stroke is the same: modify all other parts of the stroke except the one of interest. For example, you might be able to suppress some of the other components such as the takeback and contraction stages if you are just focusing on the rotation stage. You can explore these possibilities.

When checking out the linear interval, it is possible to nearly suppress everything but the strike. Once you have done this, you can explore your level of skill at executing a linear interval.

Note: you might have heard that practicing a restricted stroke is "bad." Of course, this is just talk. When you practice with purpose, it is never bad, and you will not develop any habits that you do not want to develop.

Because of how our brains work, it might be harder than you anticipate to make the racquet move in a straight line. You might need a friend to assist you in doing this. One method of getting a sense of how it feels for the racquet to move in a straight line is to have a friend hold the racquet by the butt and the head and pull it straight forwardwhile you hold it with your usual grip, being careful not to let it rotate. Another method is to stand beside a wall or the net, put the tip of the head on the wall or net, and then move it forward while being careful not to let it rotate.

Suppose this does not go well. Then you still do not have a good straight-line interval. Another possibility is that the exercise goes well, but a short-court rally using the modified straight-line dominant stroke does not. You will know if it goes well by how easily the ball bounces off the racquet. If you are not getting a good clean bounce, this component needs more development.

Developing Your Linear Interval

There are several methods of moving the racquet forward. The easiest (least energy) is to extend the arm at the elbow joint. The next is to lean forward while keeping the arm fixed relative to the body. This requires more energy because you are using larger muscles. The third is to extend the arm forward from the shoulder. This is very subtle and cannot move the racquet very far.

The first objective is to get a clear physical feeling for a straight-line movement so that, in conjunction with your verbal knowledge, you can begin to execute it while hitting a ball. The exercises for this are the same as those used to test your straight-line motion, explained above.

Improving any part of your stroke is an iterative process because you develop a skill in stages. The process will likely be as follows: after a few minutes you get the idea and are able to hit a clean ball as a result; however, the next day or a couple of days later, the feeling of executing a straight-line interval seems to have been lost, and you have to carry out the exercise again. Don't let this phenomenon bother you. Your brain is busy at work putting a stable layer in place that will elevate you to a higher skill level. After a few ups and downs, this first layer will clear up, and you will then be able to improve on it. The process will continue until you have the ability to execute a good straight-line action at the point of contact.

Checking Your Visual Development

Here are five checkpoint questions:

  1. When your partner hits the ball, are you able to roughly estimate whether you should begin adjusting forward, to the left, to the right, or back before the ball crosses the net?
  2. After the ball crosses the net, are you able to estimate where the ball will hit the court to within 10 feet?
  3. After the ball bounces, can you estimate the maximum height it will reach to within 2 feet?
  4. After the ball bounces, do you see the direction the ball is spinning and if this spin is fast or slow?
  5. Do you clearly see when the ball reaches its maximum height after the bounce?

If you do not say yes to all of these questions, you are not collecting good information on the movement of the ball, and hence you cannot provide this information to your brain for it to make the best decisions about the adjustments needed to hit the ball when it is time to do so.

Developing Your Vision

If you are having trouble making clean contact, it might be due to underdeveloped visual processing. Although it is preferable to use focal vision for hitting the ball, which Jelena Dokic does better than almost anyone else, it is not absolutely necessary, or possible, to hit every ball with focal vision. Some peripheral vision is useful. To use peripheral vision, you must develop an ability to accurately estimate the ball's path after the bounce (for ground strokes). This ability is not innate, so you must do exercises to collect data about the dynamics of the ball. This can be done fairly quickly using focal vision, but it can take years if you choose to use peripheral vision.

The exercise is straightforward: your best bet is to use focal vision to study the movement of the ball. As a minimum, you should have a friend feed you balls, or use the backboard, and study (1) the bounce, (2) the spin of the ball after the bounce, and (3) the maximum height the ball reaches after the bounce. In short, study the bounce, the spin, and the max. You must see all three clearly, or you are not collecting information using focal vision.

When you do this exercise, your brain collects data that it will use to begin extrapolating these dynamics using peripheral vision. The usual learning progression that you experience is an immediate improvement in ball contact due to the engagement of focal vision. This is the best way to play. After a few days of this, or sometimes only one day, your brain will try to revert back to using peripheral vision because it is low-energy. You will still have an improved ability to hit a clean ball because your extrapolation skills will have improved from the exercise. However, your standards might go up, and you might begin to expect further improvements. At this point, it might be good to go back and do some more focal vision exercises to develop even greater extrapolation skills.