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The Forehand : “Open or Closed Stance” ?
The evolution of the forehand over the years has led to what is now called from some experts “the modern forehand”. The fact is that this has been in existence for a long time. The open-stance has always been used on clay especially, as this is the way to defend when pulled wide on the forehand side. However, the open or semi-open stance is not always the way to move for “all” your forehands. There are a few shots that are best hit with the “old” step-in stance. Let’s take a look at the different forehands depending on the situation around the court.
- From the center running to your right (if you’re righty) most of your stances will be best hit with a semi-open stance whether you need to take 1, 2 or 3 steps as long as you are moving wide. Here the important thing to remember is to transfer your weight forward on your last step. This is the key to having a great open-stance forehand, but not an easy one to do regularly unless you are in great shape. Unless you do this, you end up opening up your left arm-shoulder and body hitting without any power or direction.
- From the center running around your backhand to your left you will again be better off using a semi-open stance and then transfering your weight to your target, inside out or down the line. Again this depends on your how fast you can do this. You may even step in if you move around fast enough.
- From the center when the ball is short and bit slow in front of you, you are better off stepping in with your left foot and either staying on the ground or do the “hop-hop” and approach. But the most popular shot here is to hit “the big one”. Move close to it, “download” on the right leg while turning your upper body and explode up and forward to hit with all your power. Now, depending on your position on the court and how good a shot you just hit, you can either come in behind your shot or stay back.
- On returns the choice is almost always open, even on backhands. Because of the speed of most serves you will only be allow to take a big step out with your right foot (if you‘re righty), with a straight and compact backswing as you turn your upper body jump into the ball. This is what I call the “1/2/3” : one step forward, split, turn and hit.
To conclude as you can see, 80% of your shots will need to be open or semi-open stance which makes it easy but at the same time forces you to become sharp moving around with the small steps not to fall into the “too open category”, where players don’t compensate for being open with the necessary upper body rotation. |
