Closed Or Open Racket Face In The Forehand? Two Tennis Forehands Compared  

So how come djokovic nadal Federer all use the left one?

@@Andrew-X Because they are good enough to pull it off? Many hobby players are too, myself included, it's not that difficult of a technique. But it's not the first thing you'd teach beginners.

@SomeoneYouKnow2671 Tsitsipas has quantitatively one of the highest average spin rates on his forehand on ATP, and he does not "pat the dog". I personally think whether one pats the dog or drops the racquet head on edge does not necessarily affect power or spin rates.

@@themrstroke Not necessarily, yes, but in my personal experience it helps a bit. Even if Tsitsipas gets his spin another way, that doesn't mean the technique is useless.

@SomeoneYouKnow2671 no it is certainly not useless, all I was saying it seems to me to be more complicated technique without maybe any inherent advantage

Everyone seems to be in love with the closed racket face since... Borg!. I remember an instructional video by Vic Braden from 1980 where he addressed this exact issue. He said Borg looked menacing at the beginning of the swing with his strings facing the ground, but looked marvelous when hitting the ball with the racket face perfectly perpendicular to the ground.

If course it does, bent arm technique allows better adjustments whereas straight arm does not. At recreational level expect at least 50% of the balls to be hit too far or too close too the body, people still need to deal with that. It cannot be avoided. Only 5.0+ players are consistently hitting most of the shots at the right distance, and that's maybe 20% of all players. We need realistic advice for the other 80% of people...

@@feeltennisgood explanation

Definitely not if you force it down because you are instructed to do so by a RU-vid coach who is trying to WOW you with super clever tips. ;) When you consciously "do it", you tighten the wrist muscles therefore they can't lag and accelerate. But if you "don't do it", and rather focus on hip and body rotation towards the ball while you relax your wrist, then it may lag naturally, it may happen to point the racket face down, and in that case you will get better acceleration of the wrist.

Thanks a lot coach! Today I have a friendly game against someone that will be my rival this weekend. I'll try to focus on hips and weight transfer, I'll go back here and share how it went 😢

@mas5589 Best to not think about technique during matches, it will distract you. Technique needs to be worked on in practice. In matches focus only on tactics, where and how to play the ball.

Hi there! I should have read your comment before the game 😂. Anyways, today during my training session, I asked my trainer to work on the forehand technique...he said exactly that...while playing try to avoid thinking of how to hit the ball just eyes on the ball and pray...​@feeltennis

It's how the wrist and racket face are positioned. If the racket face is closed, it's not aligned correctly to hit the ball over the net. It needs to align by the time of the contact - and that time is around 0.05 seconds. My point is that normal people with no advanced ball judgement, hand-eye coordination and timing training will not manage to consistently angle the racket right in 0.05 seconds. There are tons of RU-vid videos with coaches teaching normal regular folks to close the racket face because that's what the pros do. I am just pointing out the reality and how harmful that advice is to recreational tennis players.

​@@feeltennis Ah now I understand the intent of the shorts, thanks for explaining it Thomas! Yes indeed, I too saw YT videos and tried the closed racket face without much success. It is another story that I struggle with consistent shot making even with an open face, but that's more of an indicator of my current level. Great insight again

That's just a coincidence in this particular shot. I can spin the ball heavy, no problem: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-kBDKMAHrzNo.html

The actual angle of the racket face mostly depends on your grip and how relaxed you are (skill level) and what kind of ball you are hitting. Meaning there is no perfect racket angle that you should focus on. Focus on a clear intention of what you want to do with the ball (aiming, trajectory, target area, amount of spin, etc.) and let your hand figure out the angle subconsciously. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sJTkThAKMMQ.html

@@feeltennis Thx a lot for responding. Instead of meaning how open/closed the racket face is at the slot position, I am having the problem of the racket handle being much higher on the y-axis than the tip of the racket head. Is it really important to keep the handle and the tip of the racket on the same vertical level at the slot position? Thanks a lot 🙏🏻

I always find that my racket head is quite close to the ground while the handle is quite a bit higher. Is it because my racket is head-heavy?😂 I have tried consciously to avoid this, but still can’t. Is there any way for me to work on this?

Yes, it matters because the racket has to very quickly align correctly to hit the ball in a matter of a few hundreths of a second whereas with a more vertical or less closed racket face that timing is much easier. Now think if a regular 3.5 NTRP player and consider if their eyes and brain are good enough to master such accurate timing... Here's more on that: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vfsS9JAAdMc.html

@@feeltennis can we produce spin and power without closed racquet face

@@narsimha1089 Yes, of course, I can even spin with an open racket face. Check out some clips in super slow motion, for example here at Hi-Tech tennis this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9sbe1XKgrME.html - and you'll see the the racket is often perpendicular at contact. Spin happens because the racket is moving upwards on the ball and not because it's closed. You need a closed racket face in table tennis because there is so much grip / friction between the rubber and the ball. There is WAY LESS friction between tennis strings and the ball...

Thank you