How To Track The Ball Properly in Tennis 🎾 

Get the Eye of the Tiger - www.top-tennis-training.com/eye-of-the-tiger-access/

From a scientific point of view knowing your dominant eye is gonna help you doing all the things you said... it's not bullshit it's complementary. Thanks for the video Simon

Always love your content and guides. Great video!

Thanks, Simon. I'll have a look at this more in depth later. What I'm struggling with right now is finding the confidence to track the ball right up to contact point and leaving my head there for a brief moment before looking back towards the ball's trajectory.

Agree with you 100% Simon. This theory will mess up a lot of people's game. For example, when I watched you know who's video, he indicated that left eye dominant righties should hit the one handed backhand in an open stance. Total nonesense.

I really needed this! My in person coach has me working on keeping my head facing the opposite side of court at all times, and it’s actually giving me neck pain!

great !!!! I did the first drill for myself month ago...Even played sets against a beginner with only my weaker eye...thanks...

🙏 Thank you! 👏💯 Agree

Hi Simon, thank you for your videos which were very helpful when learning the basic strokes! My takeaway from the dominant eye theory is that my head has to be in such a position that my dominant eye can see the ball in the split second as it bounces and I swing my racquet to meet it. Since you're ambidextrous, if you wanted to disprove this theory, you just need to demonstrate that you can hit with either hand, in any stance, with both eyes open but the head turned to the same degree to track the ball.

Hi Simon, from a viewer from Vietnam. This is a pretty good video about dominant eyes, and I’m glad you brought this to explain. But I have a near-sighted left eye, and my right eye is 10/10. I don’t use glasses for a long time, and I use right eye all the time, and the strokes are still pretty good. Sometimes I struggle when I try to hit a smash. How would you comment about this situation? As always, your videos are really good to everybody wanting to fix their techniques, including me. Regards, Huy.

I'm open to the theory behind the video title but it would be nice if it was backed up with something a little more substantial/scientific. Maybe data of pro's eye dominance, preferred stances, where unforced errors occur? Something like 18% of the population has no dominant eye. But it's very hard to imagine that, just like with a dominant hand, it's a disadvantage to play to your strengths (dominance). Sure there are exceptions (Nadal switching to lefty as a kid), but if it's more efficient for a player, I don't see a fundamental problem with that.

When I was a very bad player (now I am just bad), I fell for M’s videos on the subject. And yes: if you don’t track the ball (at all) you’ll miss. But it’s kind of obvious. Imagine you really are blind in one eye. If you keep going for the ball with your eye looking in the wrong direction you’re going to miss. But still that doesn’t mean you won’t be able learn to hit in all possible stances if you learn to track adequately. I am eager to try your drills, especially the third one. And I would like to try the second one tweaking it to call out “long” or “short” because that’s where I am challenged the most: sometimes almost frontal trajectories fool me a bit, and I found myself a little frozen on the baseline when I should make a few step backwards instead. Many thanks for the vid. The conversation going on on the subject via the comments is very interesting.

Thanks Simon

Hi Simon, I'm indeed thrilled that you brought up the topic of the so-called dominant eye theory in tennis in this great VDO. The theory, as presented by the famous French coach whom you didn’t name, was fundamentally flawed right from the start, beginning with his definition of what a dominant eye entails. He mistakenly assumed that a dominant eye can simultaneously focus on near, intermediate, and distant objects. In reality, eye dominance simply refers to one eye having a slightly stronger influence on visual perception than the other. It means that when both eyes are used to observe an object, the brain tends to favor the input from the dominant eye. However, this dominance does not grant the dominant eye the ability to simultaneously focus on various distances. Instead, it primarily affects visual perception and the brain's preference for processing visual information. Your advice in this lesson, as always, was exceptional and invaluable. Hopefully, it will prevent others from being misled by coaches who, despite their expertise in tennis, hold scientifically inaccurate views on eye dominance and its impact on tennis strokes. Roy.

Hi Simon, first, thanks a lot for all the work and the videos on this channel. I am a big fan 🙂 In this video, I think that there may be a misunderstanding in the definition of the dominant eye. To me, it is not a stronger eye (and the other one being weaker as a consequence) but it determines an ocular preference, and thus some movement / positioning preferences. The dominant eye influences our vision when both eyes are working together. Thus, I don't think that you can train the "weaker one" alone to make it stronger. Maybe the underlying question here is not so much to stop teaching some stances depending on the eye dominance of students, but more to understand and to accept their preferences and singularities as well as to make them aware of their weaknesses and strengths? I am not telling that you should stop teaching all 3 stances, because the more tools a player has, the better he / she will become. But as a student, it can be very difficult to "squeeze" in a patterns sold as the "golden standard" by your trainer... I am a right handed person with a left eye dominance, and it feels much more natural and "user-friendly" to me to hit a forehand with a (semi-)open stance, while I like to hit my 2-hand backhand in a close stance. Nevertheless, I am also able to hit a forehand in close stance, although this is not my preferred option, and I will do so only in specific situations, e. g. when I have a lot of time to move towards the ball, if the ball comes quite straight at me, etc. Today, I know that my perception on the court differs a bit from right-eye dominant players, that it leads to technical preferences, and that not all tips & tricks are suitable / appropriate to me.

People look too much to the side to hit, they often seem to not take into consideration their own reaction time when deciding where they should focus to make contact. Moreover, with respect to eye dominance, I don’t believe I’ve had it adequately explained why a person cannot just turn their head a bit to bring their so called dominant eye more in line with the ball. Great video ad always Simon. 👍👍

Great video Simon. I’ve made several videos on this already. The coach in question is ruining people’s games. The amount of conversations i have with players that come to me believing issues with their game are caused by eye dominance is crazy.

Thank you, finally someone called the bs the way it is.

I think dominant eye theory is making the case for open vs closed stance more specifically when on the stretch, moving sideways to the ball. I think we can all agree that it's possible to hit a cross court or down the line forehand on the run with an open stance or a closed stance forehand. Dominant eye theory would simply dictate which stance is likely to feel more comfortable and be more effective in that specific situation. I've never really heard anybody say you shouldn't step in to a short ball or shouldn't hit open stance when backing up to a ball.

What string tension do you use

Simon, u don't have an issue as u r ambidextrous!👍 For the rest of us, we have to train our non-dominant hand or eye to play good tennis if we listened to some coach! 🤣

Roger Federer, Fernando Verdasco or Carlos Alcaraz will always do something like this because they hit with a straight hand and also try to hit as far away from each other as possible... They must look this way, because when the arm is straight, the racket covers the ball, and there is no other option than to look at the string of the racket, and precisely at the moment of contact with the ball. Simply having a straight arm with the racket and the desire to reach the ball as far away from the body as possible causes us to cover the ball (the higher the ball, the more we cover it) However, when hitting shots with a bent arm, you don't have to look at the ball as much, it's easier to access... So there is no dominant eye for looking at the back of the racket etc., a straight hand forces you to look at the ball... Look at photos of Verdasco Alcaraz or Federer, and they are all doing the same thing... This is a natural process, not the magic of looking, the player must look like this when playing with a straight hand, and with the right hand, most of the time the dominant right eye has closer to look at the ball, and left arm the same

I'm not a great tennis player so thanks for this video. Just one less thing I have to worry about..

Totally agree. Mr Hair (or was that Mr Extra Tight Shorts) is charismatic, but some of his material is just a big PR stunt!

Mouratoglou is a marabout 😅

Maybe we all should wear an eye patch over our non-dominant eye when we play a tennis match and eliminate our non-dominant eye from the equation completely!! It could also double as an intimidation tactic, since we will look like a Pirate!! ARRRGH If your opponent isn't intimidated, it could psych them out, and they might become overly confident, going for shots they normally wouldn't, thinking they will win easy against a one-eyed player!!

You need two eyes to determine depth perception. Period.

At first I though it was shadow underneath your chin but it’s actually your beard lol

A rather expensive coach said ‘Federer keeps his head down on the forehand because he’s left eye dominant’…but hang on, he also keeps his head down on the backhand🤣🤷‍♂️did he debunk his whole theory😂

I appreciate how I’m depth you try to go in this video but the length of this video and info could be cut down by half. As an experienced player viewing this I feel like if I was new to tennis trying to learning this would be difficult and too much information. I get your intention and I appreciate your work. Just a thought

But i dont think any coaches advice to change the stand to take advantage of dominant eye instead it is only advised to maintain head towards the net while playing forehand

Dominent eye theory is science,I tested it & it's true. I am RH, right eye dominant & can hit 1HBH effortlessly but struggle on forehead with semi open or closed stance. Having said this, I fully agree with you that budding players should not be constrained by this theory. I don't think any touring pro cares to follow or even know this theory.In tennis nobody can hit perfectly every single shot,it's usually one or two shots that decide the point & for which any best players do not need to hit perfectly on sweet spot. The only shot that's same,repetitive and for which knowing dominant eye and tossing accordingly does help is serve.

😮

I think stress causes one to use a dominant eye. If stress is gone, one can use both eyes to see the court in 3d, and get a better sense of the spacing of the rally.

its so funny, just focus on the ball its as simple as that if you are shanking then you are just to focused, I don't think the player base understands how much focus is required to play this sport at the high levels

You make absolutely no sense. Finding which is your dominant eye is the same as finding out your dominant leg. I am right-handed but left-footed. I have to adapt to be more efficient playing all sports. Knowing your dominant eye helps you adapt to be more efficient. By closing one eye while playing, you lose depth. We all have dominant arms, legs, and eyes. Even though we should train to improve our non dominant parts of our body, we will never be as good as our dominant parts of our body, we will alwaplay with our strengths.

I’m sorry but this makes little sense from a science perspective. You did not say why the dominant eye theory is nonsense but simply argue that your students should use all stances if applicable. Theoretically sure but life isn’t perfect! For some people, it is impossible to improve vision in the non dominant eye due to varying circumstances, etc. (I know because I’m one of those people). Also even if you use a fold to cover up your dominant eye to work on the other, you do realize that your brain will automatically reverse to the old set up where your dominant eye will still do most of the work anyway when playing. Just don’t agree with the video and if you’re going to debunk a theory, you have to provide good evidence to back it up. Love your vids just not this one.

Thanks but you talk too much. Show more than say.