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Take the Congruent Tennis challenge....

See if you can stump the system by posing a question you don't think can be addressed by any type tennis instruction or specifically CTM. Conflicting advise like if you should lift up and stay down on groundstrokes or any other conflicting tennis information you have noticed over the years.

9 comments

9 Comments

Devin Knox

Dec 06, 2020

1.) Short ball to a forehand: when to go inverse, when to go closed? 2.) Wide ball to one handed backhand: when to go open, when to go closed? What are the cues or heuristics I can follow to make this decision easy and automatic?

Chuck Tomlin

Dec 06, 2020

Replying to

So for #1. on the forehand mid-court attack we would normally prefer to be inverse or hyper open as I call it. This gives you excellent orientation to the contact and the court should you decide to continue, while also limiting the shoulder turn to avoid over-hitting as you move aggressively forward. If as you charge in to create the intended contact point defined by height, distance to net and "dropping or falling".....during this effort to achieve this contact point you end up in a closed stance, then use the closed stance or the "lift and land" technique.

Chuck Tomlin

Dec 06, 2020

Replying to

For #2 I'd expect for most wide balls you would have more reach and ability to cover in the closed stance for the 1 hander with a "step down, come around" and would likely only go to open stance if you got there quite early on a deeper ball in the Rally zone. In the end, I believe it is more about personal preference as to how to end up at contact based on your confidence in your ability to execute the shot you intend to make. You should know what stance you prefer at that moment, but also get some practice in the backup stance. Players are amazing in how they can often get to the preferred stance even when time is tight if they are clear in their intent.

Devin Knox

Oct 17, 2020

Mid-point, how do I decide between closed stance and inverse stance on short forehands requiring me to move forward? And how do I decide between open stance and closed stance on my on-the-run topspin one handed backhand? Do we have heuristics for these, is it a matter of always favoring one over the other, or is it a scenario where you let where you're at in your stride decide for you? I realized recently that I don't have any cognitive awareness on this matter and I'd like to shore that up.

Chuck Tomlin

Dec 06, 2020

Replying to

Can you break this into several separate questions?

Pete A

Oct 15, 2020

On a single handed backhand there are like two different instructions, styles to hit a top spin shot.

To me the old is spreading both arms after prepping and follow thru not to turn over. This style is by default producing slower ball and significantly less spin. And it is straining the playing arm a lot more, cause impact seems to stay more at the body line rather than way forward your stance. Also the slower racket head speed means the ball has bigger effect on the racket, cause the kinetic energy (mv2) is so largely dependent on the velocity.

My, golf and ice hockey background derived take and the hardest modern backhands on tour looks to rely on lifting and rotating really hard throwing the racket head over (Thiem, Wawrinka and latest Federer a touch more modest).

However both ways have their benefits, but mixing up will result a mess. As an example, if in hurry or just countering a return of 1st serve you just need a little upward motion and ever so slightly closed or neutral stringbed for put topspin to pull the ball back onto the baseline, best option could easily be; prep, spred arms and push up. For attacking 2nd serve however I’d prefer strong rotating and throwing the racket at the ball for higher rpm and ball speed.

Chuck Tomlin

Oct 15, 2020

Replying to

So are you addressing the differences between the classic/traditional style vs a "modern instruction" type Backhand?

Pete A

Oct 15, 2020

Replying to

@chucktomlin Yes, I got carried away wording the lot.

Anyway, I think, club professionals have hard time understanding the more shoulder driven backhand and give addvice according to what they know about the spread arms version. Speaking of ”spinning out” and loosing accuracy not understanding the different relaese pattern and ”late heavy hit”.

Chuck Tomlin

Dec 06, 2020

Replying to

@Pete A I agree with you assessment about instruction on the whole. I don't really see a question to answer but think you provided a nice CTM type answer to that issue. I also think much of the difference on this is driven by "open vs closed" stance. Well done.

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