[tennisbiz] Re: Loop Swing vs. Straight Back Swing for Groundstrokes

Dear All:

These is a very interesting topic and I know there is going to
be different opinions, so hear is mine.

I'm a Peter Burwash International, (PBI), tennis professional
and in my training to become one I learned that tennis is a game
of emergencies and that the contact is the most important
foundation of a groundstroke, this means there is no right way
to take the racquet back only than they way it works for your
student. Sometime we get to caught up in teaching tecquinique
and we forget that what is essencial in tennis is to get tha
ball back.

Intead of teaching how to hit the ball and complicating my
students with tons of thoughts on how to hit it, I just rely on
common sense. I teach the four mistakes that you can do while
your playing a tennis match, you can hit the ball deep, short
into the net, wide to the right or wide to the left and all of
this mistakes are made when you don¡t have a good contact with
the ball. For example if at the point of contact you have your
racquet face open you will most definetaly hit the ball deep, on
the other hand if you have the racquet to close you will most
likely hit it into the net, or if you hit it to late or to early
you will end up hitting it wide. So you see, the racquet face
determines the balls trajectory, the back swing just gives you a
little more boost and the follow-thru is a continuation of the
contact and it helps the arm relax after the hit.

So what I mean to say is that instaed of thinking the way to
take the racquet back we should teach a way for our students to
prepare the racquet so when they make contact with the ball the
racquet face is pointing straight where they want to hit the
ball,.. plus sometimes there not going to have time to take the
racquet back anyways so why bother.

Thanks

Miguel A. Hernandez

P.S. PBI concepts where a creation of USPTA master professional,
Peter Burwash.
 
Received on Fri Aug 03 2001 - 15:19:56 CDT