FOREHAND

 

FOREHAND

WESTERN GRIP

 

 

 

 

The Western Forehand Grip, it´s an extreme grip. The most natural swing pattern with a Western grip is sharply upward and very fast, which explains why most Western hitters generate heavy topspin.  The Western grip handles high balls much better than low ones. Clay-court specialists and players who hit with heavy topspin favor this grip.

Advantages
- easy to put heavy topspin on the ball
- easy to handle high balls
- shot will usually have a high and explosive bounce, pushing your opponent behind the baseline
- the ability to handle high balls is what makes this grip so popular with clay-courters and juniors

Disadvantages
-hard to handle low balls
- limitation to hit powerful winners
- you need tremendous racquet-head speed and wrist strength to generate adequate pace and spin.
If not, your shots will land short and your opponents can attack them.

Pros Playing the western forehand grip:
During the 90th and beginning of year 2000 several players used the western forehand grip but noadays it´s not that many, especially on the ATP-tour.

Western Forehand Grip - left-handed Western Forehand Grip - right-handed

Related videos in the same series

CONTINENTAL GRIP

Left-handed
Right-handed

 


CONTINENTAL GRIP


 

 

 

 

Used mainly for volleys, serves, overheads, the backhand slice and defensive strokes. The continental grip can be used for both forehands and backhands, but it’s rarely used anymore for forehands, because it’s poorly suited to hitting topspin. It was a popular grip until the early 1970s, when the US Open and the Australian Open stopped playing on grass and left only Wimbledon to be dominated by the low bounces for which continental grips are best adapted.

Since the racquet face is relatively square on a continental grip, for ground strokes the strike zone is low and to the side of the body. That’s why it’s helpful for defensive shots, low balls, and wide balls that you’re late on.

Advantages:
- Easy to handle low balls, defensive shots, and wide balls that you’´re late on

Disadvantages:
-One of the negatives to using this grip for your forehand is that it is very difficult to generate topspin upon the ball. I can only see one professional player playing with this grip and that is John McEnroe, he is playing with the continental grip on both the forehand and the backhand side. Another play is Stefan Edberg as also were using the continental grip on his forehand. Sometimes his hand even went over to the eastern backhand side when he was playing forehands, this is not very rare.
- Lack of consistency is often a problem

SERVE

Left-handed
Right-handed


SERVE

CONTINENTAL GRIP

 

 

 

 

Funtional grip to serve flat, slice and twisted serves

Take me to the Serve Instructions – click here


SERVE

Left-handed
Right-handed

 

SERVE

MIDWAY GRIP

BETWEEN CONTINENTAL

& EASTERN BACKHAND

Serve - Midway Grip between continental eastern-backhand -left-handed Midway Grip Between Continental Eastern Backhand - right-handed

This grip is optimal for all serves:
– flat serve
– slice serve
– twisted serve
– kick serve

How To Make Twisted Serves – click here!

 


SERVE

Left-handed
Right-handed

 

SERVE

EASTERN BACKHAND

GRIP

 

 

 

This grip is optimal for one type of serve and that is the kick serve. The grip is also used to hit twisted serves but we recommend the mid-way grip for the twisted serve.

Limitations: when serving the flat and slice serve! The reasons for that: A round swing pattern becomes more natural with this grip instead of “hitting through the ball” when contact is made.


Learn The Golden Five Check Points in The Swing Path for More Power – click here!

 


FOREHAND

Left-handed
Right-handed

 

FOREHAND


CONTINENTAL GRIP

 

 

 

 

The more closed racquet face, the higher and farther in front of your body your strike zone should be for proper contact.

Since the racquet face is relatively square on a Continental grip, for ground strokes the strike zone is low and to the side of the body. That’s why it’s helpful for defensive shots, low balls and wide balls that you’´re late on.

Advantages
- easy to handle low balls, defensive shots, wide balls that you’´re late on also called the running forehand.

Disadvantages
– one of the negatives to using this grip for your forehand is that it is very difficult to generate topspin, so lack of consistency is often a problem

I can only see one professional player playing with this grip and that is John McEnroe, he is playing with the continental grip on both the forehand and the backhand. Stefan Edberg was also one player using the continental grip on his forehand and he even sometimes used the eastern backhand when he was playing forehands, this is vary rare.

Forehand - Continental Grip Forehand - Continental Grip - right-handed

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