Forehand Progressions

The forehand progressions is a series of videos that will take you, step by step, from scratch to a fundamentally sound forehand. In the forehand fundamentals section, we showed you what every good player does when they hit a forehand — the fundamentals. However, simply knowing what good players do when they hit doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be able to hit the shot. So each video in this series will give you something to practice — via a series of steps — as opposed to simply showing you what good players do.

Contact and Follow Through The first step of the forehand progressions is to play from contact. Understanding correct contact — the relationship between your body and the racket when you hit — is critically important to hitting a proper forehand.

Start with the Racket Back The second step of the forehand progressions is to start with your racket back. To get to contact, you’ll rotate your body back toward the net.

Pivot and Take the Racket Back The third step of the forehand progressions is to start from the ready position. When you pivot and turn your shoulders, the tennis racket comes straight back — there is no loop.

Start to Add a Loop The fourth step of the forehand progressions is to add a loop. Most modern forehands have some sort of loop so we’ll work on adding a basic one in this step.

The Full Motion The fifth step of the forehand progressions is to hit using the full motion. Start at the service line and then move back to the baseline once you become comfortable with the motion.