The First Move

Charlie Warner

USPTA Elite Tennis Professional

Story image by Howard Childs/ C.Warner

Being that this is my first article to be published on the HWTA website, I thought this title and subject to be quite appropriate. Even though the Split-Step is the initial move a player makes when playing Tennis, the First Move is the beginning of each stroke.

A few years ago, I was very fortunate to meet a fellow East Coast coach when I was living in San Diego. Mike Coleman was a very interesting individual with an extremely high tennis I.Q. He helped me to have a better understanding of my game as well as Tennis in general.

The Find is what his take and then what became mine on what the First Move is and needs to be for amateur and club level players. The idea behind this is that the player's hands and racket face "find" the ball as it leaves the opponent's racket. In doing so, the grip change is immediate and the ability to track the ball is right on.

Many coaches like getting an immediate shoulder turn on the First Move. Their version of the Forehand includes taking the non-dominant hand back with the unit turn. This places the front elbow ahead of the body and at the ball.

My opinion of this is that the player's timing must be impeccable with this immediate Unit Turn. I see many players late on deep balls and not able to attack as well as they could on short and high balls.

High floating balls can be hit more effectively off of The Find. Tracking a ball that bounces higher allows the hands to be on the same plane as the ball on contact. Quite a few players either lift up at this ball or hit down on it. Both of these types of contact produce too many errors on this particular shot. With the hands set on the same plane as the ball, the racket head is allowed to go straight across the ball and out towards the target. With a slightly closed face and proper footwork, this technique is more effective and hurtful to the opponent.

The greatest part of The Find on the Forehand is that it helps the stroke to not break down. Tracking the ball to the bounce, while rotating the shoulders, keeps excessive movements out of the swing.

There are many working parts that can affect the Forehand swing in a negative way. When taking the racket back early or putting your dominant palm with racket in hand to the back fence, there is too much wait time. Especially, when playing a pusher (someone who hits with no pace and hardly misses), the shoulder, elbow and wrist can make excessive movements. These movements cause unnecessary errors.

With The Find, the stroke is consistently the same. Whether the ball is struck to you hard, soft, deep, short or wide very little can break down with your stroke.

When using The Find properly on the Forehand, the non-dominant hand turns the racket face into a relaxed dominant hand. This helps to place the proper grip while keeping the racket face and hands out towards the ball. The shoulders turn as the hands and racket track the ball. As the ball is about to bounce, the hands separate with the non-dominant palm going out towards the ball. The dominant hand does an abbreviated loop down to the dominant side of the body with palm down which then leads into the stroke.

If you study all of the top players, even though their forehand styles are different, the "First Move" is pretty much the same (their unit turns are more extreme; these players have amazing timing and talent). This leads to a similar contact and push through the path of the ball. After that, the finish becomes more of their own style.

When it comes to the backhand, The Find is more subtle. Again, the First Move is to get the racket face and the hands out in front of the body towards the ball. This time, the non-dominant hand turns the racket face out from the body ensuring proper grip for the dominant hand. This could be anywhere from Continental to full Eastern.

The non-dominant hand can control the racket from two different positions. On a two-handed backhand, the non-dominant hand is on the grip. The placement of this hand is where it would be in relation to the dominant hand for the two-handed stroke. The racket is held by the non-dominant hand with a forehand grip. This can range from a Semi-Western to an Eastern grip. Depending on how closed or open the player wants their racket face to be, the grip can be experimented with.

On the one-handed backhand, the non-dominant hand lightly holds the racket on the throat with fingertips on the outside of the frame. Again, racket angle is adjusted according to Finding the ball on either the forehand or backhand side of the body.

Tracking on the backhand side of the body is initial until the ball crosses the plane of the net. Players then need to target the ball with their front shoulder which gets them sideways for proper body positioning and contact.

I have found that The Find helps with focus and to slow down a player's mind. In other words, tracking and seeing the ball to the racket help to get and keep one in The Zone during match play.

For performing the best at anything, proper preparation is necessary. In my opinion, The Find is the best way to prepare for consistent results when playing Tennis.

The next time you watch a Tennis match on television, study each player. See who has the best Find and who makes the least errors on that wing.

-CW