Contact!

In my 40 hours of teaching tennis each week, there is one phrase that I undoubtedly say more often than any other: "Off center!". By this I mean that the student has made contact with the ball somewhere other than the center of their racket. If you're a recreational tennis player then I can just about guarantee you this happens more often than you think.

After making terrible contact on a certain shot and not even coming close to their target I will often ask my students "so why did you miss that shot?". If they've never had a lesson with me before more often than not they will answer "because I didn't turn my shoulders", or "because I didn't swing up" etc, when in fact the ball didn't even hit their strings.

Why am I spending time writing about what seems to be an incredibly obvious thing that needs to be done in order to be a successful tennis player? Because its so important, and because I'm quite convinced most average level tennis players have no idea when they do it correctly or not.

When it comes down to it, whenever you attempt any stroke in tennis if you cannot hit the middle of the racket face then nothing else even matters. Did you hear that? Nothing else matters. All those hours you spent working on that new top spin forehand swing, go right out the window. Why? Well, because your strokes are all formed based on the premise that you're going to be hitting your racket face. When good contact doesn't occur, even the most perfect technique can't guarantee a successful shot, where as perfect technique along with correct contact WILL occur in a good shot every time.

Hitting off center on your racket will basically bring a random result, based on how far off center you actually are. If any part of your frame is hit you can pretty much forget about making your planned shot most of the time.

So how can you tell if you're hitting off center? This is something every tennis player needs to be conscious of, it's extremely important. There are three main ways in which you'll be able to tell if you've made good contact on any shot. They are:

1. The sound. Pay close attention to this. I hear thousands of contacts per day, and could easily tell you blind folded how good of contact any particular shot has been. In trying to teach this to junior clinics, one of my helpers likes to say that a nice shot will make a pretty "ting!" sound, where an off center hit will create a "thunk!" type noise. There's many variations of these sounds depending on how closely you get to the exact center of your strings, or exactly how much of your frame you hit, and everything in between. Listen closely and see the resulting shot, and you should be able to start identifying which is which.

2. The feel. This is another big one, in fact, I would say this is probably the biggest indicator. Often times after not even being close to making good contact, a beginner or intermediate tennis player will say to me "wow I need to start gripping my racket tighter, it keeps slipping in my hand". My reaction to this is "NOOOOO!". Ok, so I don't react that strongly, I would have lost my job by now if I did. If the ball hits right in the middle of your racket, your tennis racket will NOT twist or turn in your hand. It will stay stable because where the ball struck the racket face is right in line with the grip of the racket where your hand is holding it. The farther contact deviates from the center of the strings, the more the racket will want to twist in your hand. You will also feel a twinge and vibration caused by the poor hit, more or less depending on how poor contact was. I like to refer to a shot where great contact was made as a "clean hit", it will sound and feel nice and crisp. Again, if you're not conscious of these things in the first place then you won't be able to tell the difference.

3. The result! If you had a certain target in mind, were in good position, and made a reasonably good swing only to have the ball fly way off course then most likely your contact was poor. Being just a little bit off center will cause softer touch shots and volleys to fall woefully short of their goal, being very fall off center can cause any shot or swing to miss by large margins. Now, there's a myriad of different reasons why you can actually miss any given shot, thats why I can actually earn a living as a tennis professional, heh. Therefore, you need to be reasonably sure that your stroke was correct in order to use this indicator for good contact.

So the next time you miss a shot, try to recall the sound, the feel, and the result. If any one of those three things seemed off its quite possible you just hit off center. If you can recall any two, or even all three being off, then you can be 100% certain of it.

How can you improve your contact? By watching the ball! I will write on that in a later installment of this blog. It's a whole subject in and of itself. Until then, play well!