What is the difference between a backhand grip and a forehand grip serve?
okay,i was watching a programme on the tennis channel with the australian hostess,and she did a fantasy lesson/match with cliff drysdale at his camp or whatever. he was assessing when she served and told her that she served with a forehand grip rather than a backhand grip,the latter being how the pro's did. what is the difference,really and how effective is a backhand grip,ultimately? i serve with a forehand grip and never have a consistent serve.would changing to a backhand grip help?
Answers:
Are titanium and liquid metal tennis rackets really different?
If you look at a tennis racket that's perfectly square to the ball when you hit it that would be what we'll call fully open. As you twist your grip from fully open, to forehand it's a little more closed, a backand grip is even more twisted giving it a sharper angle and a very closed racket.What the twist in grip does is give spin to the ball when you strike it. The more closed the grip, the more top spin you have on the ball.
Top spin will make the ball move toward the net in a higher trajectory giving you more clearance on the net, when a ball with top spin hits the ground the bounce will be low because the ball is moving in the direction of the momentum.
This makes it good for getting serves in bounds, that aren't high enough to allow good returns.
Any spin will take away speed, and when you see a professional get an ace they usually don't have a ton of spin on the ball because they go for speed.
When you're hitting the ball hard, you need some top spin usually just to get the ball to dip downward and hit the court in the box.
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