The forehand drive
Technique · Beginner
Explanation
openThe forehand drive is your bread-and-butter stroke. Flat, direct, played on your racket side — the stroke you need most often in a match.
Picture wiping something off a table at hip height with the racket. That's exactly the motion you follow: your weight moves onto the front foot, your upper body turns in the direction of the shot, and your arm brings the racket forward. You hit the Speeder in front of your body, not beside you and not behind you.
The whole stroke is a single, flowing motion — weight, rotation and hit blend into one another. The power comes from this chain, from legs and trunk, not from a big backswing of the arm.
And here we deliver on what the grip promised: for now you keep the wrist quiet and hit compactly. The snap of the wrist — the whip that gives the shot its pace later — comes once this basic motion is in place. First the clean arc, then the acceleration.
Exercise
openGroove the arc
Goal
The hitting motion sits as a flowing chain before a Speeder comes into play.
How to do it
- Take the base position, universal grip.
- Shift your weight onto the front foot, turn your upper body in the direction of the shot.
- Bring the racket forward in a compact arc, as if wiping something aside at hip height.
- Keep the imagined contact point clearly in front of your body.
- Return to the base position and repeat.
Self-check
Watch whether weight, rotation and hit blend into one another. If the motion stalls, slow it down until it flows. Pace comes later, the clean arc comes first.
Next level
Once the motion sits, you bring a Speeder in — toss it up to yourself briefly, let it drop to hip height and hit it in the arc in front of your body. Now you check whether the chain holds with real contact too.
Classification
- Playing goals
- Pace and power control, Target accuracy, Consistency under repetition
- Prerequisites
- The universal grip, The base position, The serve