Tennis forehand exercises
The best 7 tennis forehand exercises for beginners
The best 7 tennis forehand exercises for beginners
At the beginning of a tennis career, it is important for beginners to develop the right feeling for the ball and a certain consistency on the forehand side. For this it is important that the forehand exercises with the correct forehand technique are repeated again and again to really master them.
After the completed warm-up program, below we explain to tennis beginners the best 7 forehand exercises for beginners. The forehand exercises can be done either with a tennis coach or without a tennis coach with another tennis player.
At the beginning it is recommended to do the forehand exercises in the mentioned order. With each repetition your confidence will increase and at the next training session you can already start with exercise 3, for example.
If you feel a bit insecure, you should go back one exercise. All in all, the exercises can be used flexibly – have fun with forehand tennis training.
1. Forehand ball feeling
To increase the feeling for the ball, both of you stand on one side of the net and take turns hitting the tennis ball vertically upwards with the forehand at a height of 1-2 meters. The tennis ball should bounce exactly once after each stroke. Both of you are constantly in motion during the exercise.
The goal of the exercise is to play at least 10 flawless vertical forehand strokes – without needing a new tennis ball or having to pick it up again. Repeat the exercise until you feel you can always achieve the 10 error-free forehand strokes under normal circumstances.
2. Topspin technique
To master the forehand topspin technique in tennis, take a tennis ball and go to the net. There you clamp the tennis ball between the tennis racket and the edge of the net. In the sideways position, perform the forehand movement from the point of impact with the overhand to the outswing over the shoulder.
The tennis ball should fly to the other side of the net and have a clear forward spin. Your playing partner stands on the other side of the net and catches the tennis balls, which ideally come up in the T-field. After every three balls, you switch and catch the balls.
3. Forehand from standing
You both position yourselves opposite each other on the T-line and one person gets into side position for the forehand while the other person puts the tennis racket to the side and throws the tennis ball from below in an arc over the net to the forehand side.
The ball comes flying towards you and bounces once, then you hit the tennis ball back with the forehand. The tennis ball should bounce in the T-court and then be caught by your playing partner. After that, the tennis ball is thrown back to the forehand side.
The goal is to play the forehand topspin – with forward spin – into the opponent’s T-field without making any mistakes. After every 10 strokes, you alternate between throwing and hitting.
4. T-field forehand
Again, you both position yourselves opposite each other on the T-line, but this time you both have the tennis racket in your hands. One of you plays the tennis ball by dropping the tennis ball once on the ground in the side forehand position and then hitting it over the net.
After bouncing, the other person returns the tennis ball with the forehand. You will be moving around a bit during this exercise, as the ball may not always come flying perfectly to your forehand side.
The goal is to play at least 10 flawless forehand balls back and forth. If this is still too difficult at the beginning, you can take an intermediate step: instead of hitting the tennis ball directly back, you stop the ball with the tennis racket after it bounces and present it to yourself before hitting it back again after it bounces again.
5. Forehand cross
After you have always stood opposite each other in the T-court and played longline, you will face each other crosswise – provided both play the forehand with the right or left hand.
Again, the goal is to play at least 10 error-free forehand cross shots back and forth – as before, the tennis ball bounces exactly once in the T-field.
6. Baseline forehand
If you feel confident in the T court by now, you can slowly move across the 3/4 court to the baseline. Please note the correct choice of tennis ball for the corresponding distances.
From the baseline, exercises 3-6 are again a good choice. The difference in exercise 3 is that the ball is no longer thrown to the baseline, but is hit with the tennis racket and after the normal bounce is hit back with the forehand.
7. Forehand from the run
After building up a certain stability with the forehand from a standing position, we move on to the next level of difficulty: the forehand from the run.
Here, one player distributes the balls from the forehand side alternately longline, into the center of the court and cross while the other player returns all balls in motion with the forehand.
Note that the exercise is also a challenge for the distributing player, because for the first time he does not hit the tennis ball back where it came from but changes the direction, which is much more difficult and will lead to mistakes in the beginning.
The goal is again to play at least 10 flawless forehands. If this proves to be too difficult at the beginning, it is advisable to do the exercise in the 3/4 or T court again to gain confidence with the forehand from the barrel.
