Ground Stroke Technique

 I was watching the women's golf medal match for the Beer City open (link below).  The opening scene was the gals warming up.  They are both ex-pro tennis players.  What caught my eye was the technique used for hitting ground strokes.

The technique is not not use your arm as the means to create the swing.  The gals' arms stayed directly in front of them as if reaching to shake hands.  The stroke was performed by rotating the shoulders and probably the torso and hips to get about a 90 degree rotation of the shoulders.  The paddle didn't get behind the body except for the wrist cock.  Then as appropriate to the hit, the body rotates back, starting with the legs and walking up the rest of the body and the arm just comes along with the shoulders.  That leaves the arm in a very stable position, the elbow is close to the side -- think of hanging naturally down from the shoulder.  The elbow is bent with the arm in front and the paddle back in the ready position.

The power created was just fine.  They were hitting the balls back and forth with no attempts to put a shot away, but they were not hitting soft lobs to each other.

I was wondering if they were actually using this during the game and I took another look at the video.  They were indeed using a body swing during play.  This is most easily seen during the serves and service returns.  Certainly if you can get into the proper location to hit a ground stroke, then you would like to do it with your body for a number of reasons - easy on the elbow, less body distortion and less recovery to get back to the ready position.

Note that there is a bit of loose wrist as the paddle gets into a position where to provide a hit or snap as they rotate through the shot  - there is probably no attempt to help the paddle close to the ball.  (Added Bonus: If you are a golfer, this is basically the golf swing too.  You want arms to move with the body too, the club hinges back to provide more energy.  The two swings are very consistent with each other.)

Next time out, think about a turn and not just sticking your arms or hands out to hit the ball.  We might not be able to be pros, but at least we can try to look like them!  It's on the top of my list for Monday.

Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5_y9ABkC08