By Stan Simth and Billy Stearns

This is the first in a series of articles featuring advice for junior players and their parents and coaches.

or young tennis players trying to raise their game to a higher level, developing a weapon to win points is more important than ever.

The two main weapons a player uses are the forehand and the serve. For each, we’ll discuss three Ts: the technique, tactics, and training that you’ll need to turn your forehand and serve into effective weapons in your arsenal of shots.

Before we begin, we’ll pass along the best piece of tennis advice we’ve ever been given; it’s something we try to instill in all our young players. Every shot you make must have a purpose—whether it is to open up the court, set up the next shot, or win the point. This goes for practice, too. A half-hour practice where you hit every shot with a specific goal will work to improve your game much more quickly than four or five hours of just knocking the ball around.

Forehand Technique: One Good Turn
The forehand has changed from the smoother, more linear shot of the past to the angular, explosive, nearly violent shot of today. To control and focus all this movement, you need to start from the ground up, with legs down to the ground and your weight really loaded back. Then, with a good hip turn, you can transfer the power of the shot out through the hips, to the shoulders, to the arms, and finally out through the racquet head.

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