How to Stop Shanking The Ball | Clean, Powerful, Tennis Strokes

Imagine yourself serving at match point. You hit a great serve and your opponent sends you a high floater. Your eyes get wide with excitement because you're about to nail your forehand for a winner... and then... SHANK!

You miss the easy put away, and have let your opponent back into the match.

What happened? You were set up perfectly and you shanked the ball. Don't feel bad. Even Federer does it from time to time.

In this video ... I'm going to give you my 3 secrets that will show how you can stop shanking the ball... and start putting that floater away for a winner.

Secret #1: Pay Attention!

Specifically, HOW are you shanking the ball?

Do you consistently hit the ball off the bottom edge of the frame?

Are you hitting the ball off the tip of your racket?

Maybe you're in a different spot on the racket every time.

Sometimes just developing the awareness of what's happening when you go to hit the ball, will allow you to start self-correcting and hitting clean, powerful shots.

Secret #2: Exaggerate the Cure!

In other words, if you consistently hit the ball of the tip of your racket, try hitting the next 10 shots off the TIP of the racket.

Chances are you'll struggle with this and actually start hitting the ball RIGHT IN THE CENTER of your strings.

The reason this happens is you have a concept of spacing to the ball that may be slightly off. This technique corrects your concept and allows you to start moving closer to the center of your racket.

Secret #3: Keep your Head Still!

It's easy to get curious and pull your head out of the stroke before the ball has left your strings, because you want to see where the ball will end up... or you want to see where your opponent is.

Keep your head still through contact, count to 1 after the ball has left your racket, and THEN look up.

You'll notice that following these 3 secrets will allow you to greatly reduce the number of times you shank the ball!

After years of working with tennis professionals, I developed my own program and moved myself up to 5.5. I even played in the USTA 7.0 mixed championships! My goal now is to help everyone find the FUN in tennis fundamentals, and to show them that tennis is a solution to lifelong fitness!