Fixing Your Overhead Smash

Many, many tennis players have trouble with the overhead smash - even some who don't like to admit it.

There are several reasons for the problem.

One is simply the fact that players put off learning the overhead. By the time they do need the shot and start trying it, they are already much better at other shots, primarily groundstrokes, which they have been hitting billions and billions of.

So, of course they're going to prefer to stay away from the net and thus not have to use this new, weaker shot, at which they're still a beginner. That's natural, but it's also a vicious cycle

The other problem is related: the P-word. Practice. If players hit half as many overheads as they do forehands in a month of practice, they'd have killer overhead smashes. Some don't even take any overheads in warm-up, to hide how weak their overhead shot is.

Way to condemn yourself to a life sentence of having a lousy overhead.

But another VERY common problem is the fruit of a Tennis Commandment that is just plain wrong: that, as soon as you see a lob go up, you should raise both arms, dropping your racket behind your back and pointing up at the ball with your free arm - maintaining that awkward pose, while you move back under the lob to hit your overhead.

Wrong. Moving backward while looking up and and maintaining such an awkward pose gets you into a fight with your backwards-balancing reflexes. Which is why trying to do it this way is so awkward. That instruction destroys your dynamic balance.

If you are trying to follow it when you hit overheads, you are about to discover that you aren't as slow and clumsy as you think. See How to Move Back to Hit an Overhead Smash.

You don't have to take my word for it. You get an explanation that makes it clear why the conventional advice on this has been wrong. In addition, some of the feedback at Operation Doubles swears by this tip. But the proof is in the test: All you have to do is try this more natural and balanced method, and you'll know it's right.

Then watch the pros and advanced players with good overhead smashes: they don't already have their arms up in the air while they're moving back under the ball. Nobody with a good overhead smash obeys that Tennis Commandment.

It's just a cliche that has been repeated so often people believe it no matter what.

Once you have that tip down pat, then check out the other Overhead Smash Tips: How to Hit an Overhead Smash and Overhead Smash Tips. They include several videos of pros hitting overheads and an instructional video on the basics of hitting an overhead.

Then just practice. You will soon have a reliable overhead shot that you have confidence in. And the longer you practice it, the more it will become a shot you can honestly call an "overhead smash."

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