How to do High Deep Backhands in Tennis

Coach Joe Dinoffer talks about the best method of dealing with high deep backhands.

Joe Dinnofer: In addition to general hitting cross-court, Colindy has practiced hitting specifically to her opponents backhand side. This is equally effective against one-handers and two-handers, but for different reasons. To emphasize this point, let's take a look at how much trouble Colindy herself has with high deep backhands hitting with two hands and then when she tries to hit with one. When Colindy tries to return a high looper to her backhand with her two-handed shot, her reach is limited making at a top shot when it bounces high over her head. And when she tries to hit, a return of the high looper with her one-handed backhand, especially at her age, it is equally or even more difficult since she still feels weak hitting those high one-handed backhands in general. The bottom line, looping topspin groundstrokes are extremely effective shots for changing pace, slowing down a point or just to get your opponent hitting out of their comforts zones. Now let's review the technique of how to hit the looper, and then share a challenging but effective way to counterpunch against it. With Colindy, we started out with a little guided discovery exercise rather than giving her instructions. I simply stood at the net and tossed her some spinners high bouncing foam balls that offered longer dwell time on the strings. Her goal was to loop over my head. This accelerated her getting an initial feel for the loop and confidence that she could do it. Of course, it also protected me from getting hit. Then we increased the height of the net with our AirZone bungee cord. I asked her to hit over the raised net and then under it. After this, part of the guided discovery process was to ask her what she did differently to increased the arc to create the loop to go higher over the net. Joe Dinnofer: Great shot! Colindy: Thanks. Joe Dinnofer: Well, Colindy, what did you have to do differently to get that ball higher over the net? Colindy: I had to go more low to high. Joe Dinnofer: Well done! Now comes the interesting part. Once the basic feel for the looper is achieved, and we have switch over the regular balls, the player has to accelerate the swing to increase the amount of spin to really make the shot effective. You may recall in an earlier volume how Colindy, and I shared a drill that assigns numbers from 1 to 10 to a certain focus issue. In this case we will do it with relative amount of rocket head speed and topspin. Here Colindy is hitting a few loopers and calling out numbers of what she will hit. A three, is fairly slow swing speed, and spin. Number six is moderate swing speed and spin, and 10 is her fastest. This little exercise can give a player a tremendous boost in confidence as well as feel for what to do on this important short. The last stage in learning to loop is to see if Colindy can hit her looper with enough arc, enough dept, and enough spin, so the ball bounces in the court and then hits that back fence. Take a look. If you can get a player to hit their loopers into the court and push the opponent so far that they sometimes run into the back fence, you know you are making progress, Great job! Colindy. The final point of our discussion on loopers is how to counterpunch against them. Plan A is clear, just loop back but with more spin and more tenacity, but that can be more easily said than done. You might need a backup plan if your opponent is getting the best of you. Plan B is to take the ball early on the short hop and not let it drive you back to the fence. Well, the timing needed to take a looper early, may take some practice. It's certainly worth the effort. To get to this point, I started off tossing a soft looper to Colindy. Then we move to a fed ball from across the net. The next step is to hit with Colindy and she would take it early. Finally, she would vary her approach. In this exercise sometimes she moves back to counterpunch with a looper in return and sometime she would step in and take it early. Very well done for an eleven-year-old.