Make Your Forehand Into a WeaponUsing Hand Feed Balls

Make Your Forehand Into a Weapon
​ Using Hand Feed Balls

Soft toss drills are  a great way for players to develop their game. During soft toss drills players are forced to generate pace on the ball by using more racquet head speed and allows them to spend time focusing on developing their footwork.  Soft toss feed balls are a great way to spend time working on drills designed to footwork that you need to work on to develop your game. Lastly, another great benefit of soft toss drills is that you do not need someone who is a great feeder in order to do them.  That means that your parents, friends or anyone else that would normally be unable to feed you balls with their racquet instead are able to feed you balls with their bare hand. Now, with all these benefits in mind today I wanted to focus on soft toss drills that are designed to help you develop footwork and racquet head speed for your forehand.


Out Wide Forehand
The hand toss drill that is important for player’s to master is the footwork that is used on a running forehand. I like to spend time working on the out wide forehand because it is such an important ball to get good at. That is great if you can hit your forehand well when you have time to set up for it, but more importantly you need to learn how to set up for your forehand when you are on the move.

Inside Out Forehand
The next drill that is important to develop is your inside out forehand. The inside out forehand is crucial to develop as every player needs to make their forehand a weapon and they need to work on the footwork necessary to get around their backhand and get the shot to their opponent’s backhand (AKA their opponent’s weakness.)

Out Wide to Inside Out Forehand
Now in this drill I like to combine the out wide forehand with the inside out forehand and work on both shots in succession of each other.  This is a great drill that mimics how tough a point can be at times and allows me to work on both of this critical shots under similar duress to a match.  During this drill my focus is getting the best shot that I can on every ball.

Step In Forehands
The previous three drills have all been focused on hitting the forehand along with more lateral movement.  This drill focuses on moving vertically to hit your forehand. This drill is great to use to get a lot of repetitions on hitting your forehand in more of an approach shot scenario. I love working on this drill with players that struggle getting good racquet acceleration on their approach shots as we can push the tempo up on them and make the drill closer to a match pace.


Sitter Forehand Ball
The last drill that we have for today is working on your forehand off of a slow moving “sitter” ball.  Now, many people believe that this shot is easy to hit because it is so slow and it just looks so easy. However, this ball is difficult to hit with great racquet head speed on and this shot can be devastating to miss during a match.  This is a great ball to work on for players because this is the shot that a player often gets rewarded with when they set up their point. During this drill I am focused on getting good racquet head speed on the ball and hitting the shot to a corner.



Hopefully you have enjoyed all of these great soft toss drills that are designed to focus on creating your forehand into a weapon.  If you have any questions about the drills such as proper footwork, when you would see these shots in a match or anything else you want to know feel free to comment in the comment section below.