UNDERSTANDING & MASTERING CONTACT: "Late & Early"







When you hit a ball with late or early contact, that can be a positive thing or a negative thing. You either did it on purpose or by mistake, 

 Let's look at late and early contact in the positive sense first.

 To master the tennis rally you need to be able to direct the ball both down the line and cross court at will. This is where the ability to hit late and early on purpose is crucial.


INTENTIONAL LATE AND EARLY CONTACT:

 If you contact the ball early within the contact zone the ball will go cross court.  


If you contact the ball late within the contact zone the ball will travel down the line or inside out ( depending on how late you hit the ball)


This is the positive aspect of late and early contact.


UNINTENTIONAL LATE AND EARLY CONTACT:

 However, most players think of late and early contact in the negative sense. This is when they can get fixated with only one contact point and start to struggle with timing the ball in the one spot within their contact zone. This is a mistake and players must realise that there are multiple "contact points" and that the skill of changing the position od their contact point must be practiced and developed.

 Here are some reasons you may be hitting the ball late unintentionally:

Your arms are dominating your swing

All swings should start in the ground. The Ground supplies the timing and power for your stroke. If you are not injecting "Ground" into your stroke at the beginning of your swing then you are asking your arms to generate timing and power, neither of which the arms are able to do as well as the legs when interacting with ground. Any lack of Ground in your stroke will mean that your arms will begin to dominate the swing and ultimately cause timing problems

You are reacting too slow

Sometimes you might be under pressure to set up "Ground" because the ball is either too deep or too fast for you ( or too deep and too fast at the same time) to prepare.

Again, this will lead to timing problems and invariably late contact.

Your swing is manufactured and not practical

Another common reason for late or early contact mistakes is a players' fixation with producing "copy book" form. Once the brain is focusing on "form" you are not reading the actual ball and are simply a robot performing a set of movements that are not related to the on-coming ball.

 Most tennis coaching involves showing the new student where to take their backswing and where to finish their follow through. This really hurts a beginners understanding of the game. It an approach to teaching based on "Closed Skill" sports and have no place in tennis which is an "Open Skilled: sport.
Most tennis instruction centres on teaching form
in the hope that fundamentals will follow soon


 The problem with this type of coaching is that it does not take into account the ball!

 These players then continue trying to produce the "perfect" backswing and follow through on all balls, rather than "reading" each ball and adapting to the situation better. 

 Summary: 

 1. Train yourself to be able to change the direction of the ball by adjusting the contact point.

 2. Be adaptable to each and every ball by adjusting your backswing and follow through according to the properties of the ball you are hitting.

 By working on this first of  4 steps in Mastering & Understanding Contact you will gain greater control and feel for this important fundamental.
Location: Sofia, Bulgaria

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