closing-the-bat
Slicepong asked 5 years ago
Hey Tom and Dan, are ya staying safe and sane? I recently noticed that even though I was using my body a lot better on the forehand topspin, I wasn’t getting penetrating top and I realized my bat was barely closed on contact. I was trying to keep my arm relaxed and the let the body do most of the work, but the bat won’t be closed if you don’t manually close it on the backswing. Is the optimum way to do this just to use your wrist at the end of the backswing to close the bat, so it is closed on contact? Thanks.
Dan Academy Coach answered 5 years ago
Hey Slicepong, we are doing ok thank you and trying to stay busy, we hope you are good too! Yes the closed bat angle is important for getting both spin and power and the wrist is a big part of that. When you bring the bat back on the backswing the bat angle should already be closed so then you can just swing through the shot with confidence and not worry about changing the angle during the backswing or the shot.
The relaxed arm and letting the body and legs do the work will help for sure, it seems to me like you just need to keep that consistent bat angle and get confident with the timing point of striking the ball with this bat angle, getting it at the top of the bounce and you should find you can get more power.
