TennisOne Lessons

The Contact Zone Defined

Doug King

In my previous two articles I discussed in general terms the follow-through and the backswing aspects of the stroke. In this piece I would like to look at the Contact Zone. The Contact Zone is the heart of the stroke and at the heart of the Contact Zone is the point of contact – the moment when the ball and strings come together.

Specifically defining the Contact Zone is somewhat difficult. If we consider the contact point as the middle of the Contact Zone then we could presume that a certain amount of stroke before and after the contact would be the Contact Zone. But where we make these delineations gets a little blurry. For example, when does the follow-through start and the Contact Zone end? You could argue that as soon as the ball leaves the strings then the follow-through starts. Typically, though, we still consider some of this part of the stroke as the “Contact Zone.”

The same is true of the backswing. Does the Contact Zone start when the arm starts its forward swing? Not quite. As I mentioned in my last particle, even when the arm is moving forward there is still backswing (actually loading) occurring. So the Contact Zone actually includes aspects of both the backswing and the follow-through – and in a way, it includes the most important elements of these stroking parts.

Sometimes we see the Contact Zone as a separate part of the stroke. There is the backswing where the racquet is taken back, there is the Contact Zone where the racquet is brought forward to contact and then extended a short distance towards the target, and then there is the follow-through. As short as the Contact Zone may be, in actual play, what we see is that a great deal of stuff is going on in this tiny area. There is a great deal of range in the feel and the action of the stroke through this critical phase.

Most modern players appear to flick at the ball in quick cocking and releasing actions. In reality this action is a very controlled, well timed, and choreographed movement but it does have whip like qualities that make the Contact Zone a dynamic and diverse arena. It is usually when the Contact Zone becomes more of a uniform, forced, or controlled action that breakdowns occur.

Golfers hold the club face to the ball then make tiny adjustments of the feet and body to this alignment. Tennis players should also keep light on their feet to make final adjustments to the contact point.

Contact and Squaring to the Ball: "Fit Before You Hit”

The most critical aspect of the stroke is the moment when the ball and the strings come together. Above all else there must be proper alignment between the racquet, the ball, and the target at the moment of contact. The ball should hit the sweet spot of the racquet and the face of the racquet should be aligned to both a desired target and a desired trajectory. For good results, the racquet face must be relatively square (perpendicular in plane to the ground) at contact.

But also part of the alignment is the way the body fits to the connection made between the ball and the racquet at contact. Many people make the mistake of setting the body and then moving the racquet around the body to strike the ball. Just as the position of the body is an alignment that the swing plane is oriented to, so too should the point of contact between the ball and the racquet should be a reference point that the body should orient itself to.

Think of how a golfer sets the club directly behind the ball as he sets up his stance before starting a swing. In the same way a tennis player must get the body properly aligned to the point of contact. In tennis this process is much more fluid and dynamic than golf since the ball is moving radically instead of being at rest on the ground but the correct configuration between the body and the point of contact is just as important.

Another way to think about this alignment is to observe how competitive arm wrestlers spend so much time trying to get a good “grip” at the start of a wrestle. This grip is not only established in the grip of the hands but also in the way the body is situated to the hand and to the ground. It is through a good “fit” between these elements that proper power is achieved, power resulting from leverage and torque. Sometimes I like to advise my students to try and “fit” to the ball before they think about hitting it. “Fit before you hit” is a good formula to follow.

The process of squaring the body to the point of contact not only establishes a very strong position for contact but it also represents the fundamental means of releasing power in the stroke as this “squaring up generates arm speed at the same time. The body will coil and bend to store up energy and then in the process of uncoiling and straightening into contact it will “drive” the arm. So the squaring up has a two-fold intent; one is to drive the arm and the other is to align all the parts of the stroke (body, arm, racquet) into a solid, balanced position at the point of contact. If the body is misaligned at contact it can either throw off the entire balance of the stroke or the body may get in the way of the stroke by preventing the arm from properly extending to the target through contact.

Reactive and Active States (Catching and Throwing) Acceleration in the Contact Zone

The notion of fitting before hitting summarizes the difficulty in the tennis stroke. A tennis player faces issues of precisely aligning a moving racquet to a radically moving ball and then powering that ball to a desired target. There are two distinct issues at play – one is to get the ball and the racquet to align into a contact and second is to get the racquet to make the ball go to a specific target area after contact. In a sense it combines both a catch and a throw in a single motion. One task (the catch) is essentially reactive in nature. When you catch, you are basically adjusting to the ball. In a sense, the ball is telling you what to do and you are simply listening to it. To accomplish this you must be in a very malleable, impressionable state to fluidly make adjustments. On the other hand, the throw is a very active state where you are telling the ball what to do. Here you are much more focused on where to make the ball go and how to get it there rather than the ball itself.

Nalbandian uses his feet and body to "square up" at contact, simultaneously creating arm drive and proper adjustment to the point of contact.

The longer you can stay in the reactive state of adjusting to the ball the more likely one will be to make a good catch of the ball. The longer you are able to delay the start of the forceful action of the stroke – the active part of the swing designed to power the ball – the longer you can stay in the reactive state. This defines a key to good stroking technique and that is the ability to create power in a very brief and compact moment of time and space.

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Doug King studied with legendary tennis coach Tom Stow and was a former California State Men's Singles Champion and the former number one men's player of Northern California.

Doug is one of the country's foremost tennis teaching innovators. Founder of Acceleration Tennis, a revolutionary teaching system, King is leading the way in reinterpreting the traditional tennis model.

Doug King is currently Director of Tennis at Meadowood Napa Valley ( www.meadowood.com ), a Relaix Chateau Resort in St. Helena , CA .

For more information on Acceleration Tennis please email Doug King at dking@meadowood.com.