Most players do not believe that this condition exists. Our egos tell us that our primary problem in tennis derives from hitting the ball too hard. Our superior strength and mighty muscles are our curses! Indeed, errors often occur when we try to pound the ball, sending it whizzing over the baseline or slamming thwack into the net. It seems to us that we always overdo the rough stuff, leaving us with the not wholly unpleasant notion that we must not know our own strength. But go back a step and ask yourself; what would possess you to intentionally over-hit the ball? Is it tactical and smart or reactive and dumb? For me, it is always dumb. I usually go gorilla after a ball that I thought I was hitting with authority dribbles impotently into the net. The over-hit is an intentional correction for an unintentional under-hit, and the net result is two errors and the distinct feeling that I have absolutely no idea how hard or soft one needs to hit a ball if one wants to avoid errors. Sound familiar? It should. Everyone, even the talented, falls into this trap from time to time. A prerequisite for finding one's way out of it is to accept the paradox that over-hitting is an indirect result of under-hitting, and it is under-hitting that is the real problem.

Power

In the present context, under-hitting is not about effort; it is about technique. All the effort in the world won't turn a push into a stroke. The best you can achieve with effort is to turn a pathetic, pusillanimous push into a savage, brutish push. Neither of these can give you the control you crave. For that you need power. Power is the ability to make things happen. It is the raw material one uses to make the ball go (pace) in the direction you want it to go (control) with the spin you want it to have. Without power none of these is possible. Developing power cannot be created just by tensing muscles. To move the ball and change its direction one must also gather momentum and transfer it to the ball. Ideally one should harvest the momentum from the earth using the feet, but failing that one can transfer it from parts of one's own body, such as by counter-rotating the non-hitting arm on the volley or tucking up the legs during the serve.

The importance of power in tennis cannot be overstated. The whole point of the game is to redirect the tennis ball. Even if you are sticking your racket out to block a volley, there must be some oomph behind the racket, or you will not be able to get the ball back up over the net and into play. Even that tiny oomph requires a transfer of momentum to the ball. If you just tense your muscles, put the old "death grip" on the racket and stick your racket out in front of the ball there will be a transfer of momentum and even a change in the direction of the ball, but the ball will end up going where it wants to go, not where you want it to go. Swinging the racket in the general direction you want the ball to go does nothing to make control happen. You need to apply power, that is you must:

Employing Power
1. Connect to a source of momentum.
2. Generate a power wave.
3. Convert part of the wave into stored control and spin forces.
4. Convert the rest into racket head speed for pace.
5. Release the control and spin forces immediately before the moment of contact.
6. Maintain balance throughout the process.

One step, step 4, stands alone. Developing racket head speed and pace is the most obvious, I could say garish, product of power. We all tend to believe that power is synonymous with pace. A failure at step 4 can result in a shot that is deficient in pace, but if you complete all of the other steps successfully, there will still be power expressing itself as superior control and spin. Conversely, you can very competently complete step 4 without developing true power. I call that clubbing the ball and it is bad. What you have then is a ball that very quickly goes out of play. Sometimes it is smart to omit step 4 intentionally, investing all of our power in control. That is called short stroking and it is good. Step 4, then, is optional, but the rest of the steps are not. You can't hit a ball "too softly", but you can hit a ball with insufficient power because without power there is no control and the need for control is absolute.

One of the greatest challenges in tennis is to hit softly with power. This is why so few people master the drop shot. It is, by design, a shot hit without pace but requiring the highest levels of control and spin. The drop shot is the ultimate manifestation of soft power. The technique for hitting it is to take a "complete" stroke, with unit turn, lock, load, lag and explode while hardly moving the racket head at all.

Snaps

The trigger for developing true power is the pursuit of the "snap". The snap represents the sensory manifestation of the release of stored forces at the moment of contact. Failure of snaps can result from a disruption of the stroke anywhere along the line from development of the power wave through the lock and load process to the release of the forces in the explode that is supposed to occur just before contact. As such, the failure to develop power is too broad to be treated as a syndrome any more than "failure to thrive" is a legitimate syndrome in medicine. Here we are focused on those manifestations of powerlessness that are more apparent in that in addition to robbing you of control and spin they also prevent you from developing useful pace on the ball. Generally, that means a basic failure in generating the power wave early in the process. Again, making this diagnosis can be challenging because when we feel powerless, our immediate response is to try to hit the ball harder. All this does is disguise our powerlessness in the futile violence of frustration and rage. That is not real power any more than venting your spleen is a real argument. Both are just noise. What you need is to go back to the root problem and fix it, then you can hit the ball with or without pace but always with control. That is hitting with true power.

Power Fails

From the preceding you can see that power is a complex process and there can be many points of failure. In the context of powerlessness syndrome, we are going to drill down on the most common and treatable cause of powerlessness; failure of step 1 - connecting to a source of momentum. Ideally, the ultimate source of momentum for tennis strokes is the earth. The earth is big ... really big ... with momentum to spare. It is also nearly always close at hand, with the notable exception of when you are airborne. We connect to the earth with our feet using gravity, body weight, and friction to attach us to the court surface. The greater the friction force, the more momentum we can steal, and the less time it takes to steal it. We increase the friction force by pushing against the court surface with our feet using the power in our quadriceps muscle, a side benefit of the process of maintaining dynamic balance. You can hear the friction when your feet are "chirping".

The power takes the form of a wave that travels through our hips to our shoulders, arms, wrist, racket and finally the ball. The wave is rotational. It appears as a rotation of the hips which then rotates the trunk and shoulders.

If the hips and shoulders are not pointing in approximately the same direction when you create the wave with your feet and legs, the resultant rotation cannot be transferred effectively to the shoulders. Assuming an inadequate stance is a common fault on the backhand side. If you try to execute any backhand with an open stance you will notice a pathetic lack of power. To hit a proper backhand, you must turn your back to your opponent. That puts the chest and the hips facing more or less in the same direction. The feet must follow the hips, creating a stance that is closed to minimally open, depending on the stroke and the direction you intend to hit the ball. For each stroke, there is a proper stance that optimizes the collection of momentum from the earth and makes it available for the formation of a usable wave of power.

Powerlessness Syndrome
• Chief Complaint
  • "I can't get the dang ball over the net!"
• Symptoms(Sx):
  • hitting balls without pace or control
  • clubbing the ball
    • again without control
    • as a reaction to unwanted under-hitting
• Signs(S):
  • ugly, dull racket note
    • no pop, no ping
    • arm vibration
    • elbow pain
    Pathophysiology(Px):
    • failure to generate adequate power wave
      • failure to harvest momentum
        • poor earth contact
          • due to static balance
        • improper stance
        • not using counter-rotation
          • on volleys and other short strokes
    Diagnostic Tests (Tx):
    • vary stance in pose and observe the result
      • foot position
      • shoulder position
      • open or closed stance
    • try counter-rotation
    • try bending knees
  Treatment(Rx):
  • optimize power wave
    • shoulder rotation and stance in the pose
      • closed stance in backhand
      • half-open in forehand
      • full rotation of shoulders in serve
    • use non-hitting arm to generate wave
    • bend knees
    • chirp
    • counter-kick
• Differential Diagnosis:
  • Underhitting Syndrome
  • Regression Syndrome
  • Defensiveness Syndrome
  • Miss-hit Syndrome
  • Push Syndrome
  • Hot Shoulder Syndrome
• Prevention
  1. pay attention to orientation of feet and shoulders in pose
  2. always back up footwork with counter-rotation
     • non-hitting arm
     • counter-kicking

Power Without Purchase

So how do you create a power wave when there is no time to set your feet? Good footwork is essential in tennis and is one of the main reasons we like to rush our opponent. The classic example is at the net, but it happens in midcourt, backcourt, even in the serve when the toss goes awry. If you can't source momentum from the earth, simply play one part of the body against another with counter-rotation. In the case of volleys and other short strokes, we can rotate the non-hitting arm in a direction opposite to the hitting arm. Granted we are using the teensy-weensy muscles of the chest and shoulders to power the stroke which is ... ugh ... suboptimal to say the least, but this procedure allows us to create usable momentum. Using counter-rotation is how we are going to play Zero-G tennis in the spacecraft on the way to Mars. Creating momentum is a zero-sum game. If we clap our hands together, we are creating rotational momentum in two opposing directions. They cancel out, and the effect on our trunk is zero even though we can feel the momentum when our hands collide. We don't have to brace with our feet to clap. The clapping motion can power the forehand and forehand volley and the "arms wide open" motion can motivate the backhand and backhand volley. Since these moves can be executed independent of the traditional and more powerful lower body moves, one can incorporate them into every strike, just in case your footwork fails for some reason.

Counter-rotation also works in the lower extremity. If you can't achieve good ground purchase, counter-kicking the back foot behind the front foot can help create rotational momentum in both the forehand and backhand directions. Counter-kicking is a source of great power in the two-handed backhand, and the pros use it routinely. In the serve, we generally kick our back foot out to help start, enhance and stop the rotation of the shoulders.

The talented feel their way through these issues. They can feel the flow of momentum, find its founts, and force its fealty. You can't. You need to make sure you are doing everything possible on every strike to collect, redirect and inject directed momentum into the ball thereby maximizing pace, spin and control.