Will Hamilton: The Windshield Wiper Forehand is a shot that you'll see a lot of pros hit nowadays. It's a shot that, you want to learn how to hit, if you want to take your Forehand to the next level. Now before, I get into why you want to hit a Windshield Wiper Forehand; let me first talk about the Classic Forehand follow through. When I hit a classic Forehand, my racquet releases into the court, it ends up on edge, which means it's vertical and that you cannot see the strings. From here, I wrap the racquet up over my shoulder to complete the follow through. Now the Windshield Wiper follow through is a little bit different, the entire time I follow through I will be able to see through my racquet strings. So, at this point during the follow through I can see the camera, I can see it through my strings as supposed to the racquet being on edge like it would be on Classic Forehand follow through.
The follow through is also lower, it's down to my side as supposed to up over my shoulder and you'll notice that the follow through looks like a Windshield Wiper blade moving across the Windshield and of course, that's why it gets that name. Now, the key to understanding the Windshield Wiper Forehand, learning how to hit it, is to realize that this follow through is a product of what's going on up to contact. There is something that throws off a lot of club level players because there is a difference between how you swing up to the tennis ball on a Windshield Wiper Forehand and how you swing up to a ball on a Classic Forehand, so In other words, you can't just take a classic Forehand, take those mechanics, hit the ball and then tack on a Windshield Wiper finish. That does not work, that will not get you hitting a Windshield Wiper Forehand and it'll actually mess your Forehand up.
With those concepts in mind, let's take a step back and talk about the Classic Forehand. When I swing up and hit the tennis ball in a Classic Forehand, I'm pretty much swinging straight through the ball. It's a little bit of a simplification for my swing path is pretty horizontal, and because my swing path is horizontal, the best way to decelerate the racquet is to extend into the court like I'm doing here, the racquet ends up on edge and then I bring the racquet up over my shoulder to complete the motion.
Now imagine, I swing up and I hit a Classic Forehand, then I tack on the Windshield Wiper finish; that's pretty awkward. Again, if I swing through the ball and then do this, that's not very smooth, that feels kind of weird. If I swing up another balls off my strings and I add the Windshield Wiper finish, that has not affect on the tennis ball, I just hit that balls off my strings. So anything I do after the ball has been hit, doesn't affect how it's traveling. So again, that doesn't work. Tacking on the Windshield Wiper finish to a Classic Forehand is not going to do anything for the shot. Now imagine I swing up more. When I swing up like this the strings stay facing the camera, so if I alter my swing path and swing up a little bit more now you can see the Windshield Wiper motion is starting to develop.
So, the key to hitting a Windshield Wiper Forehand is to swing up on the tennis ball more than you would, when you hit a classic Forehand. When I swing up, it now becomes natural for my racquet to release like this. I should point out that you can swing up on the ball and just continue to have your arm, extend straight up, but this is kind of awkward; it's based on how my arm is built, it's better to bring the racquet up here. Then once you reach this point, turn over at the shoulder to bring the racquet around to the other side of your body, that's the smoothest way to slow the tennis racquet down when you're hitting a Windshield Wiper Forehand. Now that we have a firm understanding of the differences between the Classic Forehand and the Windshield Wiper Forehand, let's watch these two shots in action.
The Forehand furthest away from me is my Classic Forehand and the one right behind me is my Windshield Wiper Forehand. Now I'm going to fate out, and what you're going to see is that when we freeze these two forehands into the follow through on the Windshield Wiper, you can see through my strings, I can see through my strings, but on the Classic Forehand, my racquet is on edge, you cannot see my strings. Again, that's because I'm swinging up to the tennis ball, hitting the tennis ball differently on the Windshield Wiper Forehand then I'm on the classic forehand. Let's click to the side view of these two shots and really take our close look at how the swing pass are different. We're going to put a line between the respective swing pass, and when we do that, you'll see that the swing path on my Windshield Wiper forehand is more vertical than it is on my Classic Forehand, not a ton, but it's definitely more vertical and that produces the Windshield Wiper follow through as supposed to the classic follow through again where the racquet releases on it.
So, let's watch these shots one more time and again you get the Windshield Wiper finished because the swing is more vertical than on a Classic Forehand. At the beginning of this video, I said I would talk about why you might want to hit a Windshield Wiper Forehand. So, let's do that right now. Behind me, we're going to watch a clip of me hitting a Windshield Wiper Forehand in normal speed. Now what can we take away from this particular shot. Well, first is the pace I put on the tennis ball, let's watch it again, I hit it relatively hard. So, a Windshield Wiper Forehand, you can hit pretty hard because you're swinging up on the ball more and because I have more top spin on the ball, I'm not worried about it sailing long. Now let's play the shot again and freeze it right about here. Look at how high I'm hitting it over the net. I'd say this is about five feet over the net. So, that's number two, this ball is pretty consistent because I can aim higher over the net, I don't have to worry about hitting it in the net and that top spin is going to pull the ball back into the court, so I don't really have to worry too much about hitting it long either, I'm not going to miss this Forehand too often when I'm rallying because I get a lot of net clearance and the top spin pulls it back down.
So, again number two, the shot is more consistent. Now let's see that where this ball bounces and then where it hits the fence. It actually hits the fence off the first bounce. So, this ball really penetrates the court and that's important because it makes it very difficult for your opponent to attack. Anytime you hit a ball that on one bounce hits the back fence, you're hitting a shot that's really penetrating the court and again your opponent is not going to be able to do too much with that shot. So those three things there, the pace, the consistency, and the fact that the ball penetrates the court, making it difficult for your opponent to attack, make the windshield wiper a really, really good shot to having your arsenal. But again, to reiterate, the key to take away from this video is that hitting a Windshield Wiper Forehand requires that you swing up differently to the tennis ball. You don't swing through it and then tack on the windshield wiper finish, you swing up on the ball more and that makes the Windshield Wiper finish the natural way to decelerate your arm and the tennis racquet.
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