Excellent Technique

I get asked about the process of building excellent technique quite often, and I wanted to give a couple of thoughts that matter more than grip charts and YouTube frame-by-frame debates.

Technique is a garden, not a project

Think of your swings like your garden. When will you get to stop mowing it? Or planting new seeds? Or trimming the hedges? You won’t.

Technique is a continual process. It takes time, conscious effort, and a strong picture of what you are working toward. The players who improve for decades are not the ones who “fixed” their forehand once - they are the ones who keep refining under new speeds, new surfaces, and new opponents.

Your transportation system decides your technique

Your technique is only as good as your transportation system to the ball.

One of the reasons Nadal would make me look like a clown right now has nothing to do with my technique in a vacuum, and everything to do with how far away from the ball he would get me. That means I would have to rely on more and more improvisation, and less and less accuracy and placement.

The only way I could hope to compete with him would be to go up into the mountains and train for two years on my footwork, my movement, and my relationship to the ball before I swing.

Beautiful preparation means nothing if you arrive late, jammed, or stretching.

What “immaculate footwork” actually means

Footwork is not just “running fast.” On a tennis court it is a chain of small skills:

• Split-step timing so you start moving as the opponent contacts
• First step quality toward the ball, not away from balance
• Unit turn early so the upper body loads while the legs still travel
• Spacing - finding the distance that lets the racket work freely
• Recovery so the next ball is not an emergency

When those pieces are solid, technique looks simple. When they are missing, technique looks “broken” even if the swing path is textbook in shadow swings.

How to train technique and movement together

1. Shadow with intent - rehearse the swing, then immediately add a split step and a recovery step.
2. Feed from awkward positions - wide balls, short balls, balls into the body. Good technique under pressure is the real goal.
3. One technical cue per basket - “early unit turn” or “finish high,” not five cues at once.
4. Video from two angles - side for swing shape; behind for spacing and contact height.
5. Live ball before “perfect” - transfer to rallies earlier than feels comfortable, or the garden never gets tested by weather.

In brief

In order to have good technique and good choices about what to do with your next shot, you need immaculate footwork. The two go hand in hand.

Work the swing. Work the legs. Most of all, work the relationship between them - because that is what shows up on match day when the ball is heavy, late, and not where you wanted it.