Tennis Stances – 3 Different Types

Learning Guide — By admin

There are three ways to position your lower body relative to the ball when you swing. These are called stances.

Instructors used to exclusively teach the closed stance because it forces you to get into better position and allows better leverage hitting the tennis ball…and because it is easier to teach beginners to hit with a closed stance than the other stances. However, with the modern game of tennis being as fast as it is, with modern equipment (i.e., tennis racquets and tennis strings) enabling players to hit harder with more control, it is sometimes difficult to get into the closed stance for all your shots.

You should experiment with each stance to see what works better for you. Some ways of holding the tennis racquet are better suited to some stances than others. For example, players who hit with a western grip tend to use an open stance.

TYPES OF TENNIS STANCES

Closed
Your lower body is aligned parallel to the flight of the tennis ball, which typically means your feet are facing the side of the court as you hit the ball. Most beginners are taught first to use this stance. Some instructors refuse to teach anything but this stance.

Open
Your lower body is aligned perpendicular to the flight of the tennis ball, which typically means your feet are facing the net when you hit the ball. Many instructors will not teach this stance as it can encourage bad form. However, many pros play with this stance.

Semi-Open
As you certainly can guess, this lies somewhere in between. This tends to be a good compromise stance for the tennis grips used today and the speed of today’s modern game. It urges you to get into a “strong” form before hitting the ball but recognizes that you can’t always (and might not want to) get into a closed stance.