There are many opinions on the role of the wrist in the modern tennis forehand. The wrist action is mostly passive and it is important to understand how the joint behaves on an aggressive neutral ball, hitting cross court with spin and margin. I add this bit of context to understand that the stroke may behave slightly different in varying scenarios.
Some coaches refer to lag and snap as it relates to how the racquet accelerates up to contact. This term can confuse players, and potentially emphasize too much active wrist in the forward swing. There is a varying degree of active wrist engagement based on the shot situation.
We need to recognize what happens to a relatively passive wrist during a mechanically correct modern forehand.
While this blog post was in draft form, a video on this topic found it’s way into my YouTube feed. After reviewing this video, I found that it ironically hit on all the topics that I had planned on discussing in this blog post. I think this video is very close to hitting on all the points that are important. I don’t agree on everything 100%, but it is too well done to debate. Please watch the video in entirety and let me know if you have questions. There are other videos on this topic and I think this one best covers the topic, however it packs a lot of information in a short video, you might need to watch it twice to fully consume the information.
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