Your Strokes: Jacky Duchamp Forehand

Can an extreme grip forehand really work in club tennis? Extreme grips are here to stay at the highest levels of tennis. That's not much of an insight because, obviously, they are in the wide majority. But what about at the club level? Many coaches including myself teach beginners conservative to moderate forehand grips, along the lines of Pete Sampras, Roger Federer and Andre Agassi. This fits the type of ball club players deal with, balls that yield a strike zone around waist level, that aren't super heavy and bouncing 5 feet off the court. (Click Here for more on this whole issue in the Osmosis Forehand article.) These are also great grips for beginning juniors because they learn how to hit through the ball--don't worry they'll slide under the handle soon enough on their own. There's another huge bonus, which is more conservative grips make learning the volleys far more natural. This is because the feel of the forward motion--going through the ball around contact is more similar off the ground and at the net. This contrasts with the heavy hand and arm rotation needed on the more extreme grip groundstrokes which often makes the volleys feel totally unnatural...