The Forehand Press Slot

By Fault Tolerant Tennis · Kinetic & Biomechanical Reference (2024-09-01) · Original Article ↗

This position is magic on the forehand. I call it “the press slot,” because it’s a dynamic position you reach by pressing with your pecs – the strong muscles in your chest.

If you do it right, as you pass through this part of the swing, it’ll feel seamless. The energy will flow through your chest and your shoulder and into your contact action, which will strike through the ball exactly as you intended.

How the Chest Powers the Forehand

Every human being has a big, strong muscle group in their chest, known as the “pectoral muscles.” These muscles are responsible for pressing the hands and arms forward. In order to hit a maximally efficient forehand, we need to recruit these muscles.

To do so, we probe the ball away from our body – out to our hitting side, and in front of us. Then, as we turn forwards, we press the arm across, resisting its backwards momentum, and ultimately flinging it out behind the ball in a way that causes the racket to effortlessly smack through it.

There are two kinds of anatomical motion which are relevant here.

1. Horizontal Shoulder Adduction

When the pecs contract, the angle between the humerus (the bone through your upper-arm) and the chest closes. This sends your hand forward.

*Horizontal shoulder adduction is the name for when the humeral-pectoral angle closes – the arm and chest get closer together, while the hand is pressed forward.*

2. Internal Shoulder Rotation

A consequence of pressing forward is that your shoulder wants to internally rotate. You’ll strike the ball just as this internal rotation starts. It feels like a “shoulder release” action, and you can use that feeling to time your swing. This press-and-roll feeling: where you fire your racket into the press-slot with the chest, and feel the arm roll through and after contact, is critical for a fault tolerant forehand.

Internal shoulder rotation is a motion that refers to the shoulder rotating towards the center of your body. Because this rotation occurs at the shoulder, the entire arm is rotating. ISR should not be confused with “pronation,” which is an internal rotation of just the forearm.

Finding Your Press Slot

Though your forehand’s kinetic chain physically starts from the ground, the swing’s intention starts with your racket-head’s final strike through the ball. The early part of the swing must be executed in such a way so as to set up the late part of your swing. Visualize that final contact action – where all of your rotational energy ends up linear, in the tip of the racket-head, striking through the ball in space. Your pressing action exists to set that up.

Weighted shadow swings are the best tool here if you’ve never felt this before. When you swing a weight, you’ll get much more precise feedback about whether or not you’re pressing in a way that’s comfortably producing power.

Carlos Alcaraz from press slot (left) to contact (right). This part of the swing should be automatic. You press into the left position with the intention of hitting the right position dynamically. Between the two positions, only unconscious adjustments are made.

Press Across Your Body (But Not Really)

When we imagine “pressing” the arm forward, we imagine it coming across our body – horizontal shoulder adduction. On the forehand, this adduction occurs only minimally early in the swing, despite active contraction of the pecs. This is because the racket has backwards inertia relative to your trunk, which is twisting forward. Taken together, these facts mean that many players, once pressing optimally, feel like they are swinging across their body, pressing the arm across the trunk, and yet, physically, the arm is merely staying in-line with the trunk early in the swing.

Take a look at the two positions below. Neither elbow has yet cleared in front of the trunk, and yet both players are actively pressing. There is an active contraction through the pecs on both forehands. If there weren’t, the humerus would be stuck far behind the trunk, but instead, we see the elbow carrying right along with it.

*Jannik Sinner (left) and Casper Ruud (right) early in their swings. Even though each player’s elbow has yet to clear his torso, active contraction of the pecs is taking place.*

In the positions above, the pecs are under tension, contracting to keep the arm moving forward with the trunk. Once the trunk starts to slow, about 50-100 ms before contact, that tension will fire the elbow past the trunk, into horizontal adduction, starting the racket’s final approach to the ball.

Upper Back Stability

If your upper back isn’t stable, you won’t have a solid base to press off of. Hold your elbow up using the muscles around your scapula, your lats, and the muscles on the side of your ribcage (serratus anterior). Isometric tone through that entire shoulder-complex prevents your elbow from falling down towards your body, and instead holds it up and away, where your chest has leverage to press forward.

*During the forehand, isometric tone behind the shoulder holds the elbow up.*

This stability behind the shoulder, plus the active press in front of the shoulder, form the foundation of the Simplest Effective Forehand.

The Press is Tied to Rotation

It is extremely awkward to just press, without first spring-loading your chest using rotation, so even when trying to isolate and improve your pressing action, use a small turn to get it started.

Rotation is also the engine by which we press harder. Paradoxically, thinking about “pressing harder” will often make you press worse. The way to actually press harder is to rotate more explosively as you press. Doing so forces the pecs to contract harder in order to prevent the arm from lagging backwards, and then when your trunk slows, that energy gets delivered into the arm.

*Carlos Alcaraz from press slot (left) to contact (right). As the trunk slows, the pecs contraction causes the shoulder to horizontally adduct a full 90 degrees.* *Tension through the pecs is increased as a result of explosive forward rotation.*

The Shoulder Lag Failure-Mode

As you twist forward, you should feel tension in your chest. That tension is necessary to force the hitting arm forward with the trunk. Without this tension, the hitting arm will lag backwards at the shoulder, dangling behind the trunk. It’ll then have to catch up right at the end of the swing, making the timing window minuscule.

*An example of the shoulder-lag position which results from under-activated pecs early in the swing.*

Early, active contraction of the pecs prevents this. Again, it might feel like pressing your arm across your body, mimicking a chest-fly action, even when your elbow isn’t actually moving, and your press is just keeping the elbow in line until your trunk starts to slow.

*Carlos Alcaraz in his preparation (left) and at his press slot (right). The arm has been pressed forward with the trunk, rather than gotten stuck lagging*
*behind it.*

Different Press-Rotation Rhythms

Jannik Sinner generally presses earlier/harder with respect to his rotation than Casper Ruud does. The result is what you see below – Casper generally rotates more, and finishes farther around to his left, while Sinner generally finishes facing the net.

Because Jannik Sinner (left) prefers pressing earlier in his motion, he tends to end facing the net during his follow-through. Casper Ruud (right), by contrast, presses later, and typically finishes facing his left.

There are many right answers here. The most important part of the press slot is whether you can really feel it. There’s a spot out to your right, behind the ball, where you can press your arm into. (If you’re western, it might feel like flinging your elbow there, rather than your entire arm). Twist and press into that slot. When you get it right, your racket will fly through the ball.

Rotation is Early and Transient

The early part of your swing exists in service to the late part. Your early leg drive and torso rotation exist to accelerate the racket into a comfortable press slot, such that when you get to it, your arm can finish the swing. If you continue actively twisting past the press slot, that extra energy won’t get into your racket-head – it’ll just make the swing more difficult to time.

Physically, you will continue to rotate after the press-slot, but that rotation is passive, not active. The goal of your early rotation is to send the energy through your pecs and into your arm. Any rotational energy which doesn’t end up in your arm is wasted.

Carlos’s torso starts sideways and then unwinds throughout the early part of his swing. As he reaches the press slot, much of this rotation energy is loaded into the pecs, which will shortly fling the elbow forward.

Motor Planning Your Pressing Action

Like almost everything in tennis, the press slot is a visual concept. Fire your early rotation and early pressing action based on the ball you’re seeing in front of you. Different balls demand different press slots. If the ball is lower, your press slot will be lower, and if it’s higher, your press slot will be higher (you’ll probably need to adjust your hand’s preparation height as well).

Roger Federer’s press slot on two very different shots – a forehand return (left) and an inside-out swinging volley (right). On the return, a much simpler, more compact version of the forehand, much less velocity has been generated by the press slot.

Right as the ball leaves your opponent’s strings, you should be developing at least a vague idea of where you want to intercept it, and how you want to strike through it. Your motor planning starts with your own anticipated contact, a kinesthetic visualization of how you want your racket head to smack through the ball.

Your pressing action is the link immediately upstream of that contact action. Press out behind the ball in a certain way, and your hand will do exactly what you imagined.