An effective overhead must be powerful, accurate and, most of all, reliable. Follow this 7-step plan and you’ll never have to worry about missing another one.
1. Get your shoulders turned and racquet up. Much of the difficulty in hitting an overhead lies in the setup. Players often try to prepare for the overhead with their bellybuttons facing the net. They get almost no rotation with the hips and upper body and are forced to backpedal with poor balance to get into position. Just getting yourself into good hitting position quickly is half the battle. Once the ball goes up, in one fluid motion you should extend your off arm up to track the ball, rotate sideways with your dominant foot back, and point your racquet up to the sky so that it’s almost perpendicular to the court. I strongly recommend holding the racquet with a Continental grip as it’s best for getting the face square at impact. Now you’re ready to properly move your body to the ball.
2. Move back with crossover steps. Everybody has a preference for how you move back for the ball. I recommend using crossover steps because I believe it gets you in position more quickly. Take a couple of big crossover steps toward the baseline and use small adjustment steps to get yourself into good hitting position. It’s always better to move too far back and then adjust forward than it is to let the ball get behind you. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, you don’t want to reach back for the ball on an overhead. In fact, stepping forward with your lead foot as you swing will give your shot more power and control. During practice, a good way to check your balance, shoulder turn, and positioning is to catch the ball with your nondominant arm. If your body is under control and you’re not reaching or lunging to catch the ball, you know you’re in the right spot.
3. Properly time your swing. Figuring out when to start your swing is another tricky element of the overhead, particularly for beginners. Becoming confident with this part of the stroke is a matter of trial and error. Ideally, you want to make contact in front of your body and in line with your hitting shoulder. Your arm should be at full extension, somewhat like your serve. But unlike the serve, this toss is very, very high. This can disrupt your timing and cause you to make contact with a bent arm, which leads to errors. Try to keep your nondominant arm up until you start your forward swing. This will help prevent your head from pulling down, another common problem that produces mishits. If the lob is exceptionally high, let the ball bounce. Part of the reason to take the ball out of the air is to limit your opponent’s recovery time. But if the lob seems to scrape the sky, this won’t be an issue. By bouncing it, you take some of the height out of the ball and give yourself a better chance to time your swing.
4. Accelerate the racquet through contact. Just as with any stroke, you want your arm to be relaxed on the overhead. Since it’s viewed as a power shot, many players tense up and try to kill the ball, which actually slows the racquet down. Keep a loose grip on the handle and squeeze it on impact. This will allow the hitting arm to swing freely and generate more racquet-head speed. You can actually hit a very powerful overhead by keeping it simple and letting the racquet do the work. Add some wrist snap and forearm pronation at contact and your overhead will have more than enough pace.
5. Pick safe targets. As a simple rule, the farther back you retreat for the overhead the less angle you should use on your shot. In other words, aim deeper and straighter. If you get a shallow lob, you can pick spots shorter in the court and closer to the sidelines. Just remember that losing a point on an overhead is one of the game’s cardinal sins. Err on the side of caution; give your shots more room and don’t try to hit difficult shots. You want the worst case to be that your opponent returns your smash. And even then, you’re still in the better position. Most likely you’ll get another overhead, and perhaps this one will be easier to put away.
6. Use a scissors kick on deep lobs. Earlier I mentioned how you never want an overhead to get behind you. But sometimes the lob is too good and you don’t have a choice. If you let the ball bounce, you may not be able to retrieve it. This is where using a scissors kick, a rather advanced technique, can help. As you move back for the ball and recognize that it’s too deep, jump backward off your back foot. This push off the court gives you a little extra height and reach so you can get your racquet behind the ball. Since you’re so stretched out, you can’t transfer your weight into the shot. You have to control it mostly with your arm and wrist. Try to get your racquet head through contact—otherwise the ball will most likely go long. Don’t go for a winner. Play to a big part of the court and recover for the next ball.
7. Practice often. The best way to improve your overhead is through repetition. I don’t think it’s a shot that many players pay enough attention to, and that’s why they struggle. But with practice, the overhead can become a dependable weapon. This drill is simple, fun, and very effective. Stand at the service line and have a partner on the opposite baseline feed a drive that you take in the air and volley. Aim the shot back at your partner; he returns it with another drive that you continue to move in on and volley back to him. On the next shot, he sends up a lob. You must move into position and hit the overhead. Immediately after you complete the overhead, your partner should feed another drive. You must move up and take the ball out of the air with a volley to start the sequence again. Do this drill for several minutes and your overheads, movement around the net, and stamina will get a great workout.