The Queen of Clay
Back in 2005, the 19-year-old Rafael Nadal won his very first French Open title, beating then world #1 Roger Federer in 4 sets along the way. Last year (2020), at the same tournament, something...
What is Proprioception, Anyway?
Proprioception is a sense, like sight or smell. A person’s sense of proprioception is their sense of where their limbs are in space. You might be wondering: isn’t that just a subset of other...
Compact, Efficient, Elite – Aslan Karatsev’s Versatile Forehand
In almost every article, I say something along the lines of “lead with the hips” or “power comes from the hips, not the arm,” but how do you actually put that concept into practice?...
Free the Feet, Free the Hips
Whenever possible, you want to power your forehand using both of the primary engines that accelerate the stroke: positive balance and rotation. Lean into the shot, ending with your weight deeper into the court...
Yelling Isn’t Coaching
Let’s start with a funny story, told by strength coach Matt Reynolds, detailing the absurdity of how Baylor football players are “coached” during their strength and conditioning. Here’s the link to the clip (timestamped...
The Power of Neutral
At Fault Tolerant Tennis, we talk a lot about offensive tennis. That’s for good reasons, two specifically. When your strokes lack fault tolerance, it’s your offensive tennis that starts to break down first Offensive...
How to Hit Really Really Hard (Without Missing)
At the start of our forehand power checklist, we distinguished between effortless power and effortful power. Obviously, in order to hit really, really hard, you have to use both, but the manner by which...
Which Forehand Stance is Best?
The following is an excerpt from the book The Fault Tolerant Forehand, which will be released on April 15th! Stance is similar to grip – it doesn’t matter that much. With an open, semi-open,...
Tennis Makes you Better at Every Sport
At Fault Tolerant Tennis we teach fundamentals. We don’t start with tips and tricks. We don’t start with this limb position and that joint angle. We start with the human body and build out...
The #1 Forehand Consistency Killer
I can’t trust my forehand. I’ve heard the above sentence more than any other when it comes to fixing the forehand. It’s an extremely common problem that I struggled with myself as a teenager...