hey this is Florian online tennis
instruction today I want to give you a
tip on the split step the split step is
extremely important in tennis and the
goal of the split step is to be as ready
as possible to react to the next ball so
we want to be ready to move to the right
if our opponent hits a ball into the
corner on the right side we want to be
ready to move to the left to move
forward or to back up depending on what
kind of a shot we're dealing with now
there are different types of situations
of course on the tennis court
that require different footwork patterns
what I want to focus on here is the
timing of the basic split step when you
are around the middle of the court and
as you can see we're using some video
footage from Ana Ivanovic at Indian
Wells in 2013 as well as Roger Federer
here at the same tournament
so let's take a closer look here
Ivanovitch is going to hit a big
forehand here from the middle of a court
and we will actually focus on her
opponent here what I want to show you
here is that actually the key is to
initiate the split step before your
opponent contacts the ball so that when
the opponent contacts the ball your feet
are in the air just about to come down
and then when you come down you can
optimally react to where the next shot
is going so right as Ana's about to
begin her forward swing her opponent
initiates this split step and right here
we can see that when she gets to contact
his feet are in the air so he initiated
before let's take a closer look right
here both feet are in the air and now as
he comes down he can optimally react to
this shot and I hit a great shot but he
manages to recover it here let's take a
look at what happens next once again
she's lined up to hit a big forehand and
add contact right here his feet are in
the air let's take a closer look at that
so that means before contact he
initiated the hop into the split step so
that add contact his feet can be in the
air and then he's coming down to
optimally react right here she gets a
little bit lucky with the net and he
can't quite get to this ball let's take
a look at Roger Federer here on a return
of serve now Myron chillage is serving
and right here you can see that chillage
is about to begin his upward swing to
contact Rogers feet are still on the
ground but he is initiating his hop into
the split step at this point so now
Roger hops into the air and at contact
here we can see that Roger has both feet
up in the air the timing of this is
crucial because as we will see in a
second when Roger comes down into the
split step he reacts right away to hit
his return take a look right here he
comes down and then continues with a
dynamic
movement to hit his return if he comes
down too early he will not be able to
react as efficiently so the optimal
timing on the split step is very
important take a look at this one more
time here
all right so much for this split step
timing lesson make sure you initiate
your split step just before your
opponent contacts the ball so that you
can have your feet in the air just about
to come back down when your opponent
contacts the ball
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