It's not the first time this has happened... I travel for a few months and when I come home, I lose my overhand swing. Half the time, either the bird goes straight down to my feet or I miss it completely. It takes several weeks to get back into the groove. This time I weight-lifted regularly during those few months without playing. When i started playing again, I couldn't get a single overhand shot, be it a clear, drop or smash. Drove me nuts... I had to rely solely on backhand shots. And I got pretty bad blisters from inavertently holding the racquet too tight (which has never happened in my 5 years of playing) Is this abnormal?? How do I correct this?
Ur trying to hard ere. Slow the movement down big time. Almost do slow overheads, focus on hitting it, rather than using power. When I played tennis for a month, my 1st 10 overheads were like Ive never played and of course I tried harder which is the mistake. Ur doing same cause ur hand is blistered from a tight grip. Ur trying to hard. Relax urself, relax the grip
Gripping too hard also loses power. You should hold the racket fairly loosely and only tighten grip at the point of impact. If you're struggling to make any kind of contact, reduce the swing length a bit. You'll lose a bit of power, but hopefully you'll get the feel of the shuttle again. You can then put the length back in.
I played again today, made a bit of progress. Now I can connect with the bird half the time on the overhand shots, lol, but that's mostly due to holding the racquet differently. Still no smashes. It probably doesn't help that I'm using a $30 Head Ti90 racquet after 6 years with a Yonex Ti7 that I forgot to bring to Toronto, or that my blisters are peeling...
When it comes to connecting to the shuttles, i don't think different racquets would make any difference. Like the previous posts, you need to relax your grip and focus more on connecting the shuttles to your racquet head. You should not worry about smashes/drops, if you can't hit a clear, there's no point trying to execute other types of shots. What you should try to focus on is also your positioning. You should be right under the shuttle when you execute your swings. I noticed many new players try to hit the shuttle sideways, look more like tennis to me. Of course i don't know if you are a beginner or not...
Just a question about your overhead shots are you following the birdie throughout its path? Cause if you arent you should try that because when I swing I actually turn my head towards the net and just swing, which caused me to miss. Like the other guys said relax and just take it easy.
