A groundstroke is any shot in tennis where you hit the ball after it has bounced once on your side of the court. There are two groundstrokes: the forehand and the backhand. Together, they make up the majority of shots in any tennis match and form the foundation of baseline play.
Forehand vs. Backhand
The forehand is hit on the same side as your dominant hand. If you’re right-handed, that’s any ball to your right. You swing across your body from back to front, striking the ball with your palm facing the net. Most players develop a stronger forehand first because the motion feels more natural.
The backhand covers the opposite side. You can hit it with one hand or two hands on the grip. The two-handed backhand is more common among modern players because it provides extra stability and control, especially for beginners building strength. The one-handed version offers greater reach and can generate more slice, but it demands precise timing and a strong wrist.
How Your Body Generates Power
A groundstroke might look like an arm swing, but most of the energy comes from your legs and torso. The larger muscle groups in the legs and trunk generate force that transfers up through the body to the arm and racket. This sequence, often called the kinetic chain, is what separates a powerful groundstroke from an arm-only push.
Here’s how it works in practice. You push off the ground with your legs, which rotates your hips. Your upper trunk counter-rotates roughly 90 to 100 degrees from the baseline during the backswing, coiling like a spring. As you swing forward, your hips fire first, then your trunk unwinds, then your shoulder and arm whip through the ball. The main motions creating racket speed on a forehand are trunk rotation, the arm pulling across the body, and the shoulder rotating inward. After contact, the racket and arm still carry most of the energy from the swing, which is why a full follow-through matters for both power and injury prevention.
Three Types of Spin
Groundstrokes aren’t all hit the same way. The spin you put on the ball changes its flight path, bounce, and how much margin for error you get over the net.
- Topspin: The racket brushes up the back of the ball with a low-to-high swing path. This makes the ball arc higher over the net then dip down sharply, bouncing high and deep into the court. Topspin gives you the most safety margin because you can aim well above the net and the ball will still drop in. It takes more effort and a faster swing, but it’s the dominant spin in modern tennis.
- Slice (backspin): The racket cuts underneath the ball with a high-to-low swing path and an open racket face. The ball floats lower over the net, travels more slowly through the air, and stays low after bouncing. Slice requires less physical effort and is highly repeatable, but the margin between ball and net is thin, so precision matters.
- Flat: Minimal spin, maximum speed. The racket moves straight through the ball. Flat groundstrokes are the hardest to control because there’s no spin pulling the ball down into the court, but they give your opponent the least time to react.
Grip Changes How You Hit
The way you hold the racket determines how naturally you can produce different spins and handle balls at various heights. Three forehand grips dominate modern tennis, each shifting the hand slightly around the handle.
The eastern grip keeps the racket face relatively flat at contact, making it ideal for driving through the ball on low bounces and fast surfaces like grass or hard courts. The semi-western grip, favored by many current professionals, naturally closes the racket face slightly. This makes it easier to brush up on the ball for topspin while still allowing aggressive depth. The western grip closes the face even more, generating extreme topspin on balls at shoulder height and above, but it struggles with low balls because the wrist has to work harder to get under them.
Footwork and Stance
Your feet determine how effectively you can set up for a groundstroke. Two stances cover most situations. A neutral (or closed) stance has your front foot stepping toward the net, giving you a stable base to drive through the ball. It works best when the incoming ball is slow or lands short, giving you time to step into position.
An open stance keeps both feet roughly parallel to the baseline. You load your weight onto your outside leg and rotate through the shot. This is the go-to stance when you’re stretched wide toward the sideline or the ball is coming fast, because it saves time. You skip the step forward and recover back to position more quickly. Most competitive players use both stances constantly, choosing based on how much time the incoming ball gives them.
Tactical Use From the Baseline
Groundstrokes are the primary weapons of baseline play. A baseliner stays near or behind the baseline, using groundstrokes to control rallies rather than rushing the net. The basic tactical framework is straightforward: cross-court shots (hitting diagonally) are safer because the net is lower in the center and the court is longer corner to corner. Down-the-line shots (hitting straight) are riskier but can win points outright when placed near the corner.
Most players have a stronger forehand than backhand, so a common pattern is “running around” the backhand. This means sliding to the left (for a right-hander) to take a ball that would naturally go to the backhand side, then hitting an inside-out forehand instead. It sacrifices court position for the advantage of using the stronger shot. Some players with dominant backhands do the reverse, adjusting their stance and grip to rip a backhand down the line when a forehand would seem more convenient.
Aggressive baseliners use deep, heavy topspin groundstrokes to push opponents behind the baseline, then look for shorter balls to attack with flatter, angled shots. Defensive baseliners prioritize consistency, keeping the ball deep and waiting for errors. Either way, groundstrokes are the shots that structure the point.
Common Beginner Mistakes
The most damaging beginner error on groundstrokes involves the wrist, particularly on the one-handed backhand. Skilled players strike the ball with the wrist firm and slightly extended, then push through the ball. Beginners tend to do the opposite: they make contact with a bent wrist and let it buckle further on impact. This forces the muscles on the outside of the forearm to absorb shock rather than generate racket speed, and it’s closely linked to tennis elbow. Research comparing professionals to intermediate players with elbow problems found a stark difference in wrist action at contact, with the injured group showing almost no forward wrist speed while pros extended through the ball at roughly ten times that rate.
Other common issues include standing too upright instead of bending the knees (which cuts off the power chain from the legs), swinging with just the arm rather than rotating the trunk, and poor contact point. Hitting the ball too close to the body or too far out in front both reduce control. The ideal contact point is slightly in front of the leading hip, where the racket face naturally lines up with the target.