palm up palm down

These are proper coach's notebook pages – not random tips, but a full system for getting your racquet ready before you swing, so you don't have to save it at the last millisecond.

I pulled the handwriting straight from your photos first, then unpacked what it means.

Page 1 – the four quadrants

Top left: Backhand "End of backswing palm is facing down" Cue: "See the watch" Your sketch shows the back of the hand up, watch face visible to you. That's a closed, stable wrist.

Top right: Forehand "End of backswing palm is facing up" Reason written underneath: "pre-compensate for the racquet face angle to be vertical at the contact point" Your drawing shows the palm up, racquet tipped back. You are setting the face early so the forward swing just brings it square.

Bottom left: Backhand Volley / Serve (Slice) "Brush on the back of the ball" "BackSpin Generation" Sketch is a racquet cutting down and across the back of the ball.

Bottom right: Forehand Volley & Serve "Similarly, wait for the ball with the racquet face already in the right position = Save time = ready"

Page 2 – the two ways to loop

You made a table: null Bottom sketches clarify: Compact: BEFORE thumb on top of racquet (open hand), AFTER rotate wrist, thumb below racquet (closed) Big loop: BEFORE and AFTER keep "same hand position / closed" – the shoulder does the work, wrist stays quiet

What you're actually describing

This is one principle applied everywhere: set the face early, don't fix it late.

Pre-compensation beats manipulation. Most rec players try to square the face at contact. You're doing the opposite – on the forehand you start palm-up so the natural pronation through the swing brings it vertical. On the backhand you start palm-down ("see the watch") so you don't flip open. Less timing to mess up.

Time dictates the engine. When you have no time (return, quick volley), you use the small wrist flip – thumb goes from top to bottom, face closes in one motion. When you have time (baseline rally), you use the big shoulder loop and lock the wrist. That protects consistency and, at 52, protects your wrist and elbow too.

Volleys and slice serves are just waiting games. Your note "wait for the ball with the face already in the right position" is key. You are not swinging to create the angle, you are holding it and letting the ball arrive. That's why good volleyers look like they do nothing.

A common trap to watch: mixing the two loops. If you take a big shoulder loop but add the compact wrist flip at the end, the face closes too much and you spray left. Your own note says "keep wrist position stable" for the big loop – that's the guardrail.

Practical way to feel it in Surrey: Stand in front of a mirror, no ball. Take backswing, freeze, check palm. Forehand should show your palm to the sky, backhand should show your watch. For compact, practice the thumb-top to thumb-bottom flip in slow motion 20 times. That's your return-of-serve prep. For big, do shadow swings keeping the racquet face pointing at the side fence through the whole loop – if the face wobbles, you're using wrist not shoulder.

You have basically written your own decision tree: no time = wrist flip, time = shoulder loop, always set the face before the ball arrives.

Why does starting palm-up on the forehand work better than trying to square the face at contact?

Because your forehand is built on rotation, not on a last-second wrist fix – and starting palm-up gives you that rotation for free.

Your note calls it "pre-compensate for the racquet face angle to be vertical at the contact point." That matches what modern coaches teach: in the backswing you supinate (palm up, racquet face tipped toward the ground), then you pronate through the hit.

Here's why that beats trying to square the face at contact:

You trade timing for geometry If you start with a neutral wrist and try to find square at the last 5 milliseconds, you have to time a tiny flip perfectly. The research on forehands shows ball topspin is driven by two things right before impact: racquet head impact angle and vertical velocity. Both are set in the backswing, not invented at the ball. Starting palm-up puts the face slightly closed early, so the forward swing just brings it to about 80 degrees to the ground – the range the study found in skilled players – without a panic correction. 4842655230492633322

Coaching forums describe the same picture: "Your racquet face will be almost or exactly parallel to the ground on the backswing. Yes, your racquet will also be pointing to the back fence". That's the palm-up position in your sketch. 2408291824929232567

You load the forearm like a spring The YouTube breakdown you are echoing calls it "The Secret Spiral: How Supination & Pronation Create Effortless Forehand Power" and lists exactly: "What supination in the backswing looks like" and "How pronation powers the follow-through". 552986836578013993

When you supinate early, you stretch the pronator muscles. As your hips and trunk rotate forward, the arm naturally lags behind – the "racquet lag" coaches talk about – and then the forearm snaps back through pronation. You are not muscling the face square with your hand; the bigger shoulder and trunk rotation does it. That is why the tennis-warehouse thread warns: "Don't ever force any motion on the wrist. Don't grip your racquet too hard... your arm should be quite loose, like the strings on the drum, as you rotate". 2408291824929232567

Trying to square late does the opposite: you tighten the grip, use the small wrist extensors, and lose both power and the stretch.

You get a wider margin for error The PMC study measured racquet head impact angle as "how closed or open the racquet face is at the time of impact", and found variability in that angle is what separates clean hits from mishits. If you start palm-up, the face travels through a long, stable arc. Even if you are a few milliseconds early or late – common at 52 when reaction time is not 20-year-old fast – the face is still close to vertical. 4842655230492633322

If you start neutral and flip late, a 10-millisecond error turns into a face that is 10 degrees open (ball sails) or closed (ball dives). Your notes solve that by making the correction before the swing starts.

It protects the joints you care about Late squaring forces a quick, isolated wrist flick under load. Early supination lets the shoulder internal rotation and trunk turn supply the speed – the study notes those larger rotations correlate with higher racquet velocities in elite players. Less wrist work means less stress on the elbow, which is why your "big loop, keep wrist stable" note pairs so well with the palm-up start.

Think of it like throwing a ball sidearm: you don't start with your palm facing the target and twist at release. You cock the hand back, palm up, then let the arm unwind. The forehand is the same spiral, just with a racquet.

So palm-up is not a style choice. It is a way to pre-set the two variables that actually create topspin – face angle and upward path – using big muscles and elastic recoil, instead of gambling on a tiny wrist adjustment at contact.

Why does starting palm-down on the backhand work better than trying to square the face at contact?

Your backhand note is the mirror image of the forehand – and for the same reason. "Palm down, see the watch" is not a pose, it is how you lock the face early so you don't have to steer it at the ball.

On a one-hander, that palm-down position does three jobs that a last-second square-up can't:

It pre-sets the hitting structure When you turn back and let the palm face the ground, the back of your hand (where your watch sits) points up. Coaches describe this exact checkpoint on other strokes as getting your wrist in a position where you can "see the back of your wrist" instead of your palm, and the classic cue is trying to see your wristwatch at or above eye level in the backswing. 8947756582535034859

That orientation puts your forearm in pronation and your wrist in slight extension. The racquet face naturally tips a little closed and points to the back fence – the same "racquet parallel to the ground" checkpoint we saw on the forehand. You are not holding it there with muscle; the bones are stacked.

If you start neutral and try to square late, you have to actively flip the forearm and wrist in the last 30 milliseconds. That flip is tiny, fast, and easy to mistime, especially on a deep ball in Surrey where the court is often a bit heavy.

It lets the big muscles turn the racquet, not the hand High-speed breakdowns of ATP one-handers show the forward swing starts with the arm almost straight and the racquet head down because of internal shoulder rotation, ISR. From your palm-down start, the next move is not a wrist flick – it is scapular retraction and shoulder horizontal abduction. 2354295166024170403

One detailed thread puts it plainly: "scapular retraction - from a position of extreme protraction - can cause shoulder horizontal abduction and may add to racket head speed". In plain English: you coil your shoulder blade around your ribs on the take-back (that's the protraction you feel when you "look over your shoulder" like Henin), then you squeeze the blade back toward your spine to sling the arm forward. 2354295166024170403

Because the palm is already down, the forearm and racquet move as one solid lever. You don't need to roll the wrist to find square – the retraction brings the strings to the ball with the face stable. Trying to square at contact forces you to add a late supination with the small forearm muscles, which breaks that lever and kills the kinetic chain from the ground up.

It gives you the same impact geometry the research rewards Remember the forehand study: ball topspin correlates with racquet head impact angle and vertical velocity just before impact, not with how hard you flick at the last instant. The backhand works the same way. Starting palm-down gives you a slightly closed face early (roughly 75 to 85 degrees to the court), so when you drive up and forward with your legs, the face arrives vertical without a correction.

If you wait to square, two things happen: Your hitting zone shortens, because you are busy rotating the racquet instead of driving through the ball. Your variability goes up, because that late rotation depends on perfect timing of the wrist, which is the weakest link at 52.

The "see the watch" cue is a brilliant self-check because you can feel it without looking. If you can see the watch face at the top of the backswing, you know the forearm is pronated, the wrist is set, and the face is pre-compensated. From there you just turn your chest to the ball and let the scapula pull – no steering needed.

In short: palm-down stores the angle, the shoulder blade and torso deliver it, and the wrist stays quiet. Palm-neutral and square-late asks the wrist to do a job it was never built for under pressure.