Federer is often mentioned as the best watcher of the ball onto the racquet in tennis. But you can’t be a good tennis player without watching the ball well – lots of other players do it well too.

Watching the ball is such an essential fundamental, but it is not really practiced. Normally the coach just says “Watch the ball!”

The simplest way to trick yourself into watching the ball is Timothy Gallwey’s bounce hit exercise. It’s super simple and it works really well. All you have to do is say “bounce” when the ball hits the ground, and say “hit” when your racquet hits the ball. You’ll probably notice your timing is a little off when you first start this exercise, but after a while you’ll notice more balls go in as your timing improves.

Here’s a super slow motion video of Almagro and his lovely one handed backhand from the 2010 French Open Quarter Final against Rafael Nadal. Straight arm at contact out in front of the body, and watching that ball all the way onto the racquet

As I’ve said in my lessons, when you approach the net you do 2 things.

1. Split step as your opponent hits the ball

2. Stamp your front foot and the racket down at the same time as you strike the ball

But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is a moving picture of Andy Roddick doing exactly what I told him.

I’ve put it on loop playback so you can visualize yourself doing it while watching.