How to hit the ball

Correctly hitting the ball requires four crucial ingredients:

• Wrist cocked - i.e racquet and forearm should form a 90 degree angle with wrist turned as far back as possible towards your body. This puts your swing in the ready position to play powerful shots quickly. When you swing, you 'release' the wrist so that it ends up pointing away from your body in the follow through.
• Racquet up - Keep the racquet up , above waist level to be ready to volley the ball on short notice. To switch to backhand you only need to rotate your body and shoulders a little. With the racquet down, you waste time bringing it up when you are ready to volley and it is difficult to switch to backhand quickly.
• Make sure you are 'square' with the wall when hitting the ball. What this means is your leading foot needs to be perpendicular to the sidewall when playing a shot you want to go parallel to the sidewall. On the forehand side for a right-handed player the leading foot is the left foot. For backhand side the leading foot is the right foot. Avoid the common novice mistake of having the body face the front wall when hitting. Like this you can only play cross-courts. To play a straight game up and down the sidewall the foot of you leading leg must be perpendicular to the sidewall.
• Bend / lunge when stroking the ball. Never hit a ball standing fully erect, unless your opponent directly hits the ball back to you. Always lunge into it so you can spring back to the T, and get low enough to lift the ball high on the front wall to get it deep in the back corners. Professional players often have their upper body parralel with the floor of the court, i.e they are completely bent over when hitting. You can generate more power and control like this compared to hitting the ball standing fully straight.

So keep these pointers in mind when practicing and playing games. Always compare your game to the professionals and ask yourself what is the difference. 95% of the differences will be found by not following one of the above pointers.