The three F’s of hitting ground strokes:
Find:
Forget the old adage ‘watch the ball’; instead replace it with ‘find the ball with your hands’. The racket moves immediately to the side of the oncoming ball and waits for the ball to arrive. Connect with that pause. The hands wait, while the legs move to the ball.
The hands find the ball.
Follow:
Once the finding is happening successfully and consistently, then move to swinging the racket in the direction of the ball. So, find the ball and then take the racket back and push it forward in the direction of the ball. Do this while moving further and further towards the baseline.
The arm and racket follow in the direction of the ball.
Finish:
When both finding and following are happening well enough so that you are hitting the ball cleanly and comfortably, the finish will happen automatically. The finish is an outcome of relaxation in the arm, it is not something to be ‘done’, it is something that happens when the arm is light as opposed to heavy. Throw the arm towards the ball.
Allow gravity to take the racket wherever it wants to go. Your grip and the type of shot you hit will determine the finish, not the mind.