When watching the pros, we can see a lot of them are using the open stance to hit their forehand and backhand. This becomes a normal pattern of techniques for the players. Modern technique as many said.
Coaches need to have the knowledge of these stances and what will happen to the players when teaching open stance. Coaches need to understand the biomechanics of the stances and the force they generated.
The question here is, whether to teach the beginners with open stance or neutral stance?
Before we dive into the answer, it is debatable that actually the open stance is the neutral. Toss a beginner a ball, look at them hitting the ball. Is it open stance or close stance? A lot of beginners, use open stance if they are not being told to hit it side ways.
Let us assume the normal side way forehand and backhand hitting as neutral and the body facing the net is open stance. This is to avoid from everyone of us to get confuse of the term.
When a kid starts tennis, some of the coaches use the approach to introduce the players open stance right away. The problem with this stance is the generation of force it produced. Kids do not have good coordination to get the rhythm right in doing open stance. They will only be using the hand to hit the balls. Introducing the open stance before they even can hit is not going to work.
A good coach understand the fundamental of tennis strokes. The forehand and backhand is originally hit with neutral stance. The open stance comes later throughout the journey as a player. This is because tennis involve moving forward and backward besides going left and right. Due to this, it is better for beginners to start their tennis forehand and backhand using neutral stance.
Load and unload during the stroke production can comes at the later stages of the development. Do understand and leave the modern tennis behind at the moment for beginners lesson. Back to basics and get the neutral stance in used for better tennis techniques.