Eye Dominance Revisited

[doctorhl]

As a right handed, left eye dominant ( cross dominant) player with a one handed backhand, it takes so long to quickly dial in the backhand under pressure. Other than trying to switch to two hands, I need either a more open stance, a full frontal head turn while maintaining unit turn, or a two hand swing and release to get that left eye in position to track. Any one handed backhand pro models out there hitting a little more open stance? Federer is the poster boy as a cross dominant, one handed backhand player, but his otherwordly footwork and timing seem to make up for any cross dominance difficulty. I suspect eye tracking software can give us some clues one day, Perhaps it would have been easier to just switch to 2 hands years ago.

[stotty]

I have never been convinced that eye dominance is such a big deal in tennis. I imagine it's a much bigger deal in sports where the outcome is overwhelming to do with eyesight; sports where you aim and shoot such as when you use a rifle or in archery perhaps. I guess in these sports you leave your dominant eye open and close the other one; or maybe you leave both eyes open and let your brain do the rest, I'm not sure.

[johnyandell]

Guys something very interesting on this topic coming from Chris Lewit next month.

[florin]

Interesting topic, my daughter is cross dominant and she has trouble hitting a straight/bent 2hb, loves to slice and she slowly moves to a straight/straight posture and for long time i had no clue why. 2 days ago i was listening to Daria Kopsic on youtube on this topic and everything made sense, the way she keeps her head, contact point, so different from the rest of the girls, one plus is the straight arm forehand that is so natural to her. Daria is a known coach specialized in biomechanics and her theory is, cross eye players are those with straight arm forehands because are forced to make contact in front of them ,ex: Nadal, Federer( tested by Annacone), Alcaraz, Verdasco ,but also in common a weak backhand. Curious what Chris has to say about this subject!

[stroke]

It is interesting. Super coach Patrick M is all over this dominant eye thing. I personally kind of think it is all about Federer. He is cross eye dominant as ALL know, and has the prettiest game ever, with the most effortless eye pleasing forehand ever. Regarding the forehand, I would be curious is other players that have similar pleasing straight arm forehand head position technique are cross eye dominant, like Grigor, Alcaraz, Nadal, Verdasco, Tsitsipas, Rublev, Del Po. Patrick M takes this eye dominance thing a step further and applies it to the serve also, once again using Federer as the model/example.

[dimbleby69]

Guys something very interesting on this topic coming from Chris Lewit next month.

Great news. I’ve been hoping for a follow-up to the intriguing material Chris wrote on the subject in his article on Joffre Porta. Can we expect more insights about Spanish coaching?

regards
Rob

[johnyandell]

Rob,
I think you may be surprised at what Chris has found thru some serious research...
JY