Advanced Arm Rotation

[lukman41985]

John,
Can you please explain what you meant about Andre Agassi's advanced arm rotation on his two handed backhand? It would really help if you used some video to explain this!

[lukman41985]

John,
Is this what you mean by advanced arm rotation? In the hitting arm position, Hewitt has his left forearm facing upward and to his right. At contact, the left forearm faces the right-side fence. At the finish, the left forearm faces downward and to the right. This all occurs with the left wrist laid back. Additionally, I think Hewitt is a two-hander who uses the bend-straight combination.

Bottle,
I know you and I talked about this some. What do you think? I'm going to try it out.

[johnyandell]

You're getting the idea. Back up this one above 2 frames before contact. See how the underside of his forearm is partially pointed up at the sky--and how the tip of the racket tilts downward? Now watch as his arm rotates as you advance the frames. See how you can see the knob of the elbow joint in the followthrough? That's coming from the arm rotation. When you turn your forearm back and rotate the racket tip down, this rotation of the arm increases on the forward swing.

[lukman41985]

When you turn your forearm back and rotate the racket tip down, this rotation of the arm increases on the forward swing.

We're on level, but I disagree with this quotation.

Turning one's forearm back and rotating the racket tip down does not neccessarily result in increased arm rotation on the forward swing.

By turning one's forearm back and rotating the racket tip down, one has the racquet face open. Because of this open racquet face, one has to rapidly rotate the arm to square the face. Otherwise, the result will be a shot to the back fence. Good for baseball, bad for tennis. But my point is, the arm rotation happens consciously, it doesn't just happen. If it happened automatically, you'd be saying that Agassi's mix of spins, trajectories, and angles off the backhand wing are accidental. It's not--it's fully intentional. And let me add he's the best two-hander ever at doing this.

You know, the old schoolers would insist that keeping the racquet face on edge would be a more consistent and efficient method to hit a backhand. I think, and let me add my thoughts are heavily influenced by Doug King's excellent work, that turning the forearm with the wrist laid back allows one to work the back of the ball better than with the classical style, giving you more control and spin. Doug King's not the only proponent of this theory--you seem to be--however Mr. King is much more explicit about it all. I just wish you two would work together. Get him here on tennisplayer.net and off tennisone.com!!!

[johnyandell]

Nope, you missed it. the racket face doesn't open. It stays on edge and the tip rotates down. In the clip I pasted, the racket head is slightly open as the arm is rotating. But when AA starts forward it's on edge. That's the way to visualize it.

[lukman41985]

Nope, you missed it. The racket face doesn't open.

During the unit turn the racquet may be on edge. However, two frames before contact, the racquet face is open. Heck, even one frame before contact the racquet is slightly open.

[lukman41985]

Hmmm...lookie here...



John,
The beautiful thing about the stroke archive and posting video in this forum is that we can go back and forth like this and open our eyes to the viewpoint of others. With that in mind, I apologize and say that I am wrong about the racquet face having to be open when using the advanced arm rotation technique. I just pulled up some video of J.C. Ferrero, who also has a beautiful backhand. After observing Ferrero's racquet 4 frames before contact, it does not open. This video has a much better view of the technique than the one you posted. I still think Agassi's face is more open, but not necessarily open...if that makes sense...I think this is a function of the fact that JC's left hand grip is closer to a semi-western whereas AA uses more of an eastern with his left hand.

[johnyandell]

Have to agree about the archive, the forum and Ferrero. Gorgeous Fererro movie by the way.

If you look at numerous Agassi backhands, you'll see the commonality is: racket on edge with forearm rotated back at the start of forward swing--at the latest.

[lukman41985]

Harvard/Yale rivalry...even in grammar!

Have to agree about the archive, the forum and Ferrero.

As a gradutate of Yale, I see you're not someone who uses the Harvard comma. If you were, you would have written, "...the archive, the forum, and Ferrero." What a rivalry!

[johnyandell]

Lukman,

I have no idea what you are talking about... my dad went to Harvard and I almost went there for grad school--great place!

John

[lukman41985]

Wow...let me just wipe this egg of my face...

[johnyandell]

Not a problem...