Donald Young

[airforce1]

Seems it would be better to compare Donald Young to Nadal in many respects. They are both very fast lefties with defensive, spin oriented games. They both often contact the ball late or deep into the hitting zone with big windups.

Would be interesting to note the major differences and postulate what accounts for the vastly different results. I have some ideas.

[jeffreycounts]

Seems it would be better to compare Donald Young to Nadal in many respects. They are both very fast lefties with defensive, spin oriented games. They both often contact the ball late or deep into the hitting zone with big windups.

Would be interesting to note the major differences and postulate what accounts for the vastly different results. I have some ideas.

I think you are right on. Both lefties have straighter arms and added wrist motion on a lot of balls. Nadal hits huge spin but with equal power. Young seems to have the spin minus the big power. Young doesn't hit the reverse forehand like Nadal does which is one difference.

Curious to hear your thoughts.

[uspta2448519013]

Seems it would be better to compare Donald Young to Nadal in many respects. They are both very fast lefties with defensive, spin oriented games. They both often contact the ball late or deep into the hitting zone with big windups.

Would be interesting to note the major differences and postulate what accounts for the vastly different results. I have some ideas.

Good feedback, I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say and talk about some of your other ideas. I chose Hewitt and Gonzalez as examples because of the size of their backswings. Both of them have large loop backswings where Nadal has a really compact loop. Both lefties, but Nadal also has much better extension on his forehand.


Jason Frausto

[stroke]

Good feedback, I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say and talk about some of your other ideas. I chose Hewitt and Gonzalez as examples because of the size of their backswings. Both of them have large loop backswings where Nadal has a really compact loop. Both lefties, but Nadal also has much better extension on his forehand.


Jason Frausto

I think I see what you are saying Jason. I have never seen Nadal abbreviate the finish of his FH as severely as Young does sometimes. You are also spot on about the huge backswing. I don't believe it could be any bigger while staying on the front plane of his hips. I personally think Young has done very well to break the top 100, especially considering his serve compared to most other players. It was good to hear Jeff's thoughts on Young. I have the utmost respect for his take on the modern game.

[uspta2448519013]

I think I see what you are saying Jason. I have never seen Nadal abbreviate the finish of his FH as severely as Young does sometimes. You are also spot on about the huge backswing. I don't believe it could be any bigger while staying on the front plane of his hips. I personally think Young has done very well to break the top 100, especially considering his serve compared to most other players. It was good to hear Jeff's thoughts on Young. I have the utmost respect for his take on the modern game.

It's definitely an interesting swing, and I'd love for Donald to do well and climb the rankings. His serve is definitely a liability as well so it's amazing that his natural ability has taken him this far missing what are more often than not the two biggest weapons in the men's game (serve/forehand). I love reading Jeff's analysis as well, he has great insight on the modern game. Take care.


Jay

[airforce1]

I think you are right on. Both lefties have straighter arms and added wrist motion on a lot of balls. Nadal hits huge spin but with equal power. Young seems to have the spin minus the big power. Young doesn't hit the reverse forehand like Nadal does which is one difference.

Curious to hear your thoughts.

I think DY is caught in a very common thought paradigm. He hits big spin for more of a roller, then flattens out the ball to pump up the power. He has not yet got the concept of a power spin. They look at it as a either/or proposition currently. Don't fool yourself, DY can flat out extend thru a shot and make a ball disappear! Unfortunately for him, due to the high risk/flat nature of this style, he can only make use of it when he is front running and can afford to waste a few points here and there.

I think is unfair to look at a few mistimed shots and claim his follow thru is that flawed. He may in fact have quite a few of them per set, but this is due to being tight and behind, trying too hard, pressing. It also may very well be due to his large back swing too, as the excellent article claims. But in the end, the poor follow throughs are compensations, not his form.

As to Rafa having a compact backswing, well, thats news to me. I think he has done a nice job of shortening it some for hard courts, but I've never seen it as truly compact. The big difference for me is Rafa has the concept of power spin and knows he can generate max spin, while still getting 85% of his big power. He also uses the rev FH to compensate for being late, without cutting off the follow thru.

[airforce1]

Good feedback, I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say and talk about some of your other ideas. I chose Hewitt and Gonzalez as examples because of the size of their backswings. Both of them have large loop backswings where Nadal has a really compact loop. Both lefties, but Nadal also has much better extension on his forehand.

Jason Frausto

Jason, you clearly make some excellent points. I just think DY is hard to compare to top players because he is not hitting the shots of top players. He can, but it doesn't fit with his current thought processes. All thru Jrs he used his big wind up to disguise his choice of big flat crush or big heavy spin. He never developed the idea of combining them and the hitting patterns that go with that.

He can hit the power spin FH, but would need to get more adept at using it more often and then still need to develop the patterns to support this strategy. This may be an article coming in the first of next year, especially if there is a lot of interest in this subject.

[uspta2448519013]

Jason, you clearly make some excellent points. I just think DY is hard to compare to top players because he is not hitting the shots of top players. He can, but it doesn't fit with his current thought processes. All thru Jrs he used his big wind up to disguise his choice of big flat crush or big heavy spin. He never developed the idea of combining them and the hitting patterns that go with that.

He can hit the power spin FH, but would need to get more adept at using it more often and then still need to develop the patterns to support this strategy. This may be an article coming in the first of next year, especially if there is a lot of interest in this subject.

Agreed, and just to make one comparison to the peak hitting height of Nadal compared to Young I attached these images. Rafa has greatly compacted his loop, the length of his takeback is also shorter than Young's. The attached images show the highest point the hitting hand reaches at any point during the swing. Young is up nearly over his head while Nadal is below his hitting shoulder, more than likely a difference of over 12 inches vertically.

[uspta2448519013]

And the final two images showing the furthest point reached from the body during the backswing. It's definitely an interesting subject and fun to look at the differences. You'll notice that Young reaches his furthest point away from the body at a higher point in the down swing compared to Nadal.

[jeffreycounts]

The interesting part to me isn't the hand height. It's the fact that the tip of his racket is over his head here! I don't think any tour player does this the way Donald does.

[uspta2448519013]

Agreed, also unlike other tour players he doesn't hold the throat of the frame with the non hitting hand. He has it positioned near the throat at the start but it ends up by the tip of the frame by the end which is quite strange. His swing most closely resembles Gonzo's minus the prepearation and extension/extreme wiper.

I'd personally like to see him clean up the strokes a bit (serve included), I'm just not sure if I see that happening. Despite all of this I don't think his ranking has peaked yet.

[airforce1]

It's definitely an interesting swing, and I'd love for Donald to do well and climb the rankings. His serve is definitely a liability as well so it's amazing that his natural ability has taken him this far missing what are more often than not the two biggest weapons in the men's game (serve/forehand). I love reading Jeff's analysis as well, he has great insight on the modern game. Take care.
Jay

You and Jeff always make excellent observations. I like the attention that you are putting on the racket prep phase. With the mens game becoming so time critical, this has become another area where there is little room for excess. You are doing a very good job of noting the more efficient ways of getting it done. I had sort of assumed that good players would make these adjustments as necessary, and that returning serve would make sure you could always handle the fastest ground strokes. I think you are making a good point that this may not be the case.

That said, I still feel the biggest problem DY has on FH and serve is gaining a better concept of what he needs to be accomplishing with these strokes. I feel that if he can grasp the idea of bending the ball (soccer term) with power, he can make the required adjustments almost on the fly. Maybe not quite that easy, but getting the concept for him is critical to getting the adjustments working for him.

[uspta2448519013]

You and Jeff always make excellent observations. I like the attention that you are putting on the racket prep phase. With the mens game becoming so time critical, this has become another area where there is little room for excess. You are doing a very good job of noting the more efficient ways of getting it done. I had sort of assumed that good players would make these adjustments as necessary, and that returning serve would make sure you could always handle the fastest ground strokes. I think you are making a good point that this may not be the case.

That said, I still feel the biggest problem DY has on FH and serve is gaining a better concept of what he needs to be accomplishing with these strokes. I feel that if he can grasp the idea of bending the ball (soccer term) with power, he can make the required adjustments almost on the fly. Maybe not quite that easy, but getting the concept for him is critical to getting the adjustments working for him.

I agree, from the strategy perspective he doesn't have it yet, which can be expected at his age. Hopefully as more years pass he picks up the kind of forehand he needs to be a threat on tour. It seems like you're alluding to that spinny driving forehand that Fed hits, which is obviously a great stroke.

I also have this belief from what I've seen that were headed in the Djokovic direction, and what I mean by that is were headed in a direction where technically guys are gonna be darn near perfect. You see places like Nick B's and of course other places using high speed video to help students model the technique of pro players (Heath Waters obviously as well). John Yandell took it to a new level at the old site and made it bigger and better at tennisplayer. With access to all the clips it made it much easier to study and learn from the best in the world.

What that means to me is that as everyone becomes more technically proficient guys with glaring technical weaknesses won't see the results they want or need. It looks to me like were heading towards everyone serving 130+, blasting forehands and backhands, and moving like cheetahs. Actually....we might be getting darn close to that point already.

To me if a guy like Federer or Nadal has nearly a 100% efficient way of getting to contact on a forehand Young is at 90% or lower. Nadal and Federer get to the contact point with a minimal chance of having things go wrong, Young takes a long path not required for a top notch result and suffers slightly because of it. It's like taking a trip from LA to NY, or taking a trip from LA to Miami, and after that going to NY. One trip is much shorter and the other delays your arrival a bit. Miami is nice though

[johnyandell]

On the finishes.

I picked the video to send to Jason and to use in the article.
I looked at many dozen forehands. What the article shows fairly represents his tendencies. I could not find one ball where he extended as well as Nadal or Federer. Many routine balls were late and you virtually never see that with the top players. The shorter finishes--those are also very unusual for top players, but common for Donald.

There is a wide range of possible effectiveness in pro tennis--combining the forehand components in many ways. Just don't see them as the norm here.

[airforce1]

On the finishes.

I picked the video to send to Jason and to use in the article.
I looked at many dozen forehands. What the article shows fairly represents his tendencies. I could not find one ball where he extended as well as Nadal or Federer. Many routine balls were late and you virtually never see that with the top players. The shorter finishes--those are also very unusual for top players, but common for Donald.

There is a wide range of possible effectiveness in pro tennis--combining the forehand components in many ways. Just don't see them as the norm here.

John, your point here is well taken. I agree this has been the norm for his Pro matches. I don't know if any of your video was in matches he was winning convincingly. If they are all pro matches, then that is probably not the case. I've seen him play pretty often, back to when he was 11. When he can get in front with confidence, and in drills, his game looks pretty different than he has looked in pro matches, IMO.

For someone who was winning 90% of his matches in Jrs., the regular losing must come tough and has led to him pressing in his matches. Even in the 5 setter against J Blake at the US open, it was so obvious. I know they are working hard to get him more Pro level hitting partners for practice sets.

Having such good hands may have worked against him, by letting him get away with stuff at the lower levels that just won't cut in the top 50 type opponents.