What One Person Thinks About Forehands, Backhands and Serves Today
My theory of tennis instruction is that it is always too detailed or not detailed enough. That criticism certainly applies to the two major political parties just before the national election as well.
Forehands. Li Na is outside-in. Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal are inside-out. The way one can tell is to situate oneself directly behind the player. Video will suffice. Roger twirls his racket head up pretty close to his body, flips outside of that and contacts outside of THAT.
Novak starts with close elbow, too. Flip is to the outside of where racket was and contact is outside of THAT.
Rafa brings elbow back inside (but with more separation) and flips to the outside of where racket was and contacts to the outside of THAT.
Li Na starts outside of projected contact point, elbow way out. When she lowers that elbow the racket must of necessity come in to right behind the ball.
All four players get behind the ball. And don’t cross it. Good golfers do the same thing and with same variation. One golfer might come from the outside and loop in behind the ball. Another golfer starts strictly from the inside and works out to right behind the ball.
In tennis, Roger, Novak, Rafa and Li Na all have Type III forehands (which in terms of quality ought to be called "Type I" although that wouldn't be historical). Everything but followthrough occurs in the slot.
Then there’s somebody like Andre Agassi—a freak. Outside in then outside to the ball. By the same long path criterion, Roger Federer is a freak, too. He somehow gets the energy from his racket tip twirling up close to the body to add to the energy of the arm straightening with all of this occurring before the flip.
Are such long backswings necessary? No. Are they great? Definitely. So how do they happen? 10,000 hours or ten years, whichever comes first. Weird patterns get grooved and fast. Or did they work from the beginning? Not from what I heard.
To think more about Agassi, consider the following video. It’s outside-in-outside, but the elbow at no time is very much in (exceptions may be found in other videos). So he and Li Na are similar here.
Backhands. If you have a pretty good one-hander's topspin backhand but your crosscourts aren’t angled sharply enough, get lower. Yes, bend your knees. $486, pleeeeze.
Serves. Sorry, but I only care about Don Budge imitations right now, which I’ve been discussing for a reason one post after another. And I wish now to add one sequence.
In the transition between images 3 and 4 (see post # 1320), both left arm and racket start to drop with the shoulders either wound back or winding back.
I chose the “winding back” option for my experiment and felt I detected significant timing improvement.
So, did Don Budge not keep his tossing arm upraised for as long as modern servers? Seems possible. And is this little move at beginning of the drop the same old “checking the top back of the head for cooties with a small mirror in the palm of your hand” discussed by Vic Braden? Seems likely again.
My theory of tennis instruction is that it is always too detailed or not detailed enough. That criticism certainly applies to the two major political parties just before the national election as well.
Forehands. Li Na is outside-in. Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal are inside-out. The way one can tell is to situate oneself directly behind the player. Video will suffice. Roger twirls his racket head up pretty close to his body, flips outside of that and contacts outside of THAT.
Novak starts with close elbow, too. Flip is to the outside of where racket was and contact is outside of THAT.
Rafa brings elbow back inside (but with more separation) and flips to the outside of where racket was and contacts to the outside of THAT.
Li Na starts outside of projected contact point, elbow way out. When she lowers that elbow the racket must of necessity come in to right behind the ball.
All four players get behind the ball. And don’t cross it. Good golfers do the same thing and with same variation. One golfer might come from the outside and loop in behind the ball. Another golfer starts strictly from the inside and works out to right behind the ball.
In tennis, Roger, Novak, Rafa and Li Na all have Type III forehands (which in terms of quality ought to be called "Type I" although that wouldn't be historical). Everything but followthrough occurs in the slot.
Then there’s somebody like Andre Agassi—a freak. Outside in then outside to the ball. By the same long path criterion, Roger Federer is a freak, too. He somehow gets the energy from his racket tip twirling up close to the body to add to the energy of the arm straightening with all of this occurring before the flip.
Are such long backswings necessary? No. Are they great? Definitely. So how do they happen? 10,000 hours or ten years, whichever comes first. Weird patterns get grooved and fast. Or did they work from the beginning? Not from what I heard.
To think more about Agassi, consider the following video. It’s outside-in-outside, but the elbow at no time is very much in (exceptions may be found in other videos). So he and Li Na are similar here.
Backhands. If you have a pretty good one-hander's topspin backhand but your crosscourts aren’t angled sharply enough, get lower. Yes, bend your knees. $486, pleeeeze.
Serves. Sorry, but I only care about Don Budge imitations right now, which I’ve been discussing for a reason one post after another. And I wish now to add one sequence.
In the transition between images 3 and 4 (see post # 1320), both left arm and racket start to drop with the shoulders either wound back or winding back.
I chose the “winding back” option for my experiment and felt I detected significant timing improvement.
So, did Don Budge not keep his tossing arm upraised for as long as modern servers? Seems possible. And is this little move at beginning of the drop the same old “checking the top back of the head for cooties with a small mirror in the palm of your hand” discussed by Vic Braden? Seems likely again.
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