Landsdorp: Creating American Champions

[marius hancu]

I think he's absolutely right the extreme grips are damaging the North American tennis. Look at where Roddick is. A lot of his current problems are caused by the lack of flexibility imposed on the player by the Western grip, including in transition to S-V sequences and processing low balls.

This is why I would like to see this site presenting more clips with the Eastern grip, especially as it is much less demanding in terms of footwork, thus it allows those which spend per force less time on the courts, or more "mature", better contact with the ball.

[johnyandell]

Lansdorp and Tennisplayer

Well, I'll have to agree with you and with Lansdorp. One of the players we put up at launch was Henman. Federer has the least extreme grip of any of the other players besides Tim and Sampras. These are great models for 99% of all players.
There are some problems though. First parents are mesmerized by extreme swing patterns and heavy topspin. They have almost no knowledge but are very aggressive in trying to help their kids win--and if you look in the juniors, you'll see it--stay back hit heavy moonballs with extreme grips and wait for the other kid to cry and go home. It takes guts to stick with a different game like Pete. It also takes vision--those are two qualities sadly lacking in American junior tennis despite the parents best intentions.
Who else did you have in mind as examples of classic players, though??

[marius hancu]

Who else did you have in mind as examples of classic players, though??

I would really enjoy seeing some Edberg at the top (cca 1990).

[johnyandell]

Edberg

That would be GREAT. Too bad we never had the technology or the opportunity to film him. If he plays seniors in London I may just have to go...

[lukman41985]

Max Mirnyi

[vmiller]

John, I was happy to read your support of more classical forehand grips in your modern forehand article. While I don't use an eastern, I'm in between an eastern and a semi western. I've experienced the increased efficiency in hitting penetrating shots that you discuss. With all the instruction that describes the semi western as THE grip, I always felt like I was missing out on a better grip. It's not often that I see advice promoting anything less extreme than a semi western, so it was refreshing to read, especially since your reasoning matches up with mine.

I'm not a fan of the extra effort required to generate power with the full semi western, and it seems to require a larger swing path that is a bit more akward and more prone to error, although maybe that's just my experience.

[johnyandell]

Luk--Max is filmed and coming up sometime this year.

Vin--yeah it's amazing but there is a deep and slavish need to copy the pros rather than listen and rely on your own experience...
If you are constantly playing a searing 90mph heavy topspin ball at shoulder level--well I understand why that way underneath grip works. Not everyone is pro tennis is a genius like Federer (ok no one is) and can take those balls waist height or a little higher.

But let's face it how much relevance does that have below the pros and high level junior tennis--ie, for us?

Have you ever seen this guy at your club--has Guga's clothes and grip and jumps up in the air on every ball, even when the ball height at contact is about knee level??

I plan to write more on this in the forehand series.

[lukman41985]

Glad to hear you have Max Mirnyi on the docket. I'd say you should also look into taping Dominik Hrbaty. Although he doesn't have a classic serve-and-volley style, his game is built around hard and flat groundstrokes hit with classical grip structure. Flipper comes close to having classical grip structure, wouldn't you say? Other than that, I can't really think of any others...oh yea, how about Brugera?

[vmiller]

yeah it's amazing but there is a deep and slavish need to copy the pros rather than listen and rely on your own experience...

So true! It's hard to differentiate between a technique or strategy used by a pro as the best way to do it versus them doing it out of necessity to deal with things we'd never see. But I guess that's what you're here for.

I plan to write more on this in the forehand series.

Good, I'll be looking forward to it.

[johnyandell]

Brugera??? Your kidding right? I get exhausted at just the idea of watching his forehand...

[lukman41985]

I'm definitely kidding. But seriously, how about Hrbaty?

[johnyandell]

I'll keep that in mind--haven't filmed him so far, but maybe if we go to Montreal...

[lukman41985]

You should try to get footage of Jiri Novak as well. Fairly flat strokes, simple technique, and a great guy. Has given Federer some problems in the past.

[johnyandell]

It's not that easy--we have to make choices when we film. Given the choice between filming Federer or Safin or Novak--you can't be on all courts at once--who would you film? Even if you had every player in the known world, you would then have to decide what order to put them up in--not sure Juri would be that high on my list...

I think there is another important point to make here. It's great to study as many players as possible. But one thing I don't believe in is "I want the Marcel Rios backhand" or "I want the Jiri Novak backhand" or whatever. These good players will share common elements (with variations) but these commonalities are what we should be studying, not starting the stroke reconstructions over again by moving to a new player as if the biomechanics were unrelated. My point is that there is so much footage on the site now--there is no technical variation unrepresented or lack of models for study.

[jayfro]

I would love to see some video on Nadal. He seems to be a guy who is breaking through and taking his game to another level and is obviously of the new generation of players even younger than that of Fed and Roddick. My requests are Nadal, Monfils, Baghdatis, Young, Nalbandian, and Gaudio.


I would also love to see an article done where you guys film a USTA boys 18's top 10 nationally ranked player and do a side by side comparison of his strokes to that of top pro players in his grip and stroke range. I think it would be a pretty neat thing where one stroke per month could be compared and broken down side by side as to what this player needs to do to take it to the next level.


JayFro