Your Strokes Straight Arm Forehand

[sashulka]

Dear John,
I must say that your last article on Federer's straight arm is probably the best I have read on the site and I completely agree with your points! My 12-year old daughter is learning this type of technique and all the points you mentioned are near and dear to me and make so much sense from the biomechanics/anatomy point of view.

Indeed, we are working on getting rid of her arm/racquet going too far behind, having semi-western grip and many other points. Indeed, this boy is amazing and your way of using his wonderful technique to describe Federer's forehand is really helpful.

This actually emphasizes how important it is for kids to build technique before going to tournaments where they all loose technique again!

Thank you!
Gleb Shumyatsky

[johnyandell]

Gleb,

Thanks for the great words. Parum and his dad did a great job and no doubt the straight arm forehand is a weapon for some of the best players in the world. Research from Brian Gordon may end up showing that is in some ways advantageous compared to the double bend, but also far more difficult to hit.

One point I made in the article that I think bares repeating. It was an amazing job of stroke building which I tried to describe. But personally I am not advocating that everyone or even the majority of people should be trying to develop this hitting arm configuration. And that probably really applies to most of our subscribers.

And even at the pro level the same is true. Djokovic is hitting his forehand as well and probably better than any player in the world and he has a double bend. I have not seen a top woman who hits other than double bend. Maybe the straight arm is the wave of the future, but I think we should be careful not strictly equate talent and technique. A lot of old style continental players like Laver hit straight arm and then it kind of disappeared for 30 years. If the next 2 or 3 great players have double bends, then everyone will be jumping on that bandwagon.

I think the best that can be said is that for a given player experimenting is always the way to evolve what will work best for him or her and that we should all be careful not to jump to final conclusions based on 2 or 3 phenomenally gifted pro players.

[sashulka]

Henin hits with the straight arm - check her on your site.

[johnyandell]

I'm not saying by the way that there won't a great woman along with a straight arm--just that there are some amazing forehands with double bends.
Justine is one of them. I thought maybe I misremembered but just looked at about 20 clips. Definitely elbow in and wrist back. Here's one:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_woman/justine_heninhardenne/jhh_forehand/jhh_fh_arm_action/jhh_fh_arm_action.html?JHHFHInsideInArmActionCourtLevelSide.mov

[sashulka]

yeah... Henin arm is not perfectly straight, but as straight as it gets in women's tennis. Wozniacki is another one. There is a slight bent in both. And of course most women hit a with a bent arm. I think Henin hits a perfect forehand...