My Backhands (Front View)

[bowt]

http://andrevazpinto.blogspot.com/2011/11/richards-backhands-front-271111.html

think its 500 fps not sure

ill put up the side view when its ULed

what do you think?

[stotty]

Nice backhand! Now that really is slowing things down at 500fps.

I read about your dad playing for Davis Cup.

I used to work in the Algarve many years ago. I used to play with Joao Lagos and Joao Rocquet at a place called Quinta da Balaia. They played at Wimbledon and in the Davis Cup in the 1960s I believe. Joao Lagos was champion of Portugal. Do you know them?

[bowt]

nono thats not my dad

andrevazpinto is the blogspot owner im richard sansom different than the blog owner

andre (the blog owner) will know people from portugal!!

he is my coach

[stotty]

He should know them that's for sure.

What camera are you using in the clips...seems a good one?

[bowt]

Phantom although im not 100% sure its not my camera

[stotty]

Sometimes it's good to see clips in real speed as well as slomo to get a greater sense of reality. Why not post some?

I see you tend to hit off your stance and don't bring the back leg thru to stabilise.

I like my two-handed students to, where appropriate, drive thru the ball and bring the left leg thru to stabilise and be ready for the next shot.

Djokovic does this all the time...always when running wide and hitting off a closed stance...and often from a neutral stance too.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/novak_djokovic/nd_backhand/nd_bh_wide/nd_bh_wide.html?NDBHWideClosedStanceFront1.mov

What grips do you use? I cannot discern where your hands are on the grip, as the clips are shot from quite a distance.

[bowt]

I have been playing around with grips alot

I use Semi-Western with my top hand and Continental Backhand with dominant hand

I really wanted to hit with a straight arm type configuration

I bring my left leg out alot of the time like you describe on wide balls but I think these shots the balls are coming straight at me

there could be something I could do better with my feet im not sure looks a bit awkward the finish

maybe I take my hands too high

hopefully andre will upload the side view tomorrow

[stotty]

Your base does look a little narrow...maybe a slightly wider stance might help. The clips are all from the same angle which is a shame. Having 5 clips from 5 different angles would reveal a lot more.

If I were you I would go to the stroke archive and look for players who have your grip configuration and study what they do. Like you, I feel there is something about the feet that isn't quite right. I'm off out now....might take a look later when I have more time. Be interesting to see Don_Budge and tennis_chiro think if they are around...

[bowt]

thanks for your input!

[tennis_chiro]

Just immediate thoughts

http://andrevazpinto.blogspot.com/20...nt-271111.html

think its 500 fps not sure

ill put up the side view when its ULed

what do you think?

Pretty good stroke, but with a semi-western left hand this should be a left side dominant (at least for power) 2hbh. I think you are changing grips, but your left hand is not involved enough in the initial prep which tells me you are changing the grip and then taking the racket back. This will cost you on return of serve and deep balls from the net where you have to react quickly. I also like to see the initial move (to the unit turn if you will, but with the grip change) to a point where the racket head is inside the intended line of your shot; from there it is easy to follow the line of stroke you have established and explode on the ball, even in a hurry. But if the racket head waits outside that line (see Roddick), you will struggle to really pound that shot and you should.

I think it's also good to point out the vast majority of good 2hbh's have the top hand in an Eastern grip. I think it's important because it tells your right hand where the racket head is as you change the grip DURING the backswing; it's easier for your body to know when the racket face is vertical in an Eastern grip. At the same time, you are pretty far along and this may not be an issue for you; if I was working with you, we would explore it.

And then, Stotty is right on about the turn of the left side through the ball with that step. You hit and your left side moves behind the right and back to the right, sort of like a serve kick. I see that often. This shot requires you to get your left side through the shot. Even if you don't turn all the way through requiring that extra step out to the left with your left foot, you still have to get all your weight to the right side and let your left side come through so your torso is facing the net; you are holding it back.

I've seen that website from your tennis center before. It looks like you guys have a great program.

good luck,
don

[bowt]

Pretty good stroke, but with a semi-western left hand this should be a left side dominant (at least for power) 2hbh. I think you are changing grips, but your left hand is not involved enough in the initial prep which tells me you are changing the grip and then taking the racket back. This will cost you on return of serve and deep balls from the net where you have to react quickly. I also like to see the initial move (to the unit turn if you will, but with the grip change) to a point where the racket head is inside the intended line of your shot; from there it is easy to follow the line of stroke you have established and explode on the ball, even in a hurry. But if the racket head waits outside that line (see Roddick), you will struggle to really pound that shot and you should.

I think it's also good to point out the vast majority of good 2hbh's have the top hand in an Eastern grip. I think it's important because it tells your right hand where the racket head is as you change the grip DURING the backswing; it's easier for your body to know when the racket face is vertical in an Eastern grip. At the same time, you are pretty far along and this may not be an issue for you; if I was working with you, we would explore it.

And then, Stotty is right on about the turn of the left side through the ball with that step. You hit and your left side moves behind the right and back to the right, sort of like a serve kick. I see that often. This shot requires you to get your left side through the shot. Even if you don't turn all the way through requiring that extra step out to the left with your left foot, you still have to get all your weight to the right side and let your left side come through so your torso is facing the net; you are holding it back.

I've seen that website from your tennis center before. It looks like you guys have a great program.

good luck,
don

Thanks for your input don I agree 100%

I dont feel like im taking the racket back with my left hand after the turn

I can see it on the video as well its almost like my left hand just does nothing until the start of the forward swing

I also like to see the initial move (to the unit turn if you will, but with the grip change) to a point where the racket head is inside the intended line of your shot; from there it is easy to follow the line of stroke you have established and explode on the ball, even in a hurry.

I dont understand what this means!

[bowt]

http://andrevazpinto.blogspot.com/2011/11/richards-backhands-side-27-11-11.html

this is from the side view

on these shots my left leg is coming out

they are different shots

[tennis_chiro]

Anyone for a game of Quidich??

...

I also like to see the initial move (to the unit turn if you will, but with the grip change) to a point where the racket head is inside the intended line of your shot; from there it is easy to follow the line of stroke you have established and explode on the ball, even in a hurry.

I dont understand what this means!

Richard,

This is not an easy one to explain with words, but I will try. I may have to put up another video on my youtube channel, but here goes.

My theory is that everything should be hit inside out, that is, because we are not machines and we are swinging the racket head to the ball on the end of an arc, we want the racket head to approach the INTENDED line of the ball (the line of your outgoing shot which extends to infinity in both directions) from a place that is closer to you than that line. In fact the racket head should probably reach the maximum distance from your center of rotation (or pivot point or fulcrum if you want to consider the levers) just as you are contacting the ball and immediately after contact. Imagine your racket head was a ball on a string and you were trying to hit the oncoming ball with your "ball on a string". In this imaginary game (pretty hard one, I would think), we'll take some liberties and assign this ball and string you are swinging a relatively flat face on one side and some space aged technical controls that allow you to get this "flat face" on the ball you are swinging oriented in the right direction to send the ball in the right direction if you can make contact. That is to say, if you could meet the oncoming ball, the collision would send the ball off in a path perpendicular to the line of the outstretched string hitting the ball and in the correct height to go over the net. Obviously, these are some pretty snazzy space-aged aeronautical attitudinal controls; in fact, we probably would need a little help from Harry Potter's magic wand. But in this imaginary universe, we have all those things at our disposal, right?! However, we have to generate all of our power by swinging that "ball" on the end of a string (maybe a couple of pieces of string; this is giving me an idea for a ridiculous teaching aid).

If you have followed me along in this ridiculous image, you can see our "player" swinging the "ball on a string" in an arc so that the collision takes place where the tangent to the arc created by the path of the "ball on a string" is exactly the same as the "intended line" of the outgoing shot. Draw that "intended line" of the shot forward and back and you will see the "ball on a string" approaching the impact from a point inside that line and gradually getting closer and closer to that line as it approaches impact.

This is all pretty farfetched, but in reality, you should feel like you are swinging the racket head as if it was a weight on the end of a string. You have to feel the weight of the racket head as it approaches the ball and you have to find a way to turn that somewhat circular motion into an action that goes right through your hitting zone in almost a straight line; so you have to release the power you have generated on the line of your intended shot so you can transfer your power to the ball. Most people think they swing harder to make the ball go faster and there are times when you will do that, but most of the time you are swinging pretty hard anyway and it is just a question of releasing through the ball a little more with a little less spin. We only have 4 thousands of a second. Most of us aren't that good, so we try to straighten out the swing for about 12 thousands of a second (give or take, that's about one foot at 60 mph) and hope we catch the ball somewhere in that area where we have everything going in the right direction. With my little analogy, the timing is probably going to have to be even better.

As for the image of swinging the racket head on the end of lever arm attached to a pivot point about which it is rotating, that is exactly what you are doing. Whether you are hitting with a straight-straight, bent-bent or a bent-straight hitting structure, when we draw a force diagram, the racket head is being rotated at the end of an "effective" lever arm about an "effective" fulcrum to create the actual racket head speed that determines the force applied to the ball. The "effective" weight of the racket head matters too.

I'm going to great lengths here to create an image of a circular swing. I'll leave it to someone else to get into the actual physics of my analogy. The point I'm trying to get to is as follows. You can imagine how a person could hit an oncoming ball with such a contraption (albeit with the necessary help from Harry Potter's wand to have any actual accuracy or consistency). But if our player swings the ball too far away beyond the "intended" line of the shot through the contact point, he will have to jerk his arms in quickly to get the "ball on a string" to make contact with the oncoming ball. He might be able to do it (with difficulty), but he would destroy the force of his "ball on a string" in the direction he is trying to hit the ball. In the same way, when you get your racket head outside the "intended" line of the ball, you can only make a glancing blow at the ball (classic hacker's one-handed backhand and most players' backhand volleys). (Special note to Bottle: there is a hint for you here in your quest for the ultimate backhand slice; i.e. Federer vs Rosewall).

(There is a completely alternate discussion that you could follow, but I don't want to pursue it now. If you could instantaneously pull the string in to effect a correct collision of the "ball on a string" and the oncoming ball in the situation I've described where the "ball on a string" was too far away, you would create tremendous racket head speed while maintaining tangential forces in the direction of the target to power the ball; and if you instantaneously pulled the "ball on a string" higher as well as closer to make contact, you would create tremendous spin on the outgoing shot. This is essentially what Oscar Wegner is claiming today's player's are doing with the wiper swing. But JY's research has shown the racket actually does go through the hitting zone in a linear fashion which gets the player to the extended position d_b has been talking about so much in this forum recently.)

The Bottom Line: If you set the racket up in your initial takeaway/unit turn/ grip-change with the racket head "outside" the intended line of your outgoing shot, you will have to swing the racket head back inside that line before you make contact with the ball. (On the forehand, it is better understood that you have to get the butt of the racket to point at the oncoming ball at some point before you make contact to be able to hit solidly through the shot. But it is just as true on the backhand.) If you don't get the racket head to that "inside" position until just before you contact the ball, you won't have much time to generate power and momentum on your shot. This is what happens to Roddick. Big guy, pretty good snap(!!), good athlete; can't break an egg with his 2hbh. He starts outside and swings the racket head to the inside, but not until just before the racket head meets the ball and he has just a few inches to generate real momentum towards the target. Can you imagine what Roddick's career would have looked like if he could have taken soft returns off his serve and done to them what we saw Tsonga do on occasion this past week?!

These are not high speed video, but they give you an idea of what I am talking about:

Roddick:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/andyroddick/andyroddick_backhand/ar_bh_center/ar_bh_center.html?ARBHCenterFront.mov

Tsonga:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/jo_wilfred_tsonga/jwt_backhand/jwt_bh_center/jwt_bh_center.html?JWTBHCenterNeutralStanceFront1.mov

In fairness, I have to point out that there are a lot of good backhands that start out by taking the racket a little to the outside on the initial backswing, but then get it to the inside early enough to still attack the ball from the inside:

Agassi:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/andreagassi/aa_backhand/aa_bh_center/aa_bh_center.html?AABHCenterCourtLevelFront2.mov

Also, I was just suggesting one area where you could make an improvement. Your backswing is much closer to Agassi's than to Roddick's. Andy would hit a much bigger backhand with your stroke. But I feel it is an advantage, especially when you are trying to return big serves, to make the most efficient move. To me, that is to get the racket head inside early in the simplest way possible. You also have to know exactly where your hands are, and I think your left hand sets you up for trouble.

Djokovic:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/novak_djokovic/nd_backhand/nd_bh_center/nd_bh_center.html?DBCenterNeutralStanceCourtLevelFront3.mov

This principle of hitting inside out is true just as much for the 1hbh as the 2hbh, if not more so. There are a lot of people "pushing" their backhands back in the court because they don't know how to get "inside".

Well, I've blown a couple of hours, but that was fun. I don't know if Dumbledoor would give me a good grade, but I'm hoping Bottle likes my imagery. And I hope it helped you understand what I meant, Richard.

don

[bowt]

Thanks for your input

I think part of the problem is my hands are so high kinda looks like a golf swing - thats the problem for my left hand

most players I see take their hands back more parallel

I can go inside faster as well I agree I have real JY article about andy roddick and the problem with his 2h bh

[bottle]

~

This exchange is one of the best ever in that it seriously (and imaginatively!) addresses the greatest challenge for any student in a major hitting sport-- mastery of a consistent inside out swing.

Yes, Don, I do like your imagery and projected teaching devices, and the videos of Roddick, Agassi, Tsonga and Djokovic are very clear-- one can immediately see what you're pointing to.

Not just Roddick should examine these posts-- everybody should. What also helps is the clarity of the videos of and by A. Vaz Pinto. I love e.g. seeing where in video 4 he puts his low point even though I don't have a two-hander. An awfully good looking swing to start with whether he's soliciting comment further to improve it or not.

Self-interestedly speaking (which I seem increasingly to endorse), Don's advice is timely for me since I'm just right now discovering a few new sources of one handed clout. I may have to reconfigure somewhat to make sure swing still goes inside out with enough last instant tract remaining available to properly accelerate.

In inside out swings whether tennis or golf it seems that one can't 1) exaggerate or 2) cross the ball the other way, either, which is even worse.

One fiddles with inside out theory just enough and then maybe hits the ball perfectly straight. I know I did in the annual long drive contest, Fenwick, Connecticut, but then my father in his second turn hit a shot with just a bit of tail to it which made it roll past mine so that I finished second.

Was like the time I hit my own son's croquet ball from about 200 feet away just as he was about to go through the final two wickets. His mother just groaned.