Topspin Backhand RPMs

[jimlosaltos]

John,

Thanks for the great article on backhand slice RPM.

Have you published stats for contemporary players' backhand topspin?

I searched your site for some time and found this older item:
http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...spin_test.html , but not numbers for Nadal, Fed, etc.

Thank you. / jim

[johnyandell]

Haven't counted but why don't you do it for us from the high speed archives? Probably around 2000rpm average.

[jimlosaltos]

Methodology?

Haven't counted but why don't you do it for us from the high speed archives? Probably around 2000rpm average.

Interesting. At the risk of sounding naive, do you simply look for the rotations of the ball? 250 fps adequate, or 500 fps? focus on logo or seams? How many rotations to count to get an adequate sample? Tips?

Suggestions if you eventually decide to do this project, outside of the FedalNole oligopoly my requests:

Singletons: Nicolas Almagro, Richard Gasquet, Stan Wawrinka.

Duos: Andy Murray, Mardy Fish, Tomas Berdych, {Should have Robin Soderling, but alas, let's hope he can come back}.

[johnyandell]

Are you sure those are all the players you need?

Kidding. It takes a lot of work though. As I've explained in the articles we count total revolutions and don't try to split out side spin. We use the logos but you have to make sure you are seeing the same one as many balls have two.

I like to see two rotations minimum. It's imprecise to some extent on the individual shots but when you do dozens of incidents you are definitely going to get a good picture.