Brett's Forehand Article

[RickMacci]

Brett, good stuff! I agree 100% about your descriptions of the shots.

Food for thought: the blueprint on what to do and why to do and how to do is totally a different menu when on court with a student. This means correcting, modfifying, changing, adjusting, and finding the triggers to unlock tension or to clean up the-previous mess or problem.

Demonstating and explaining is an art and how it is delivered is the job real job of the coach.

I think you are right on but still have to go deeper if your trying to teach people the modern forehand, because it is far more complex than 20 years ago and what that means is more tension problems and more people not understanding...

Regards, Rick

[tennis4you]

Basic forehand

I agree with most of what Brett Hobden is saying in his article about the modern forehand, but most players need to learn the basic forehand first before they move on to shot variations like he describes. Every variation he talks about is a variation of the basic forehand and those variations are hard to learn when you don't have the fundamental shot in your game.
tennis4you.

[ajchabria]

An article so good it made me re-read it while standing up with a racquet in my hand.

Though my grip is eastern, I probably use most of the different forehand patterns at various times, but this article made me pay closer attention to the details and the situations in which I use them. Well done, and thanks for the visuals, Bret.

Echoing Macci's point about actually being on the court with a live student/exponent of the various stroke patterns, grips and footwork patterns; I would love to watch clips of players mastering the subtleties of the various forehands. I think this article could be the foundation of a solid instructional video. [Read: GREAT job, man. Do a video.]

If I may suggest...see if you can use three different subjects in your video: maybe a 3.5 women's doubles player, a college player / professional, and an intermediate junior. Naturally, the amateurs will have established solid basics before branching out.

All the best,
--ajc

[BrettHobden]

Modern Forehand - Brett.

Ajc,
Thanks for the comments. We did make a DVD on the modern forehand. Check out our site...www.moderntennis.com
All the best.

Brett Hobden.

[lukman41985]

He already has a video out. I actually have both volumes--stick with volume 2. The coolest thing modernTennis has going for it is its GPS system. Check it out at their website (modernTennis.com)!

[TPro2006]

I read Brett's article and I think he has taken a big step toward clarifying the differences we see when we watch the pros. My question is what the relation is between the shot type and the swing pattern?

In John Yandell's articles on Federer's forehand, he is saying that there are actually 25 or something different Federer possible swings. Do they all fit into the 7 shot categories? If not what additional explanation is necessary??

[johnyandell]

Good question...one of things we plan to do with Roger is compare some of the swings with the actual shots. For example you could hit several different topspin shot types like Brett identifies from the same point on the court. For example, from inside you could drive or loop, etc. But from the center the swing elements to hit the same shot types could be slightly different. This may account for some of the differences. Just a hypothesis.

But I learned something from Brett here about shot types that could really help us in categorizing things. This is more down the road, but we are also looking at some trajectory and speed data from our friends that invented "Shot Spot" that could further enhance the picture of swings and shot types.

[lukman41985]

25 is an approximation based on the fact that Fed basically has 3 different levels of hand/arm rotation, 3 levels of shoulder rotation, and 3 hitting arm positions (3^3=27 which is about 25). Thanks to bottle for pointing this out earlier!

Brett points out 7 variations in the modern forehand. But within each variation, you can have varying levels of hand/arm rotation and shoulder/torso rotation. For example, in theory, you can hit an arc with 3 different variations of shoulder/torso rotation (and hand/arm rotation, and, if you are unique like Rog, 3 different hitting arm positions).

So, the 25 fit into the 7. Or am I missing something here John? Brett?

[johnyandell]

Well, that's the theory...we'll see about the rest.