A Forehand In Need of a Drop

[stotty]

There is an obsession with topspin nowadays. I find that a flat hitter like Del Potro (or Kyle) need not lower the racket so much on balls above hip height. Clearly when the ball is lower, the racket will have to be lower than the hand to lift the ball.

The topspin is a bit of a fallacy. There are plenty of flattish hitters out there as well. I witnessed plenty at Wimbledon last year.

Del Potro still gets way more under the ball then you might think. Here he is hitting the ball at much the same height as tennis_chiro's charge in the video.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/juan_martin_del_potro/jmd_forehand/jmd_fh_center/jmd_fh_center.html?JMDFHCenterOpenStanceCourtLevelFront2.mov

Tennis_chiro's student still has his racket head stuck up well into the journey forward on his forward swing. Del Potros has dropped down much earlier as he commences the forward swing.

[gzhpcu]

There is an obsession with topspin nowadays. I find that a flat hitter like Del Potro (or Kyle) need not lower the racket so much on balls above hip height. Clearly when the ball is lower, the racket will have to be lower than the hand to lift the ball.

[stotty]

He loves that chest high ball, especially on the rise.


But do you see any fundamental flaw that I am missing except that he doesn't get that racket head to drop. I want him to keep the racket head at that a point near his right shoulder a little longer and he wants to get back toward his old backswing which brought the racket head down lower sooner. I don't think that is the right direction to go.

don

You have to believe a kid of this abilty can do this. Even if it means starting with incremental baby steps. He seems very keen and pernickerty about technique. His pernickertyness may just get him there. His vanity.

In most of the clips he is standing toe-to-toe with the ball, slugging it, meeting it in the most difficult place to learn to drop the racket head (much like Kyle does). If he cannot visualise himself lowering the racket then it has to be baby steps. I would have him retreat on balls and learn to receive the ball. How does he fair on low balls anyway? Does the head drop a little more at least?

Have him look at Wawrinka and see how he sinks the right flank a little to get under the ball then allows his body to fall back…soak things up. I think learning to do this is terribly important for good quality juniors. It can make all the difference. A player cannot slug everything all the time.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/stanislas_wawrinka/sw_forehand/sw_fh_center/sw_fh_center.html?SWFHCenterOpenStanceCourtLevelFront1.mov

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/stanislas_wawrinka/sw_forehand/sw_fh_center/sw_fh_center.html?SWFHCenterOpenStanceCourtLevelFront2.mov

To me there is no obvious coaching tool to fix this if the player struggles to visualise the flaw. It’s baby steps, the video camera, and how much the kid wants it.

Sorry I cannot be of more help. I am not seeing anything you haven’t already charted yourself.

(BTW I would love to see a video of him playing a match)

[klacr]

Don,

Happy New Year. great job starting that thread on your student. You are a great coach in your willingness to share your student with us and seek answers.

I feel a connection to him based on our similar stroke issue.

Question, how good are his volleys? Does he have good hands? The reason I ask is that his hands need to be soft enough yet quick enough to make that adjustment. My hands happen to be excellent for a player of my size and physicality. I can make it work and get away with it. In a rally, I can hit with arc and heavy topspin but its not my natural swing thought or path when I'm trying to maintain or dictate a rally.

Your student will always be a natural flatter ball hitter (Can't change a tiger's stripes)and when he struggles to see that sometimes those shots are low percentage in some match situations, he'll get tentative and just push the ball back. However, with tall, flatter ball strikers like him and I, we really need to see the court in a different angle and geometry. You can get him to understand the feel of the ball by doing mini-tennis and feeding him balls close and low to the net so all he can do is lift up. I also recommend placing two poles over the net posts with a rope connecting each one. The rope can be placed at a chosen height over the net (3 ft, 5ft 8ft feet for exaggeration, overcompensation) He now must hit the ball over this rope for it to count. Or put a big black tarp over the net so he can't see the other side through the net. He may have incredible ability to drop below the ball but his brain sees a straight line towards his target through the net. This black tarp will make him have to aim higher at a target he does see, thus forcing him to get more air under the ball. Once he gets more air under the ball with his flat swing path and sails them all long he will be more receptive to the fact that he now needs the topspin to bring the ball back down into the court.

It's easy for us to say he needs to get his hand lower and below the ball, but he needs exercises for him to not only feel it, but to think and see the repercussions and understand the importance of it. When players see the value and benefits, they will make an even greater effort in doing what the coach wants. You have a great student on your hands Don. Enjoy the process.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[gzhpcu]

don, the video selected is one where Del Potro is hitting a rather low ball. There, obviously, you need to lower the racket head.

[tennis_chiro]

Response to Phil

OK, look at Del Potro....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY6o5m3jRfs

He hits flat and does not have much of a racket drop.

Yes, Phil, del Potro does have one of the flatest biggest forehands. But look at this slomo from the archive here:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Juan_DelPotro_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/JD_FH_Center&stroke=FH%20Center%20NeutralStance%20Side1%20240fps.mp4

Juan Martin actually gets much more below the ball than my student or Kyle. Amazing that he finds time to get away with that high takeaway, but he does. And there is no sense of hesitation or pause at the back of his swing like on my student's.

But yes, del Potro is a pretty good model for a tall player. I'm not sure the high backswing is a good or bad thing to emulate. But it certainly makes a case that there is enough time to drop the racket head below the ball!

don

[tennis_chiro]

Response to Kyle

I had a hard time conceptualizing just how low my racquet tip had to go. I always felt my racquet head and tip, but never realized how much lower I had to take it. With that said, my forehand is better than ever due to this forum and tapping or pushing out towards the side fence, the stance that don_budge mentioned and the pull and engagement with my left arm. The pushing outwards was a game changer. I thought I was doing that...until I saw myself on video. But now I see it and feel it. Berdych watch out!
The issue with Don's student is similar to mine where I didn't drop it low enough. But I feel I the difference is that Don's student rushes to take that racquet back without truly measuring or using racquet as a gauge to find and time the ball. I think he'll hit the ball cleaner as well.

Don, how is his grip pressure? How does he do on high balls, low balls, balls out wide? Is that forehand in the video the same as when he plays points?

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

Kyle,
I've tried the idea of pointing the racket head off to the rear deuce corner of the court. Actually, I stand next to him and say point the racket at me on the backswing, but I will try reemphasizing that.

I'm sure you know I emphasize "measuring" the oncoming ball with the racket to prepare, but words and deeds are not the same. You are right on the money that he pulls it "back" too soon…and then he pauses or slows down when he should be accelerating to the low point of the stroke before swinging forward.

As for grip pressure, I think he is pretty good. I don't like the grip because for me, it is a little too short. I want the hand spread across the grip as opposed to closer to a hammer grip. I'd like to see his hand spread further up the leather, but I don't always get what I want.

As for high, low, wide. He just obliterates the high balls. Perfect for him. Doesn't have to give them any lift. In general, he is dead if he lets the ball pass the highest point in its trajectory after the bounce. He is much better hitting the ball on the rise. He has to get there, but if he does, he hits the ball much better. And, as you would understand, he has tremendous reach and can hit the wide ball, even the deep wide ball really well if he gets there close to on time. I don't know where he gets the power; just long levers I think. I said in another post, I can't imagine how big he would hit the ball if he had Berdych's musculature; I think bigger than Berdych. To me, his good balls right now are only barely playable: coming in heavy, about 80 miles an hour in the last 5 feet of the court.

I stress learning to hit through the ball and stay away from what Lansdorp calls the "Academy ball", but I have to get this player to hit a little more of an Academy ball to find his consistency. But I don't want to take away from him what I see as a potential world-class weapon which just needs a little maturity to become consistent enough to be effective.

And finally, does he play points like this? NO. He becomes too tentative and resorts to pushing the ball in. As Stotty said, if you don't have the forehand, you don't have the engine. But that should really say, if you don't think you have the engine, you don't have the engine even if you do really have it.

And if you want to see point play, just private message me and I'll send you a link to download match play.

don

[gzhpcu]

OK, look at Del Potro....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY6o5m3jRfs

He hits flat and does not have much of a racket drop.

[tennis_chiro]

Response to Bottle

Thanks for raising these points. I've only viewed one video so far, but what I noticed immediately (since I am writing about this elsewhere in this forum today) is that all the descent part of both arms is too quick compared to the way both Federer and Dimitrov do the same thing. In their case there is almost a sense of breathing with both hands (a "breastroke," I think is the term that Stotty once used when we were discussing Del Potro). I've been wondering if maybe the left hand can't just lift the racket but then slip immediately off of it and keep going up high, i.e., on an upward slant and while pointing across to help get a good shoulders turn with all of this one smooth but quick and unified motion.

Now the left arm has nothing to do but fall in unison with one's dogpat.

But the left arm only falls to the high position where I used to take it directly.
Yes, I'm talking about me. Because I'm self-interested. But that doesn't preclude interest in you and your student, too. Possibly, the challenge could be the same.

Bottle,
I think you may have hit on something with the speed of the drop of the hands. He has a tendency to rush that hands down and then pause or slow down a little at the spot where he used to come to a complete stop. Maybe I could get him to attempt a smoother drop of the hands that would necessarily delay his arrival at that posterior position and force him to eliminate that little hesitation that is taking away the downward momentum of the racket head that could get him a little more below the ball.

I like the idea of more shoulder turn, but I don't want that hand getting in the way any more. We need to make things simpler. But I appreciate the thought.

I'm more excited about trying the gradual descent instead of the ballistic one.
thanks,
don

[tennis_chiro]

Response to Stotty

It’s great to see a timeline of a student like this. I like the decision making that has been going on here. In the early clips the elbow is wedged into the torso too much but as time has gone on the racket tip has been pointed forward slightly allowing the elbow to pull away from the body more. Good move. As time has gone on the spacing and preparation has gotten better and better. I really like this kid. He looks talented.

His forehand looks really good yet he doesn’t rate it himself. Is this him being neurotic or is there a core problem? Once a neurosis like this sets in it can be tough to overcome it. A player has to have deep-rooted belief that his forehand will stand up. It’s hard to win matches otherwise. The forehand is the engine room, the must have shot.

He still has that slight stall at the end of the backswing and I just wonder if that affects things…steals time away. He certainly doesn’t “grab" the ball in the way players who hit with plenty of topspin can. His ball striking looks comfortable yet on a knife edge at times because he hits so flat and with minimal clearance. He would be better to hold the backswing a little longer on the right shoulder as you rightly point out. There is a chance he would unload better if he did...and achieve what you want. He may achieve greater disguise as well. I actually think he could load better with his legs and get a deeper turn on some shots.

He looks like he may have spent a lot of time taking balls early, around chest height. He loves that hitting zone. We rarely get his problem here as young players are always taught first to hit the falling ball, which by default encourages lowering the racket.

I think delaying the backswing could be your best bet in his case. Have he tried it yet? The problem is he may feel he has to get there earlier and delaying would seem the antithesis.

His problem isn’t anywhere near as dramatic as Kyle’s but it’s not dissimilar. I seem to remember Kyle saying he found it was hard to “feel” whether his racket was truly dropping, and he struggled to find the right cues to make him achieve it.

I’ll keep looking but right now I cannot find any answers you haven't already perused. I actually think it looks a really good shot. Wish I had it.

thanks for the response, Stotty. I'll just follow your post:

It is a little bit of a neurosis. I would certainly like to see him hit the ball with a little more spin and arc, but it still is a great stroke as far as I am concerned. He has become overly concerned with everylittle bit of position and checkpoint and yet he can't get the racket head to drop; so we go round and round in circles every week. I will say: "hit some topspin lobs…now drop it down to a roller…can you feel yourself dropping the racket head to hit those?" … Well he can hit the topspin lob and the roller, but he can't recognize the difference in what the racket head is doing. So I try and slow him down and make him pound balls from midcourt where he has to get them up and down and he does it fabulously, but then it's "It doesn't feel right!" And I'm looking at 5 balls he just hit in a row while moving and I swear Federer couldn't do it any better. But if he can't feel it, where am I? So, yes, it is a little bit of a neurosis because if he hit the ball in matches the way he does for me in practice against my machines (which can feed a pretty mean ball if I want them to), I am convinced he'd already be top 40 in the country instead of just barely top 40 in Southern California and maybe top 10 in SoCal. But as you say, if there is no forehand confidence, there is no engine.

You are hitting all the points I am trying. At least it makes me feel like I am doing the right things. I stress loading and using the legs, finishing in balance and with the weight forward whenever possible (which should be always when you are hitting against a machine unless I am pushing you really hard and fast from one spot to another). You nailed it about the knife edge. Margin of error is too low. I try to make him hold that left hand of the racket a little longer and we've made progress, but it's not enough.

He loves that chest high ball, especially on the rise. Guys like you and me with our old continental grips couldn't do anything with those ball; he just obliterates them. Gets a little topspin off the follow through but doesn't have to worry about getting below the ball because he's getting lift from the rising ball and he just kills it. He must hit that shot a good 40 mph faster than I ever hit it and I was considered a big hitter. And it sounds so solid. I almost start to drool and salivate when he starts to hit those; thump, thump with a nice diving tail as well. But the margin is too low.

Kyle has some suggestions in the next post, but yeah, we all wish we could hit the ball like this. But do you see any fundamental flaw that I am missing except that he doesn't get that racket head to drop. I want him to keep the racket head at that a point near his right shoulder a little longer and he wants to get back toward his old backswing which brought the racket head down lower sooner. I don't think that is the right direction to go.

Thanks for the effort,

don

[tennis_chiro]

Response to HockeyScout

The issues as I see it:

1.

The dad

2.

The athlete and dad are not including you in on the process ... setting up meetings between all of the coaches so everyone is in the loop and clearly defining everyones role.

Now, to his game.

...He's got a lot better (and I mean a lot) with his movement (it is night and day between the beginning and the end of the video), however, it is just not enough for me.

Regardless, I don't think any coach can lock in the hands in any player without an expert setting up the neurology, movement and athletic base FIRST.

...
[B]The other issue you have is this kid has grown a lot! ...
Anyways, hopefully you get the point, everything needs to be set up step by step and things cannot be skipped in the long process, ...

Restart the neurology in proper sequential ordering and actually have an athlete that peaks at a much higher level after a growth spurt, or body change, is the toughest part any coach faces. ..

..., however, at this stage of his career he will need at least three to four hours a day minimum. I...


Their are no magic bullets in sports development, and it takes hard work for at least a decade to produce a player who MAY have a chance.

... Only pigs make it in tennis." ....

I'll try to respond to the questions as I can. I really appreciate all of the feedback. Be patient with me. I'll try to respond to everyone.

HockeyScout,
I was really curious to hear your take on the athleticism of my student. Obviously, you see movement on the tennis court from a different perspective and I am always looking for what I can take and use from what you bring to the table here. That being said, this boy does not expect to be a professional tennis player, but he would like to be a much better player than he is. And I think he can be a legitimate Div I player. He is an honor student in a prep school, plays the piano beautifully, speaks and writes Mandarin, and on top of that, he is a really nice young man. He's tried really hard, but I don't know how he finds the time that he does for tennis. I expect he is probably spending close to 20 hours a week right now and I am encouraging him to get that up to closer to 25 the next year as he tries to raise his game to a level that will help him catch the attention of a school he wants to go to. That is not going to be determined by where he gets a scholarship, but he wants to be able to be part of the tennis program. He's got a lot of work to do this year.

As for the dad, he puts in a lot of time feeding balls to his kids and if it weren't for the effort he puts in, neither of his kids would be as far along as they are. Would it have been better if he could have had a knowledgeable pro on the same page with me feeding balls to him all those hours? Of course, but that's not reality. The situation you have with your daughter sounds wonderful, but that kind of program is simply beyond the reach of almost everyone, even people with quite a bit of money. But there are certainly elements of your program that we can try to imitate on a much lesser level. It is probably very funny to watch some of the lessons I am giving these two kids. I teach in a park and people walk by on the way to the pool or the jungle jim. When these two kids are hitting against my machines it is really mesmerizing for most onlookers. Now on top of that, people see me having the kids bring their father over and translating in Mandarin what I am explaining to them in great detail that I want him to understand so that he doesn't undo whatever lesson I am trying to get across.

As for you point #1 and point #2, well we are doing the best we can. On some level I am reaching across to another culture and it is tricky, but I am really glad for the chance to work with these kids. Yes it is frustrating that they don't do everything I ask. I think I am the best coach they could have, but that's just my opinion. But in the last 6 months, they are listening more to my voice. I wasn't able to get them to follow through on the mental training and psychological goal setting, etc that I wanted them to do, so I got them hooked up with a world class mental coach. We are only about 6 weeks into that, but at least I got that started. A couple of years ago, I got them to go see the chiropractor I work for part-time as I have with many of my students and that has helped. But I would really like to see them do more physical training like Crossfit to toughen them up, but more along the lines of fundamental movement like you talk about in your posts. I think the CrossFit would be good for that. I do a lot of Egoscue Method and recently started using Foundation Training, but I am not the right person to be doing that training with them. You have to remember there is a limit to how much I can squeeze out of this family.

I really believe the most important thing at this point is to play a lot of really tough practice matches and tournament matches. Tough to make happen. You talk about your athlete finding a way to adjust and adapt to whatever the challenge is. To me, that means you have to have good match play that pushes you. Interspersed, of course, with disciplined practice to try and make the right habits strong enough to hold up in those match situations.

Going on, … you say you would look for the amount of progress we've made in 4 months instead of 4 years, but I only saw them once every two weeks. If I had them 3 or 4 hours a day for 4 months, I think they would be showing a lot more improvement, but cuda, shuda, etc doesn't matter. We are where we are and we want to go forward. Maybe not to the pro tour, but to being really good tennis players.

Yes, he has grown and I think he still is. Might be done, but might go another 3 inches or more. Then he's going to be like Berdych. For some reason, that's what his body type has always reminded me of. Oh, and that would have to be with another 40 lbs of muscle on him to look like Berdych. I can't imagine how big he would hit the ball if that were the case, but I think he would definitely serve better than Thomas and volley better than he does. Not yet, but give it another year to 18 months. But competing like a pro, that is a whole other ballgame.

Anyway,… you talk about knowing how to get the kid to deal with his growth spurts. I just bring him back to drills that reestablish confidence, but with limited frequency of his lessons, it's hard. Maybe that's one of the problems with American tennis; they don't stay with one coach long enough. In Europe, I imagine that whenever a promising talent comes along, there is someone there to coordinate their development and find sponsorship, etc. Doesn't happen over here. For me, that's one of the reasons academies don't work. Nobody at the academy cares enough even if they do stay around more than a few months.

You talk about two-foot hops, movement, etc. I would love to divert time I spend with my students to working on fundamental movement patterns, but then I wool have no students at all. As it is, I am lucky if I give 6 hours of lessons a week and that's only when this boy and his sister spend 3 hours with me. Sometimes it seems like this Forum is the only place I get any respect at all. Frustrating!!!

So what I do is try to incorporate movement into what I do with patterns where they have to move without telling them we are working on a footwork drill. I don't like the specificity of Bailey's breakdowns, but I try to get specific movements that incorporate good explosive starts to the ball while maintaining balance and efficient movement to the ball. You are always talking about the position of the bellybutton, but I am usually telling my students not to run their bellybutton to the ball, but to take the racket head to the ball (see my articles under Classic Lessons). And I think you may be dead on in your assessment of Dimitrov's movement to the ball.

And yes, it would have been nice to have had this kid at 8 or 10 years old or even earlier, but I have him now and I need to find the best way to take him as far as he can go. And he is committed, but not the way you are looking for commitment at the cost of everything else. On the other hand, I recently told him I thought he should consider the possibility of delaying going to college for a year. He needs to be good one year from now at the latest to get any assistance at all just getting in to a college, much less getting a scholarship, but if he played and trained full time for an extra year after putting in 25 hours a week the next 20 months and entered college Sept 2017 instead of Sept 2016, he could be good enough to play for any college in the country and he might even be able to pick up a dozen ATP points and get ranked around 1000 which would get the attention of a lot of college coaches. Probably not going to happen, but it is a possible pathway to his goal of playing D1 tennis at a good school. Might even be able to get a partial scholarship if he did that.

In the meantime, I have to figure out how to get him to figure out how to get the racket head below the ball for his forehand!

don

[klacr]

It’s great to see a timeline of a student like this. I like the decision making that has been going on here. In the early clips the elbow is wedged into the torso too much but as time has gone on the racket tip has been pointed forward slightly allowing the elbow to pull away from the body more. Good move. As time has gone on the spacing and preparation has gotten better and better. I really like this kid. He looks talented.

His forehand looks really good yet he doesn’t rate it himself. Is this him being neurotic or is there a core problem? Once a neurosis like this sets in it can be tough to overcome it. A player has to have deep-rooted belief that his forehand will stand up. It’s hard to win matches otherwise. The forehand is the engine room, the must have shot.

He still has that slight stall at the end of the backswing and I just wonder if that affects things…steals time away. He certainly doesn’t “grab" the ball in the way players who hit with plenty of topspin can. His ball striking looks comfortable yet on a knife edge at times because he hits so flat and with minimal clearance. He would be better to hold the backswing a little longer on the right shoulder as you rightly point out. There is a chance he would unload better if he did...and achieve what you want. He may achieve greater disguise as well. I actually think he could load better with his legs and get a deeper turn on some shots.

He looks like he may have spent a lot of time taking balls early, around chest height. He loves that hitting zone. We rarely get his problem here as young players are always taught first to hit the falling ball, which by default encourages lowering the racket.

I think delaying the backswing could be your best bet in his case. Have he tried it yet? The problem is he may feel he has to get there earlier and delaying would seem the antithesis.

His problem isn’t anywhere near as dramatic as Kyle’s but it’s not dissimilar. I seem to remember Kyle saying he found it was hard to “feel” whether his racket was truly dropping, and he struggled to find the right cues to make him achieve it.

I’ll keep looking but right now I cannot find any answers you haven't already perused. I actually think it looks a really good shot. Wish I had it.

I had a hard time conceptualizing just how low my racquet tip had to go. I always felt my racquet head and tip, but never realized how much lower I had to take it. With that said, my forehand is better than ever due to this forum and tapping or pushing out towards the side fence, the stance that don_budge mentioned and the pull and engagement with my left arm. The pushing outwards was a game changer. I thought I was doing that...until I saw myself on video. But now I see it and feel it. Berdych watch out!
The issue with Don's student is similar to mine where I didn't drop it low enough. But I feel I the difference is that Don's student rushes to take that racquet back without truly measuring or using racquet as a gauge to find and time the ball. I think he'll hit the ball cleaner as well.

Don, how is his grip pressure? How does he do on high balls, low balls, balls out wide? Is that forehand in the video the same as when he plays points?

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[stotty]

It’s great to see a timeline of a student like this. I like the decision making that has been going on here. In the early clips the elbow is wedged into the torso too much but as time has gone on the racket tip has been pointed forward slightly allowing the elbow to pull away from the body more. Good move. As time has gone on the spacing and preparation has gotten better and better. I really like this kid. He looks talented.

His forehand looks really good yet he doesn’t rate it himself. Is this him being neurotic or is there a core problem? Once a neurosis like this sets in it can be tough to overcome it. A player has to have deep-rooted belief that his forehand will stand up. It’s hard to win matches otherwise. The forehand is the engine room, the must have shot.

He still has that slight stall at the end of the backswing and I just wonder if that affects things…steals time away. He certainly doesn’t “grab" the ball in the way players who hit with plenty of topspin can. His ball striking looks comfortable yet on a knife edge at times because he hits so flat and with minimal clearance. He would be better to hold the backswing a little longer on the right shoulder as you rightly point out. There is a chance he would unload better if he did...and achieve what you want. He may achieve greater disguise as well. I actually think he could load better with his legs and get a deeper turn on some shots.

He looks like he may have spent a lot of time taking balls early, around chest height. He loves that hitting zone. We rarely get his problem here as young players are always taught first to hit the falling ball, which by default encourages lowering the racket.

I think delaying the backswing could be your best bet in his case. Have he tried it yet? The problem is he may feel he has to get there earlier and delaying would seem the antithesis.

His problem isn’t anywhere near as dramatic as Kyle’s but it’s not dissimilar. I seem to remember Kyle saying he found it was hard to “feel” whether his racket was truly dropping, and he struggled to find the right cues to make him achieve it.

I’ll keep looking but right now I cannot find any answers you haven't already perused. I actually think it looks a really good shot. Wish I had it.

[bottle]

Thanks for raising these points. I've only viewed one video so far, but what I noticed immediately (since I am writing about this elsewhere in this forum today) is that all the descent part of both arms is too quick compared to the way both Federer and Dimitrov do the same thing. In their case there is almost a sense of breathing with both hands (a "breastroke," I think is the term that Stotty once used when we were discussing Del Potro). I've been wondering if maybe the left hand can't just lift the racket but then slip immediately off of it and keep going up high, i.e., on an upward slant and while pointing across to help get a good shoulders turn with all of this one smooth but quick and unified motion.

Now the left arm has nothing to do but fall in unison with one's dogpat.

But the left arm only falls to the high position where I used to take it directly.
Yes, I'm talking about me. Because I'm self-interested. But that doesn't preclude interest in you and your student, too. Possibly, the challenge could be the same.

[tennis_chiro]

I thought the introduction of the "ideal" forehand from Dimitrov might be a good time to put up the clips from a student I've been working with for 4 years. He's about the same height as Grigor, but probably 20 or 30 lbs lighter. He won't turn 17 for another 4 months. I've been working with him and his younger sister for 4 years. I've given him almost 150 lessons, about 90 in 2011 and 2012, but only 57 or so in the last two years. I basically have been seeing them once every two weeks. I usually do a 3 hour session split between he and his sister, including about 20-30 minutes when I have them serve together. He works a lot with his father who is not a tennis player, but feeds a lot of balls and tries to help his kids. Dad doesn't speak a word of English to me so it's a little hard to communicate. On top of that, there have been a lot of other pros influencing the development of his strokes which can be very frustrating when you are trying to figure out why a particular change in technique appears from nowhere just when you think you had something on the right path.

Nevertheless, he is a hard worker and really has made a lot of progress. Sometimes I can get him hitting the ball so well, I don't understand why he doesn't have better results. But, of course, competing is a whole different realm from simple stroke production. I try to see and tape some matches, but I am not there constantly like a lot of high level coaches. Sometimes I think if I could just have this kid 3 times a week for just an hour I could get the elements I want to see and do see in the sessions with me to become real solid habits.

In any case, we are trying hard and we are having or at least he is having a hard time with his forehand. I've included some clips over the course of the four years so you could see where he was coming from. Originally he had a big problem with having the racket head come to a complete stop at the point where the racket head was low and pointed at the rear fence; there is still some hint of that, but it is a pretty continuous stroke. I try to get my students to break the stroke into two parts: first the unit turn (where I like to see the racket head basically in front of the right shoulder (righty) and the racket head barely closed and also about shoulder or chest height and then, second, the rest of the stroke in a continuous c-type or candy-cane type motion in the parlance we used to use before we knew about the ATP Type III forehand, which is basically what I want to see.

The problem for my young friend here is that he doesn't let the racket head drop low enough at the back of the backswing below the actual contact point. He does get below the ball, but just barely. The result is a fabulous looking ball a little too much like a Janowicz forehand, but probably with even less spin. Geez, he just hits the bloody bejeezus out of the ball. I keep trying to get him to hit with a little more topspin and drop a little more below, but I really don't want to change too much because he hits such a wonderful driving ball and still manages to put a pretty good tail on it.

I keep trying to get him to keep his left hand on a little longer and keep the racket near the right shoulder (in the parlance that has been used by other posters here, perhaps have a more forward emphasis stroke and really track the ball with the racket head). I feel if he kept it there a little longer his racket would approach the rear-most point of his swing with more downward racket head momentum and that would drive the racket head a little lower below the contact point and everything would be fine. But I seem to be ineffective in getting him to feel the racket head dropping. He feels, probably correctly, that the problem is he reaches the low point of the racket head path after he begins pulling forward instead of reaching that point just before he actually starts the pull. It's a subtle difference, but significant. I'm only talking about dropping the racket head a couple to at most 3 or 4 inches lower, but when you watch the slow motion, you will see he doesn't get much below the ball.

He has no problem playing the "pro type" heavy rising topspin ball; it plays right into his flat stroke. Gee, I wish I could have hit a high ball anything like that. And he's at least 6' 2" tall and still growing; not super fast, but pretty fast for a big man. It's the lower ball that is sitting or dropping that he has more trouble with because he doesn't easily get below those balls.

Again, I think the basic shape of the swing is excellent, SSC and all, but he does need to pause a little closer to his right shoulder for a little longer, maybe keep the right hand on a little longer, so that the momentum of the loop drives the racket head a little lower. He gets too wrapped up in little details and doesn't have enough confidence in his forehand. I'm telling him I think he's hitting essentially ATP quality forehands and he's saying it doesn't feel good. He wants to change the backswing so the racket head starts lower and that's the last thing I want him to do; he's already too close to an Enqvist type forehand with the slow down he has in the back which makes the stroke too posterior emphasized.

So I hope you will take a look and give me your suggestions and draw on your experience when you've had this kind of problem.


Details of viewing the video:

You can view a youtube version of the clips I've put together from this 4-year journey right here:

http://youtu.be/rQxQpiZbORY

I've taken the clips and made them all MP4's so you can view them frame by frame in QuickTime on Macs as well as Windows platforms. This reduces the quality of the videos, but you can still see everything and get the frame by frame analysis, but if you want to do that, you will have to download the videos. In total, they are about 55 MB so it will take just a few seconds to download. Use the link below and it will take you to links for each of the videos in the youtube edition. A lot of the original video is really clear, but it takes me all night to get all the files to upload to the server. The original files are more than 10 times the size of the MP4's.

Here's the link for downloading just the one file with what's on youtube;

https://www.hightail.com/download/UlRRTkZuQVNCTW05TE5Vag

And here's the link for downloading as many of the individual files as you want. You'll get a prompt that let's you choose which of the files you want to download.

https://www.hightail.com/download/UlRRTkZuQVNubVVYRHNUQw

Let me know if you have any trouble. I'm really looking forward to see what kind of suggestions the Forum can come up with for me.

thanks,
don