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I have been reviewing the high speed video of Henin-Hardenne's backhand and the two things that jump out at me are #1 how high she takes her left elbow on the back swing and #2 how she collapses her left arm to pull the racquet down behind her back BEFORE she starts to pull and rotate the hips. It looks to me like she is accelerating the racquet drop and then pulling prior to contact. This probably should come as no surprise. I think it was one of your articles that stated that if you were able to superimpose a touring pro's stroke on top of a club player you would see that the pro's racquet head remained back much longer during the approach to contact and therefore had a much higher racquet head speed at contact than the club player.
She really does have an extreme Eastern grip and the shoulder turn and step across to the ball with the right foot are impressive.
She really does have an extreme Eastern grip and the shoulder turn and step across to the ball with the right foot are impressive.