My forehand

[chapufo1]

Hi, Mr Yandell
My name is Joon and I just had a quick question about the forehand. I've been told that when I'm about to have contact with the ball, I should strengthen the grip on the handle so i can impart more topspin, but I have a horribly strong desire to model my forehand after Federer and from what I've read on TT and your articles, and watching countless videos of his forehand, he seems to relax on the big forehands throughout the whole stroke. Am I correct in this observation or am I just hallucinating? It might seem a bit arrogant but I still desire to copy him strongly. So, my problem is that I
don't have enough topspin on my forehand and I feel that at times if I do grip tightly before contact, I can get more topspin but then it feels like I'm using too much arm instead of relaxing. I don't know what to do anymore. I would appreciate any advice on this. Thanks.

Sincerely,
Joon

[johnyandell]

It's impossible to say what the relationship between your grip and spin level really are, because ultimately, that's a function of the swing. The swing can be influenced (and usually is) by grip--but that might not be why you aren't hitting more spin.

Or it might be that you hit plenty. Someone advised you to change your grip and hit more spin. OK, why? Is topspin by itself the objective? Not really. Again, what does your forehand look like? And I'm not asking you to describe it. We can't really say anything intelligent unless we see some video. But I doubt the problem will be solved by a grip change. You can produce a ton of spin with Federer's grip. Are you hitting 90mph forehands?

Federer does feel relaxed. But the reason he hits the ball so hard and with so much spin has to do with his preparation, and then the path forward to the ball with all the factors I've described, and finally the extension and the the variety of finishes.

For the vast majority of players his grip or Agassi's are fine, and actually best. They allow you to do everything you need. Many players write in with what they think are problems like wrong grip, not enough spin, and when you actually see them you see the issues are completely different, almost always having to do with preparation and finish.

Post some video or send it in and we can say more.

[chapufo1]

Mr.Yandell, I have as you suggested posted videos of my forehands. The first file is just me hitting against a wall while the second is me playing against an opponent. I think that my problem with the forehand is that I don't have a long enough stroke to get the necessary acceleration to lay my wrist back. Also, I feel like I might be arming the ball too much in the clip against the wall. Either way, one thing I also realized is maybe my racquet head speed is too slow to generate alot of pace and spin. However, I reckon that this can only be done so through relaxation and timing instead of arm muscle.

http://www.savefile.com/projects.php?pid=687459

[lukman41985]

Looks like you need to finish more vertically over the shoulder and work on keeping the face more vertical.

[johnyandell]

Well, you did post some video, but it's not really too much help. In the words of Steve Bellamy--it's framed so that it looks like an ant hitting a tictac.

Based on what you wrote before it doesn't look as bad as I expected. I don't know why you would think that acceleration causes the wrist lay back, but you do appear to have that--in fact you can't hit a forehand without it. The turn looks pretty good. You've got about 6 different finishes though on what appear to be rally balls. That's probably a big key for you--to simply those. But it's still impossible to really analyze them.

My general impression though is that you may have expectations about this shot that aren't super realistic. You have a pretty good turn and a pretty good swing. It doesn't look that tense to me--from what I can see. So if you imagine it's about to get 5 times better, I don't think so. But I'm sure it could become more technically efficient--I just can't see enough to say how.

So film it again and frame it so we can see the stroke. It doesn't have to look like the Stroke Archive, but you need to film much tighter. Also check to see if the camera has a sports setting. Without that it may not really be possible to say much more.

[chapufo1]

Sorry I couldn't post a better video but I understand that I shouldn't have too much expectation in my forehand to get better. I guess my forehand is not as bad as I thought But in either case, thank you for the advice and I'll post better videos if I can get a way to film them. These videos were filmed from a digital camera so the quality of converting them from like 230 mb to 1 mb isn't very good.

Joon

[johnyandell]

I'm sure it could be better it's probably a matter of controlling the elements that are already there and improving them.

It's not the compression that makes it hard to see--it's the size of the player in the frame! Film Tight and try to set the Sports Shutter. It should look like the Stroke Archives in terms of size of the image of the player.

[chapufo1]

Mr.Yandell, I actually have a few more questions in mind if it's all right. I realized that what BB and you and others have said about using your shoulders really meant that you should use your shoulders to turn into the shot and put your body weight into the shot, not to get more racquet head speed (of course you do actually get some). So this brings me to wonder, where does racquet head speed really come from? From my observations in watching pros warm up in matches, it seems like they still get alot of racquet head speed from just using their arms, especially Nadal (i can post this video if people would like). So is the arm doing most of the work in the stroke? Or is it the shoulders, the hips, and the legs combined as I've been led to believe? Also, is it wrong to think of the forehand mechanics as similar to the backhand mechanics (turn your hips into the shot, brace up before impact etc)?

[johnyandell]

Questions are good. But they don't always have answers. The problem is that the things you are asking are all based on assumptions, most of which are untrue, or half true. So answering them without examining the assumptions would only cause more confusion. You may think you have a lot of information, but truthfully you have a long way to go to understand the most basic concepts about how the strokes really work.

I am going to tease your questions apart in detail to show you what I mean. But before you ask any further questions, you have to agree to go and read all the articles on the forehand and the backhand in the Advanced Tennis section.
It's obvious that you aren't familiar with that work (yet!) You need to understand my approach because I can't reeducate everyone who comes onto the site form scratch. That's what the articles are about!

Assumption 1:

You say that BB and I believe that: "You should use your shoulders to turn into the shot and put your body weight into the shot."

False. There is no such thing as "putting your body weight into the shot." You hit the ball with an implement that weighs about 12 ounces. Body wieght has nothing to do with it--or NFL linemen would win Wimbledon. No one consciously turns there shoulders into the shot to try to do this. The shoulders rotate as part of a larger pattern on the forward swing.

Assumption 2:

On the backhand mechanics you state that you should " turn your hips into the shot, brace up before impact." This is the same problem as above. The hip rotation happens naturally in the uncoiling of the stroke. These are problems of cause and effect. I have no idea where bracing before impact comes in but it's a bad idea.

Assumption 3:

You ask "Where does racket speed come from?" This assumes that the answer to that is known. And furthermore it assumes that the goal of the stroke is to "generate racket head speed."

Although there is some emerging research--see Brian Gordon's article--no can say conclusively about the pros what causes their rackets to move at certain speeds. We are getting some general knowledge of how the segments work. Bruce Elliot has some live pro serve data, but in general this is unknown territory. Does Federer have more racket head speed that Nadal--or just a more efficient swing--or maybe not? Does Nadal use his arms to generate racket head speed? We don't know. Obviously he has long arms. But the contribution of the segments is something that we are only beginning to understand --and that's not for pro players in live tournament play except in very limited amounts on the serve!

Assumption 4:

That it's important to understand "where" racket head speed comes from. I do think it is interesting--and it definitely can eventually lead to better teaching. But the technology to apply that data to the average player is probably available one place on earth--where Brian does his analysis. What most people imagine about what creates racket head speed is just that: imagination.

Using the video resources we developed on the site allows an approach that is somewhat different. What I call positions theory. This means I care less about knowing what percent of racket head speed comes from the shoulders, hands, etc. What I really care about is whether I am making the positions all good strokes have in common: turn, contact, finish, etc.

There are various keys to making them happen. But the bottom line is that if the shape of my stroke is technically correct--or similar at the key points to good players, then racket head speed should be more or less automatically maximized. And you hit the ball how hard God intended. Yes there are many variations and things you can do from different positions on the court, different trajectorie, spin and speed variations, but again this all relates to changes in the shapes of the swings that can be filmed and compared.

If you want to actually improve your forehand, this is the place to start, not wild guesses about what makes racket head speed.

[chapufo1]

my sincere apologies Mr.Yandell. I understand that your a busy man. I'll make sure to read the articles before posting any more questions based on false assumptions.

[johnyandell]

Read the whole reply above. I've been putting it together piece by piece. You responded before I finished. No need for apologies, I'm just trying to help you understand how to look at things in order to develop some useful knowledge.

[mntlblok]

Kinetic images

From Kerry Mitchell's article on "Understanding The Forehand Grips":

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/classiclessons/kerry_mitchell/Mitchell_Forehand_Grips_images/Mitchell_Forehand_Grips.html

"This is true for the topspin forehand regardless of the grip, but especially for the numerous players who have gone "western." The reality is for all the grips, the racquet face is perpendicular with the court at contact, or very close to perpendicular, as it brushes up through the ball from low to high. (Although some of the Advanced Tennis high speed footage shows that on high balls pro players actually are closing the racquet face slightly. Click here for more info.)


However, to create topspin with the modern forehand grips, the mental image should be of the racquet head approaching the ball with a closed face. This is true for all three major grips, however, for the Western and Semi-Western, the angle will be slightly more closed than for the Eastern.


As players swing through the forehand, there is a natural tendency to open the palm so the face of the racquet points skyward. This causes a loss of ball control and makes it extremely difficult to hit consistent topspin. This natural body reaction has to be controlled through the image of the closed face. "

I've also been working hard to change my forehand to what I've learned of the commonalities from Mr. Yandel. It has been more difficult than I had anticipated. The above quote from Kerry Mitchell has helped a lot, lately. And, I don't believe I've ever read that from any other source - though I had come to a similar conclusion, myself, a while back. "Feeling" as though the face is closed allows me to accelerate at impact without fear of the ball going long - as long as I've done my new "unit turn".

John tells me that my finish (from video) was all over the lot. Trying to make it look like that of all the pro's video'd on this site had proved difficult to impossible for me. I "think" I may have it now by using the kintetic image of only the very first part of the finish - the few inches of the racket's travel just before and after contact. *That* portion of the swing, in my mind's eye, now, is totally vertical. For me now, the finish of the stroke after that point, where the racket goes across like a windshield wiper, is simply the result of what got me to the end of that "vertical" six inches or so.

Interestingly, I've started using this same swing thought on my backhand, and it has made a good shot significantly better, and makes me understand better why it works (and what happens when I miss one).

Using these same swing thoughts with my wife's strokes (a perfect testing lab ) - unit turn, closed face, and accelerating upward (and not across) for that six inches around contact - also has her hitting the ball great off both sides. It's just amazing how valuable it is to point that left arm all the way across the body as part of the unit turn.

Hope this doesn't screw anybody up if it is way off the mark.

Kevin B
Savannah

[shootermcmarc0]

Do you hit a onehander?

[mntlblok]

Do you hit a onehander?

Yep. But my wife uses a two-hander.

Kevin B

[vmiller]

I don't know why you would think that acceleration causes the wrist lay back.

Hi John,

Have you noticed how some players establish a strong laid back wrist position early in the backswing while others seem to have a looser wrist during the backswing and establish the laid back position later and in a more dynamic fashion?

It seems to me that most of the male pros have the more dynamic lay back while many of the women seem to force it earlier in the swing.

Any thoughts on this?

In my experience, the dynamic way of doing it is harder to time, but maybe a bit more natural, at least for me. I get a more solid hit more consistently when I intentionally lay back the wrist early, but I can't seem to make it a habit.

Did you happen to get Massu or Andreev on film at IW?