Interactive Stroke Analysis: Mikhail Youzhny

[johnyandell]

Mikhail Youzhny's Groundstrokes

Mikhail Youzhny has emerged into the spotlight with some convincing wins in big matches, at the U.S. Open by punishing Rafael Nadal, and by helping knock the United States out of the Davis Cup semi-finals.

The Russian has accomplished these successes primarily through his inspired, aggressive groundstroke play, staying up close to the baseline, taking the ball early, and hitting punishing laser-like winners off both sides, all his one-handed backhand is a particular thing of beauty.


So in this month’s Interactive Forum, let’s take a look! Here are some animated examples of his forehand and backhand. AND in the next window down, you can study the same sequences frame by frame in Quick Time movies.

What do you see that accounts for Youzhny’s success off the ground? Share your thoughts and I’ll chime in with mine later in the month!

Forehand





Backhand

[johnyandell]

Mikhail Youzhny Frame By Frame Quick Time Movies


Forehand





Backhand

[kurtvanhook]

Youzhny's unit turn, neutral grip and strange quirk

Hi John,

great choice for analysis...I love the way Youzhny hits the ball.

You write in this months one-handed BH article re: the unit turn..

"In other cases, this movement is more an illusion. Richard Gasquet, for example, points the tip of the racket upward as he changes the grip, but still turns with virtually no backwards motion in the hands or arms. It's just that the racket is at a more extreme angle than most of the players."

Youzhny's seems to be identical to Gasquet in this respect.

Also interesting to note Youzhny's neutral grip (another topic of your BH article this month) in the ready position for both forehand and backhand. Noticing little things like that and passing them on to your readers is absolutely huge....thank you John!

You may or may not have noticed this, but over the years of watching Youzhny I've picked up that once in a while he will hit this very wierd hybrid one-handed shot, with his left hand almost touching the throat of the racket on the follow through. The left hand seems to shadow the shot as if he is hitting a faux two-hander (as opposed to the classic "back-blast" left hand arm and hand motion that you see with Federer, Sampras, Gugu, Robredo etcc...). He did this BH left arm-follow-through a few times at the open this year. He also freaked out Cliff Drysdale at Indian Wells with it earlier in the year. Cliff actually stated that Youzhny had a two-handed backhand, which Patrick Mac took issue with immediately. They then showed a slow mo of Youzhny's conventional BH with left are back-blast and Cliff was left mumbling foolishly.....he sounded as if he were not quite sure what he had just seen.

He seems to hit this (absent-back-blast) shot not as much as in prior years...I recall him playing Hewitt at the Australian open a couple of years ago and this strange motion was actually his predominant backhand....but it
is still sight to behold! Only a special athlete like Youzny could pull off such a wacky shot.


kvh

[ralph]

Youzny Forehand

On the first forehand you can tell how much Youzny has loaded up by looking at his left foot and noticing that he is on his toe. Obviously, then, most of his weight is on his right foot ready to power into the ball.

[shootermcmarc0]

Yeah, thats one thing I noticed also, he really coils his leg well, I mean, look at his quads.

[drsous]

Power and time

Youzney forehand and backhand seem to be modelled on Federers and who better to model yourself on.

He has great footwork getting himself the right distance from the ball, loading his weight on his back foot and then transfering his weight as he accelerates his racket and launches himself at the ball.

What I like best is the fact that he stays close to the baseline and takes the balls very early and that takes time away from his opponent. At the same time while being very agressive, he is also coming up from low to high to generate good topspin so he can stay well above the net and be safe while attacking.

[EricMatuszewski]

he's got the hands right, thats for sure.

Well guys, John made me an offer I couldn't refuse, so I guess I'll be around for a while.

Lets talk "How's mother russia does mens tennis right" 101...

Womens tennis seems to be another story as there technique has some departures from what the men are doing, but we can talk about that somewhere else.

Ok John, here's my big analysis.

It's gotta be those short shorts the end..

just kidding.

Actually, I agree with what John Roddick said...

He said it's not so much about technique setting the guys apart at this level.


But that being said if the technique is not really close to perfect, your not gonna make it anywhere near this level!

So If one of my little russian kids comes to me and says I wanna hit that forehand like Mikael here's what I'll tell that kid to take notes on.

First thing he does is get the forearm/wrist setup rite.

Youzhny's not supinated out at the begining of the "pull" and he's not hyperextended either. He just lets it fall into neutral. Very much like Federer. I got a story for you...

I'm on Louis Armstrong hunting for good footage of Safin this year during qualies cause I'm a big fan, and Marats B.S. ing with some guy (he just got done hitting and I was late) so I stick around courtside anyway and watch Youzhny.

Youzhny starts warming up and the similarity of the forearm/wrist action between his and Safin's is amazing. So I think. Either these guys copy each other or the coaches have figured it out or something. Because it's the same timing and everything. So I learned alot from watching him. Just for the sake of being a stand in for Marat.

Earlier that day Youzny gave me a "what's up" while I was chatting with Tarik Benhabiles (Roddicks old coach) about wrist use. I felt pretty cool, I guess he thought I was someone important (I kind of have that tennis player look about me).

Anyway he lets his hand come closer to himself on the forward swing than Safin and gets more of a low to high than Safin does, this causes the arm to travel upward at a steeper angle rather than horizontally (don't know if you can tell this from the clip here).

This I believe is one of the causes of the "reverse forehand" followthru you see alot nowadays. The arm action is less like a roundhouse punch and more like bowling. The other causes being, letting the bounce get too close to you and being on the run.

If you experiment with these two arm movements, you'd see how the bowling movement finishes high, while the "roundhouse" finishes across. I don't believe the follow thru is so much a thing they strive for, as it is evidence of the path the hand took to get to the ball.

So..

Youzny gets reliable topspin from his forehand mechanics which probably helps alot on clay (he's had some big dirt wins). But I think there's more to beating Nadal than hitting reliable topspin, Youznhy's got alot more figured out than that.

Thanks again John,
Eric

[leis]

Vertical Racket Unit Turn

Mikhail seems to use an efficient method to prepare for the forehand - Keep the racket vertical, then release the fingers of the grip hand and pull back and swivel the vertical racket with the left hand for the grip change. The vertical two hand method seems to make it easy to simulatenously rotate the hips with the little "bunny hop". He has completed the unit turn in milliseconds.

[johnyandell]

On the forehand the thing I find interesting is the incredible extension combined with the extreme grip. Would like to know the spin numbers but suspect the ball is pretty "flat" for that grip.

It's a great model finish for the extreme grips.

Om the backhand it just feels good to watch! But I love the tight inside hitting arm position and how straight his hitting arm is at the start of the forward swing.

[EricMatuszewski]

John,

Would you guess that his grip is probably a 4/4 or a 4/3&1/2 in your naming system? (I really like your system, by the way, because it's much less ambiguous).

Also, do you define extension as how large of an angle the humerus gets at maximum in relation to the ribcage. (when measured in side view).

Or, are you talking about a more holistic value? ie.. a combination of this angle and the elbow angle? (forearm extension) and wrist angle (ulnar deviation/hand flexion) when the racquet tip is furthest away from the torso? If this is the case, you could say "how far the tip gets away from the torso".

I've read your take on "extension" before, but I'm still not sure which one of these qualities you find the value in.

Eric

[johnyandell]

Yeah I'd say a 4 / 4 or maybe even a 4 / 4 1/2. I'd have to have more views that we got in the brief filming we did of Mikhail, but it's pretty far under.

I probably use that term extension differently at different times, but in this case I'm refering to the distance between his hand and his left shoulder at the point that the hand is "extended" furthest forward.

If you go to the end of the second movie of his forehand and back it up about 19 or 20 frames that's the point I'm talking about.

Even though there is massive rotation of the hand and arm at this point, the racket has also traveled forward toward the target as long or longer than most of the pros regardless of grip style.

We know the forward swing is actually an arc. In the front to back dimension, this arc for Youzhny appears to be pretty flat. This is what causes "extension" as I see it.

That's different from the upward dimension or upward incline of the arc, and different from the hand rotation.

[stroke]

One thing I noticed about Youzhny's forehand grip is that he seems to have a rather closed fisted grip, rather than spreading out his triigger finger on the grip like most other players. I am, of course, unsure of what advantage/disadvantge this provides, but it may enable him to hold his grip a little more loosely, and still control the racquet. Federer seems to do the same thing sometimes.

[johnyandell]

It's an interesting question. The spread finger thing goes way back to the wood racket days and alleged "control" of the racket head. One thing that would be interesting would be to go thru the Archive and count and see who is spread how much with which grips.

[jeffreycounts]

Yes. The extension is awesome. If you want to hit like Wegner, just come immediately across your body with your forearm pressed up against your chest. This is what the kid is doing in John's article "The Myth of the Wrap." If you want to hit like the big boys, you have to extend.

Look at his hand, as John said. Way in front of his body. Look at his upper arm. Completely parallel to the ground. Elbow well in front of the body pointing at the net. This is pro level extension baby!

Also look how perfectly balanced Youzney is. Straight up and down. This guy is a natural athlete. Awesome clip John!!

[johnyandell]

Pretty picture Jeff!