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Mr. Yandell,
I want to open by complimenting you on an excellent site. I am an aspiring tennis instructor and tennis fan in general. I took the USPTA certification exam last week, and the tester mentioned your site as an excellent resource for tennis instructors. I would have to say that I could not agree more with that statement.
Now, on to the specific reason for my posting:
I read through the entire "Building the Modern Pro Forehand" series and found it to be full of excellent information. My question is in regard to the article about the nature of the backswing in pro forehands, specifically the section which displays the forehands of Sampras and Haas at younger ages. You seem to suggest teaching a simple, compact backswing to students early in their careers, and I agree with this notion. What I would like to get your opinion on is when and how changes should be made to the backswing later on. Suppose we stay with the example video you posted about Haas.
In the video, Haas looks somewhat old - I'd have to guess that he's at least 14 or 15 there, maybe even older. Do you have any information about his age there? Further, do you know when he went from the swing displayed in the video to the swing that he uses now?
The basic questions I'm trying to ask are, how do you determine that a player would benefit from a more complex backswing? How do you go about implementing these changes? Or am I completely off - perhaps a player's swing will change naturally as they get older?
I realize that there probably aren't any concrete, easily-summarized answers, but anything you have to share on this topic would most certainly be helpful.
For that matter, I would appreciate any info that anyone else on these forums would like to share.
I want to open by complimenting you on an excellent site. I am an aspiring tennis instructor and tennis fan in general. I took the USPTA certification exam last week, and the tester mentioned your site as an excellent resource for tennis instructors. I would have to say that I could not agree more with that statement.
Now, on to the specific reason for my posting:
I read through the entire "Building the Modern Pro Forehand" series and found it to be full of excellent information. My question is in regard to the article about the nature of the backswing in pro forehands, specifically the section which displays the forehands of Sampras and Haas at younger ages. You seem to suggest teaching a simple, compact backswing to students early in their careers, and I agree with this notion. What I would like to get your opinion on is when and how changes should be made to the backswing later on. Suppose we stay with the example video you posted about Haas.
In the video, Haas looks somewhat old - I'd have to guess that he's at least 14 or 15 there, maybe even older. Do you have any information about his age there? Further, do you know when he went from the swing displayed in the video to the swing that he uses now?
The basic questions I'm trying to ask are, how do you determine that a player would benefit from a more complex backswing? How do you go about implementing these changes? Or am I completely off - perhaps a player's swing will change naturally as they get older?
I realize that there probably aren't any concrete, easily-summarized answers, but anything you have to share on this topic would most certainly be helpful.
For that matter, I would appreciate any info that anyone else on these forums would like to share.
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