Federer's Preparation

[veena]

Marius Hancu (from the TW forums) wrote that Fed had almost a double split, where on the first up and down he does not really leave the floor, and then a second split which is like the split that we all know.

Here is a video: http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...ourtFront1.mov
and another: http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...WideFront1.mov

Anyone have any comments/insight?

[maverick1]

I think there were probably more than one of those little hops before the last one, the split step.

He probably does that the whole time while waiting for the ball, making adjustments to his position.

[veena]

I think there were probably more than one of those little hops before the last one, the split step.

He probably does that the whole time while waiting for the ball, making adjustments to his position.

Well what Marius said was that it was part of his preparation, specifically mentioning the minisplit and then the actual split. The reason I brought these videos up was because in these you can see the split and the smaller one just before it.

[maverick1]

I know Marius is "G.O.A.T." at TW(especially on Health & fitness), but I still don't see anything to this.

When Fed gets ahead of time to the position on the court that he wants to be, he probably does little splits in place because he doesn't want to stand still.

I tried to look for his videos on YouTube, but couldn't find any examples of more than one split step because rarely did he ever have time for more than one after getting into position.(So I could be wrong about him ever doing more than 2 splits).

The one time when he would have plenty of time is on service returns, so I checked four of his service returns in the strokes archive here, and I don't see more than one split step.

[veena]

You're actually basically right. I just found the post by Marius, and I see that I had forgotten a large part of what he said:

before the opponent hits, he makes several (2-3) low bounces on his toes; this energizes him in preparation for the real split-step and keeps him non-committed (this step isn't always performed); it also keeps him in a active state while the opponent goes through the motions towards contact

just before the opponent hits, he makes the highest bounce, which is the SPLIT STEP

while in the air, he observes the ball in motion coming from the opponent's racquet

at that time, and not earlier, he makes the decision on which leg to put more of a weight when landing; that is the side towards which he will be moving

[johnyandell]

You see other players like Hewitt or Sharapova do similar things. they keep moving when they are slightly ahead on time.