Women's Tennis and the ATP Forehand

[johnyandell]

Let's discuss Dr. Brian Gordon's article, "Women's Tennis and the ATP Forehand"

[J011yroger]

I agree 100%. I think the coaching industry has done a disservice to girls, not only on the forehand, but serves, volleys, and slices too.

Today's top level 16 year old girls are very impressive, with much more of an all court game, though it's only half the battle.

I think that coaches consolidate girls' games at a younger age since they mature faster, and so their college game is a steadier version of their 13-14 year old game, while boys continue to develop their game until 18.

J

[BrianGordon]

J - that is a very interesting perspective - never thought about it that way. A more coherent presentation of my thoughts regarding the genesis of the situation :

https://tennisperformanceresearch.com/has-player-development-failed-female-athletes/

[seano]

Brian -

In the first forehand video series, you mentioned Sarah had a wrist flexion movement in her forward swing. From the present video featuring Sarah, it seems to have disappeared. What was the secret to getting rid of it?

SeanO

[jrlaible]

J - that is a very interesting perspective - never thought about it that way. A more coherent presentation of my thoughts regarding the genesis of the situation :
https://tennisperformanceresearch.co...male-athletes/

I'm working on it, it's much easier to build from zero. I use a lot of shadow swings and hand feeds while introducing movement as soon as possible. It's funny that introducing movement into the drilling makes them less reliant on the lower body.

If the players already have the huge swings, my best success has come with Spanish racquet speed drills which force them to cut down the swing in order to do the drill and I perpetually speed it up. I also do the control of depth drills.

Focusing on ball rotation early, and the shapes of the shots has helped prevent the kids from getting enamored with the power of slapping the ball, which is to me the death sentence in today's game.

Please keep up the good work. There are more of us out here fighting the fight.

J

[BrianGordon]

Sean - no secret. She either got sick of me constantly questioning if it was acceptable to her to compromise consistency over her lack of the discipline to control the rate of flexion (something not difficult to do) or she finally got sick of spraying balls into the fence. Probably the latter though it still rears it's ugly head at unfortunate times.

J - thanks.

[stotty]

Great video article.

Where I have had good success with girls is in first shaving down the size of their backswing. I often go this route first before trying to make things ATP- like. I find if I can get girls' backswings smaller then the shot at least becomes more secure and they seem to be able to tap into better topspin as well. Depending on the ability of the player, I then start teaching the ATP stroke by standing alongside the player and drop feeding them, having set in ideal outside backswing position ready to swing forwards. I then carrying on from there using what knowledge I know and my own intuition. It seems to work. I have a handful of girls doing it quite well. I will upload some clips once the damn lockdown is over.

One girl I teach is around top 10 in the country under 12. She doesn't do an ATP and her backswing remains on the inside. It's not that I cannot get her to shave the backswing down or get her to do an ATP, she can. It's just in following lessons, or in tournaments, her old backswing comes straight back. Other coaches have tried also. The girls I have got doing it are actual much lesser players but very more receptive. The bottom line, in my view, is the player has to buy into it and be committed to the process. Otherwise it is pointless....and infuriating for the coach!

I agree girls can actually pick it up quicker than boys, especially mentally mature girls who are bright. Mature, bright girls are actually the best athletes to work with...by miles.

Thanks, Brian...really informative and great work as always.

[BrianGordon]

Thanks Stotty - as usual your post is right on point and you raise all the critical issues. My girls get it faster because I have been fortunate to have very good athletes but also because they tend to tolerate the tedious repetition required to master the technique better - the boys just want to play. This is a generalization but is true in my experience.


Buying into it is critical. In this regard I have the advantage that all my girls are learning this technique and the younger ones can see the success and skill some of the older ones have had. Additionally, there is a culture of passive competition in that each wants their stroke to be better than the others: "I think my elbow is straighter" or "my slot to roll transition is cleaner" or "she is pre-rolling" are common statements. It is all part of the everyday vocabulary.


Your toss idea to establish the ATP version is perfect. I have a very specific toss progression working from the contact back to the ready position I use in the learning process. Each stage targets a specific component and they learn why they are doing it. I'll be happy to share the progression going forward if there is interest. I look at the learning process as one of levels of complexity.


Complexity increases as other factors distract them from focusing specifically on the stroke. I expect they will get good at the progressions and other tossed balls pretty fast. Then I add movement so that is the next level of complexity. After that comes racquet feeding including in sequence variability of incoming ball, extreme movement and fatigue and targeting pressure. Next is live hitting, practice matches and tournament matches.


During the learning process they work in ALL levels of complexity understanding the stroke will break down (revert) somewhere. That is my indication where they are and the break down level of complexity is targeted more aggressively. This process has over time yielded the situation where I can watch the biggest point of the biggest match of their life and see the stroke we built used to produce a high level shot. Even at that point though they continue to train in all levels of complexity for optimization and maintenance.


It ain't rocket science I guess but that is how I do it. It isn't always pretty and breaking the complexity level barriers means these guys are usually training at their physical and mental limits - tough on the kids and stressful for the parents at times also but they all say they want to be great. Thanks for posting and thanks to covid for allowing me time to respond - something good has to come of all of this I suppose.

[J011yroger]

I'm interested in the progressions!

I say it all the time, there is no shortcut to the volume of balls required.

Once you accept that you have to hit 10,000 balls to make the change, you can get to work.

Otherwise once you spin for serve your old stroke is going to come back.

J

[postpre]

A hearty second here for the progressions!

I examined closely the forehands of the two junior girls in the video, and I'd like to note a few observations and pose a few questions. Many of the top ATP forehands of all time (Federer, Nadal, Thiem, etc.) have a backswing loop (of various sizes) that serve a purpose in creating flow/momentum into their forward swing, whereas these girls do have a loop but it seems the purpose of their backswing loop is to eventually replicate a momentary and paused "set" position (racquet head a bit to the outside and a bit above the wrist). In other words, they don't use their loop to hypercharge a stronger stretch-shortening cycle (a "drop into the hit" as Macci has said), they could nearly as easy "set" their racquet in this pat the dog position without any kind of shaping of the backswing. This might also play a part in why they don't get extreme "flips" as the men do.

Don't get me wrong I do like their forehand, and in my neck of the woods, I've seen this forehand in junior girls with varying degrees of success (some very high). A while back, John wrote the article "The Myth of the Dog Pat", and he made it clear that Federer doesn't have a uniform "set" position of patting the dog, but it varies depending on the height of the incoming ball, and I suppose shot intent.

Another thing that strikes me about the ATP forehand of the greats is the quick twitched nature of the stretch-shortening cycle/elastic energy produced. It's quite violent. And while anyone (even 6-year-old girls) can hit the ATP forehand checkpoints, are females able to replicate the violent nature of the stretch-shortening cycle, with a loop supercharging their shot? Would muscle fiber composition make a difference in their preferred technique?

To be fair, I love the ATP forehand. I obsessed over it with my son starting when he was 8-9. He is now 15 and has a world-class shot in the making (see attached video), but my daughter hits a type 2 forehand (hasn't been for lack of trying :-). But she has still been a really good junior player (a 5 star before we had to stop traveling for a time).


IMG_4741 2.MOV

[BrianGordon]

Hi postpre - thanks for your detailed post - you covered a lot of territory lol :


While both of these young ladies are a work in progress and far from perfect I will point out they are hitting high balls with outgoing flat trajectory. As such they are using my high ball adaptation that explicitly minimizes the loop to raise the hand position exiting the backswing while purposely mitigating the flip only to the level required for minimal spin and to square the racquet face. You would see more loop (and flip) in their base swing package for lower incoming balls.

Though I missed John's piece he is absolutely correct based on your interpretation. In my system there are 2 or 3 adaptations to the base package (to handle different incoming shots) that differ by where the hand comes out of the backswing - higher or shorter positions change the characteristics of the loop by definition.

While I agree the loop creates flow it does very little (at best) to produce the flip and certainly doesn't hyper charge the flip derived SSC. This is caused purely by the mostly horizontal force (with a slight upward orientation) applied by the hand to the racquet. The downward motion of the hand in the backswing may aid delivery of this force slightly and it may hurt it - either way it is a minor factor. It is possible Rick was referring to the pre-roll of some modern versions and not the backswing per se.

We seem to have a very different understanding of the flip derived SSC. There are a few force enhancing elements of the SSC - on the ATP forehand the elastic element and stretch reflex elements are likely pretty insignificant. It is the eccentrically driven pre-tension of the internal rotators that does the job. In other words the internal rotators are being stretched by the flip and brought to full tension prior to shortening to produce the internal rotation (roll) we see. Full tension is the key concept but this is a high force counter movement so the time should be extended to the greatest degree possible. And this is what I see in the great strokes - far from quick twitch it is smooth and spread over most of the forward swing.

I'm glad to hear your kids are having so much success!

[postpre]

Brian,

Thanks for responding, and clarifying, and forgive me for my lack of clarity. I am a novice with the technical jargon and lack your biomechanical mind :-)

You wrote: In other words the internal rotators are being stretched by the flip and brought to full tension prior to shortening to produce the internal rotation (roll) we see.

This may seem like a silly question, but since men are generally stronger and more explosive athletes, would they have a greater ability to stretch/affect the internal rotators?

I can't help but think of Nadal and the force generated from his massive flip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etZJlRKMooY

So at a man's biomechanical best, they will nearly always hit harder (and with more spin) than females? Not to take anything away from the ladies, as I believe you are showing that their biomechanical best is the Type 3 forehand too, though we should not expect the same output for them when compared to males? Is this right?

Thank you for all your work.

[BrianGordon]

Thanks postpre -

I think it is clear there are strength differences between men and women and between individuals within each gender. Given similar stroke technique this will ultimately determine how much racquet speed individuals can produce.

The point is not to compare groups or individuals but rather to determine for any given individual what the mechanical options are. In particular it has been said by many to me that females can't hit the type III. The most common argument is strength.

The video simply points out girls can hit the type III because it is more about technique than strength. This makes it a viable option for them. Will they (or me or you or probably anyone reading this regardless of gender) hit it as well as Rafa... probably not.

But given the mechanical and tactical benefits of the type III I believe it may be the best option for many girls. Plenty say I'm wrong. I will continue to train my girls this way and see where it goes... maybe one will hit it as well as Rafa some day.

Best of luck with your work with your kids.

[stotty]

One thing that has always remained unexplained is this:

Young boys often start out with, or quickly develop, forehand backswings which go way over to the outside of the body. Left alone, in the case of boys, the problem of a large backswing often corrects itself and becomes smaller (even without coach intervention) as they get older. With girls this is seldom the case; once a humungous backswing, always a humungous backswing. And although boys don't always go on the develop a Type 3, they will at least develop a more consistent and reliable forehand by compacting things up.

If I look back at all my generation of male friends (I am 56) who play tennis, none of us have big backswings (one has a small breach perhaps). All of us were self-taught back then and ATP forehands certainly weren't on the map. If I look back at my female friends from my generation - again who were mostly self-taught - all of them have a backswings that go way to the outside of the body. Now there has to be reason for that, and remember both scenarios happened by nature back then. The obvious explanation to reach for is physical strength, and it's tricky to put it down to anything else.

I am referring to a time when things just happened largely by nature and we were ignorant of much of what we know today. Nevertheless even today these things seem to commonly occur.

[postpre]

Brian,

Thanks for your post. I realized that I meant to say (in my prior post) that you are showing that for most girls their biomechanical best is the Type 3 (not Type 1 as I incorrectly stated, though I think you caught that :-).

Along with the progressions you said are shareable (would love to use anything you bring to the practice court!) you also said earlier: In my system there are 2 or 3 adaptations to the base package (to handle different incoming shots) that differ by where the hand comes out of the backswing - higher or shorter positions change the characteristics of the loop by definition.

If you are able, I would love to hear you break down how different incoming shots would lead to an adaptation (in terms of where the hand comes out of the backswing). You earlier noted that a high ball adaptation is a raised hand position exiting the backswing. It seems you have more adaptations as well, and I would love to hear what you have the time to share!


Thanks.