Straight Arm Forehand vs Double Bend Forehand

[morespin]

A friend of mine and I are trying to figure out why there are so few straight arm forehands on the ATP tour.

Federer, Nadal, Del Potro, and Verdasco are all know for their forehands yet so few other players use the straight arm forehand.

Certainly other players have seen these huge forehands and tried to emulate them.
If the straight arm was biomechanically more advantageous wouldn't a greater percentage of ATP players have found this out on their own? Wouldn't this type of forehand evolved by itself?

I'm perplexed. What do you all think?

[morespin]

Our current hypothesis is that the straight arm forehand creates more racquet speed and the double bend forehand provides more structural strenght.

[doctorhl]

A friend of mine and I are trying to figure out why there are so few straight arm forehands on the ATP tour.

Federer, Nadal, Del Potro, and Verdasco are all know for their forehands yet so few other players use the straight arm forehand.

Certainly other players have seen these huge forehands and tried to emulate them.
If the straight arm was biomechanically more advantageous wouldn't a greater percentage of ATP players have found this out on their own? Wouldn't this type of forehand evolved by itself?

I'm perplexed. What do you all think?

Does the positional straight arm forehand require more efficient footwork and balance than the double bend? I rarely see Federer off balance, but he is not normal.

[johnyandell]

Brian says, and he should know, that very few players have this ability to hit with a straight arm, but as I said in the spacing post I made, if you feel it you can recreate it. I see a lot of morons on other forums claiming they have straight arm forehands. Let's not forget a few players like Agassi and Sampras did pretty well with double bends.

[morespin]

Have you ever heard that a bee shouldn't be able to fly? It's weight-to-wing ratio (or something along those lines) won't allow it to fly.

I see straight-arm forehands kind of like that. Just because it works in theory (and for a very few players) doesn't necessarily mean it will work in the real world for the majority of players.

I don't try to teach a straight-arm. I don't allow super western, super bent elbow (Jack Sock) forehands. I want a forehand with extension out through the ball with a straight-ish arm (Type II). I think that will work for the greatest number of players all the way to the highest levels of the game.

If it has worked well for over 80% of ATP players for the last 20 years it will probably work for you, me, and all the rest of the normal humans who play tennis.

If Roger and Rafa had double-bend forehands and won just as many tournaments (and i think they would have) would we even be talking about straight-arm forehands?

[arturohernandez]

Have you ever heard that a bee shouldn't be able to fly? It's weight-to-wing ratio (or something along those lines) won't allow it to fly.

I see straight-arm forehands kind of like that. Just because it works in theory (and for a very few players) doesn't necessarily mean it will work in the real world for the majority of players.

I don't try to teach a straight-arm. I don't allow super western, super bent elbow (Jack Sock) forehands. I want a forehand with extension out through the ball with a straight-ish arm (Type II). I think that will work for the greatest number of players all the way to the highest levels of the game.

If it has worked well for over 80% of ATP players for the last 20 years it will probably work for you, me, and all the rest of the normal humans who play tennis.

If Roger and Rafa had double-bend forehands and won just as many tournaments (and i think they would have) would we even be talking about straight-arm forehands?

I am puzzled by what physical analogy I would use. If I try to throw a ball it seems to me that a double bend looks like an underhand frisbee throw where we flick it with our elbows bent. The straight arm kind of looks like an overhand frisbee throw where we grasp the frisbee and use our shoulder to throw it. I am not sure that we should all hit with a straight arm but I wonder what the effect of trying different things might have on our forehands.

If we physically took a frisbee and threw it the overhand way and alternated hitting forehands, I wonder if we would feel something else and then our forehand would adapt somewhat.

So, is the straight arm forehand like an overhand frisbee throw?

[glacierguy]

So, is the straight arm forehand like an overhand frisbee throw?

I remember throwing those! If you mean the ones where you hold the frisbee upside down with the thumb gripping the edge and fling it from high out to the side with a straight arm? They used to go for miles.

[morespin]

arturohernandez,

to me a straight-arm forehand is kind of like throwing a discus and skipping a stone across a pond is like a double-bend forehand.

I totally agree that we should test out alternative ways of at least conceptualizing (swing thoughts) if not actually experimenting with physically different methods of hitting the ball.

[arturohernandez]

arturohernandez,

to me a straight-arm forehand is kind of like throwing a discus and skipping a stone across a pond is like a double-bend forehand.

I totally agree that we should test out alternative ways of at least conceptualizing (swing thoughts) if not actually experimenting with physically different methods of hitting the ball.

I tried that with my daughter yesterday. Just to get her to go from pat the dog to swinging through the ball with a straight arm on tossed balls. She can do it and what I noticed right away is that she can definitely accelerate and the ball lands well inside the lines. It is a very effective forehand and I can see why it helped Henin so much.

Then I let her just slip back into her double bend.

I am going to just experiment every practice with her going from pat the dog with a straight arm and finishing the shot. She has a more classic forehand which is just fine.

But I really wonder if we do these little experiments what the effect on a stroke might be.

[hockeyscout]

A friend of mine and I are trying to figure out why there are so few straight arm forehands on the ATP tour.

Federer, Nadal, Del Potro, and Verdasco are all know for their forehands yet so few other players use the straight arm forehand.

Certainly other players have seen these huge forehands and tried to emulate them.
If the straight arm was bio-mechanically more advantageous wouldn't a greater percentage of ATP players have found this out on their own? Wouldn't this type of forehand evolved by itself?

I'm perplexed. What do you all think?

No one can teach you how to hit like Roger because he is double jointed, magical rotator cuff, wrist like cement - ETC. Bio-mechanically what Roger is doing is very inefficient for other players. These guys at the top are not stupid - they have worked with the best of the best and what they do is right for their body. Jack Sock is built differently than Roger - and, if you had him doing what Roger does you would injure him.

[stroke]

No one can teach you how to hit like Roger because he is double jointed, magical rotator cuff, wrist like cement - ETC. Bio-mechanically what Roger is doing is very inefficient for other players. These guys at the top are not stupid - they have worked with the best of the best and what they do is right for their body. Jack Sock is built differently than Roger - and, if you had him doing what Roger does you would injure him.

It may be more accurate to say if Roger hit his forehand with Sock technique he may injure himself, but who knows, it is just speculation. I am going with Brian's hypothesis that the model type 3 technique used by Roger and Raphael is the standard.

[doctorhl]

Tried the straight arm forehand and immediately felt a little more use of core that seemed to generate a heavier ball with less effort( grip is eastern forehand).But, found the straight arm much more difficult for last second adjusting when spacing was slightly off.

[morespin]

Here's my latest hypothesis:

Straight-arm forehands are the most efficient way to create racquet head speed which can then be used for ball speed and spin.

The double-bend (Type I) seems to provide more strength to oppose the collision between
the racquet and a really heavy/fast incoming ball with a more predictable waist-high bounce.

The double-bend (Type II) forehand allows for more adjustability to unpredictable bounces or less than perfect positioning.
The Type II seems to be a compromise that provides the best attributes of both types of forehands.

Therefore, that's why we see almost all of the ATP players using the Type II forehand and almost all of the WTA players using the Type I forehand.

When you have to deal with really fast, heavy, unpredictable bounces that you have trouble setting up perfectly for you need a Type II forehand

[arturohernandez]

Here's my latest hypothesis:

Straight-arm forehands are the most efficient way to create racquet head speed which can then be used for ball speed and spin.

The double-bend (Type I) seems to provide more strength to oppose the collision between
the racquet and a really heavy/fast incoming ball with a more predictable waist-high bounce.

The double-bend (Type II) forehand allows for more adjustability to unpredictable bounces or less than perfect positioning.
The Type II seems to be a compromise that provides the best attributes of both types of forehands.

Therefore, that's why we see almost all of the ATP players using the Type II forehand and almost all of the WTA players using the Type I forehand.

When you have to deal with really fast, heavy, unpredictable bounces that you have trouble setting up perfectly for you need a Type II forehand

I keep wondering about Federer's 25 variations on his forehand. All of this discussion is based on some idealized version of Federer's forehand. I wonder what would happen if we tried to count the types of forehands he hits in a match. My guess is that they would not all be Type III. If we asked him about it, he would not even know what type of forehand he hit. He is just trying to achieve a goal, probably of an idealized contact point.

So besides shortening up the backswing and pat the dog, etc. My sense is that the Type II and Type III forehands feel different and that what we would want is for a player to feel what this forehand is like and then adapt it to different situations.

Anyone know how many Type II or Type III forehands Fed hits in a typical match?

Isn't his return of serve more classical and thus would be a Type II forehand and not Type III?

[stroke]

To me, he never hits a type 2. It think the overriding reason for this is he always to me has a passive wrist and keeps his positional backswing to the outside.