Understanding Professional Forehands Part 1 and 2

[arturohernandez]

I would love to see Henin 2.0! That would be awesome. A good one-hander is a beautiful thing.

I teach my players (all of them currently are two-handers) to have a really nice, sliding, biting slice backhand. Just about all of them get the hang of it reasonably quickly. They also learn how to chip and hit one-handed backhand volleys.

You should see how the sliding, biting slice bothers the other juniors (especially the girls). I find it to be a pretty easy shot to teach. Once the kids get strong enough the ball really bites and fades.

Yes, the slice has been my daughter's salvation. She used to hit it all the time and win points outright. Now she has to mix more because the older girls are not as thrown off by it. I see so many players at the US Open who hit topspin when I think a deep slice would work better. Even Federer can do this at times.

I realize that pros can handle slice. But I don't know of any pro that can handle very deep slice and create a winner off of it. At best they can hit a mildly offensive to neutral shot.

In the juniors, slice done well takes players a long way. Had I known, I would have had my son use it more. He was so strong that often times he would just bash lefty backhands and pull players off the court and then attack with his forehand.

[morespin]

A deep, sliding slice is a perfect neutralizer. It gives you time to recover and it doesn't give your opponent a ball that can be "recycled" and used against you.

[johnyandell]

An old friend who was the number player in the US and the world hit nothing but slice. Hard slice backhands and hard slice forehands. Man it was a tough ball on both sides. It's so great to hear about juniors using it! Especially girls.
But to me the real benefit is the long term in the tennis for life scenario. Longevity and variety when a lot of two handers look stiff and uncomfortable with two hands when they get older.

[morespin]

John, I must be a mutant

I've been teaching Type II ATP style forehands, two-hand backhands with a continental/eastern grip with the dominant hand and an eastern grip with the non-dominant, one-hand slices, chips, and volleys on the backhand side, forehand volleys with a continental grip and forehand "emergency slices," and topspin/kick serves as the primary serve since the late 80s.

I remember the phase during which "you can just use your regular forehand grip for a two-hand backhand," "just slice your second serve," "you have to teach girls to play differently from how you teach boys."

That teaching just didn't seem right to me. Why would you limit your students by not teaching them better techniques? I guess I've always had an eye for good biomechanics.

Now I (we) have Brian Gordon to reinforce those thoughts.

[arturohernandez]

An old friend who was the number player in the US and the world hit nothing but slice. Hard slice backhands and hard slice forehands. Man it was a tough ball on both sides. It's so great to hear about juniors using it! Especially girls.
But to me the real benefit is the long term in the tennis for life scenario. Longevity and variety when a lot of two handers look stiff and uncomfortable with two hands when they get older.

My daughter just used a lot of slice in a high school team tournament. I swear that the girls just hate playing her. She even uses it to put the ball at their feet when they come to the net or slice the lob just over their heads. It gives them fits. We just saw Thiem hit more slices than topspin in his last two matches.

If the pro men who have big backhands use slice a lot, I think all of us could do so as well.

Old school is new school!

[arturohernandez]

John, I must be a mutant

I've been teaching Type II ATP style forehands, two-hand backhands with a continental/eastern grip with the dominant hand and an eastern grip with the non-dominant, one-hand slices, chips, and volleys on the backhand side, forehand volleys with a continental grip and forehand "emergency slices," and topspin/kick serves as the primary serve since the late 80s.

I remember the phase during which "you can just use your regular forehand grip for a two-hand backhand," "just slice your second serve," "you have to teach girls to play differently from how you teach boys."

That teaching just didn't seem right to me. Why would you limit your students by not teaching them better techniques? I guess I've always had an eye for good biomechanics.

Now I (we) have Brian Gordon to reinforce those thoughts.

But I sometimes wonder why hitting a kick serve is harder for some players than others. Look at Zverev. On the other hand, I often think that teaching a spin serve first might be a better option if done right. Others think rhythm is important and that a simple serve is better to start with followed by a more advanced kick serve later.

Any thoughts?

[doctorhl]

A kick serve that doesn’t have racket head speed is in for trouble. The kick serve seems to require more racket head speed generated from the legs than other serves, but maybe that is an illusion because of toss location or swing path(only your biomechanist knows for sure! ). When you involve more legs, then you change the timing. So, should one learn all of the serves at once and try to maintain the same rhythm? The other choice is to slightly alter the location/speed of the toss or some other link in the chain and hope to still maintain good rhythm.

[morespin]

The reason I teach topspin/kick serve pretty much from the beginning is that it discourages the frying pan/waiter's tray serve and encourages the arm and shoulder to move more bio-mechanically correctly. It's tough to push a serve with a continental grip! Another reason I teach that serve from the beginning is that's the way the arm and shoulder would naturally move if the player wasn't trying "to just get it in." We do a lot of throwing drills to try to encourage the correct motion for a topspin serve.

One of my younger students came for a lesson after a team tennis match and he said, "Coach, guess what?" So, I asked what happened. He said, "I tried to push my serve and I don't even know how to push." I asked him if his team tennis coach told him to "just get your serve in." He asked, "how did you know?" Whenever your brain, or someone else's brain, says "just" get it in you will almost automatically try to push the serve to get it in.

I have two other reasons why I teach this serve from the beginning:
1. I am not concerned with how often a player "just gets the serve in" in next Saturday's team tennis match. I'm much more concerned with how good the serve will be in the next few months and years.
2. It can be really tough to switch from a flat, frying pan serve to a continental grip and a topspin serve in a couple of years when you've had some "success" with the frying pan.

Another method I use when players start to play matches is that they get the choice for a second serve (first serves have to have topspin) to drop and hit the ball into the correct service box or to hit a second serve with spin. Pushing a second serve is an automatic double fault even if it goes in. Sometimes they even get three serves if they're all spin serves. I'm really trying to discourage pushing serves in just to get the point started and I'm really trying to encourage swinging fast to get a lot of spin and therefore margin for error as well as a big bounce that challenges the opponent's return. AND topspin/kick serves tend to got to a righty's backhand more naturally.

Just in case you're going to ask how many of my students get arm, shoulder, elbow, or back injuries from hitting this serve. None.

I am trying to instill good technique for all strokes/shots as soon as possible. Good technique hits a better ball. Why not teach good technique as early as possible?

[doctorhl]

Morespin: Totally agree. Wish I had received that advice when first playing decades ago. Totally erasing blank slate, incorrect motor memory takes years.

[morespin]

doctorhl, re-learning a stroke can be really tough.

In my experience the correct grip almost "causes" the right swing path. It's difficult to push a serve with a continental grip. It's difficult (or impossible) to hit a topspin one-handed backhand with an eastern forehand grip. It's difficult to hit a topspin forehand with a continental grip. It's difficult to hit good, underspin volleys with eastern forehand and backhand grips.

I have a friend who used to be a serve and volleyer. He had to volley at the very first opportunity because he couldn't stay back and rally with a continental forehand. I finally convinced him to switch to a semi-western grip. His forehand now looks like an ATP forehand. He often says he wished he would have learned that forehand when he was first playing.

We often hear about how the new technology (racquets and polyester strings) have changed the game. I disagree. The new technique and bigger and stronger athletes have changed the game. When you can swing much faster and make tons of topspin your shots stay in the court. If you're stronger and faster you can hit a ball that old school technique really struggles with. If you're really fast, you can get to the slower balls that old school technique produces. Old school technique with modern racquets and strings would probably make old school technique even less effective.

I saw an old video of Arthur Ashe playing Bjorn Borg on clay. It looked like a beat down. Yeah, there was an age difference (Borg was much younger than Ashe) but Borg could get to just about everything Ashe hit and then hit an angle, high and heavy, or a dipping pass.
Ashe was having so much trouble dealing with the high heavy ball that Borg was hitting that he (Ashe) literally just pushed slow, chip forehhands and backhands. I don't know what the final scores were, but you could tell that Ashe had no chance.

There was no technological advantage for Borg either. He was using a wood racquet with gut strings. Ashe had the newest HEAD composite racquet.

It's all about the technique!

[stotty]

doctorhl,
We often hear about how the new technology (racquets and polyester strings) have changed the game. I disagree.

There was no technological advantage for Borg either. He was using a wood racquet with gut strings. Ashe had the newest HEAD composite racquet.

It's all about the technique!

I think there is evidence out there that show equipment allowed technique to evolve differently. Borg was a phenomenon and his grip was further round than most (nowhere near like today's players though) but he wasn't in the ATP 3 range.

The irony for me is that if a classic player were given a modern racket with modern strings it wouldn't help them all that much...certainly not in the ground shot department. You need the more evolved technique to go with the racket to reap the most benefit.

[morespin]

Exactly!

[seano]

Brian -

If the type of elbow positioning (straight, bent, very bent) is the single most important factor in determining ones forehand, and the synchronization of the upper and lower body is the most important factor in determining ones serve. What are the most important factors in determining ones 2 & 1 handed backhands? Thanks,

Sean

[BrianGordon]

Hi Sean - I should have said the most important considerations in developing those strokes. Think I'll stick to the subject of the current articles here. If/when I decide to blather about the backhand variations we can revisit your question - thx.

[seano]

Brian-

Perfectly understand, don't wanna open up that can of worms