Interactive Forum December 2020: Roger Federer Inside Forehands

[johnyandell]

Roger Federer Inside Forehands

Roger’s inside forehands are some of the most beautiful, powerful, and effective shots in tennis history. This month David Bailey presents the Fed signature footwork patterns that help set these shots apart. (Click Here.) And here is Fed himself demonstrating them. An incredible combination of analysis and demonstration. Only on Tennisplayer. And if you want to see more Federer inside forehands, or all his forehands, or all his strokes, Click Here to go to the High Speed Archives.

[doctorhl]

John, That Federer face on, inside/out clip is beautiful in how it presents the distance Fed covers and still maintain perfect balance to position to hit that shot!

[johnyandell]

Yes it is!

[rstrecker]

What can your say about perfection?

It will be a sad day when this uniquely graceful and efficient athlete is no longer part of the tour. I think 20 years from now we will still be looking at Roger’s strokes as models that any player would be lucky to be able to emulate.

[arturohernandez]

The footwork is interesting to look at. Bailey hits on some nice summaries of where the foot points. But in the end what I see with Fed is how his weight moves the ball either on a straight line to hit inside-in or at a diagonal for him to hit inside out. I realize that footwork is important but it seems to me that Fed probably played around with the ball and figured out the best way to hit in either direction.

I would probably lean toward a more naturalistic way to achieve these movements. This reminds me a bit of the Israeli vs. Spanish style of training that Lewitt writes about.

Bailey seems to be on the Israeli side where you teach explicitly.

I know Fed does footwork drills but my guess is that he is more on the Spanish side. They gave him a bunch of exercises and his body figured out the best way to generate force in each direction.

If we had to throw these balls like a shortstop does in baseball, we would probably end up with very similar types of footwork.