Tsitsipas forehand

[dimbleby69]

Hi John,

Already, before your reply (thanks, btw), I was asking myself whether I was just seeing something in Tsitsipas's forehand I wanted to see. Glad I put those caveats in now!

I will go back and look at the archive again. At this point it seems appropriate to confess that it was being able to replay Amazon slo-mo of T's forehand (esp at the AO) that got me thinking on these lines. Evidence from the Archive was much more ambivalent on first viewing. You will doubtless point out that the TV footage doesn't give sufficient detail. One thing that was helpful about it though, was being able to see the ball bounce in the same frame, to see where his joints are at that moment. From memory, many of the Archive shots are from the side, so no bounce of necessity.

High-speed footage of my forehand does not currently exist. I do have some on my serve, and was about to contribute to your “The Serve: where are we now?” thread, since the article hints at a difficulty I've had marrying your advice about creating a good drop with a full circular backswing and Brian's emphasis on a Hesitation Point. Still, it's probably better to deal with one set of misperceptions at a time, so let's see if I can keep my embarrassment limited to the forehand for now. Never got footage of myself hitting forehands – partly because I can get no one at my club interested in shooting footage or doing video analysis. Why is this?? I could do Olympic-qualifying ranting on the subject. Going to have to bribe my niece and nephew to throw me some balls this weekend and hope something usable is captured. I think you said somewhere it's better to put it on Vevo rather than Youtube, so that you can use frame advance?

The truth will, of course, emerge – the difference between what I feel is happening and what is actually happening. That what to me feels like a straight arm is nothing of the sort, for example. I might be in the group with a 'straghtening' arm, that BG touches on in his article on the difficulties associated with the straight arm, though.

Regards

Rob

[johnyandell]

all you need is an iphone with slow motion and some decent light. We prefer just the quicktime files and if you get them we can let you know what to do.

[BrianGordon]

Hi Rob - JY asked me to review your post - you have clearly thought about this in depth. Two concepts here:

The wrist - the wrist extension is not muscularly achieved but is conscious to the extent it is allowed to happen (not resisted) as a consequence of the racquet inertia in the early forward swing. I would not pre-extend it muscularly.

The elbow - full extension of the elbow may be accomplished in the backswing or the early forward swing. Either way I would consider this a positional backswing. From a purely mechanical perspective it makes sense to straighten it prior to the forward swing. From a biomechanical perspective some find it easier to straighten in the early forward swing.

The relationship - regardless of timing of elbow straightening the wrist extension is important for reasons you quoted. It is absolutely critical for forward swing straightening as the wrist extension directly facilitates the the elbow straightening - they are explicitly linked.

Real world observations - I prefer the mechanical (and pedagogical) simplicity of backswing straightening. In roughly equal proportion I find my players can or can't (your experience I think) maintain the straight arm after straightening by the end of the backswing. In the final analysis either is fine and my approach (as with all mechanical choices) is to find individually unique solutions that match player kinesthetics with the core mechanics of my systems. BG

[jimlosaltos]

Beyond my pay grade, but given the visibility Carlos Alcaraz's forehand has generated, you might be interested in this photo of his forehand showing where he straightens his arm and the wrist lag then. My pic from BNP Indian Wells last month. TPN will likely do a Tour Portrait soon.

filedata/fetch?id=97158&d=1650651726&type=thumb

[seano]

Jim -

What a great photo of of the stretch on Alcatraz's forehand.

Sean

[jimlosaltos]

Jim -

What a great photo of of the stretch on Alcatraz's forehand.

Sean

Thanks ! Appreciate it

[johnyandell]

Thanks Brian--and Jim!

[stroke]

Jim -

What a great photo of of the stretch on Alcatraz's forehand.

Sean

Looks very Fed like, technically about perfect.

[jimlosaltos]

Let's test whether TPN forums support aniGIFs

This should animate at 1 sec per frame/ image of a forehand sequence with Carlos Alcaraz. Fingers crossed.

Seems to be playing for me. I compressed each photo first before importing to the GIF creator. If it doesn't play for you, perhaps you can drag it out and open in a browser window - if you're interested. Bit too dark (I can compensate next time), loss of resolution? But it works ! ! !

What do you see? Extended arm, extends toward the target after contact for me.

filedata/fetch?id=97173&d=1650741178&type=thumb

[stotty]

Plays for me and it's superb. What a treasure trove you are, Jim!

[jimlosaltos]

Plays for me and it's superb. What a treasure trove you are, Jim!

Thanks ! Glad to contribute

[glacierguy]

Also plays for me, and agree - it's superb. Thanks.

[dimbleby69]

Hi Rob - JY asked me to review your post - you have clearly thought about this in depth. Two concepts here:

The wrist - the wrist extension is not muscularly achieved but is conscious to the extent it is allowed to happen (not resisted) as a consequence of the racquet inertia in the early forward swing. I would not pre-extend it muscularly.

The elbow - full extension of the elbow may be accomplished in the backswing or the early forward swing. Either way I would consider this a positional backswing. From a purely mechanical perspective it makes sense to straighten it prior to the forward swing. From a biomechanical perspective some find it easier to straighten in the early forward swing.

The relationship - regardless of timing of elbow straightening the wrist extension is important for reasons you quoted. It is absolutely critical for forward swing straightening as the wrist extension directly facilitates the the elbow straightening - they are explicitly linked.

Real world observations - I prefer the mechanical (and pedagogical) simplicity of backswing straightening. In roughly equal proportion I find my players can or can't (your experience I think) maintain the straight arm after straightening by the end of the backswing. In the final analysis either is fine and my approach (as with all mechanical choices) is to find individually unique solutions that match player kinesthetics with the core mechanics of my systems. BG

Hi Brian,
thank you so much for reviewing the post and for the clarity of your reply. I will be re-reading it for some time.

Wrist: understood.

Elbow: reassuring that it's not just me who has this experience. I start the start the swing with the elbow at 90degrees. I wonder whether I should be trying to increase this at least somewhat.

Relationship: the insight that it's the wrist that facilitates the elbow straightening is key for me, I think, because I find it counter-intuitive. I guess I have an image of energy/motion traveling down the arm, from the shoulder to the wrist via the elbow. A surgeon would say proximally to distally. But of course it's the other way around - the inertia of the racket is causing an event in the wrist that is going to result in external rotation of the shoulder, so what I consider the normal direction of cause and effect is being reversed.

I start my swing with a push off my back foot. Connecting that sensation to what is happening in my wrist is another counter-intuitive idea. I think that's because somewhere lurking in the background is the idea of the kinetic chain – and the idea that there are many other links between foot and wrist. The chain idea, perhaps, isn't that helpful.

In your reply to Stotty in post #4 you said that “it is possible that the on edge entry configuration alters the slot dynamics enough to require a deeper flip”. For what it's worth, my shot seems to work better if I allow the forearm to drop lower. I think that's one of the things that got me looking more closely at Tsitsipas's forehand in the first place.

There are plenty of warnings dotted around the site that for club hacks like me trying to hit a straight arm forehand might not a be a good idea (and that was before a Grand Slam winner waded in with an article that is concerning while not being particularly convincing)*. I've been encouraged, however, by your work with juniors to think that maybe my body might be robust enough, so I'm going to persevere and hope I can come out the other side.


Many thanks again for your posts in this thread, and to JY for asking you to wade back in.

Regards

Rob




*And now we have Jimlosaltos's beautiful images to show us just how much strength, speed and coordination are needed to hit the forehand that promises to dominate the next decade!

[dimbleby69]

JY, are you there?

I'm afraid the footage gathering turned into a bust. We had ample sunlight (not always a given during a British springtime) and the teenage camera work was good, but we didn't realise the delay in the slow-mo kicking in on the iphone. As a result every forehand concludes in slo-mo, with me striking a pose as I follow through, but everything that came before is normal speed. Missed the window for a week or more, unfortunately.

For learning purposes, it would have been much neater to have clearcut "before" and "after" footage, but it will be a challenge for me to profit from BG's insights and make changes, so no rush.

I'm getting deeper into the High Speed Archive meanwhile, having realised I had barely scratched the surface before. Learning quite a bit, I think, including just how wrong I was in most of my previous observations of Tsitsipas. For another day.

regards
Rob

[glacierguy]

Hi Rob, whilst you're waiting for the experts, thought as a fellow club hack I'd give some encouragement. Keep at it! You're in the right place. All I can recommend is that you read, and re-read all the JY, BG and Macci (I think?) articles on the forehand, and study the high speed video until it's seared into your brain. Then you need to get videoing yourself, not just once, but often, like every couple of weeks. And at this point you have to be brutally honest - video doesn't lie, and it's often a bit of a shock! Oh, and after all that, re-read the articles again. Good luck.