Brenton's Forehand

Brenton's Forehand. Brenton starts his preparation with a unit turn. As his shoulders start to rotate, the left hand starts going up till about shoulder height with the racket head only a lit bit higher. Then the hand and racket starts to drop with the strings facing the ground on an angle. From that point, Brenton starts preparing his hitting arm position and then he makes contact in front of his body with the arm stretched.
Brenton, like Nadal, Verdasco, Philippoussis, Schrichapan among other players, hits his forehand with a stretched arm technique at contact. This technique allow players to hit more in front and with more powerful rotations. Normally their shoulders rotate 180 degrees or more, where the back shoulder normally finishes pointing to the net. At contact players have their shoulder parallel to the net and after contact and during their followthrough they rotate another 90 degrees. In Brenton's case that doesn't happen. Brenton contacts the ball with the shoulders parallel to the net but after contact his back shoulder doesn't rotate forward. He muscles the shot with his left fore arm without support of his shoulders.

The question we have to ask is why doesn't Brenton rotate his shoulders more. I think the reason is because his knees extended too early before contact and so he is unable to use enough leg drive into his forehand. In other words when the knees are ready to explode his racket swing still seems a bit late, and when the racket finally catches up some power from the legs are lost because the knees extended too early.

So are the knees extended too early or is the racket swing late? I think his swing is late because it is too big.
After watching Brenton's videos over and over again and comparing it with the pros I noticed that Brenton's forehand swing seems too big because he drops his left hand from shoulder height, to waist height before going up again to contact. If Brenton can keep his left hand and racket higher for longer without dropping as much before accelerating towards the contact, his entire swing would be much more compact and therefore his knees would probably extend at a better timing and he would be able to rotate the shoulders more after contact.

Another important aspect of Brenton's forehand that is related with the previous one is that when the right hand leaves the racket after the unit turn, the arm is kept in a semi extended position and drops as well (with the left hand). I believe if Brenton can extend his right arm out more and keep it from dropping until his got a maximum bend of the knees (power position), that would as well contribute to make his forehand more compact.

Anyway this is just my perspective and although I've been spending some time analyzing Brenton's forehand, there is still a lot to see and to find. That is the magic of the high speed video, if you keep looking at it and comparing it with the pros you might get every now and again a great insight. The data is there for us to find the answers. On court we gotta go through the effort and try to change, but that is where the fun is...

When I was rallying with Brenton I felt the weight of his ball, heavy topspin. I think that if Brenton can hit the ball so well with his technique now, it is scary to think how his technique might turn out if he improves his already powerful forehand.









On this shot Brenton steps in with the right foot (neutral stance). Notice how the front foot is pointing directly to the net to help out the rotation. The right foot should have been in a angle and not pointing directly to the net since it would be very hard for Brenton to hit it down the line. This low and short balls are tougher for all the players who hit with a stretched arm technique.
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As a curiosity we can see Brenton's racket through the strings, just after the unit turn.
Keep an eye on Brenton's left hand throughout the swing. It goes up to shoulder height, drops till waist and then goes up again till contact. I think Brenton can improve if he can make it more impact.
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Watch how Brenton starts his preparation with a simple turn of the shoulders. Great unit turn!
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