Agniuska's forehands

Agniuska has a very interesting forehand. She is the first female player that I've recorded that hits the ball with a straight arm technique. Other players with the same technique, check Brenton and Ian's forehands on this blog and Nadal on the pro game.

The first detail that I look on anybody's swing is the unit turn. It is the most important part of the motion during the preparation phase.
As soon as Aga recognizes that her next shot will be a forehand she starts bringing the racket and hands up. It is only after a lot of frames that I can detect the turn of the shoulders which means that the shoulder turn is not the main motor on Aga's forehand.
By the time that the shoulders reach a perpendicular position to the net there was already a lot of independent movement of the hands and racket and so the swing becomes extremly big.

Aga has been improving her swing to make it smaller and more compact, and more shoulder turn. When studying Aga's forehands I've discovered some important differences between the 5 videos.
After watching all the videos go back with the cursor and try to freeze the videos when Aga has the racket on the furthest point to her left, just before the forward swing. You'll see that on video 1 on that moment you can see Aga's right hand on the left side of the body.

On video 2 I can see an improvement since the hand now is behind the body and it is not visible on that moment. That is the shorter swing Aga was trying on court and I think refining swing number 2 is the way to go.

Video 3 the swing is even bigger than video 1. Now at that moment you can see the hand and most of the arm on the left side of the body. The swing is huge and because of that Aga makes contact very late. I believe this video shows how Aga used to swing her forehands, her old habit. We can say video 2 is a newer habit.

Video number 4 Aga is running and its not so easy to compare with the previous shots but is similar to video 1

Video 5 is a side view video. we can see how far back the racket goes but we can't see how far it goes to the left of the body. However the angle of the racket on the end of the backswing is probably similar to videos 1 or 3.
It is easy to see on video 5 that at contact Aga is hitting the ball too late, then the elbow collapses and bends and the extension is very short.

So how can Agniuska improve her forehands?

Agniuska has already a strong forehand. She can hit it fast, and with topspin but it is still a bit unreliable sometimes. I think Aga has to shorten her swing to make sure that she has the point of contact much more in front. Actually players who hit the forehands with a straight arm technique make contact more in front of the body than players with the normal double bend technique.

Refining video 2 is the way to go. On video 2 the racket was kept lower at the turn and the left hand when released from the racket was just a bit higher than the shoulder. So the hands were lower on video 2 than on all the other videos. As I've mentioned earlier the racket didn't go as high and as far to Aga's left side of the body as the other shots. Due to a smaller and more compact swing Aga was able to make contact more in front of the body. Hitting the ball more in front will be essential for Agniuska so she can extend the racket through the line of the shot.

I'm sure Agniuska will keep improving her swing and blast us off the court with her killer forehand. Stay alert!

Video 1:



Video 2



Video 3



Video 4



Video 5