Improving Richard's forehands - Unit Turn and Preparation

These are your forehands. I've uploaded 12 shots to make sure we have most of your technical habits. I agree with all of your comments Richard and I think you are having such a great awareness of your technique that it will be possible for you to find an even better forehand.

One of the general aspects of your forehand is that your overall swing seems to big. But the problem might not be the size of your swing...
There are a lot of pros with big swings and the first that come to my mind was Hewitt. By looking closely at Hewitt's forehands I just realized how similar it is to your swing, Richard. (as a curiosity your serve resembles Hewitt's serve in a lot of aspects. Very interesting...)
So the best way for you to know where you need to improve your shots is by comparing it to your best forehand technical model, Hewitt.



Hewitt has a big swing, even bigger than yours since his racket and right hand gets back even further on the backswing. I'll get to that later.

Here in this picture we can see one the great main difference between Hewitt and Richard's forehands. Hewitt's left arm is helping more to turn the shoulders during the unit turn. The left shoulder is under the chin and as a result Hewitt's shoulder turn is much better.


I think you should try and reach that initial position on the unit turn where your left shoulder touches your chin, that will increase your shoulder turn straight away.