Daniel's Backhands

Thanks Daniel for sharing your videos with us. You've done the first major step into understanding your own unique way of hitting the ball. That understanding will allow you to improve your backhands at a greater speed.


These are Daniel's backhands. Daniel has improved already his backhand on some aspects since this first lesson I had with him in February.


02/02/11


Unit turn and preparation:

Daniel starts his preparation with a unit turn. His shoulders turn at the same speed of his arms and racket just like any pro. However as soon as the shoulders reach a perpendicular position to the net, Daniel stops the shoulder rotation and drops his racket to the side. When the ball is bouncing on court a pro has his racket perpendicular or more to the court, Daniel has his racket positioned parallel to the net which means that he is still not ready for the power position. By the time his racket goes back the ball is already very close and Daniel is forced to rush his forward swing hitting the ball late (too far back) I believe that this is the most important aspect for Daniel to improve on his backhand.

02/02/11


It is very difficult if not impossible to analyze someone's technique without considering footwork and how it affects our ability to strike the ball. But the same is true in reverse, the way we hit the ball affects the way we move to it.
What can we say about Daniel's footwork?
Although it is hard to know about someone's footwork by watching 4 or five videos, we can still see that Daniel has a tendency to do his split step a bit late, and we can see that on most of his shots he is missing an adjustment step with his right foot before his last step. When Daniel does his last step it seems to be very big and he is not in a "best" position to hit the ball.


02/02/11


On the contact point we can see that his contact seems to be a bit too far back considering he has both his arms stretched (or almost). The reason may be due to his footwork or to his late preparation or both. As a consequence on contact his right wrist it is not laid back and that is responsible for lack of power.

02/02/11


On the last two shots Daniel tried to change a bit his followthrough with his racket finishing over his shoulder. It is something that Daniel will continue to improve. His racket can continue to go through the line of the shot and then finishing up with his right shoulder just under his chin.

02/02/11


There you go Daniel, this was my interpretation of your backhands. There was so much more to be said, but who need more words anyway? The important part is that you study your swing, and know it pretty well. Then you can watch other players and see the way they do it. By the way here is Brenton Bacon's backhands a state league player from Sorrento.

Compare their backhands and tell me if you can see any difference:

07/05/10


07/05/10