In general I think Adam has achieved already an efficient swing.
He starts his swing with a unit turn. As his turn his shoulders he elevates and pushes back his right elbow making the racquet head tilt down towards the ground. His right elbow is quite high even passing the height of right shoulder. F.Gonzalez is a player who elevates the right elbow higher than his right shoulder while preparing his forehand. At this moment he still has both hands on the racquet. He turns his feet to the side and his whole body gets low. He seems very well balanced and he is ready to attack the ball!
After releasing the left hand Adam starts preparing his power position. (The power position is achieved just before the forward swing when the body is ready to explode to attack the coming ball). It is here that I've found one important element for Adam to improve his forehand. Before reaching the power position Adam drops his right elbow quite considerably as his racquet gets vertical. Although the front video view is not the best to see the height of the elbow on the end of the backswing with help of my software I could see a a little bit of Adam's elbow. (If you can't see it here, you have to take my word for it). Have a look at Gonzalez's elbow at the end of his backswing:
Apart from the drop of the elbow which I think can make a huge difference on Adam's forehand, the other fundamental aspect has to be his extension which is very minimal. His right elbow after contact is going extremely close to the body.
Adam needs to finish his right hand and elbow further in front of the body, even when he his hitting flat. r.
The next picture I am hitting a flatter shot. Notice how my right hand and elbow finish more in front of the body.
The great thing about high speed video is that it gives us a great awareness of what we are doing. The more I watch Adam's forehands and compare it with the pros and even with my own forehand the more I learn about it.
Richard pointed out that Adam seems to be ready to attack the ball but then he seems to push it forward. Its like he is not accelerating through.
From the start after first watching Adam's forehand videos I had a feeling that Adam hits his shots with side spin, although I couldn't prove it even at 200 frames per second. I would need 500 frames per second to be sure. However, after looking at my picture and Agassi's at the contact point and then comparing it with Adam's shots helped to solve the puzzle. See if you can find the difference:
If you observe Agassi's (and mine) right foot position, you can see that it is parallel to the baseline. Adam has already Pivoted the right foot before contact, which means that at contact you already lost some of the power. This was true for Adam's videos 1 and 2. On video 3 Adam has his right foot similar to both Andres on contact.
There is so much more we can say about someone's shots. I think now we can say that we understand much better how Adam's strikes his forehands. The key is awareness, the rest is easier and will come with time.
I really like Adams unit turn and preparation in general
ReplyDeleteIt is here that I've found one important element for Adam to improve his forehand. Before reaching the power position Adam drops his right elbow quite considerably as his racquet gets vertical. Although the front video view is not the best to see the height of the elbow on the end of the backswing with help of my software I could see a a little bit of Adam's elbow. (If you can't see it here, you have to take my word for it). Have a look at Gonzalez's elbow at the end of his backswing:
this is a MASSIVE point I cannot describe the importance of having a high elbow
I remember having a lesson with andre when I discovered this my forehands were hitting the back fence every shot it was great
I think Adam can also work on extension and rotation - although these concepts are difficult to explain
Parabola Swing
A second major reference point for the Spanish forehand is swing shape. On the basic drive, the swing takes the shape of a parabola, tracing an arc in front of the player, and then finishing across and around the body.
There are a variety of these across the body finishes, so that the exact size and arc of the parabola can vary from shot to shot. Other coaches call this the windshield wiper and again, as John Yandell has shown, the length and height of this sweeping forward motion varies tremendously when players hit balls from different heights and positions and with different spins and shot intentions.
watching videos of the shape of swing and comparing them to his own would be the best way to conceptualise it
I think Adam hitting balls where he has to generate the power rather than feeding off Andres shots would be good, even drills where there are much slower balls.