Dan's Backhands

Thanks for sharing your backhands here on my blog, Ned. Your backhand has a lot of common elements with the pros. As soon as I've looked at the videos I was positively surprised to see how efficient they were.

To start you have a perfect unit turn during your preparation. I couldn't see any independent movement of the racquet and hand during the preparation, even when I analyze it frame by frame. Your racquet and left hand go at exactly the same speed of your shoulder turn just like any pro. The only difference is that the pro maintains his other hand on the racquet which you can't do.

Where can you improve?

I believe that, part of that answer can be find by watching the 4 different backhands here on my blog.





If we compare the first two shots with the other two there is a major difference between them. That difference is timing. If you freeze the video when the ball bounces on the court on the first 2 videos you can see that Ned still hasn't turned his shoulders completely and if you keep an eye on his racquet hand and racquet head we can see that they keep going back. The forward swing only starts when the ball is roughly on the highest point. As a consequence Ned was forced to close the stance where he brought his right foot across and even back on one of the shots to buy some time. He was rushed on those two shots and he probably hit the ball a bit too far back although is difficult to see it from this angle.





Notice how Ned on the last two videos corrected the problems of the first two videos. Ned seemed to be ready by the time the ball bounced and he was ready to start his forward swing just after the bounce. Because he had more time he stepped in with his right foot and took the ball more in front. As a consequence of that his extension seemed much better where the racquet kept going through the line of the shot for longer.

Of course there is much to be seen with Ned's backhands. Although I have already recorded him again and it will be very interesting have his backhand on the blog again.

Frederick's forehands 07/10/11

My best Forehands - 07/10/11

I've been quite keen to improve my forehand lately and every time that I'm on court I am very conscious about my technique.

After recording my forehands two months ago I've noticed (thanks to Richard!) that when making contact with the ball that my head wasn't still and my eyes were not on the contact point. As a consequence of the head movement forward at the time of contact I was loosing extension throughout the line of the shot.

The greatest thing I've just realized now is that for us to have an efficient extension and therefore creating more effortless power, we need to slow down the rotation of the shoulders just before and just after contact. Maybe when we see the shoulders slowing down just before and after contact is not a conscious thing that the pros try to do when executing the shot, but it is due in part because during that contact phase the racquet head is accelerating much faster than shoulders. Because I was rotating my shoulders forward too quickly around the contact point, or I wasn't generating enough acceleration with my racquet head, I was getting less extension.

These are by far my best shots recorded on video.






My older shots just for comparisson:

10/04/08



18/07/11



Although the first shot it seems that my head is still forward and my eyes are not on the contact point it is just an illusion that has to do with the angle of the footage. Check Djokovic's forehand from the side view.

Peter's Forehands - 07/10/2011 (2nd Part)

These following videos shows how Peter hit the forehand after video awareness.

The main goal that I've pointed out to you Peter was to try and improve the turn by keeping the left hand on the racquet longer and to avoid the racquet head to open just before the forward swing.

The first video there is no ball. Sometimes is extremely helpful to record one's technique on a particular swing without striking the ball.



And now striking the ball:

Peter's Forehands - 07/10/2011

I've coached Peter a few times before but this was the very first one with the video. These first 6 videos give us a good idea at how Peter was striking the ball on the forehand side before video awareness.

Ben, the Floreat Djokovic

Ben's new HOT forehands

Well here it is. After watching the videos for a few minutes, and perhaps just a little bit of thinking off the court, Ben was able to improve his forehands quite considerably. Of course there are some issues here and there, but it is easy to guess that Ben is going to build a very efficient and powerful forehand. Beware!!

These shots were recorded only a week after the previous forehands. Try to find out Why these new forehands look so much better. I'm sure that Ben knows it!



Comparing these shots with the ones from last week we can see that now, Ben has positioned his left foot closer to the baseline while maintaining his open stance (or semi open stance) allowing his hips to turn perpendicular to the net. This is a major improvement and it was essential for Ben to see it before he could changed it so easily.



Watch the next picture and stop the video where Ben's racquet is in a similar position to Djokovic.



In a very similar way to Djokovic, Ben shows the back side of the strings on the power position. Although his left arm has collapsed a bit and he doesn't have the same amount of turn. I think Ben has the right hand more towards his left side of the body, and his right elbow is much lower, while Djokovic has his right hand further back with his arm almost straight and much higher.



Ben is not looking at the contact point. this is a very familiar element to my shot which I corrected just recently (video is coming...).

Yes I agree with Richard, the extension is very short. While extending we want to see the right hand and elbow reaching a point far away in front of the body during the followthrough. Watch the picture:



Ben's forehand is changing every day. It is great that Ben is really keen to have his shots posted. He will be the one to profit more from it...