Christian's Forehands - 07-02-14

Christian, here are your Forehands as you were hitting them back in February. Have a look:

Although these forehands are a bit outdated and you have probably improved them already the analysis remain:

I've spotted three major flaws in your technique:

Late preparation, imperfect unit turn.
Right elbow very tucked in to the body at contact, causing a poor extension
left hand and arm going to far to the left of your body after contact.

There are more issues as well and probably they all depend and are connected to the first aspect that I've mentioned that is the late preparation.

The other important elements that I've noticed:

Racquet is not getting into the hitting arm position, just before contact
The racquet head does not come down early enough before the start of the forward swing
The knee bend is not great and tends to happen late after the bounce of the ball.


The main major factor with your forehand is the LATE PREPARATION:

Lets have a look at your swing again and try to understand whats happening

Apparently everything looks normal with your swing. Your left hand is on the racquet. Isn't there a unit turn? Not exactly, the problem here is that there is too much speed of your forearm. Notice how your right elbow stays almost in the same position and as your hand goes from in front of the elbow to behind the elbow in a very short period of time. There is a very noticeable loop of your racquet during this swing, but as you are looping it and moving your forearm you are not turning the shoulders and loading.

Compare with my Forehand from the same angle: < br />

Richard / Rohit forehand similarities

Here we have Richard's old Forehand back in October 2010. As we can see Richard had some common elements with Rohit's Forehands: Big Backswing where the racquet head goes very far above his head. Although Richard kept his racquet much more on the right side of his body so his swing was smaller than Rohit's. The right elbow was very tucked in to the body during the forward swing till contact point, just like Rohit. Richard's extension was minimum, where the right hand was close to the body during the followthrough. Even on the video 3 which was Richard's best his extension could still be much better. So these were the similarities between Richard's old Forehand and Rohit's. When comparing both forehands it is easy to see that Richard had a more developed technique, but Rohit has much more time to improve and develop it due to his young age.

Rohit's Forehand Analysis

Rohit your Forehand is quite interesting.

You have some great elements on your swing and some other elements that are not so great.

I think your backswing is too big and is hurting your swing since you are not having enough time to accelerate the racquet on your forward swing.

On your backswing your racquet is going too far up above your head, too far back and too far left behind your body. That's why you tend to move back a lot on the court on the forehand side.

You are lacking a lot of extension and your right elbow is too tucked in close to your torso at contact point. During contact your right shoulder and right elbow stops moving forward. Your right hand its not going forward enough in front of the body during the followthrough.

How to change all that?

I think you need a complete restructure of your Forehand. Starting on your Unit turn and keeping the racquet going lower and more towards the right side of the body. With a smaller swing but with a bigger turn you will develop more acceleration on your forward swing because you will have more time available. That will allow you to hit the ball more in front of the body and therefore will be easier to extend more.

Starting the forward swing with the racquet positioned on the right side of the body is a common thing to the pros forehands.

 I think you can develop such a forehand. All you need is strong visual clues with clear steps and we need to address those steps one by one. I have already started visualizing how your forehand may evolve for the near future. Because you have some strong elements on your swing I think the changing of your swing should not be very difficult, although it may require a lot of practice.    

Rohit's Forehands side view, better extension

On these two following videos I asked Rohit to Catch the racquet with the left hand during the followthrough and therefore finishing higher. For these two shots Rohit had a much better extension where the right hand goes much more forwards in front of the body after contact. Video 6: 500 fps

Video 7: 500 fps

Rohit's Forehands Front

Video 1 : 500 fps

Video 2: 500 fps

Rohit's Forehands Side View

Rohit, these are your Forehands: Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

Video 4: 500 fps

Video 5: 500 fps