Matt’s Forehands

 There you go Matt, these were your Forehands as first recorded on the 5th of June. You may have improved it already but nevertheless let’s break it up in parts to understand it better.

I’ve highlighted two major ares to improve your Forehand:

Stance

Trigger Position

001

The first thing I notice when looking at your shots, specially the ones recorded from the side angle is how far back you are on the court. You’re not too far away from hitting the back fence with your racquet. Because of that you are not optimising your open stance. 

The stance is how we position our feet at the end of our backswing. After we commit to our stance we are loaded and ready to start our forward swing towards contact to the ball.

We basically have 4 good different stances that we use on our forehands:

Neutral Stance, when we step in to the ball with the inside foot (left foot for right handlers)

Semi Open Stance, when we position our feet with the outside foot closer to the side fence and the back fence. It’s a mixture of a step back and a step out with the outside foot. This stance is probably the favourite of the pros because allows more time for contact, and maximum rotation. 

Open Stance, when we position our feet at the same distance to the net. Although we have less rotational power than a semi open stance it is easier to make contact more in front of the body. Players may have to use the open stance because the incoming ball might be short but not giving enough time to step in to it or step back to a semi open stance. It’s  typical stance for return of serves.

Extreme open stance, when we position the outside foot forwards stepping in to the ball. This is not a desirable stance since by opening up our hips we lack rotation and power, but we might have to play it when retrieving low, short and angled shots into our forehands. 

So now let’s see why your Open Stance doesn’t really suit the shots yore hitting. 

002

With the open stance your right foot is positioned at the same distance to the baseline as your left. Because of that it is very difficult for you to turn your hips since your right knee and foot are blocking the hips rotation. Since you are so far back into the court you should have plenty of time to step in with your left foot. Of course a better alternative for you would be to be closer to the baseline and as the ball approaches you, you could deliver a more semi open stance by stepping back and out with your right foot. 

Interestingly on your rear side view videos you are a bit closer to the baseline and although we can’t really see your feet we can guess that your stance is not much different than these side view videos. 

Your unit turn is very good Matt, your left hand stays with the racquet and goes far back as you turn your shoulders. Your left shoulder is tucked underneath your chin at the end of your backswing, looks great!

This next picture I got from your next video. I’ve frozen it just at the time that your left hand is coming off the racquet. From this picture imagine stepping forward into the ball with your left foot (neutral stance). Maybe even a couple of side steps before committing to the contact. You would rotate and be more side on to the ball and it would be for sure a winner!

It might seem that you are exaggerating the left hand back a little bit, but I think it’s ok!  It’s helping you rotating your body a lot. You are loaded! You have successfully turned your shoulders more than perpendicular to the net. Because you have plenty of time, now you need to step in to the ball with your left foot keeping your racquet still up, before dropping it and unleash all that installed power! 

You should only hit that shot in that open stance  from so far behind the baseline, as you did on the video, if the incoming ball was shot at you at 250 km/h

003

Instead of stepping in you have waited passively on that open stance and then because the ball is dying in front of you, you were forced to move your body forward towards the contact. Notice the low contact point. 

004

From the back view, we can be aware of the other major element of your forehand that needs some improving! 

I call it the trigger position!! It’s basically when we prepare the wrist for contact. It typically happens a few moments before contact. The wrist should be laid back for impact. When it happens the racquet head tends to go into the inside just before contact. We normally say to line up the butt of the racquet in the direction of the ball. Here’s Fed’s trigger position on the forehand:

Whiteout this trigger position the wrist is not ready for impact. What happens between the Trigger position and the contact point is one of the most crucial and fundamental elements to master the Forehand.

As the wrist is laid back and ready, the hand leads the racquet into the direction of impact. In those very fast moments before the impact, if the racquet head moves faster than the right hand, then the wrist’s back position is compromised and the player won’t be able to have a solid contact and extension into the line of the shot.  Very often a poor extension after contact and a poor follow through are signs of a weak wrist at contact. 

Notice on the following pictures, how after the trigger position is achieved on the first pic, the right hand is still in front of the racquet head up until contact happens. We want the right hand and the racquet head levelled or with the hand slightly in front of contact, but not with contact in front of the right hand! (Maybe except for extreme wristy shots like angle passing shots or shots on the run?…) 

 Notice how on the last picture at contact, Fed still has his right hand in front of his contact point:

   

So the wrist is kept laid back in a strong position where it’s able to absorb the impact of the ball on the strings and it’s kept back for a few more moments after impact to ensure the shot has maximum extension. Then after the follow through the wrist relaxes and therefore the racquet finishes up and on the outside and left of the right hand. 

Looking at your wrist at contact we can see how it’s not entirely laid back. It’s not as strong as it should be. It even seems that the contact point is in front of your right hand:

005

But to understand better how to improve your forehand Matt, let’s see what happens right after contact:

And now let’s see Fed’s after contact wrist position:

AMAZING!! Notice how the wrist is still back. The hand seems to be still in front of the centre of the racquet head. His right arm is almost fully straight and his hand is far away from the body. By reaching this position with his wrist still laid back Fed has an amazing extension through the line of the shot.

Notice how on your picture after contact, the racquet head goes in front of the right hand. A sign that your wrist has gone neutral too early, therefore you’re lacking extension and power. 

So that’s it Matt, the stance and the Wrist are your most important elements to improve on your forehand. You’ve got the footwork and the rotation and unit turn. You use quite well the left hand. The next step after that is to have the left hand more stretched out when you’re preparing your forward swing, but that can wait…     Good luck! 

006

Pierre’s Backhand Part II

 This is some of the videos that I took two days after the first recordings :

01

This is a much better shot than any of the other videos that I recorded you before.

(see previous post). 

I think your grip is stronger than the older videos. Although it’s not exactly clear it seems that your right hand knuckles are a bit more parallel with the handle of the racquet than on your previous videos.  However I still think you can rotate your knuckles more to make your backhand grip stronger.

Notice how on these videos your racquet head was much higher and vertical than before and your contact was much more in front too. However you can still work on that!

In my view these are the main priorities to improve your backhand:

1 - Grip (already discussed see previous post)

2 - Racquet head vertical and closer to the shoulder at the end of the backswing and unit turn and holding on to that position even while stepping to the ball ( view Brett’s Backhand post):

3 - Trigger position where the racquet is horizontal and parallel to the baseline with the strings facing the back fence:

4 - Contact point much more in front of the body. How to have that early contact??

 Starting with a stronger grip, and then having the racquet more vertical at the end of the unit turn and while stepping to the ball, we should just use gravity as the way to smoothly achieve some relaxed acceleration, while the racquet falls into the trigger position, following then towards the contact in front.

5 - Keeping the head and shoulders relaxed and still through contact and right after contact. The shoulders should stretch, and the hitting arm should remain fully stretched during the follow through. By keeping the left hand back to the back fence and the head still from contact point till the end of the follow through keeps the shoulders perpendicular to the net:

I leave you now with your pictures during all of these time frames of your swing for comparison: 

End of the backswing: (try having your racquet more vertical with left hand directly above the right hand and maybe with the racquet closer to your left shoulder)

Trigger Position: (try having your racquet horizontal and parallel to baseline. Strings towards the back fence. Imagine that you want to hide the strings from the camera!): 

Contact point in front (your contact point seems good. Much better than in your previous videos. With a stronger grip you will be able to have a contact even more in front while keeping your wrist comfortable:

Follow through (Try maintaining the arm fully stretched with the racquet head still on the left side of the right hand, maintaining your head still)

 

Overall seems much better Pierre! Keep visualising those important elements and I can’t wait to see the evolution of your one handed backhand!

Pierre’s Backhand review

 Pierre, these are your Backhands first recorded on the 19th of June and then two days later the improved version of your shots. First your initial videos:

01

Your Backhand is very interesting Pierre. You have a simple swing, you have a good transfer of weight from the left foot into the right before making impact on the ball. 

05

07

After studying these three videos the most important element you can easily improve is by having a better grip. A stronger grip. The weak grip you have Pierre, affects your unit turn, Trigger position, contact point and follow through and extension.

Of course other elements you could also improve like a better rotation and early rotation but the grip is still priority number one.

Let's start from the beginning:

As the ball comes to your Backhand, You start by slightly changing your grip. You've got a week drive Backhand grip on those videos.  Have a look at some of the pro's grips:

 :

Why is the grip so important for an efficient 1 Handed Backhand? Some of the reasons:

1 - Because you can make impact more in front of the body while keeping the hitting arm fully straight. 

2 - You are better equipped to handle the higher balls at contact. The very low ones you can always slice if you so wish!

3 - You can have a more exaggerated trigger position which can allow you to accelerate through the  contact.and making it easier to generate topsipin.

4 - A stronger grip decrease the risk of wrist, elbow or even shoulder injury. The one handed backhand requires a strong grip at contact. Some players with weak grips when hitting a topspin BH may instinctively try to protect their wrists and therefore may put their elbow at risk by bending the elbow at contact. 

  

On the previous post about Brett's backhand, we saw the same grip problem. It is very common in recreational play. 

Lets see how you start your Unit Turn and backswing:

From these three pictures we can have a better idea of your swing. Sometimes pictures are even better than videos because you can have a good look at them. Your racquet has been horizontal from the start to the Trigger position. 

Looking at picture three you have a weak trigger position. Compare it with Federer: 

:

 Fed has his racquet horizontal (like yours!) but very importantly is parallel to the baseline!! That cannot be achieved with a weak grip. You cant reach this crucial position without making your grip stronger. 

 Comparing this last picture with yours Pierre, notice how we can't see Fed's strings from this angle while we can see all your strings.

 With a strong grip and with the help of his left hand still on the racquet!, the maestro is able to position the racquet head lower than the right hand just a few milliseconds before impact just before getting the racquet head level for contact and above the right hand after contact. This way he produces topspin and power.  These next four pictures is what usually coaches mean by saying that we should swing low to high. Not so easy to understand exactly what low and high means without visualising with pictures or videos:

 What about your contact point Pierre. Are you hitting the ball too late? The contact point depends on the grip, preparation and stance. Let’s see your contact points:

The interesting aspect about your pictures at contact is that it resembles the contact of a slice backhand. The slice backhand contact point is much further back than a topspin one handed backhand. It makes sense because your weaker topspin grip makes it much more comfortable to make contact a bit later or further back. 

This is how you finish your backhands. I could see the slice finish and the bent arm finish.