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Sorry I had a longer comment typed out but RUclips’s interface doesn’t save drafts and I lost it. Here are the highlights: 1) The upper back engages elastically, via a stretch response. When you wind your shoulder back and then fire forward, that creates the initial stretch. You’re correct that using the upper back just by itself wouldn’t work very well, but it only takes a small initial rotation to engage this initial stretch. 2) Yes, it’s counter-rotational balance. The left arm’s movement is backwards relative to its initial forward rotation, not in an absolute sense. 3) Same as 2. 4) I like your point about timing. The point isn’t to consciously pull a few ms before contact. It’s to set up your swing in a way where that pull will engage at the right time. Track and probe the ball with the intention of pulling through a specific contact point in space, on a specific trajectory. Most of this video is trying to get people who have never felt the upper-back engage to feel that, and then also to feel how they can use it to control the late part of the swing. When returning a kick serve that bounces differently than you expect, for example, you do have enough time to consciously use the upper back to adjust your contact point post-bounce. Obviously, you lose significant velocity when doing so. I agree that my demo is exaggerated. I’ve occasionally seen players in that position at contact, Almagro comes to mind, but usually the left hand pull is much more muted. When I make a follow-up, I’ll include extended live-ball hitting. Alexa actually has a pretty good one-hander too, even though she played 2 on tour, so it’ll have both of us.

See response on other video.

Pretty much exactly right! Except for the "easy" part ;) As the ball comes in, your primary task is to move such that it'll be maximally comfortable to hit. In order to do that, you need a habituated awareness of where that actually is for your swing and your body.

Hmm, I can't say I've really seen that on the forehand. I've seen it on the serve; people are thinking "up" so much they shrug, but not on the forehand. On the serve, the key is to remember what your throwing motion feels like without the racket, and then mimic that feeling with the racket.

Tennis coaching is almost completely unregulated. The PTR and USTA certs that we get are very, very basic. Not only that, but they pretty much always pass you, so it's barely a selection filter at all. This is both a blessing and a curse. It means that anyone can try their hand at coaching, which is great, but it also means that many will be be bad coaches, which isn't great. Additionally, many players don't care all that much about meaningfully improving. They show up for a lesson, the coach tells them to "snap their wrist" on the serve, it gets maybe slightly sorta better, and that's that. There wasn't really an expectation of more. Another issue is that the most common selection filter for coaching tennis is having played on tour, but tennis talent and coaching ability are only loosely related. Most pros have now idea how or why they're doing what they're doing, which is why their coaching often falls flat. This channel has the advantage of combining insights from an extremely high level player (Alexa), with insights from a typical adult working with a very non-exceptional body (me), into techniques that really cut to the heart of how everyday players can improve. Over the last decade, I've been studying tennis, watched days worth of slow motion footage, formed hypotheses around the root causes of certain results, and then tested those hypotheses against reality. That process has led me to a model of how to improve at tennis which is more accurate than all but the very best.

Exactly. If you're doing it right, it's comfortable, and similarly, comfort is a great indication you're doing it right.

For most of his career, definitely, but once he switched to the 97 sq in frame, he was able to step in and take the backhand early without sacrificing his consistency. After that, he was right up there with the other three. As flashy as it was, I do think Theim's was technically the "worst" of the four, when each was hitting their best. (In other words, he probably had the 4th best one-hander of this generation). It's tough to say, because each style has different strengths and weaknesses.

I believe Roger, Stan, and Theim are all very similar, with the index knuckle on bevel 1, and Gasquet is slightly farther around than that. Fed may be slightly more conservative than bevel 1 as well. If you're on the fence, go with the index knuckle on bevel 1. It's the most natural.

Awesome to hear! Lock in and see the ball off your opponent's strings, and you sould be able to transfer to live ball easily. One hiccup can be when you're too focused on the new forehand habits you're trying to build, and then you aren't actually paying attention as your opponent hits (especially if you're excited to try a new technique which still requires conscious attention to implement).

Tilt your shoulders to adjust how up or down your swing goes. If you're very close to the net, you'll probably want your hitting shoulder above your off shoulder as you press through the ball. Figure out, off court, exactly where, in space, you're comfortable swinging through a high ball, and then probe the ball into that spot when you get out there.

Awesome. New article coming within the week!

Awesome, that sounds like a great technique to help beginners learn the motion. The back muscles play a stabilizing role on the forehand, but contracting them pulls the arm backwards, so it can't participate in force generation for your forward swing. The chest, which pushes the arm forward through contact, plays the role on the forehand that the upper back does on the backhand.

That's a very difficult habit to change. Alexa and I are developing a forehand program specifically to help people like you find the forehand they've always wanted. Here are three things you can try: 1. The wall drill (another video I've made) - find the position where you can create strength pressing into the wall. Set up to hit the tennis ball shortly after that point, and press into the ball the same way you were pressing into the wall. 2. Weighted shadow swing - swing a 2.5lb weight instead of your racket, making sure you swing it along the vector you're going to try and use through the ball. Switch between that and hitting. 3. Loop an elastic band around the net. Face away from the net, grab it with your hitting hand, and go to the position you're in just before your desired contact. Press through (pulling against the band), keeping the rest of the body stable. It's just not going to be easy. Building a new habit takes time. Hopefully these three drills can help cue you into the right feeling.

​@@FaultTolerantTennis Thank you very much. I will try those. I tried 3 in the past, with some results with shadow repetitions on the court before hitting. But then I was not sure the problem was this on my forehand, so I switched to other hypothesis and approaches, loosing a lot of time. Having a clear direction of improvement without any doubt is already an improvement for me. If it gets better I'll give you some feed back.

Thanks. This is the first video I filmed. Production value will be significantly higher on future ones.

if you strike hard with a loose wrist at the point of contact you will hurt yourself relaxed grip before and after the stroke only imo

Yes, this is an important distinction. Hold the racket loosely during preparation, and allow both your wrist to lag back, and your shoulder to externally rotate. BUT. Through contact, allow your hand to tighten up as much as it naturally wants to. As long as you aren't actively trying to squeeze, you're fine. On most shots, there will be tension at contact. If you're tightening up more than you want through contact, it's due to an incorrect contact point, and it won't help to just "be looser" by forcing yourself to.

Great comment, let me address this. When I say "you don't need to rotate," you're right that that's not exactly true. The racket is heavy enough that it's pretty uncomfortable to reach the position you press from without rotating at all. It's much more comfortable to rotate, at least slightly, into that position, and then press out of it - even when you're primarily driving the stroke with your chest, rather than your early acceleration. Purely physically speaking, in order to ONLY use the chest, you wouldn't have to rotate at all, but doing so is far less comfortable than adding just a little early rotation, which is why I demo'ed it that way. I want you to hit mini-tennis and contact warm-up shots the way I did in the video, rather than forcing yourself to literally rotate zero degrees. The rotation was not a significant source of velocity - in that example - it contributed maybe 20-30%. Rotating is by far the most comfortable, natural way to get your arm into the position you press from, which is why you want to rotate a little even when you're "not rotating." After seeing your comment, I do wish I had said "you barely even have to rotate" instead, because you're 100% correct that "you don't even have to rotate" is misleading.

@@FaultTolerantTennis Thanks for the reply and the additional commentary. Appreciate it.

Agreed. I would never correct a bent arm take back, if the student looked comfortable, but do prefer to teach the straight arm take back, because it seems to naturally lead students into a better pull.

Ahh yes it happens naturally *IF* you hit the ball correctly. That if is a big part because unless you are very talented and work with good coaches and play 20 hours a week you're not hitting the ball correctly if you're not thinking about how you hit the ball. (FYI you only need to think about it when learning the technique not once you have already mastered it).

Its all about finding that slot using the racquet's edge, I use that low to high swing motion not just for topspin driving but also use it for doing my slice drive with to flatten out the ball more when I don't want to do a normal floating slice drive. and just want to slot the ball all through the court and pronate it through the court using the racquet edge instead. As the low to high swing motion will put the dipping spin on the ball to keep the slice staying in the court. That's why I use it on the low balls to clear them over the netcord and use the normal one on the higher balls.

You can use any wall to find your pull slot. Get into a position that makes sense to you, and see if you can create force through the wall. Adjust your positioning as necessary, until you feel you can really engage your upper back. Experiment with different contact heights and placements, and figure out which are very comfortable, which are doable, and which wouldn't work at all.

@@FaultTolerantTennis I tried this scapular retraction and that queue REALLY works incredibly well. Same with throwing into the slot. Pushing against the wall I think helps a bit for me but it feels uncomfortable pushing there just in general so I can't put full force and test it comfortably.

@@XanEli1 If you've got it, that's awesome. The key with the wall drill is to feel the upper back working, but it's just one technique to help people feel the position. If it's not working for you, just forget it and work on the stuff that feels good.

Sorry, i answered that b4 the video ended and to simply put it, i love his ohbh, an absolute weapon.

Nailed it!

Great analysis. Thank you. I would say Thomas Muster had the strongest "pull" of all time, but unfortunately not as much high res slow motion of him. Muster and Kuerten had the best one handers imo. What i learned from them was NOT to have a space between the first and second finger like all 4 of these players do. No space can give you a 90°angle between the wrist and grip which keeps the racket going forward a little longer and allows for a more stable and stronger contact. Looks like these 4 players are 75°-85°(wrist to grip angle) at contact. If there is no space between first and second finger (which i call the "motorcycle grip"), you have to contact farther in front to square the racket face. You are the first pro i have ever heard mention no space between the first and second finger in your last backhand video. All pros still teach splayed index finger.

@@thomasyoung1588 Interesting - Stan's and Gasquet's index fingers look pretty darn close to me. Maybe slightly splayed, but essentially still using the 90 degree grip. I agree that it's easier to execute the stroke like that, and I prefer teaching it over the splay. Yeah sadly we don't have the older guys in 1080p slow-mo, but it would be great to break down their strokes the same way.

@@FaultTolerantTennis so what is up with fed having that space between the fingers? feel like you have a little less power but your contact point is also further away, guess its a tradeoff?

Agreed. After letting this one marinate for a few days, I've decided to do a follow-up clarifying the pull slot idea specifically, talking about variation and style in it, and discussing how to apply it to the high one-hander with more examples.

Yes, the left arm plays a big role, but it's mostly in balance, accuracy, and efficiency. You can still perform the same motion, fundamentally, with your left arm dangling down, it just won't be practically useful. In practice, you use both arms to control your torso, and then bring the left arm in and close to maximize the amount of angular momentum that goes into the right arm by contact. Probably the most important role the left arm plays is giving you an extra lever to use to control where in space you aim your swing. You can experiment swinging through all different contact points with a weight and feel how doing different things with your left arm makes those various swings more or less natural.

@FaultTolerantTennis thks for the response and look forward to more of your wonderful videos

Good point, that's a bit of an oversight. I'll keep that in mind when I reference string angle in future videos. On a typical topspin groundstroke, 10-20 degrees is about right, and yes, that changes based on the trajectory of the incoming ball, and your intended launch angle. Go watch any of your favorite pros from the side, and you'll see the variation. It just takes reps to figure out how to use different string angles for on-the-rise shots, vs falling shots, vs shots stopped at their apex, and also, of course, when you yourself are attempting different kinds of spins and trajectories (more open for a lob, for example). That's why I've don't usually reference the specific string angle, because, like you said, it varies from situation to situation. The important two elements for topspin contact are 1. it's slightly closed at contact and 2. it's not changing drastically during the hitting zone.

@@FaultTolerantTennis Great explanation. One suggestion: Since I've noticed from your channel that you care deeply about foundational learning and understand these foundations yourself; I think a couple of videos getting into the physics of ball contact at close up and racket face angle under different circumstances would be extremely helpful to your audience. All channels talk this in macro but really understanding the contact point on the ball surface (clock surface or whatever other analogy) for flat balls vs. topspin/slice combined with racket path and face angle would be novel. These are the subconscious foundations behind the "feel" on the ball but have actual physical basis. I haven't seen anything of any value out there online on this subject. Just a suggestion for a couple of pieces of content. :) Thanks again for your work on these videos! 👍