Forehand continuous loop

[Finster]

On the modern forehand, Is there an uninterrupted continuous loop between the unit turn and the forward swing? If you view slo-mo video of ATP forehands, I don't see any pause between their unit turn and swing, but one continuous motion. Is this a main principle of the forehand that is seldomly mentioned? How important is this?

 

[KingBugsy]

Yes. Very important. The racket never stops moving, then accelerates through the swing and at contact.

On the modern forehand, Is there an uninterrupted continuous loop between the unit turn and the forward swing? If you view slo-mo video of ATP forehands, I don't see any pause between their unit turn and swing, but one continuous motion. Is this a main principle of the forehand that is seldomly mentioned? How important is this?

 

[LeeD]

In theory, yes.
In practice, it's better to be early and wait.

 

[LeeD]

In theory, I should step on the gas pedal when my light turns green.
In life, I should glance left and right before proceeding

 

[Spin Diesel]

On the modern forehand, Is there an uninterrupted continuous loop between the unit turn and the forward swing? If you view slo-mo video of ATP forehands, I don't see any pause between their unit turn and swing, but one continuous motion. Is this a main principle of the forehand that is seldomly mentioned? How important is this?

Exactly this thought was holding my forehand back for a while. It has improved a lot when I finally started thinking about it more like two separate motions. Getting into takeback as early as possible and then only winding up a little more, before starting the forward motion. When filming myself, it still looks more like a continuous motion but my timing, accuracy and spin/racketheadspeed have improved quite a bit.
I also think that brushing up isn‘t a good description on how it feels to hit a topspin forehand. IMO it‘s more like leaving the racket tip pointing towards the sky (or even towards your opponent) through takeback and right after that little extra windup, I mentioned earlier, letting it drop by its own weight with a loose wrist, while swinging towards the ball. I think it‘s much easier to get a feeling for that with not too headlight rackets.

This is what works for me at least.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

A continuous uninterrupted loop is highly overrated. As @LeeD indicates, it's usually better to perform an early unit turn. Hold a bit. And then fire. It should be much easier to properly time your stroke was an early UT than it would be for a continuous, just-in-time, loop. I'm a huge fan of the full UT demonstrated here by Kevin G:

 

[GuyClinch]

Some would say you should first perform partial unit turn - then a full take back to swing later on. The idea is you don't really move around with your racquet back in a full unit turn. Or course this doesn't 100% disagree with what Kevin says - its just a slighly different approach.

So I mean who is better - Nik or Kevin. If we are talking currently - I'd put my money on Nik - as I think I saw lowly 4.5 Ian win points off of him..

 

[Spin Diesel]

Guess I confused the terms takeback with unit turn. What I was trying to say was going into unit turn as early as possible and from there only wind up a little more just before the forward motion.

 

[Dragy]

You don’t make it stop because any dead stop creates tightness. However, you don’t time the back-and-forth swings as a continuous move, but, as stated in above replies, prepare early with full unit turn and hitting arm and racquet back and high, then time the drop to the incoming ball (and gauge the height and steepness of the swing) and then transition into main swing.