what grip do the pros use?

[Say Chi Sin Lo]

totally unrelated to the topic... but that's an Iprestige! Havent seen one of those in a long while...

[tricky]

Where are you getting this info?

Yeah, what he says corroborates with what JY is saying. 3.5 = edge between bevels 3 and 4. Now, I'm sure he adjusts the grip against surface, and so he may have a more true SW grip on clay. But it's basically closer to Eastern grip than SW. It's counterintuitive, but again JY has the analysis and video footage to back up what he's saying.

Fed's FH swing is really weird; it's got classic and modern elements mixed in a way that is counterintuitive. Like, for example, he closes the face with that Eastern grip, so that he has lively wrist action when the swing goes forward.

There's really good reasons why the rest of the field simply cannot replicate the shots Fed can do. Fed's FH is not merely the most advanced FH in the game. It's literally an evolutionary step forward in the way Borg's FH was in his day. But there's also good reasons why 99% of other people shouldn't try what he does. And there it makes more sense to use a SW grip as what Hewittfan is saying.

[X_Factor]

Coming to grips with today's forehand

By Christopher Clarey International Herald Tribune

Published: June 25, 2006

LONDON Tennis technique develops incrementally. Watch thousands upon thousands of forehands being hit by top players over the years and gradually you will come to realize that most of those strokes are no longer finishing the same way.

The prevailing wisdom on the forehand used to be that you started the stroke low and relatively loose and finished high and relatively firm, thus generating pace and topspin. But somewhere on the long, sweat-stained path that led from Chris Evert and Jimmy Connors to Maria Sharapova and Roger Federer that truism has developed an extra twist.

Tune your television (or laptop) to Wimbledon this year, and you will see player after player making contact with the ball and then letting their racket head wrap loosely and very quickly around their opposite shoulder or arm where the racket head sometimes even finishes pointing down at the well-groomed turf.

Watch a while longer and you will see some of these same players hitting what is known as the reverse forehand, in which the racket rises on a much more vertical plane and finishes with the entire instrument above the player's head and the top of the racket pointing backward.

All this will be easier to grasp in images than in words, but what seems clear is that the game has taken another technical leap with spectacular shotmakers like Federer and Rafael Nadal serving as role models and stroke models for the juniors who will try to build on their legacy.

"I think what's changed now is really not so much the pace the guys can put on the ball but the spin the guys can put on the ball," said Patrick McEnroe, captain of the United States' Davis Cup team. "And I think part of it is obviously the rackets and the new strings where guys can literally take huge cuts at the ball every time and keep the ball in play.

"Your margin for error now is no longer, 'I need to take a little pace off and roll it deep to play it safer.' Now, it's, 'Let me spin it full force.'"

Factor in the wrist-bending, trunk-twisting torque generated by today's open-stance forehands and it is no mystery why players' follow- throughs are wrapping around their bodies like scarves. All that kinetic energy needs an outlet.

"Lots of things have changed," said Miguel Crespo, the Spaniard who is head of the International Tennis Federation's coaches education program. "In the past we used to see strokes that were pretty much using just one segment and that segment was rotating around the elbow or the shoulder. Now what we see are players using lots of segments of their body to create this power and spin."

According to John Yandell, a Yale-educated tennis teacher and analyst based in San Francisco, all this is not entirely new.

"I think it's much more prevalent now, but I've got a piece of video of Bill Tilden turning his hand over and finishing with his racket pointing at the side fence and slightly down, and this was filmed in the 1920s," Yandell said.

"I think that anything a gifted tennis player can do in the year 2006 has been done by gifted tennis players before. It's hard to say how much it was done and how much when because there is so little historical film to look at, but every shot in the modern game that is hit, I can point to one or multiple examples in the limited amount of film we have.

"I could show you Rod Laver finishing a forehand in the WCT Final against Ken Rosewall in the 1970s where his left hand is over near his right shorts pocket. There's a bit of a myth that modern tennis is something completely new and so-called classical tennis is sometimes set up as a straw man to be knocked down. However, the one thing that definitely has changed is the extremity of the grips and the amount of topspin."

Those grips, known as "semi-western," in which the heel of the palm is nearly perpendicular to the plane of the strings, have helped generate another component of the postmodern forehand: the radical twist of the forearm at contact that is sometimes called "the windshield wiper finish."

Yandell examines tennis, in part, by examining high-speed film, which contains 220 frames a second instead of the usual 30.

"You can see it very clearly in the video," he said. "It's not a wrist snap; your hand and arm are rotating as a unit. What happens is that the more underneath you are on your grip, the more you will naturally tend to wiper or turn the hand and arm over. So that is far more pronounced in this era, if not new."

Some coaches, including the Frenchman Patrice Hagelauer, no longer describe it as hitting the ball; they describe it as slapping the ball. "Nadal does it all the time," said Hagelauer, a former national technical director in Britain and France. "The extension of the wrist plus this internal rotation of the arm generates great racket speed and it can do so without a very long swing. It's a great innovation."

What makes Federer unusual and devastating is that he makes use of the windshield wiper effect on his forehand with a much more neutral grip: more modified eastern, or classical, than semi-western.

"If you look at people whose grips are similar to Roger, like Andre Agassi or even Pete Sampras, they tend to finish with the racket more on edge more of the time, and they tend to turn it over radically less," Yandell said. "What Roger has done is really synthesize the advantages of the classical and extreme style."

His grip allows him, like Agassi, to play closer to the baseline than most and take the ball early. But his hand and forearm rotation and open stance allow him, according to Yandell, to generate spin averaging 2,500 total revolutions per minute on his forehand versus 1,800 rpms for the likes of Agassi and the now- retired Sampras when they were filmed.

"Roger's hitting it as hard but with thirty to forty percent more topspin," Yandell said. "That allows him to find places on the court that nobody since John McEnroe has found, in my opinion."

"Nobody else looks like Roger," he added. "I don't think anybody else has the natural ability to play with the conservative grip and be able to rotate their hands and bodies that way, at least not yet."

To give an idea of what Nadal's competition is up against, Yandell's measurements show an average spin value on the Spaniard's forehand of 3,200 rpms with a maximum reading of close to 5,000.

"That's equal to or slightly higher than the spin values on the second serve of Pete Sampras," he said. "It's incredible."

Nadal often generates that spin with the reverse forehand: a buggy whip of a shot that was popularized on the run by Sampras in the 1990s but is now being employed in more static positions on court.

"Nadal takes it to another level," McEnroe said. "That's probably why his bicep is so huge, even though he says he doesn't do a lot of weights."

Robert Lansdorp, a coach based in California, has taught the reverse forehand for more than a decade, after picking it up from Sampras, and it is no coincidence that two of his most successful pupils - Lindsay Davenport and Maria Sharapova - make frequent use of it.

In theory, the shot allows the player to make more out of a vulnerable situation, trading horizontal swing speed for vertical swing speed and generating more spin and angle - and perhaps more pace - in the process than a shot executed by swinging across the body from an extended position.

Sharapova sometimes uses the reverse forehand from a position of strength in midcourt. She also uses it when she feels rushed, or has to deal with a low ball, because it allows her to generate racket speed in an uncomfortable position. But some wonder whether she and other aficionados are taking a good thing too far.

"I don't necessarily think it's the best shot when you're stable," McEnroe said.

Still, it bears remembering that today's doubter is tomorrow's tennis convert.

"When I was 15, my coach told me I was crazy to hit an open-stance forehand; he told me to get off the court," said the former top 10 player Brad Gilbert. "What I promise is that when I'm 60, if the players are doing something that looks crazy and it's working, I'm not going to say they shouldn't. I'm going to say, 'I'm behind the times.'"

[tricky]

His grip allows him, like Agassi, to play closer to the baseline than most and take the ball early. But his hand and forearm rotation and open stance allow him, according to Yandell, to generate spin averaging 2,500 total revolutions per minute on his forehand versus 1,800 rpms for the likes of Agassi and the now- retired Sampras when they were filmed.

Yeah, that's the crux of JY's thesis on the Federer FH. If you could smack a ball like Agassi and create spin rates of a clay court player, your FH will own everybody else's FH regardless of raw power or whatever. Because with this magical FH, you can hit any angle from any height with any pace you want. Essentially, you turn the FH side of your game into a form of extended net approach. Moreover, because everybody else is using more extreme grips, there will always be holes in their strike zone that you can take advantage of.

[heycal]

Originally Posted by tricky

Yeah, that's the crux of JY's thesis on the Federer FH. If you could smack a ball like Agassi and create spin rates of a clay court player, your FH will own everybody else's FH regardless of raw power or whatever. Because with this magical FH, you can hit any angle from any height with any pace you want. Essentially, you turn the FH side of your game into a form of extended net approach. Moreover, because everybody else is using more extreme grips, there will always be holes in their strike zone that you can take advantage of.

What do you know about Agassi's grip? Is it more like Sampras, or Federer, or is it typical semi-western?

[tricky]

If Agassi is a 3/4 (which JY says it is), then it's a pretty conservative SW. Meaning the palm of his hand is still on the bevel 3 rather than under the bar. Blake and Safin is said to have similar setups, and as you can surmise, they all have similar approaches to the game.

And it makes sense if you think about their games. The grip is not just about the spin you impart, but the nature of your game you want to play and your own eye/hand limitations. This grip, like the Eastern grip, is made for taking the ball early. However, if you let the ball bounce to shoulder high, then it becomes more difficult to smack on the ball and impart enough topspin to keep it down. If you're tall like Safin, this isn't a big deal. Otherwise, you'll have to leave your feet in order to hit the ball in the sweet zone, or play very conservatively. In other words, if you're using an Agassi grip, you better have good eye-hand to consistently take the ball early.

A guy like Roddick who uses a true 4/4 SW, taking the ball on the rise (at pro level) just isn't his game.

[ShcMad]

I tend to agree with John Yandell and tricky about the fact that Safin uses a very conservative Semi-Western grip.

If you look at these pictures below, you'll see that his finger knuckles are not crossing through several bevels. What I'm trying to say is that the finger knuckles are much more parallel to the length of the racquet than perpendicular. Players like Juan Ignacio Chela tend to lay or spread their knuckles through several bevels; therefore, having it more at a 45% angle related to the length of the racquet, if you guys know what I mean.

[tricky]

It also makes more sense for Safin to use a very conservative grip because he's so dang tall. The ball bounce is lower for him anyway, and so why not use a grip where the "strike zone" is right there.

The advantage is two-fold. First, it's practical since he doesn't want to claw down for low shots. Second, it means that his ideal strike height is much more variable than, say, an Agassi or Blake -- so he can crush these heavy topspin shots that your 6"1 guys can't.

But because it's more conservative, it means he's also playing with a lower safety net. More UEs and if his opponent is mixing up pace and junk and if he's not "feeling it", well he'll have a Safin meltdown. And you see that pattern with Blake and even early Agassi too. Unique to Safin, though, his height means he probably can't play any other way or effectively with a more extreme grip. Just too tall.

[heycal]

Let's have a quick refresher for us newbies: The more western/extreme grip you use, the higher and more in front of you the ball is when you make contact, right?

So, for players who like to hug the baseline and take it on the rise, they should be using more Eastern grips? Or the other way around?

But wait, I thought Agassi uses a semi-western and likes to take the ball early and hug the baseline.

Man, I'm confusing myself here...

[NamRanger]

Originally Posted by heycal

Let's have a quick refresher for us newbies: The more western/extreme grip you use, the higher and more in front of you the ball is when you make contact, right?

So, for players who like to hug the baseline and take it on the rise, they should be using more Eastern grips? Or the other way around?

But wait, I thought Agassi uses a semi-western and likes to take the ball early and hug the baseline.

Man, I'm confusing myself here...

Not necessairly true, Federer has a relatively conservative grip and makes contact out in front of him pretty far.

[tricky]

The more western/extreme grip you use, the higher the ball is and the more in front of you the ball is when you make contact, right?

Yup. And that will affect how far you back you stay, when you go in, and so on.

If you don't use the double-bend, then of course that changes too. For example, Nadal uses a reverse-FH motion but he keeps his arm pretty straight through the zone. By doing that, he can pretty much hit everything from knee level to above his head, and also hit the ball flat.

But wait, I thought Agassi uses a semi-western and likes to take the ball early and hug the baseline.

Agassi pretty much uses the most conservative SW grip that is most definitely SW. Agassi keeps much of his hand on the bevel 3, and so his swing plane is pretty level. He's not really using the grip for topspin so much, as that it's easier to use the double-bend technique with this grip than with a true Eastern grip.

I guess Federer is an exception to this, because he kinda floats his pivot point away from the body, which would be considered bad technique for the double-bend.

[heycal]

Well, of course I don't really know what the 'double bend' technique is...

[tricky]

The double-bend

http://www.tennisone.com/newsletter/...ewsletter.html

[heycal]

Originally Posted by tricky

The double-bend

http://www.tennisone.com/newsletter/...ewsletter.html

thanks. Appreciate it.

[tricky]

There's endless debate about the wrist action of the double-bend, but the idea is to slap the ball by hitting it through the palm of your hand. By doing this, you can accelerate the swing in two stages and generate high racquet speed. Using a SW grip gives you a more stable base and it affects where the optimal hitting point is.

[heycal]

Are there any gender differences at the pro level when it comes to the forehand grip? Or are the vast majority of women using semi/western grips too?

[heycal]

I found the following interview from Tennis Magazine with Mauresmo, who I think uses a western forehand grip, interesting, and also a little puzzling:

QUESTION: YOU HIT WITH A LOT OF TOPSPIN. ON HARD COURTS, IT SEEMS LIKE YOU COULD BENEFIT FROM FLATTENING YOUR STROKES TO BREAK OPEN MORE RALLIES. HAVE YOU CONSIDERED DOING THIS?

ANSWER: I'm working on that a little bit. I do it more naturally on grass and indoors than on hard courts. But the fact is my grip doesn't allow me to play flat like other players do. And I'm not going to change my grip at 27.

Elswhere in the article, she mentions that the French Open is not the best surface for her because "it's pretty slow, which doesn't help my game. I've been playing great when I serve and volley on grass and indoors."

So what do we make of this, guys? If she can't hit flat, and uses a western grip, how can she do well at Wimbledon and serve and volley well? And if she uses a western grip and uses a lot of topspin, why can't she excel on clay like Nadal?

[heycal]

Originally Posted by ShcMad

I tend to agree with John Yandell and tricky about the fact that Safin uses a very conservative Semi-Western grip.

Where was that top photo of Safin taken, McShad?

[ShcMad]

Originally Posted by heycal

Where was that top photo of Safin taken, McShad?

I got the picture from another user who posted it on another thread. I'm guessing it was taken somewhere in England.

[Ocho Cinco]

I think it was mentioned somewhere that Federer uses a hybrid eastern/SW

And for the eastern, u can generate topspin but it does not come naturally from the swing because eastern is more flat. You need to "create" the topspin with low to high action and other techniqes