The Roddick Forehand

[alienhamster]

Originally Posted by teedub

Disagree with your saying Roddick's topspin forehand is more effective against Roger. Hitting out and flat, with more pace is going to rob Fed of some of his time, making it more difficult for him to hit his amazing shots. As opposed to Roddick's forehands now..which just sit up nicely for Fed..Fed just eats up Andy's groundstrokes now, when you see both on the baseline neutrally, you know 80% of the time Fed's going to win the point against Andy with his current groundstrokes. No pace = no problem for Fed. Unless you're Nadal who has obviously ridiculous amounts of spin that jump into Fed's backhand...hitting flat with huge pace is more effective against the Fed. Realize Nadal also utilizes his flat running back hand effectively against Fed.

I agree with Mr. Sean, flat hitting is going to stay lower and run through the court quicker, essentially making the pass more difficult to make. I mean I read some people saying that topspun approach shots are more effective approach shots than flat shots? That is really ridiculous, especially the point raised about using the top spin forehand to open up the court using angles and approaching on them. First of all, as I said flat shots are more 'pacey' thus cut through the court quicker and stay lower, thereby staying further away from the ideal strike zone of the person that is to make the pass and robbing them of valuable time. If you approach with topspin..depending on how deep you get the shot..let's say in the middle of no-man's land, where most of Roddick's approaches ended up during their last match..the balls jumped right into Federer's ideal strike zone and they didn't have much pace, therefore Roddick got owned by the passes. Secondly...taking it out wide maybe a good idea if you really get the guy stretched out, but if you could get Federer in that position the angled forehand would probably win the point outright. If you don't have him out of position, that angled topspin forehand approach is just going to give the guy more court to hit into..easier to go down the line and almost as much space to hit the crosscourt pass.

Let's face it, if Roddick hits flatter forehands like he did in 03, with his currently improved "all-court" game, with his A+ serving game like in Shanghai last year, he could just beat Fed maybe once more..

Regarding the approach shot . . .

I was referring to a DTL approach on the forehand side, and specifically against Federer. I've been watching Andy play for forever, and I've watched people try and try again to approach against Fed on the backhand side. IN GENERAL, a high topsin shot DTL that lands deep gives Federer far more trouble than a flat, low ball, unless the flat ball is hit unbelievably fast and/or Fed was pulled incredibly wide on the previous shot. Roddick himself has mentioned this in interviews as a tactic against Fed. And part of why he was able to get match points on him at Shanghai was with this tactic.

OF COURSE flat approaches are better as a general tactic. But we're talkin' nuance here. We're talkin' trying to play Federer.

[tricky]

If he is hitting forehands like that now I think he defintely has a shot at beating Fed again. In my opinion, roddicks ground game got worse while Federer's game improved, this made a bigger gap between these two rivals.

Yeah, but even in those clips, he's mostly punishing Fed's slice shot, when Fed pretty much went slice on everything. The topspin on Fed's BH now is precisely why other players can't go inside-out on that shot for winners anymore. Also, for some reason, Fed's shots lacked depth during the match.

The bounce on the ball is overall lower than many of the surfaces Roddick plays now, enabling him to flatten out the shot. He just doesn't get those opportunities anymore unless he plays a favorable surface.

IN GENERAL, a high topsin shot DTL that lands deep gives Federer far more trouble than a flat, low ball, unless the flat ball is hit unbelievably fast and/or Fed was pulled incredibly wide on the previous shot.

A key thing in Oz 2007 was Federer now being able to consistently hit the 1H BH on the rise. He absolutely controlled shots that spun to his BH.