Model yourself after the best of all times

[TheCheese]

With standard technique, grip has a pretty big influence. With the Fed/Nadal technique, it's less about the grip because you can make your grip play more extreme just by pronating your arm more.

Federer/Nadal are not using the same WW that players like Roddick are using. Fed/Nadal are coming up and across the ball, bending at the elbow and pulling inwards towards their body, rather than turning at the elbow and wiping the forearm across like a windshield wiper. There was a great post by Will Hamilton about this, where he talked about how the WW technique he teaches is different than the type used by Fed/Nadal and is more like Roddick/Andreev's technique.

[FrisbeeFool]

Originally Posted by TheCheese

With standard technique, grip has a pretty big influence. With the Fed/Nadal technique, it's less about the grip because you can make your grip play more extreme just by pronating your arm more.

Federer/Nadal are not using the same WW that players like Roddick are using. Fed/Nadal are coming up and across the ball, bending at the elbow and pulling inwards towards their body, rather than turning at the elbow and wiping the forearm across like a windshield wiper. There was a great post by Will Hamilton about this, where he talked about how the WW technique he teaches is different than the type used by Fed/Nadal and is more like Roddick/Andreev's technique.

With the grip, all he is saying is you can hit a modern forehand with a variety of grips. Yet we have posters who have skimmed his blog starting threads about how extreme grips are the key to maximum supination in modern strokes. It's just mind boggling.

He spends a ton of time on his blog teaching how to prepare early for you groundstrokes, setting your hitting arm position, and coiling properly, etc. without adding extra contrived movements that will break down under pressure. Yet we have wegnerites on here ( Wegner teaches early preparation is not an important part of the modern game and shouldn't be worried about) citing the tennis speed articles about stroke production. It really is shocking how bad some peoples reading comprehension is.

[TheCheese]

Well, they're right if they're talking about the most common modern forehand technique.

[FrisbeeFool]

Originally Posted by TheCheese

Well, they're right if they're talking about the most common modern forehand technique.

What?? Perhaps you could elaborate.

[thecode]

Originally Posted by FrisbeeFool

He spends a ton of time on his blog teaching how to prepare early for you groundstrokes, setting your hitting arm position, and coiling properly, etc. without adding extra contrived movements that will break down under pressure. Yet we have wegnerites on here ( Wegner teaches early preparation is not an important part of the modern game and shouldn't be worried about) citing the tennis speed articles about stroke production. It really is shocking how bad some peoples reading comprehension is.

Hey, thanks for the point out on tennisspeed blog. There is really a lot of interesting information on there. Can you give another point out where he teaches about early preparation? I wanted to read about that and couldn't find his teaching on it. I did see quite a bit on how he describes the backswing types, but missed the part covering the early preparation where I guess you are talking about before the actual backswing of the strokes starts. thanks

[10isfreak]

Originally Posted by TheCheese

Federer/Nadal are not using the same WW that players like Roddick are using. Fed/Nadal are coming up and across the ball, bending at the elbow and pulling inwards towards their body, rather than turning at the elbow and wiping the forearm across like a windshield wiper. There was a great post by Will Hamilton about this, where he talked about how the WW technique he teaches is different than the type used by Fed/Nadal and is more like Roddick/Andreev's technique.

The WW finish can be of two nature, essentially: in both instances, it results from a forearm pronation and a wrist deviation (going from ulnar to radial deviation). In ALL cases, that's what happens. However, there are two possible ways of achieving this movement, one being better than the other. The first, most common, involves a simple concentric contraction of the relevant forearm muscles; the second, more efficient, brings the same forearm muscles through a cycle of eccentric and concentric contraction which, if done quickly enough, results in a much faster forearm pronation and wrist deviation.

That's what the stretch-shortening cycle is: the muscle stretches and contracts back faster like it's a rubber band. Players who present a specific type of hand position during the take back also enjoy this benefit when swinging fast enough and it's the case for Nadal, Federer and Roddick (to my best knowledge).

Just to say that what is REALLY important about the WW forehand is there for all of them. However, you could produce a WW finish that doesn't help your shot -- think of Hewitt or Gonzalez as examples of that. They look both more like Roddick than Federer or Nadal, but despite a similar outlook, their strokes were different in a key part.

[marosmith]

Nadal and Federer have extremely similar forehands- both straight arm, both very loose in the wrist, racket points to the ground before forward swing, both clear pull strokes.

The differences lie in the grip, with nadal being more extreme he must move through the strike zone faster with more of a brush up motion.

The next big difference is there rackets are as different as could be with Nadal's allowing for a little bigger strike zone to accommodate his grip and swing.

I do think the grip itself is a little over rated as hand size compared to grip size can affect the grip, and even more importantly the swing path and technique really is the primary determining factor, of course hard to hit a double bend wiper with a continental and an over the shoulder on the edge forehand with a western so the extreme grips on either side require a specific technique.