People hitting with super heavy balls

[kimba]

Has anyone played against a player who hits extremely heavy balls? I have played a few guys now who are 5.0+ (Div I) and there was a couple who really ripped the ball. They hit high heavy balls that are loaded with topspin and almost impossible to consistently time. Their balls are like bombs landing near the base line. I though I hit a heavy ball OMG, how are they doing it???

[dozu]

my recent 'against pace' video - guy on the other side, former D1, plus some satellite experience.... and he survived back in his days with this type of heavy kicking ball.. you can see me often hitting jumping helicoptor FH replys on balls that are at my eye levels 3-4 yards behind the baseline.

very physically demanding to hit against such player - 1 hour is worth about 3 hours against other 4.0-weak 4.5 type of guys.

I believe you need to be in strong physical shape to play this style - guy used to be a HS football quarterback, blew out the left shoulder, and switched to tennis playing right handed.

need those strong muscles to swing a hefty racket around 12 oz minimum, on a pretty steep path, to produce this type ball that just explodes forward on the bounce.

powerful string doesn't hurt either.... he's got Bab gut mains.

I hit a quite spinny ball (but rely on even a steeper trajectory to produce a heavy feel)... regular string is also gut.... anything else just doesn't do it.

[TenFanLA]

Strings and muscle strength help somewhat but they are not big factors. Some of the biggest, heaviest hitters use poly or even kevlar. There are also average body shape guys like Fed, Sampras, Agassi who hit massive, heavy balls. Most of the weight on the shots come from their legs, core rotation and rackethead speed (live arm).

[DownTheLine]

Originally Posted by TenFanLA

Strings and muscle strength help somewhat but they are not big factors. Some of the biggest, heaviest hitters use poly or even kevlar. There are also average body shape guys like Fed, Sampras, Agassi who hit massive, heavy balls. Most of the weight on the shots come from their legs, core rotation and rackethead speed (live arm).

Didn't Agassi hit flat?

[TenFanLA]

Originally Posted by DownTheLine

Didn't Agassi hit flat?

Yes. Relatively flat and heavy.

[PED]

Regarding Agassi's strokes:

I couldn't find the original thread from a few years back, but I had cut and pasted it. There's a 5.5 I hit with sometimes and his ball is similar from this description: it cuts right through the court and is on you in no time at all. Of course, AA's would have been much nastier.

The comments are lpshanet and the quotes below are his. I hope he doesn't mind Very interesting:

LPShanet: It was in the mid-80's. I was training at Bollettieri's, as a change of pace from Harry's Hopman's where I usually went. Anyone who thinks of Agassi as hitting flat needs to get closer and see that ball dip and then jump off the court. (The same is true for most of the so-called flat hitters in the game today.) He had the ability to hit a real variety of spin levels, but his regular rally ball had tons of top on it, and even his flat shots had a lot of "drop". He just had so much racquet head speed that he could hit with both more power and more spin than many of the pros of the day. Just because it was coming through the court like a rocket didn't mean it wasn't spinning like crazy, too. I think observers (especially on TV) have a tendency to think of many hard hitters as having a flatter ball than they actually do, because they associate a looping path with topspin. But in the current game (and in Agassi's) they hit a much more level (or "flatter") ball path with much greater power, without reducing or flattening the amount of spin. They simply use the spin to make the hard hit level ball drop at the last minute, rather than hitting balls with the arc originally associated with spin.

[sureshs]

I hope they are wearing professional athletic underwear.

[dak95_00]

Racket head speed through the ball w/ a definite finish over the ball. Think under, through, and over when you hit the ball. It will produce the kicking shot you want.

BTW, I don't think strings matter but I did string my POG at 30 lbs and it put crazy spins on the ball when I was hitting. Of course, at 30 lbs I had to use poly to prevent sliding.

[GuyClinch]

High level players can hit heavy balls with an OTS finish like Agassi. It's not as heavy as Nadal - but they still kick up and push ya back..

Agassi wasn't a flat hitter..Connors was the last really flat hitter IMHO.

[LeeD]

Rackethead speed, heavy racket, strong player, deep shots, and you're not used to it yet.

[pushing_wins]

Originally Posted by kimba

Has anyone played against a player who hits extremely heavy balls? I have played a few guys now who are 5.0+ (Div I) and there was a couple who really ripped the ball. They hit high heavy balls that are loaded with topspin and almost impossible to consistently time. Their balls are like bombs landing near the base line. I though I hit a heavy ball OMG, how are they doing it???

were the balls pro penn?

[kimba]

No they were Wilson balls. Some people really rip the ball. I think I hit with heavy top spin but OMG these people are amazing.

[PED]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Rackethead speed, heavy racket, strong player, deep shots, and you're not used to it yet.

I'm always surprised at the number of guys I see hitting a big ball with fairly light box stock apd's, prestiges or pd's. I find that a heavy racquet helps but you are right, stick speed is the key.

[Ross K]

Originally Posted by dak95_00

Racket head speed through the ball w/ a definite finish over the ball. Think under, through, and over when you hit the ball. It will produce the kicking shot you want.
.

What exactly do you mean "over when you hit the ball"? The Nadal-style over the shoulder, bolero, whippy maneuver?

[pvaudio]

Originally Posted by Ross K

What exactly do you mean "over when you hit the ball"? The Nadal-style over the shoulder, bolero, whippy maneuver?

No. You want to imagine the racquet face making a "C" through the stroke. You start under the ball, and finish with the strings "over" the ball which is giving you the top spin. This upward and out movement generates the top spin. Also one of the big reasons you see the WW finish almost exclusively now.

[TenFanLA]

All these suggestions are well and good but without using the legs you cannot hit a heavy ball. The biggest difference I see between low-mid level and advanced level is that the lower level players use mostly arm and upper body, whereas the advanced players use their whole body esp. legs.

Also the timing of the ball impact is very important. When I used to watch the top 6.0+ UCLA players hit, they would almost always hit the ball at the top of the bounce. It was very rhythmic, like they were doing the waltz. Of course when I saw Agassi and Sampras, they took it to another level. (Fed and Nadal a level even above them.) UCLA players = NASCAR, Agassi and Sampras = F1