Video Analysis
Call me a born-again nonbeliever in the “party line”, but I don’t think what she said about his one-handed backhand came anywhere near the primary problem with it.
Before I explain, I must also say that I don’t believe prefacing the “constructive” advice by saying that one-handed backhands are “tough” and “very difficult” was helpful, unless she was trying to get him to visualize difficulty and failure, or subconsciously trying to get him to switch to a two-handed backhand.
First, during the backswing the racquet head never gets all the way DOWN before the forward stroke begins. This results in his racquet head gaining downward momentum at the very beginning of his swing path, which he is not strong enough to counteract, and the center of his racquet head drops below the level of the handle for the rest of the stroke. Second, because his racquet head also never gets all the way BACK before the forward stroke begins, he loses leverage and is forced to lead with the racquet handle, which results in the racquet head not having time to catch up. It’s because his racquet head never gets all the way BACK and DOWN before the forward stoke begins that makes every component in the chain after that initial flaw weakened and/or late, and he is forced to open up early to compensate for his inadequate preparation
So how do you get the racquet head all the way back and down during backswing of a one-handed backhand? There are three basic ways to do it. You can bend the wrist (which is obviously not good), you can bend the elbow (which all the pros seem to do) or you can rotate the arm at the shoulder. The player in the video is certainly quite stiff on both the backswing and the forward stroke of his one-handed backhand. But while “loosening” up may be a part of his future development, I would NOT get rid of his straight and stiff arm until he learns to rotate his arm at the shoulder to get the racquet head farther back and down. Then, instead of swinging down and leading with his handle as the forward stroke begins (as he is now doing), he could rotate his arm back out at the shoulder, which would allow his racquet head to get going sooner . . . low to high from the start. Once he learns to recognize the form and the feel of starting the stroke from a proper all-the-way back and down racquet position, he could selectively “loosen” up on certain components for flow.
MG