Retriever --
This is how I tend to look at his FH. His stroke is counterintuitive, and it's potentially dangerous with your wrist. So, obviously, don't try this with a ball and/or heavy racket until you feel the "whip-like" motion. Again, this is only an interpretation, but I think this is fairly close to what he does. And it's fun to experiment, of course.
1) Fed uses an Eastern-ish grip. This is important because the crazy wrist thing comes from this. Initially, start with a pure Eastern grip to get the sling-shot feel down.
2) Fed's backswing is similar to a baseball pitcher. He wants to do two things:
-Get full arm extension with as little extraneous motion as possible.
-At full extension, his hand position will be roughly at about belly level, WAY behind him, and just on the right side. And, like a baseball pitcher.
3) In order to get that kind of back swing, he limits the vertical motion and keeps it pretty close to his body. In order to do this, he does three things:
-Like most players, he turns his body while holding the racket with both hands. By doing this, you avoid "arming" the forehand.
-Before he releases the racket from his left hand, he rotates the racket face counterclockwise 180 degrees, until it's perpendicular to court and upside down.
-The backswing never goes above shoulder level.
4) During the downstroke of his backswing (as he goes toward full extension), he,
using a Eastern grip,
closes his racket face That is, at full extension his racket . . .
-Is at roughly waist-belly level
-Face is closed or roughly parallel with the ground
-Pointing toward the side fence and oriented a little toward the net (as opposed to the back fence.) In other words his wrist is in a relaxed, non-stretched position
5) Steps 1-3 are roughly valid from a classical swing point of view, and it makes sense if you're using an Eastern grip. But step 4 (i.e. closing the face) is a product of the modern semi-SW forehand motion,
not of an Eastern forehand. Yet Federer adds this anyway. He's creating a "unnatural" component, which needs to be resolved during the forward swing.
6) This "unnatural" situation is the basis for the wrist and an important part of the sling-shot action. As he initiates his forward swing, he does the following things:
-Keep his wrist relaxed and loose.
-Lets the racket whip back naturally from the loose wrist and forward arm motion.
-As it's whipping back, he corrects the racket face. This should naturally happen by just keeping your wrist loose.
-He keeps the racket pointing slightly down by making sure his thumb is parallel with arm.
-Swings low-to-high, while his palm is leading the racket. Essentially, his wrist is essentially "hyperextended" through the forward motion.
7) His forward swing, which starts from the straight-arm, usually goes into an elbow bend when the elbow meets the body. Because he swings forward from straight-arm to that bend, he can correct the racket face before the elbow has to pivot without wasting arm motion. Also, because he goes from straight-to-bend, his racket is
very whippy and the speed is great. Again, think of pitching. Sometimes, he keeps the arm straight when he wants an inside-out shot.
Steps 1-7 is the basic forehand motion, and it'll give you a sling-shot.
8) There's a lot of disagreement about what he does with the wrist as he approaches contact. Here's your 3 different camps -->
-He keeps the wrist loose and doesn't consciously snap it. If the wrist is moving forward, it's purely due to the motion of the swing. If he wants to impart topspin, he does a counterclockwise doorknob motion while keeping his wrist back.
-Or, he consciously snaps his wrist just before contact.
-Or, he pronates the wrist.
Whichever camp you subscribe to, it's really steps 4-6 that sets up step 8. It enables him to rotate the racket face about as much as a guy with a strong SW grip, thus creating similar spin of a clay court specialist. But, because he uses a sling-shot motion and that Eastern-ish grip, he can pound the crap out of the ball too. Finally, due to the classical-with-modern-twist fusion, he has a wider range of strike height than almost every player currently playing. That is, he can topspin a shot at his knees as well as drive a ball flat above his shoulders.
But, I think if you actually tried out the above to the letter, you'll also pick up how unnatural, complex, and potentially injury-happy his swing is compared to, say, Agassi. I haven't talked about what Fed does with his feet during all this.
