Single handed backhand for juniors...

Not directly relevant to this thread, but wasn't Ferrer hitting many backhands by thrusting the racket straight forward without bringing it around?
 
marosmith said:
Wrong, it was the forehand cross court exchanges he was losing, most of the winners and forced errors were generated by his backhand and the bh to bh rallied were dominated by Almagro's superior BH
Click to expand...

Match stats, for what it's worth:

Forehand Winners: Ferrer 13 Almagro 13
Forehand UE: Ferrer 27 Almagro 31

Backhand Winners: Ferrer 3 Almagro 10
Backhand UE: Ferrer 15 Almagro 24

In sets 3 and 4 Almagro had 4 BH winners and 17 BH UE. (Compared to 8 FH winners and 17 FH errors).

Unfortunately the stats don't tell us what happened to the BHs that weren't winners or errors. And I suspect that Almagro had more FH than BH winners on routine short-ball putaways.

But the backhand definitely seemed to go south on him in the latter stages of the match.
 
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marosmith said:
Wrong, it was the forehand cross court exchanges he was losing, most of the winners and forced errors were generated by his backhand and the bh to bh rallied were dominated by Almagro's superior BH
Click to expand...

Match stats, for what it's worth:

Forehand Winners: Ferrer 13 Almagro 13
Forehand UE: Ferrer 27 Almagro 31

Backhand Winners: Ferrer 3 Almagro 10
Backhand UE: Ferrer 15 Almagro 24

In sets 3 and 4 Almagro had 4 BH winners and 18 BH UE. (Compared to 8 FH winners and 17 FH errors).

Unfortunately the stats don't tell us what happened to the BHs that weren't winners or errors.
 
where do you guys get stats like this?

do you have the BH stats for Wawrinka in the loss to Joker?

I am trying to prove a point that the new style is a better stroke than the old.
 
luvforty said:
a similar debate can be made on the fh side.... do you teach the above the shoulder finish to the jr beginners, or the ww finish with hand to the left side of the body?

i don't think a detour is needed.... others think otherwise.. that's fine.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter. Look at Federer and Tsonga, they don't care where they finish.
 
luvforty said:
Almagro's bh is quite old school (flattish shot).
Click to expand...

Not really. He raises his right shoulder / drops his left a lot, in addition to opening his chest somewhat.

l5387256.jpg


There should probably be a separate thread about this particular shoulder-tilt method.



FrisbeeFool said:
It's all about personal comfort. And what works best for the individual player, and having a flexible coach that can work with the player and teach in a way that makes sense to them.
Click to expand...

Agreed. But I think the bone of contention here is what exactly those fundamentals are, and (probably more debateable) how much simplification beginners should be presented with.
 
i just came back from a practice match with a friend. I blame reading this thread for the fact that i dropped a set.

At contact, you shouldn't be thinking about opening up your shoulders or supination. This thread messed with my form. Luckily i recovered by going back to basics and made up for it in the following set.

In my opinion, there is a huge gap between playing tennis and what is discussed in this thread.

P.S. The backhand has nothing to do withe forehand, regardless of where your nipples are.
 
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flat - i am referring to the ball flight.. not just the shoulder line.... shoulder line is 1 contributor to spin, but he is missing the supination part.

anyway it does deserve a separate thread.

bottom line is - the old farts out there are still teaching the backhand version of the hitting 3 balls in a row method.

method can work, but is not optimal for today's equipment.

and let's not sweep everything under the rug of 'fundamentals'... what exactly does that mean.... I have give details on the supination, the finish, the swing path, the pressure points on the fingers......

the devils are in the details... can't have meaningful discussion when people just say oh well, they look close enough lol.
 
Relinquis said:
i just came back from a practice match with a friend. I blame reading this thread for the fact that i dropped a set.

At contact, you shouldn't be thinking about opening up your shoulders or supination. This thread messed with my form. Luckily i recovered by going back to basics and made up for it in the following set.

In my opinion, there is a huge gap between playing tennis and what is discussed in this thread.

P.S. The backhand has nothing to do withe forehand, regardless of where your nipples are.
Click to expand...

lol... how much do I owe you for that set :)

no you don't think about opening up... you think up/across the ball (instead of thru the ball)... and whatever the body wants to do, you let it happen.

change cannot happen in 1 match, takes some time.... no instant gratification.

backhand has nothing to do with fh? why not?
 
luvforty said:
where do you guys get stats like this?

do you have the BH stats for Wawrinka in the loss to Joker?

I am trying to prove a point that the new style is a better stroke than the old.
Click to expand...

I got them from the AO site:

http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/scores/completed_matches/day14.html

I don't know that you can really prove anything with these stats; there's too much they don't say, and of course what applies at the top of the rankings may not mean much for juniors or for rec players. At best the stats describe (very incompletely) what happened in an individual match.

But I do wish it were easier to find stats like this (and not just for individual matches). The paucity of stats in pro tennis is kind of amazing. If I wanted to figure out how many BH errors Federer made per point this year vs. last year, I'd be totally out of luck...
 
Relinquis said:
i just came back from a practice match with a friend. I blame reading this thread for the fact that i dropped a set.

At contact, you shouldn't be thinking about opening up your shoulders or supination. This thread messed with my form. Luckily i recovered by going back to basics and made up for it in the following set.
Click to expand...


You probably shouldn't tinker with your bh right before a match!

You can read the best technical advice in the world and still mess up your game if you try to change it in the middle of a match. Save all stroke advice for the ball machine / feeder.


Btw, regarding opening: It's not something everyone should do. If you modeled your bh after Fed or Dimitrov, then opening up probably won't do anything positive. All the parts of the stroke have to work together and a lot of changes won't work in isolation.


Relinquis said:
In my opinion, there is a huge gap between playing tennis and what is discussed in this thread.
Click to expand...

You're right. But that's because this thread is about teaching and training new players (or at least it's supposed to be), and not about match preparation.
 
luvforty said:
lol... how much do I owe you for that set :)

[...]

backhand has nothing to do with fh? why not?
Click to expand...

haha, it's ok, i don't play for money.

the backhand is not like the forehand; when swinging towards the ball you lead with your non-racquet shoulder/arm in the forehand, but you lead with the racquet shoulder/arm during the backhand. that alone makes a significant difference, not to mention the way the joints function.

There is so much more upper body rotation in the forehand before you get to contact. This means that the strokes feel very different even though you end up with the racquet shoulder/arm in front and contact point in front of the body on both strokes.
 
BevelDevil,

Just saw your reply above. I agree. Will mess around in practice instead of during friendly matches. They always end up being competitive rather than just for practice.
 
Relinquis said:
haha, it's ok, i don't play for money.

the backhand is not like the forehand; when swinging towards the ball you lead with your non-racquet shoulder/arm in the forehand, but you lead with the racquet shoulder/arm during the backhand. that alone makes a significant difference, not to mention the way the joints function.

There is so much more upper body rotation in the forehand before you get to contact. This means that the strokes feel very different even though you end up with the racquet shoulder/arm in front and contact point in front of the body on both strokes.
Click to expand...

forget about the leading / trailing shoulder part... the fh and bh are basically mirror image of each other.

measure the degree of turn from the take back, to the point of contact, for both fh and bh, for same height of ball.... the results will be very close.

kinetic chain is the same - hip goes first, creates a stretch in the core, core fires, pulls the arm around.

swing path - this is where the old farts get stuck..... fh it's well accepted to do WW (not the only way, but is one of the better ways).... so why is the bh not doing that?

supination/pronation - on the fh you can't simply pull the butt end... you'd end up with a finish above the shoulder.... there are pressure points in the hand to make the racket face wiping that windshield resulting in a finish with the racket tip pointing down..... on the bh, same thing, there are pressure points to make the racket face wiping clockwise, with the tip pointing down (Dimitrov style).

think for a second.... why does the ww fh have a higher strike zone up to the eye level? because the face is still closed there.

so how to you hit eye level ball with 1hbh? you never see Fed do it, or Almagro do it, or Tommy Robredo do it... why?

why can Wawrinka hit eye level balls?

it's a different swing path.... with the old way, the racket face is already open when it goes above the shoulder level.

the "fundamentals" are similar, but not the same... how different? as different as between the WW fh and the 3 balls in a row fh.
 
luvforty said:
forget about the leading / trailing shoulder part... the fh and bh are basically mirror image of each other.

measure the degree of turn from the take back, to the point of contact, for both fh and bh, for same height of ball.... the results will be very close.

kinetic chain is the same - hip goes first, creates a stretch in the core, core fires, pulls the arm around.

swing path - this is where the old farts get stuck..... fh it's well accepted to do WW (not the only way, but is one of the better ways).... so why is the bh not doing that?

supination/pronation - on the fh you can't simply pull the butt end... you'd end up with a finish above the shoulder.... there are pressure points in the hand to make the racket face wiping that windshield resulting in a finish with the racket tip pointing down..... on the bh, same thing, there are pressure points to make the racket face wiping clockwise, with the tip pointing down (Dimitrov style).

think for a second.... why does the ww fh have a higher strike zone up to the eye level? because the face is still closed there.

so how to you hit eye level ball with 1hbh? you never see Fed do it, or Almagro do it, or Tommy Robredo do it... why?
Click to expand...

Disagree. FH and 1HBH are not the same or mirror images. The backhand is hit with the arm coming across the body. That's a major difference that effects many things right there. Most FH's are hit with a pushing off on the back foot. No so with the 1hbh. Unit turn is similar but the rotation is different between the two. The FH is hit generally while the chest is squarely facing the net. not on the bh. With a fh you can launch off the ground with a hard strike. No launching on the backhands. On many forehands people rotate all the way around. No so on the bh. The one hander is struck with a little more through and there is an across action but no wrist flex and pronation/supination is minimal compared to to even a simple fh.

The kinetic chain is not the same. They both utilize a kinetic chain but they are different with different focus on different areas.

The strike zone is related to the grip, not because it is a 'ww'.

Fed and the others can hit eye level topspin. Even I can hit a hard topspin shot on a ball that's above my head. I'm not facing Nadals but it can be done. In fact I like that shot. You can get a lot of spin brushing up on a high ball. Contact point for a one hander is far out in front which is why it's harder to hit a high ball. The one handers take the high balls early which is a better choice and keeps them aggressive. There's a vid somewhere of fed hitting hard ts shots on very high balls. I'll try to find it.

On a fh you can simply pull the butt. That's exactly what I do. I don't use any arm at all after the takeback until just before contact where I can choose to apply extra force or increase the pronation/deviation if it's not doing what I had set up for in the takeback. My torso pulls my racquet around. During and at the end of the takeback i just position the racquet so the butt is pointed and that's it. All of my finishes are chest height or lower down to waist level.
 
cheetah you are talking about minucia.. the body is the way it is.. to produce the mirror image racket path, or course there will be lots of differences in body parts.

kinetic chain is the same.

if you only pull the butt, how do you make it change direction....you are violating the newton's law.
 
Yes but I think the kinetic chain is similar but different. On a 1hbh the weight transfer is more linear than a typical atp fh. On the forehand you push up with the back leg. This fires the hip etc etc all the way to the racquet producing an angular momentum going into the ball. On the 1hbh they barely push up at all, it's more of getting the weight moving forward linearly. Most of the one handers don't explode up from their knees. they stay down for the most part. They 'step into the shot'. So on a fh everything is going up and twisting and a 1hbh is more of just putting weight into it with some trunk rotation and they remain set and stable in their footwork. So that involves different firing of muscles involved in the kinetic chain. That's what i'm referring to.

What do you mean exactly by 'change direction' in the fh and which law am i violating?
 
lol read post#369 and the link in it.... i wish Oscar is here to talk about the 'staying down' and 'moving forward' parts which were specifically mentioned in the video.

now i know.. you are hitting the old fart bh lol
 
luvforty said:
cheetah you are talking about minucia.. the body is the way it is.. to produce the mirror image racket path, or course there will be lots of differences in body parts.

kinetic chain is the same.

if you only pull the butt, how do you make it change direction....you are violating the newton's law.
Click to expand...

try this.
go grab your racquet and set up in exactly this position. unit turn w/ shoulders turned more than hips (torque) with a very loose arm just rotate your hips at 50% your normal speed and energy using absolutely no arm at all. zero. stop rotating when your chest is facing forward. don't use any arm muscles.

then report back as to what happens and tell me which of the 3 laws are broken.

images
 
luvforty said:
lol read post#369 and the link in it.... i wish Oscar is here to talk about the 'staying down' and 'moving forward' parts which were specifically mentioned in the video.

now i know.. you are hitting the old fart bh lol
Click to expand...

show me a video where someone hops up on a bh.
 
and i think oscar hit the nail on the head regarding the snapping effect, and 'staying down' wasting half the chain.

tell you i fire the leg in my bh about as much as my fh.... why not.
 
So you agree they are going forward? Yet you say the bh and fh are mirror images and the kinetic chain are the same for both. They are not.
 
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ok let me rephrase - the sequence is the same, but body parts maybe different..... that's a gimme, simply because how the body is made.

wanted to clarify what i meant by 'old fart bh'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N98l4DMpNDk

this is classic old fart... no supination at all... Edberg is the same way.. but was talented enough to have a weapon on that wing.

Pete however, has a weakness on that wing.

also notice Pete's fh and bh, the swing path are also mirror image.
 
let me rephrase again -

sequence is the same if you play like Dimitrov.

would not be the same if you have ww fh and old fart bh.... which maybe the reason of this ongoing debate.
 
Why are you posting videos of sampras' bh? lol.

How about you rephrase how you think the fh and bh are mirror images?
 
we have a disconnect... the sequence is the same.. legs/hips then core then arm.... how the body parts actually fire maybe different..

you are tied up with the minutia.. i don't blame you... happens on the internet all the time.

i posted Sampras to clarify what i meant by 'old'.... and my point in the past few pages is that the 'old' is still being taught to the mass which is why people don't get any better with this shot.

when rubber meets the road, the kinetic chain stuff doesn't matter no more.... you say different, i say the same, who cares.

what matters, is what style gives the most margin for error, the biggest strike zone.

you are on board that the modern chop slice is easier to control and have bigger strike zone right?

slice you chop down and across... topspin drive you chop up and across.

or to get the feel even faster, you yank backwards like oscar says.
 
There is no data to prove old style bh is taught any more than current style. I see 8 years olds at the club with fed style bh's all the time. If you look at any college vid of one handers they all have the modern stroke. Where are they learning it?

yank backwards? on what?
 
search for 'one handed backhand' on to.be ..... the first 5 that showed up all hit the 'old fart' way.... and these are supposedly good coaches, not to mention who knows whats going on at the local clubs lol...... no wonder this shot is dead.
 
luv, if you think Oscar knows how to hit 1hbh, think again cuz we had that discussion before and it was pretty clear he has no clue. surprising really cuz usually he is quite thoughtful.
 
Cheetah said:
There is no data to prove old style bh is taught any more than current style. I see 8 years olds at the club with fed style bh's all the time. If you look at any college vid of one handers they all have the modern stroke. Where are they learning it?

yank backwards? on what?
Click to expand...

i have said before.... when there is money involved.... aspiring juniors, college guys on scholarships etc.... survival of the fittest works.. and I am sure the best style is being taught (in general).

I am saying most rec people suffer on this shot because they are taught by old farts.
 
The kinetic chain of a 1hbh and a modern forehand are very different. The typical modern forehand is swung with the weight loaded on the back foot, whereas the typical 1hbh (and closed stance 2hbh) is hit off the front foot.

But there are some similarities between the backhand and the "classic" forehand (i.e., neutral stance, step-then-swing).
 
cheetah can you provide any link to top jr or college guy with 1hbh..... i actually have been looking for this french kid with a modern 1hbh but i cant find it.
 
boramiNYC said:
luv, if you think Oscar knows how to hit 1hbh, think again cuz we had that discussion before and it was pretty clear he has no clue. surprising really cuz usually he is quite thoughtful.
Click to expand...

Oscar armed a few in that video.... but i believe his theory makes sense.
 
BevelDevil said:
The kinetic chain of a 1hbh and a modern forehand are very different. The typical modern forehand is swung with the weight loaded on the back foot, whereas the typical 1hbh (and closed stance 2hbh) is hit off the front foot.

But there are some similarities between the backhand and the "classic" forehand (i.e., neutral stance, step-then-swing).
Click to expand...

i guess my statement caused more confusion than clarification lol.

what i was trying to say is - in order to achieve the racket path like a ww fh, you have the fire the muscles in the same sequence and the same intent.....

there will surely be difference in body parts, simply because of how the body is made.
 
what is causing the significant difference in the finish between sampras and dimitrov (using 2 extremes here to make a point).

it's definitely NOT dimitrov's flexibility lol.
 
Cheetah said:
here's a college guy w/ a 1hbh. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO47hT0qHtQ

can't find the one i saw the other day posted here. that guy had an excellent one. this one is ok i guess. nothing to write home about.
Click to expand...

well.... i guess this seals the deal for Ash.... do NOT teach kids 1hbh.

both guys are quite miserable on that wing... and i have no idea why neither of them didn't

1) hit EVERY ball to the bh... that wing clearly sucks, for both guys;
2) serve to the bh and then rush to the net.... every bh return is weak.
 
luvforty said:
and i think oscar hit the nail on the head regarding the snapping effect, and 'staying down' wasting half the chain.

tell you i fire the leg in my bh about as much as my fh.... why not.
Click to expand...

You do? which leg would that be?
That tells me either your bh is weird or your fh is weak.
 
right... why does it have to be weird or weak.

these college videos.... guys are obviously very good players... but all them bhs look like some after thought lol
 
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