this post originated in another thread, but I decided it would be a shame to put all this effort into it only for it to be buried on page 3 of some obscure thread where nobody would ever see it.
anyway, a picture is worth a thousand words. lets look at three players whose backhands kicks ass, and one whose sucks:
ONE OF THESE DOES NOT BELONG
for whom it is not apparent...
1) look at the position of blake's racquet. the top is barely in line with his shoulders. federer, gasquet, and kuerten all have their racquets way back and up; you cant even see their elbows. blake's elbow is down between shoulder and waist height and clearly visible. you might think he's halfway through his stroke, but this is the farthest point of his backswing.
2) look at the shoulder rotation of each player. every angle is slightly different, but you can see that every player (except blake) has massive shoulder rotation and is showing their back to their opponent. blake is side-on to his opponent, or possibly even a bit open.
3) look at the legs of each player. they all have quite wide stances with their weight far behind the front foot (laterally); ie, if they were to lift up their rear leg, they would fall backwards. blake's feet are far too close together and his front leg is tucked in instead of being out. this leads to poor balance and ineffective weight transfer.
again, one of these does not belong. look at his legs. look at how little his torso and shoulder have moved since the beginning of the stroke and compare it with other players.
for those of you who think I used a particularly bad video of blake... the video that I got these images from was posted by Bungalo Bill as an ideal model backhand.
when I told him that blake's backhand (and this video in particular) was a poor model, his reaction was very hostile.
anyway, I'm sure his response to this thread will be as unintelligible as his posts in the aforementioned thread. from the rest of you, I would appreciate some feedback.
anyway, a picture is worth a thousand words. lets look at three players whose backhands kicks ass, and one whose sucks:
ONE OF THESE DOES NOT BELONG
for whom it is not apparent...
1) look at the position of blake's racquet. the top is barely in line with his shoulders. federer, gasquet, and kuerten all have their racquets way back and up; you cant even see their elbows. blake's elbow is down between shoulder and waist height and clearly visible. you might think he's halfway through his stroke, but this is the farthest point of his backswing.
2) look at the shoulder rotation of each player. every angle is slightly different, but you can see that every player (except blake) has massive shoulder rotation and is showing their back to their opponent. blake is side-on to his opponent, or possibly even a bit open.
3) look at the legs of each player. they all have quite wide stances with their weight far behind the front foot (laterally); ie, if they were to lift up their rear leg, they would fall backwards. blake's feet are far too close together and his front leg is tucked in instead of being out. this leads to poor balance and ineffective weight transfer.
again, one of these does not belong. look at his legs. look at how little his torso and shoulder have moved since the beginning of the stroke and compare it with other players.
for those of you who think I used a particularly bad video of blake... the video that I got these images from was posted by Bungalo Bill as an ideal model backhand.
when I told him that blake's backhand (and this video in particular) was a poor model, his reaction was very hostile.anyway, I'm sure his response to this thread will be as unintelligible as his posts in the aforementioned thread. from the rest of you, I would appreciate some feedback.
