hey guys in today's video I'm going to present the top five forehands in the
history of tennis and I've already made videos on the top five serves of all time the top five
one-handed two-handed backhands and the top five forehands but these were videos made in a short
format where I actually tried to imitate these strokes and while these videos had a pretty good
comedic effect because I really can't imitate those Strokes the long form versions of these
videos are long overdue so you can expect me to do a series on the top five serves the top five
backhands and so on but in today's video we're going to discuss the greatest forehands in the
history of tennis now these videos are going to be very important because what coaches perceive to be
the best Strokes is often what gets taught at the junior level and at the recreational level so you
have to stay tuned until the end of today's video where I'm gonna tell you how the top five rankings
apply to the recreational level in other words what you should adapt from the best forehands in
the world and what you should stay away from also a disclaimer that in this video series I'm going
to be talking about male strokes and this is no disrespect to female Strokes I'm a big supporter
of female tennis but it is clear that male Strokes are better and therefore I'm going to be
using male players when I make my stroke rankings there's no disrespect to some of the great female
players when we're talking about the forehands the greatest female forehands in the history of tennis
are Steffi Graf Serena Williams Monica Seles my favorites are Sloane Stephens Madison Keys and
even right now we have some great forehands Rybakina Sabalenka and of course Iga's forehand could
be one of the best of all time but having said all that male forehands are obviously better and I'm
going to present my top five but before I do so I spent a lot of time preparing for this video I
have a list of forehands that are not featured in my top five I'm going to read these names because
these fourhands deserve a lot of respect and this list features a lot of players and you're going
to be wondering Nick why are you reading out so many names because the forehand is one of the most
important shots on the ATP Tour when we're talking about modern tennis the players that you see on TV
right now you're not going to find a player with a poor forehand I'm sure you guys are thinking about
Benoit Paire I would take Benoit Paire's forehand any day while it looks quirky in the back when you
look at the front of the stroke he has a lot of topspin and it's a fundamentally correct forehand
so you could say that having a strong forehand more specifically a strong Top Spin forehand is
a prerequisite to be among the best players in the world there are some forehands in the history of
tennis that stand out and let me read the list of names that didn't make it into my top five Lendl
Soderling Sampras del Potro Blake Moya Muster Ferrer Roddick Sock Borg Murray Agassi Tsonga
Bruguera Safin Monfils Ferrero Verdasco Berdych Courier Thiem Wawrinka Kyrgios Dimitrov Becker
and Hewitt and by Becker I'm talking about Boris Becker no disrespect to Benjamin Becker and to me
Boris Becker hit the forehand the same way the players hit it today that you're watching on
TV so while he's not the father of the modern forehand that's Bjorn Borg you can watch
a video that I made four years ago about the father of the modern forehand Bjorn Borg
despite his coaches telling him not to do so went over on his grip to the western side he
developed a loop on his forehand he would go Rafa style around his head he was the first
to do this and many coaches were telling him if you hit your forehand like this you're not
gonna get anywhere but Borg didn't listen he's truly the father of the modern forehand however
when we get into the power Top Spin forehands with the utilization of the entire body in my
opinion Boris Becker was the first one to have the modern power forehand with a tremendous amount of
body involvement and now let's get to the top five so at number five I was debating whether
I should put the Potro or Fernando Gonzalez at the fifth spot and I could have put either
guy there because both of these forehands are in my opinion in the top five but I chose Fernando
Gonzalez and if you're unfamiliar with Fernando Gonzalez he was a player from Chile who didn't
win a grand slam he's not one of the greatest players of all time by any means but he had one of
the greatest forehands in the history of tennis and you have to understand that when I make these
lists I'm using The Strokes in isolation so when it comes to the serve for example
there's got to be players in my top five that are not necessarily the greatest players of all
time so I'm using The Strokes in isolation and leaving out the entire context of a player but
Fernando Gonzalez had one of the most powerful topspin forehands in the history of tennis
when we take a look at his technique he had a high Loop meaning that the racket would
go pretty high in the back so there was a lot of momentum being built from his high Loop and then
he would come into the contact with a bent arm he had a tremendous amount of body involvement
which means that he would throw his entire body weight into the forehand if you go on
YouTube just type in Fernando Gonzalez forehand you're gonna see compilation videos of Fernando
hitting one forehand winner after the next and it's truly spectacular to watch at number four
and this might be controversial I'm gonna put Carlos Alcaraz and some of you guys might think
Nick he hasn't proven himself yet why are you putting him at number four well in my opinion
he has already proven himself he won two grand slams he's won Master Series tournaments so it's
okay for me to put him at number four of all time because I'll be honest with you guys I've never
seen a forehand quite like alcaraz's for him and to me it seems to be the ultimate combination of
control and power so he has a tremendous amount of Top Spin on his forehand but he can also hit
it incredibly hard you could make an argument that it's a mixture between a featherer forehand and a
Nadal forehand and interestingly when alcaraz was younger he was asked who his favorite player was
and he didn't say Rafa he actually said Fetter so if I compare Alcaraza's forehand to Nadal it
is not as high it's more penetrating and when I compareAlcaraz's forehead to Federer it's not as
low so it's a little bit higher than Federer as it possibly has a little bit more shape to it so to
me it's the best of both worlds and if I make this video in 10 years from now Alcaraz could easily
have the greatest forehands in the history of tennis that's how highly of value his forehand so
you're probably thinking Nick if you put alkaras in your top five of all time and he's one of the
next gen players why didn't you mention any of the other next-gen in your list of best forehands
who didn't make the top five well I'm going to tell you that while Alcaraz has proven himself
the other players haven't quite proven themselves but it doesn't mean that they don't have a good
forehand obviously you take the entire next gen they all have incredible forehands we need to
give them some time to develop their careers and start making some bigger results for them to be
named as having won the greatest forehands in the history of tennis and when we take a closer
look at alcaraz's forehand technique we'll see that he has a straight arm on his forehand very
similar to Federer and Nadal another interesting thing about alcaraz is that he has a very low base
on a lot of his forehands not all of them but often he will stay low to the ground he has a
tremendous amount of torso rotation but he doesn't get airborne quite as much as some other players
for example del Potro or Gonzalez would get airborne a lot more than alcaraz does and
coming in at number three is Novak Djokovic and I know what you're thinking if you're a fan of my
channel Nick you made a video a year ago where you said Djokovic had the greatest forehands
in the history of tennis and I want to tell you that the context of that video was the following
I said that while Djokovic's doesn't have the most penetrating forehand of all time he doesn't have
the most lethal forehand of all time it's the one that I would pick out of all time greats if I had
to put my money on it this was more related to djokovic's consistency and the ability to play
his best tennis in the most important moments but in today's video we're taking the forehand stroke
in isolation it's for that reason that I place djokovic's forehand at number three of all time
now what I like the most about djokovic's forehand is his versatility if you watch Djokovic on Clay
you will see that he has the ability to played a forehead a lot higher very similar to Rafa when
he plays on Hardcourt when he's playing extremely aggressive he can flatten the forehand out he has
incredible placement he can hit any spot on the court that he wants to he can create winners from
defensive situations and most importantly in my opinion Djokovic has the most consistent forehand
in the history of tennis so while it might not be the most penetrating and the most powerful one it
is the one that's going to break down the least compared to all other players I attribute this to
djokovic's Simplicity of his stroke there are no unnecessary movements in his swing he does have a
loop the racket is quite High in the take back he has a bent arm and he has a very steep vertical
swing path and he puts a tremendous amount of spin on the ball now interestingly Djokovic is
one of the only players that has more of a classic finish where he often finishes above his shoulder
he doesn't do this all the time of course but this is something that's uncharacteristic when
we're talking about modern ATP forehands coming in at number two it's my favorite player
of all time and my favorite forehand of all time and that's Rafael Nadal I cannot tell
you how much fun it was to watch Rafa hit his forehand cross-court Top Spin against Federer
very early on in his career where Federer was the absolute goat and Nadal was driving Federer
crazy because his forehand in my opinion is the heaviest one in the history of tennis
this is due to Nadal swing path that's extremely vertical most of the time he goes around his head
now other players do this as well so you're going to see Federer you're going to see Djokovic also
go around the head but Rafa does it with more speed and more intensity so often players will
go around their head in defensive situation but not Rafa Rafa does this as an offensive move and
not a defensive one and often Nadal's forehand was stigmatized because of this finish and it
was mislabeled as a defensive shot when in reality it is not this was even done in the close circle
of Nadal where I've seen tone an adult trying to correct this for him at certain times of course
he allowed Nadal to play his intuitive way but I have seen some videos where Tony was trying
to get an adult to go in a more conventional way around his body and interestingly when you watch
Nadal practice you will see that he often goes to a more conventional finish but then when he
gets on the match court his intuition kicks in and 90 of the time he does his buggy whip finish and
what he's able to do is play the ball higher over the net with a tremendous amount of Spin
and power and is truly a nightmare because he's Lefty and if you're right-handed receiving that
ball it is truly an absolute nightmare so Rafael Nadal has the second most lethal forehand in the
history of tennis and now coming in at number one the Undisputed king of all fourehands the
greatest forehand in the history of tennis and it's Ernest Gulbis I'm just kidding and this is
not a diss on Gulbis very similar to benoit paire it's unbelievably quirky what Gulbis used to
do but when you take a look at his forehand in the front it's very clean and he has all
the fundamentals so Gulbis does have an incredible for him but the player with the greatest forehand
of all time is Roger Federer similar to Nadal Federer has a straight arm for him with a racket
drops on the side of his body now compared to Nadal there was a lot of changes made to an
adult swing I call these cosmetic changes to an adult's backswing sometimes the wrist would be
bent other times the record would be a little bit higher he was experimenting with different styles
and his back swing however Federer kept it really clean through the entirety of his career he would
simply close the racket on the hitting side of the body and unleash the monster forehand
and now the thing about Federer that's different from Nadal is that he plays the forehand lower
than nadal now this doesn't mean that the forehand has less spin it has a tremendous amount of spin
but his forehand is more penetrating and goes lower over the net and penetrates through the court in a
different way now you're probably thinking Nick why did you put Federer at number one above Rafa
Rafa is your favorite forehand of all time well I can tell you that I do a tremendous amount
of research on a game of tennis and I listened to the best players and when they're asked who
has the best forehand in the history of tennis the number one answer is Roger Federer and this
is coming from the players and they know best because they faced Roger Federer on the court
and what happens when Federer gets a ball that's in his Strike Zone you can kiss the point goodbye
in perfect harmony with his serve where he would spot serve wherever he wanted to he was looking
to start the rally with his forehand and if that return was somewhere in the middle of the court
I don't know the stats on that but my feeling is that Federer would win the point in the vast
majority of the cases because once you got on the defensive against Federer's forehand there
was not much you can do but besides all that I think sometimes having a great stroke comes down
to genetics and comes down to talent and if you remember during the pandemic when Federer
was hitting balls against the wall I can tell you that I've never seen anybody rip the ball
as hard as Federer does when I watch Federer and now after he's retired hit a few balls for fun
the amount of power that he can generate from his arm without even using his body is incredible and
now comes the important part of this video where I discuss how these rankings affect you at the
recreational level but not on the recreational level how this affects tennis in general and I
can tell you that Roger Federer not only has the greatest forehand in the history of tennis it is
also the most popular for him because of its Elegance so naturally a lot of coaches started
teaching this forehand once Federer came on the scene and a lot of recreational players
started copying Federer's forehand style I can tell you that I received a tremendous
amount of DMS and emails with players showing me their forehands which was directly inspired from
Federer and here comes the warning you have to differentiate between style and fundamentals and
I've said this before and you take a look at any of the forehands that I mentioned as the greatest
forehands in the history of tennis that all have fundamental elements in common and they all have
differences in style unfortunately when players copy Fetters forehand they're not necessarily
looking at the fundamentals they're looking at Styles so they most likely are going to try to
mimic Fetters racket drop and his straight arm and so on you have to build the fundamentals
of the forehand stroke that all players have in common and develop your own style because
no matter how hard you try your forehand will unfortunately never look like Federer's