Hi guys Nick here from Intuitive Tennis. Today I'm going to talk about the
difference between the ATP forehand and the WTA forehand. So should WTA
players switch to a ATP style forehand and to improve their game? Check out
today's video and find out. The major technical difference between an ATP
style forehand the WTA style forehand is the back swing and the contact point. So
let's start off with the back swing. So the ATP style back swing is on the, on
the right handers, it's the right side of the body where the racket will not go
further back than here there are some that take it you know to about right
here but very rarely you'll see the racquet end up on this side of the body.
There's only two players in the top hundred that have this style of back swing.
That's Jérémy Chardy and Florian Mayer but it's pretty much 99.99% of male
players at the high level not only ATP even at the college level or high
level juniors have a back swing and it goes to about right here. So the WTA
style back swing goes to about right here and let's take just take the
current number one and two in the world Simona Halep and Caroline Wozniacki
and they will take the racket back to about right here and this is true for
the majority of the WTA player so I would say 99% of the players have a back
swing that goes here there are some it take it a little bit less further back
like Garbine Muguruza and several others they have more of a let's say an ATP
style back swing but the majority of the women's players including some of the
greatest players in the history of the women's game have a back swing that goes
to about right here. What is the reason for the WTA players taking a longer back
swing on the forehand? The number one reason for it is a contact point
that's closer to the body so WTA players are going to make contact much closer to
the body and then the men and the WTA players still hit the ball in front so
the right shoulder is in front of the left shoulder but if you look at their
elbows not only are their bent and 99% of them have a bent arm.
Very rarely you see someone with a straight arm so there are bent but not only are
they bent the elbow is a very close to the body so now if let's say Serena for
example hits the forehand about right here if she took an ATP style backswing
and she went let's say like Federer from here to here where she likes making
contact it's gonna be impossible generate any type of rhythm any type of
momentum and it'd be a hacky short stroke without any power.
This type of backswing only works when the contact point is further out front
where even with a bend will you see in the men let's talk about the men who
have a bent arm they will hit the ball further in front so you'll see more
spacing between the elbow and the upper body such as a Wawrinka, Djokovic, Andy Murray
and the majority of the ATP players have a bent arm but the elbow is further away
from the body so there it makes sense to take a shorter backswing because we got
a longer path to the contact and we can generate racket head speed and momentum.
So what is the reason for a contact point on the WTA Tour that's closer to
the body. Well the number one reason for it is strength. If you look at little
kids juniors playing tennis. They will have a contact point that's exactly the
same the elbow will be very close to the body and why? Because they're much
stronger when the arm is closer to the body they feel less strength when the
army is further away and this is the same for the WTA players. They learned
this feeling intuitively early on and just simply continue with it and this is
their intuitive contact point they don't have any control over it this is just
what the body allows them to do. The men on the other hand will be further out
front also this is an intuitive thing they will find this contact further in
front and some will even be completely straight like Federer and Rafa and from
here you have big advantages you can pull the racquet back much sooner and
increase the whip action on the shot and create much greater topspin where
with a closer contact point with the elbow it's more of an angular momentum
and you get a little bit less topspin and less power so it doesn't make any
sense for a WTA player to shorten the backswing ATP style because
the contact point is not going to change. Intuitively all these players are
going to still have a tendency to make contact here and they have a possibility
to ruin the forehand if they mess around with their backswing.
What about timing? Does a longer backswing influence timing in tennis? Yes
and no. So let me give you an example I have a backswing that goes to about
right here this is my backswing so now if I try to take my racquet back like
Serena of course I'm going to be late on my shot so I'm going to hit the ball
somewhere around here which doesn't mean that Serena is going to hit the ball
late her body's programmed to meet the ball at a different place so my contact
point is gonna be always a little bit further in front than the WTA style
contact and so from my swing to go from here to here it's a perfect timing if I
go from further back to my contact point here I'm gonna meet the ball late and
it's not gonna work. You can never make a shorter backswing longer it just simply
doesn't work. However if you have a longer backswing WTA style your timing is
not going to be influenced because you're making contact further behind
anyway and you can always have the option on a longer backswing to make it
shorter for example in the return of serve it's no problem to go from longer
to shorter however it doesn't work the other way around. So should a WTA player
change into an ATP style backswing? Absolutely not.
There's actually no evidence that this ATP style backswing is coming to the WTA
Tour and you must first learn to separate WTA from ATP those are two
separate sports and we must learn from the greatest players of the WTA Tour see
how they play and this is the benchmark for technique in that particular sport.
In my personal experience in the last 25 years of coaching
I found that young females will find this backswing completely on their own
the body has a way of figuring out where to make contact and where to take the
racket back it's the intuitive zone of a stroke and
everything syncs in on a player that's consistent and being
able to hit the ball aggressively if you try to mess with those things you can
hurt the development of this player and you will also find that the boys at the
same age will find the ATP backswing completely on their own and their
contact point with time is going to go further in front. So this is something
that happens completely intuitively and should not be messed with.
Thanks guys for watching this video, hope you enjoyed it, please leave a comment in
the section below I'll make sure to answer. Like the video and subscribe if
you haven't already. I will see you next time.