Boris Becker once said if you take a look at the top 100 players in the world you're going to see
a hundred different forehands that's very much an accurate statement and the difference mostly lies
in the style in which these players execute their forehands so there's going to be some styles that
you see at the top of the game that are going to be easier to copy than other ones now remember I
don't want you to copy anyone's Style I want you to develop your own style while learning
the fundamentals of the forehand what are the fundamentals if I would explain each fundamental
in great detail this video would be three hours long so I want you to check out my intuitive
forehand course that I have had on sale for a while and there I talk in great depth on how
to develop the fundamentals on the forehand now I have covered fundamentals on the forehand in
my YouTube videos as well and you can check some of those out but in any case when it comes to the
preparation stage on the forehand in other words the take back we're going to see vast differences
in style and gonna categorize them in how far the racket goes back prior to it dropping so we're
going to have some players who take the racket back where it's positioned towards the back fence
prior to it dropping so in other words the players will take their racket back like this and then
the racket drops and then they go into their lag which they all do this is definitely an intuitive
element of the forehand it's a fundamental piece of the forehand swing that all high level players
and all elite players have in common but how we get there we're going to see vast differences so
the first style is when the racket goes towards the back fence prior to it dropping there's going
to be another style where the racket goes more towards the side where it then drops and the
tip of the racket will be positioned towards the outside and the racket from this position
goes into the same lag that players achieve if they're dropped the racket from this area so in
essence both of these Style achieve the same end result the racket lags the same amount but there
are some players who will drop the racket more towards the side and there's other players who
drop the racket more towards the back I'm going to list some players that drop the racket in the
back in other words they take the racket back a little bit further the racket is positioned
towards the back fence prior to it dropping and these players are but Wawrinka Djokovic Shapovalov
Fernando Gonzalez who's an older player one of the greatest forehands of all time Rublev Fritz Ruud
and Alcaraz now the players that drop their racket more towards the side of the body are Hurkacz
Sinner Tiafoe Zverev Federer Aliasimme Tsitsipas Berrettini Hoger Rune and Rafael Nadal now here's
where it gets super complex we can talk about the orientation of the strings which sometimes
has to do with the grip you're going to see vast differences in these players the way the strings
are orientated as the racket drops some players will have the strings towards the ground as the
racket is dropping down under the players will have the strings more towards the side there's
also going to be different positions of the wrist and the racket as the racket is dropping
and this is often what falsely gets categorized as the next gen forehand where some players like
Hurkacz Tiafoe Sinner and Zverev have the tip of the racket towards the outside very high prior
to their racket drop so they start to forehand with the racket already like this and then the
racket drops while some other players like Federer Nadal Aliasimme Rune Beretinni will have the racket
what a three-quarter angle so it's not quite like this it's more a three-quarter angle and then the
racket drops into position where the tip of the racket is more towards the outside before it goes
into a lag now again I want to stress that none of these preparation stages that I just described
are wrong by any means these are in fact the greatest forehands in the world so these are
not technical flaws these are stylistic elements and most likely these players have always hit the
forehand in this way and they developed muscle memory and it works extremely well for them
but here's the question what if you were to copy these forehands let's say you fall in love with
one of these Styles and you wanted to copy what would happen to your forehand so what's going
to happen is the following there's going to be some styles that are going to be more difficult
to copy than others now remember I don't want you to copy any style but if you were going to copy a
style the most difficult one to copy is the one that Tiafoe Zverev Hurkacz and Sinner employ and
that is when the racket is pointed towards the outside the racket being parallel to the ground
and then dropping from here the reason why this is a tough style to copy because you got to think
about it logically the racket will have to travel quite a big way to get into the lag stage remember
this is a fundamental element of the forehand you gotta achieve this if you want to play tennis at
the high level so if you are going from here to here there is a lot of movement there and this is
going to be tough to copy and I do a tremendous amount of video analysis and I see all kinds
of forehands from recreational players that are trying to adapt these Pro techniques and the most
common mistake that I see from players who try to adapt this style is that they don't possess enough
acceleration what ends up happening is that the racket never goes into this place the number one
mistake is they try to drop the racket like Tiafoe and the tip is towards the outside now the racket
goes to about right here they don't get enough lag on their forehand now the vast majority of players
they try to copy Federer's forehand experience the exact same thing and while the forehands
of Federer Aliasimme Nadal Beretinni look a lot cleaner and these are in fact more simplified
ways of taking the racket back compared to somebody like a Sinner where the racket is
going back at a more diagonal level and then dropping here this looks very clean but you
got to remember that now they achieve pretty much the same position that someone like a
Tiafoe or a Zverev or a Sinner is in it is actually the same position of the racket
head it's just a different way of getting there so this is Sinner and this is Federer
both of them end up in the same way and now fact is that the racket has to travel from this
position to this position and at the recreational level this is something that's going to be tough
to accomplish and again a super important thing for you to understand is that these are some
of the best forehands in the world this works phenomenally well for players like Federer Nadal
Beretinni they have absolutely no problem to go from here to here they possess enough acceleration
maybe they have fast hands and they've develop an incredible amount of muscle memory over all these
years that they're perfectly fine having this type of style on the forehand but what if it
doesn't come natural to you now this type of style might not fit your genetic predispositions and all
of a sudden you're trying to copy Federers take back and you end up going only to here in your
lag phase and as a result of that your forehand is going to lack range of motion and you're not
going to get the type of power that you want to achieve so what I sometimes will use as a
corrective method is I tell people to take the racket a little bit further back ala Djokovic
Wawrinka Shapovalov or Fernando Gonzalez back in the day where the racket is going all the way
back towards the back fence now don't confuse this with the position of the strings because
someone like a alcaraz or a rublev have a very similar take back to Someone Like A Djokovic or
Wawrinka the only difference is that the strings are orientated differently so an Alcaraz doesn't
have the strings pointed towards the back fence his strings are pointing towards the side fence but it
takes the racket back the same way Djokovic does the racket does not drop on the side it drops in
the back and so what happens when the racket drops in the back is that the racket doesn't have to
cover that much ground so we need to achieve this position and we only have to go from here to here
as opposed to going from here to here this is a more simple way to achieve the lag position on
the forehand so in essence while this might sound weird Carlos Alcaraz forehand and a Novak Djokovic
forehand wawrinka forehand is a cleaner forehand compared to Nadal and Federer there are
additional movements on federer on nadal compared to someone like Alcaraz or Djokovic or Wawrinka
those forehands are cleaner because there's less movement in that lag phase and I'm going to read
you a portion of an article that just came out in the New York Times titled so the forehand is
your best shot you sure question mark most players hit forehands harder and with more spin seeking a
better chance to seize the control of the point and yet that greatest strength may also be the
greatest weakness despite the perils players attacked the opposition's forehand while serving
and during rally because the forehand is also less stable and more likely to result in an unforced
error especially on a faster indoor court like the one for this tournament around 90 percent of the
time a player's forehand is stronger so you fear it more but it isn't always the most consistent said
Steve Johnson Michael Russell said the forehand is a bigger swing and more complex shot technically
so it is absolutely true that while the forehand is one of the most powerful shots in tennis and
players will continue to run around their backhands with because it's a lot easier to hit winners
with the forehand than the backhand this is even true for players who have better backhands than
forehand someone like a Benoit Paire who has a better backhand than forehand you're still going
to see him run around his backhand because the forehand is such a stronger shot but it is also
100 true that the forehand is the technically more complex shot and it is the overall bigger
shot so when we're talking about the preparation stage and if you're someone who likes to copy the
pros adding more length to your stroke meaning if you're copying some of these players with longer
preparation stages of the racket is going towards the outside and going from here to here this is
going to be a more difficult forehand to pull off than someone like a Djokovic where the racket is
going all the way back and then going from here to here in essence you are simplifying the take
back portion of the shot and you're more likely going to be able to accelerate more powerfully
remember this the reason why I leave it up to the player to develop their own take back intuitively
because some players are going to have a faster arm some players are going to have a slower arm
now in the age of the internet and many people watching slow motion clips on YouTube a lot of
you guys are trying to copy the pros and what I'm forced to do as a coach with the amount of
video analysis that I do I have to correct some of the things that you have been copying so if
you are one of those players who is trying hard to copy this style of forehand you have
trouble with it you can film yourself in slow motion and if you see that your racket is not
going back very far this means that this type of take back is not benefiting your forehand
at all you're better off taking the racket a little bit further back because when it comes
to fundamentals this part is not a fundamental element this is a stylistic element but what
is a fundamental element is that that racket lags behind in the forward phase of the stroke