Hello! Gregg Le Sueur here for Online Tennis Instruction.
Welcome to the Roger Federer
forehand analysis series. We can admire his excellence and are going to look at
what makes Rogers forehand so great and how you can apply some of these key
fundamentals to your own game. This is the advantage of slow-motion feedback as
we can really see what he is doing. In this first video we're going to talk
about his grip which allows him to have a very versatile forehand.
Roger uses an Eastern forehand grip where his base knuckle and heel pad on
the third bevel. You can see how we find this group by looking at the diagram and
also by searching the 'online tennis instruction grips video' here on YouTube
what's interesting is that he appears to vary his exact hand placement. Sometimes
he may be right in the middle of the third bevel. In these videos we can see
that he has a modified Eastern group whereas in the bottom part of bevel 3. It
may be part of his mastery where he intentionally positions his knuckle and
heel pad low on the bevel to impart more topspin. So I'd like to quickly clarify
what I mean by the middle of 3 and the bottom side of 3 and also discussed
where 3.5 is. So if you look at the grip here we've got them numbered 1, 2, 3, & 4
those are the bevels and this bottom line here that is we consider 3.5. It's
the ridge between bevel 3 and bevel 4. Now Federer you sometimes see him with
his base knuckle is in the middle of 3 so you see this dotted line here
it's almost lined up his base knuckle heel pad on that middle part. Now in the
videos that we have on display we can see that he's hitting more towards
the bottom side of 3 and what I mean by that is it's this panel that's
between the dotted line and the solid line. So he is on the bottom side of 3
where he's not on 3.5 in the ridge but he's actually still got his knuckle on
the flat pot but it's sort of between the dollar line and that
solid line. He's more in this position that's what I mean by the bottom
side of 3 and the middle slot, middle part of 3 would be along that dotted
line.
Okay let's watch Roger execute a
forehand and then let's look at the completion and notice where the index
knuckle is placed and you can see that's on the bottom side of the third bevel.
Now we're gonna take a look at the placement of his heel pad right as he
lines up to hit the ball. You can see how the heel pad is on that third bevel. This
indicates that he is using an Eastern forehand grip or group number three.
Now let's take a look at how he waits in his ready position with a neutral grip.
He will then adjust his grip for topspin as he turns for his forehand. Most
importantly, the advantages of this grip structure is when he returns serve! With
his Eastern forehand grip he can take a very short backswing and very quickly
align his strings to his target. This allows him to stand in closer and cut
off his opponent's serve angles.
Having a neutral grip in his ready position
enables him to quickly change to his backhand grip when returning which can
be a big advantage to one-handed players. This allowed him to execute the famous
'Sabre' return.
Now let's take a look at some examples of him adjusting his grip
during his unit turn.
This grip also gives him a lot of different options. He can hit a lot of
topspin by increasing the upward angle of his swing path, he can also flatten
the shot out by extending more and reducing the upward swing angle.
It's also great for disguise! Not only does his unit turn with his racket tip up
allow him to take advantage of gaining speed on the drop through gravity but it
also allows him to disguise drop shots as seen here.
So this concludes the first
part of this three-part series on Roger Federer's forehand. In the next video we
will talk about how Roger uses his body to generate power!
Thank you for watching!
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