Hey guys I received a lot of requests to make a video on the topic of Roger
Federer's racket head on his forehand. And what happens of many of Rogers
forehands is that he will make contact with a neutral position of the racket
head and then shortly after he has made contact the racket head will close in
this way and to check this out all you got to do is go to Google type in Roger
Federer's forehand then go on the Google image search and you will see a
lot of pictures exactly like this Rogers racket head is completely flat after
contact and this is puzzling to many players and I've done a lot of research
on this topic and I know exactly why this is taking place. Let's first talk
about how the racket face should be positioned at the moment of contact on
the forehand. So the racket face should be neutral and what would happen if you
closed the racket face is that the ball would have very little chance to go over
the net. See the trajectory would go straight down with a closed racket face.
Now this might work if you're in close proximity to the net and you get a
higher ball then a indeed close racket face might work out okay but in the vast
majority of the forehands you do need a neutral racquet face at the moment of
contact if you want the ball to go over the net. And some players are also
confused thinking that you do need a closed racket face to make topspin. This
is not the case. You can make topspin with a neutral racquet face. Topspin is
created when we vertically go over the ball in this fashion and we do not need
to close the racquet face to make this happen. You can see here as I'm going
vertically over the ball the ball is rotating in this manner and this is
indeed topspin. And the contact on the forehand is over so quickly that players
are not consciously executing any movements of the racquet face. Naturally
through repetition and muscle memory players will figure out without being
conscious of it how to position the racquet face at the moment of contact. So
there will at times indeed close the racquet face a little bit, possibly
if the ball is a little bit higher and if they're closer to the net and other
times and the vast majority of cases the racquet face will be neutral. So what
happens on Rogers forehand? Why is the racquet face so severely closing
after he makes contact? And Roger is not the only player that has his racquet
face closed after the moment of contact. Other players such as Nadal and Djokovic
will also close the racquet head after the moment of contact but on Rogers case he
does do it more frequently when he strikes forehands. So the reason why the
racket face is closing is quite simple. Roger is making contact below the center
of the string bed. So if we have the center of the string bed here if we hit
the ball the racket head will remain neutral as we finish the strokes however
if we make contact below the center of the string bed the racket face will
naturally close. You got to remember there's a lot of power being executed on
the forehand. If we strike the ball very powerfully below the center naturally
the racket head will close. It is also the case that if you do make contact
above the center of the racket the racket face will open. And you will
sometimes see this on the WTA Tour where players will make contact above the
center of the string bed and then the racket face will open up. So if you make
contact below the center does this negatively affect the stroke? Not at
all. You are still hitting the ball clean. This is not to be confused with the
frame shot. If you hit the ball too close to the frame of course you will lose
control of it and not be able to keep the ball in play however if you make
contact slightly below the center somewhere in this area you will still be
able to regain full control of the ball and Roger often hits these type of forehands
for winners. So is Roger consciously hitting the ball
at this spot? Not at all. Roger is not aware of the moment of contact just like
any other player. It's over in a couple of milliseconds and it's just simply too
fast for any human brain to process but what happens on Rogers forehand is a
combination of several factors. Number one he plays with an Eastern grip. This
is important to understand why this is happening. So in an Eastern forehand grip
the hand will be more behind the racquet when contact is made and now Roger's swing
path is an up across and back swing path and what he does he will start the up
part of the swing a tad prior to making contact with the ball. So if this
is the ball and Roger will start coming up on the ball prior to making
contact so that then naturally he meets it below the center of the string bed. So
if he comes at it straight like this he will meet it in the middle and it does
take place sometimes on Roger but often he will start going up before he makes
contact with the ball naturally resulting in a contact that's
below the center of the string bed. And also because Roger is using an Eastern
grip because his hand is more behind the racquet naturally there is less resistance
to the racket and the racket is more likely to close compared to having a
semi-western grip where the hand will be more underneath the racket and there's
more support there the racket is less likely to close when this grip is used.
Okay guys so let's try out a few forehands. So first I'm going to hit my
normal forehand in a semi-western grip and we'll take a look at how the racket
face is positioned when I make contact and what happens immediately after
contact. So here's my normal forehand. So I'm pretty sure that the racket
face was neutral here.
So let's try to do the Roger Federer forehand and we're going to go into an
Eastern grip and also I'm going to start visualizing and upwards type swing
before I make contact. So I'm going to try to go a little early on the up
across and back motion and let's see what happens to the racket head as a
result of that.
So you can see on that forehand that the racket face did indeed close and all I
had to do it to make this happen is initiate the upward parts of the swing a
tad early. And just show you that this doesn't influence the stroke in a
negative way I'm gonna try to do it again. So I'm gonna be in an Eastern grip
I'm gonna try to initiate the upward part of the swing early
And even if you have a semi-western grip
or western grip you can benefit a lot from initiating the upward part of the
swing early. Now the racket face might not necessarily close but this is
something that you're not going to be conscious of anyway. So let me try a few
of my forehands and I'm also going to try to initiate the upward part of the
swing a little bit early.
So even on those forehands the racket face might have not necessarily closed
as much as it did with the Eastern grip but I felt like I gained a lot of
control. I felt the ball had a lot more safety on it and with a lot of
repetition as I gradually start putting power on this particular shot this can
turn into a really good forehand where I can have a lot of spin. I can have a
lot of control and I can get a lot of power.