Hey everyone, Simon here with Top Tennis Training and in this video we're going
to break down and analyze Roger Federer's game.
So we're going to take a closer look at each element of his game
we're going to study and analyze exactly what he does
what makes that stroke or that part of his game so good
and what we can copy and utilize in our own game.
So let's look at the serve to begin, now this is the foundation of Federer's
entire game.
Federer manages to hold his service games 88.8%
off the time
now this is slightly ahead of Pete Sampras who many consider
to be the greatest server in the history of the sport. Sampras held serve 88.7
percent of the time so Federer is slightly ahead.
Federer is right at the top in terms of holding his service games
there are only a couple of players ahead of him this includes players
like John Isner and Ivo Karlovic and a few other giants
he's won 56.8% of all points that he plays
on his second serve. so what makes Federer's serve so good and
what can we copy and actually use in our own game so
there's two main things that stand out between federer and most other players
the first one is his accuracy so his ability to hit
different spots within the service boxes but also his
disguise his ability to hide where he's going and
make his serve really unreadable the foundation of federer serve is he
uses a platform stance now the platform stance is used by
players like djokovic pete sampras and dominic team
so they keep their feet around shoulder width apart
all the way through their motion so federer starts off
on his front foot like so
and from this position federer's main source of power comes from that leg
drive that explosive down and up action
and this is something that we can all try to copy and try to use
on our own surf to have an explosive leg drive
regardless of the stance you could be someone who uses that platform stands
or you can use the pinpoint stance either way you want to feel that you're
going down and up as explosively as possible
now a common error that a lot of players will do on their serve
regardless of stance is they'll use mainly their front leg
for that leg drive whereas with federer you can see that he uses
both legs equally as well so he's pushing off his left leg he's pushing
off his front leg but he's also using his back leg to
explode up
so he isn't doing a common error which is going on that front leg too early
which then makes this back leg almost die it's not really doing
his job whereas with federer you'll see him going into that knee bend
he'll have his body weight on both legs and he's driving with both legs
now if you're playing federer or you're returning his serve
you would see his back facing towards you
now many players they'll serve front on or side on you'll see
the left shoulder if they're right-handed player when they're going
into that knee bend into that power position so you would
see their body slightly changing depending on the serve
they're going to hit so being a returner if i'm facing
federer i would see his back instead of the left side of his body now
from this position federer can disguise his serve very well
if he wants to go out wide on the outside he can stay side
on for longer if he wants to hit a kick serve he can
do the exact same motion and just stay side on all the way
through that contact point now if he wants to go down the t he can
then open up his shoulders a little bit earlier so that uncoiling
motion will happen quicker and if he wants to hit a serve
into the player's body he can do the same motion all the way
through and just change the angle of the strings
and change the spin that he uses but his motion always stays
the same so as a returner it becomes almost
impossible to read where federer is serving because his
motion always stays the same so he's always keeping his ball toss and
his service motion the same which makes it
very unreadable so those elements we can all try to copy
on our own serve we can try to make ourselves unreadable
by keeping the ball toss in a similar zone or using the same ball
toss for each serve and being able to adapt just with our
racket and the angle of the strings and we can try to use our legs to really
explode up into that ball so that down and up that loading and
unloading and if we can really use both legs
equally as well to explode up into the ball then we'll
be maximizing the power from the leg drive now let's break down
and analyze the fedora forehand so many people would say that federer
has the greatest forehand of all time technically it's perfect and there are a
few things that we can all copy from federer's
forehand and we'll get into that in just a second but let's firstly look
at some of the stats so federer hits around 73 of all his
winners from the baseline with his forehand now
the variety on federer's forehand is what sets his forehand apart from
many other players he can hit with aggressive topspin but
he can also flatten out that forehand when he wants to now his spin rate is
very high when he goes for that heavy topspin shot
he can hit with 4500 rpm on the ball so revolutions per
minute on that tennis ball but he can also go
down all the way to 1000 only when he wants to hit that flatter shot
so his range goes from 1000 rpm up to 4500 rpm
so this variety will make him be able to do
everything that he wants to with that forehand when he wants to hit a short
angle he can increase the rpm and hit that
heavier top spin shot to take the player off the court when he
wants to hit that flatter down the line shot
or the flatter inside out forehand shot where he can start to dictate play
or hit the winner he can do so now federer uses
a eastern forehand grip
it's a grip that nominee pros will use most pros will use the semi-western
so the eastern forehand grip is if you took your hand
and you placed it on your strings like so and you slide the hand down now
until you reach the bottom of the grip the index knuckle
would be on bevel three so so the palm of the hand is very
open towards that contact point when you make contact with that eastern forehand
grip now i also use the eastern forehand grip
and i've tried the semi-western i've played with the western and i can
say that the eastern allows for that variation
because when you want more spin you can produce it using
a slightly different racket angle and when you want to flatten out you can
also hit through that ball much more but for most players they'll
use that semi-western because this will allow that spin to be
produced in an easier way now federer really engages his core
muscles extremely well during his forehead so at the start of
his forehand his racket head is higher than the grip
level which is creating that leverage right from the beginning of the stroke
so as soon as federer recognizes that he can hit his forehand
his first step is coiling the upper body
storing energy in the trunk muscles and then helping him also
to prepare that racket from this position if federer does nothing with
his hands but simply coils he's already got the racket back more
than 50 percent of the weight so from this position he's coiling the
upper body this is storing that energy especially in those oblique
muscles the side abdominal muscles and then as he uncoils he'll be
producing a lot of that rotational power throughout that contact point
so he's storing the energy and he's keeping the racket head higher than the
grip level now once he gets into that kind of power
position he'll start to drop the rack ahead so he
has the non-hitting hand across the body he has the racket head higher than the
grip which gives him that space to accelerate
from that position he'll now start to close the strings
so the side of the strings he's going to make contact with will be facing
the ground now this is very important in the federer forehand
because this is what allows him to have that 4500 rpm on the ball
when he wants to because he's closing the strings
his racket angle now prior to contact is very closed
and as he brushes the ball he can then produce that heavy
aggressive topspin
now federer was to drop the racket like so he'd be able to produce a very flat
shot but spin would be a real issue because
of his grip but by closing the strings now he's able
to produce that heavy spin he'll then be able to brush over the top
of the ball very quickly with that windshield wiper motion
producing that aggressive spin
but when he wants to flatten out his forehand from this position what he'll
do is he'll start that racket lag phase and
the side of the strings he's going to hit the ball with
would then be facing the right side of the court
so it'd be this position and this position
now from here he'll make contact and keep his string slightly longer towards
that target and then he'll use the windshield wiper
motion to finish the forehand so he's manipulating the angle of the
strings prior to and during that contact zone this allows
him to produce that heavy spin or to produce that flatter shot when he
needs to now federer also has great racket lag prior to contact and he
has that extended arm that allows him to make contact way out
in front of his body so let's go over that racket leg first
so from this position what happens is federer starts to uncoil
the body the shoulders start to open up he started to drive into the shop with
his legs so he's using that ground force and this allows this racket now to lag
behind the grip and the hand so the rack ahead
is lagging behind in this position
and this is achieved from being relaxed from being loose and from using
the kinetic chain in the right way now federer uses the extended arm forehand
which means his arm is fully extended or close to full
extension when he's making contact
so he's making contact way out in front of his body and he's keeping his head
still on that point of contact so he's really tracking the ball well
until he makes contact with that ball
from this position federer will use a variety of finishes
but his main one is the across the chest finish
so he's making contact he starts to close the racket face
he starts to come on top of the ball with that windshield wiper motion
and then the racket will finish across his chest and he's almost pulling in the
racket using the right bicep muscle so relax
relax relax and then finishing across the chest
so what can we copy from the fedora forehand the first thing is that coil
with the upper body so as early as possible as soon as you
recognize you can hit your forehand try to get this left shoulder if you're
a right-handed player coiling up from this position i'm simply
turning my shoulders and you can see what's happening with my
racket head i'm going from this front on position
to a side on position front on side on so by doing this coil
i've already got my racket half of the way through that whole preparation phase
from here now i can just let go with this non-hitting hand
my racket gets into the power position and i'm already set
to hit that shot the other thing we can work on is achieving that racket lag
so trying to get the bottom of the racket pointing
towards the ball prior to actually making contact
this will give us more power and more control over that shot
in part two of this lesson we'll break down the federer backhand
his footwork and the way he wins points this
is a lesson that you don't want to miss out on so part 2 will be available to
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you'll be getting the lesson very shortly if you're not an email
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best and see you soon now something that makes federer's
backend quite unique and different to many other pros
is his flexibility on that follow through
so as he makes contact he'll change the way he actually finishes the shot
now federer's slice can produce 5300 rpm on the ball this is more than the dow's
forehand his footwork is the glue that gels his
entire game together it's what allows him to defend
to actually have that chance to then attack
and there are three main steps that we can all learn from when it comes to
federer's footwork