in today's video I want to show you the difference between the J slice and the U
slice and I'm also going to tell you which slice you should adapt at the recreational level but
before we get started let's talk about backhand slice fundamentals first and there's a lot of
confusion in how a backhand slice should be struck some people have to believe that you should slice
forward as if you're clearing a table to your side like this in fact slices used to be hit like this
for example Ken Rosewall and it is absolutely true that you can create under spin if you hit in
a linear way as long as your racket face is open because if you strike the ball with an open racket
face you will get the ball to spin like this which is under spin the only problem with that is
that you will not only lose power because you're disconnecting the ball from your body by steering
it forward and getting it further away from your core but also because of that open racket face a
lot of your slices will have a tendency to sit up if you hit the ball too hard and there's a
danger of hitting the ball too long the purpose of a slice backhand is for the ball to be as low
as possible so that your opponent has to bend and give you an easy ball to attack on the next shot
the fundamental way of hitting a modern slice is in the following way you have to hit the
ball high to low this is what creates slices not an open racket face because players strike
the ball further behind because you have to understand that the more in front you
go with your racket the more the racket face opens up the closer you hit the ball to your
body naturally in the Continental grip the racket face will be more closed it will be
sometimes a little bit open depending on the height of the ball but generally it's
more of a closed racket face which will result in a lower trajectory of the ball
now you're probably thinking Nick how do you get slice if you have a neutral racket face
well we're going to have to go from a high position to a low position and continue going
low and you can see that the ball is indeed spinning in this way which is under spin
so when you look at high level players in the modern era you will not see a
linear slice you will see a slice that's hit across the body in a circular way
so that is a fundamental element of a modern slice backhand however there are some stylistic
variations among players and in today's video I'm going to choose three players to show you those
stylistic variations the first player I'm going to use as an example is Roger Federer and he hits
what I call a j slice so Federer starts very high his hand is somewhere around his left ear
he starts higher than most other players and now Federer will have a very vertical attack onto the
ball he will attack the ball vertically like this and the racket will stop somewhere on this side
so it looks like a letter J he starts very high goes very vertically onto the ball and then stops
somewhere around here when you strike your slice like this you are guaranteed to get a lot of under
spin from this vertical attack but it's not only that you will also get an extremely low trajectory
now here lies the danger of this slice it's very difficult to get the ball over the net
because what happens once you make contact with the ball you're going straight down so
this requires excellent hands excellent timing if you want to pull this off on a
consistent basis let me try one more time I did a little bit better there so this
is a slice it's extremely effective but it's very difficult to pull off
a much easier stylistic variation on the slice is that U slice and this is what
Novak Djokovic utilizes on his slice backhand and the approach to the ball is vertical just
like Federer but something interesting happens shortly after contact the racket goes across
the body but it doesn't continue going down quite as much as on the J slice so on the U
slice what Djokovic does he goes vertically down towards the ball and then levels the racket off
and comes back on this side the slice will look like a letter U it'll start somewhere around here
Djokovic has a tendency to start a little bit lower as well but other players with the U slice
will start somewhere around their non-dominant shoulder it will go vertically down to the ball
level the racket out and then come back on this side and finish somewhere around their dominant
shoulder so it looks like a letter u so naturally the trajectory on a u slice compared to the J
slice will be a little bit higher so it's a lot easier to get the ball over the net and that's
the reason why I recommend the u slice for the recreational level not only will you naturally get
a higher trajectory but because you are going a little bit higher on this side you will also get
more power it's somewhat similar to hitting a one-handed backhand and drawing the energy
more from your shoulder so it's going to be not only easier to get the ball over the net but it's
also going to be easier to apply power onto the ball if you execute your slice with the u-shape
now how about my favorite player Rafael Nadal well he doesn't use either one of these slices
he does something that's quite unusual because he doesn't have much of a finish so he very much
depends on the pace of the incoming ball Nadal will start somewhere around his non-dominant
shoulder and he will abruptly stop the racket somewhere around here so he does go across the
body but the racket doesn't come up like it does on djokovic it doesn't continue to go
down like federer nadal will absorb the pace from the incoming ball he will give the
ball under spin because he is coming high to low and then across but he will make
his slice movement a lot more compact than most other players so let me try this out of course
it's not going to work perfectly because I don't have that pace of the incoming Ball
but this is what Nadal slice looks like it's an Abrupt stoppage on the dominant side of the body
so here's the deal guys it's super important not to confuse Style with fundamentals and
I just released a brand new course on my website intuitivetennis.com that you can
access with a seven day free trial and if you decide to stick with it it's only 14.99
per month after that and this course explains the so important difference
between style and fundamentals on all Strokes so the fundamentals of a modern
one-handed backhand slice is that you start high I suggest somewhere around your non-dominant
shoulder that you have a vertical approach to the ball because that's what creates under spin
naturally if you allow your racket to continue to go down it will turn into a circular swing path
and not a linear swing path and now what happens on this side of the body is absolutely style now
the style that is going to be the easiest for you to adapt is going to be the U Style
but generally when we talk about Styles it is perfectly fine for you to experiment so
next time you go on a court you can try the Rafa slice you can try the Federer slice and
you can try the Djokovic slice and quickly you will figure out which one works best for you