Hi guys Nick here from Intuitive Tennis. Today I want to show you three different
ways to slice the backhand. So the three different ways to hit a slice is
basically the Federer, the Nadal and the Djokovic slice. And these slices are
going to differentiate in the finish and when it comes to the fundamental parts
of the slice you can go back to my slice fundamental video and those
things are going to be exactly the same among these three players. The difference
is going to be in the preparation slightly and in the finish. So the three different
ways to slice the backhand are basically the Federer way, the Nadal way and
the Djokovic way and let's start off with Federer.
So what Federer does on his slice, he takes the racquet and further behind his
body than most other players and you almost the racquet being behind his head
if you imagine me hitting forward the racquet will start off like this and now
when he makes contact a little bit closer to his body here he hits a cross
but now the tip of the racket on most of his slices will go down and the reason
for this is, Federer always tries to bring the other person in. Of course
sometimes you can hit the slice very deep too, but Federer has this amazing
ability to hit the ball extremely hard on the slice and also extremely short
and low over the net and so the ball is dipping. It's got a lot of speed
on it and the opponent has to get down to the ball and Federer can draw an
error this way or the other person can come in with a weak approach shot and
then Federer has a look for an easy pass. I do not recommend this technique to
recreational players. I've found a great amount of difficulty in getting the
ball over the net with this technique as it has very little lift and it requires
great racket skills to hit the ball over the net with the tip pointing down
like this. Take a look in the slow motion when I attempted to do the Federer slice.
The second way to hit the slice backhand is in the Nadal way and Nadal actually
has the very similar take back to Federer.
He takes the racquet behind his head like this and then on the finish he actually
has a tip of the racket pointing towards the other side like this. It's kind of a
shorter finish and then he has the ball kind of go deep it doesn't go quite low
because he doesn't have that Federer dip and Nadal uses this slice as more of a
change of pace. You know he has tremendous amount of topspin and then
every now and then on the slice backhand he will do one of these shots and it
takes all the pace out of the ball and the ball will have a lot of rotation and
under spin on it, because he does have a high starting point and this is
something that I do recommend for recreational players. You can try this
out and it works especially well if you have a lot of pace coming with you and
you can use that pace and you just simply hit a cross and have the tip of
the racquet point towards the destination of the ball.
The third and final way to hit the slice backhand is the Djokovic way and
this is the most used technique on the slice backhand worldwide. This is
something that I use personally so I'm very comfortable with this technique and
here's what it is. It's a lower starting position so the racquet doesn't quite go
behind the head like Federer and Nadal does, so maybe about shoulder and it
doesn't go behind the body either it starts here and now their contact point
just like any other slice it's gonna be a little closer to the body and now what
Djokovic does he hits a cross but then the tip of the racket has a tendency to
go up a little bit higher so it's more of a u-shape. It goes from the left
shoulder across the body and to the right shoulder and with this the slice
has it's very effortless power and you can hit the ball pretty hard. It doesn't
go quite as low as the Federer slice for example, but I feel like it's very
effortless. You can get great length on your slice and you can get
great power. One thing you have to keep in mind on the Djokovic slice is that it
does require a little bit more upper body rotation on Federer and Nadal and
the racquet stops here or it stops here and so it's a very minimal amount of
rotation. On the Djokovic slice there's going to be a little bit more upper body
rotation to accommodate this finish and it also is one explanation why this is a
more effortless shot because we're using a little bit more of the whole body.
When it comes to recreational players my recommendation is the Djokovic slice.
It's the easiest one to learn it has the greatest amount of net clearance and
also has a great amount of under spin and power. So try it out at home.
To recap you basically don't have to have the racquet wrap around you like
this. You start off shoulder height. You get a nice big shoulder turn like this
and now you hit the ball not too far in front because it's gonna open your
racquet face and you hit it a little bit closer to your body and now you hit a
cross you come around with the upper body a little bit then you allow the
racket to go up towards the shoulder like this. Thank you guys for watching
this video I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a comment in the section below if
you have any questions I will definitely answer. Hit that like button and
subscribe if you haven't already. See you next time.