Listen and learn is all I can say!
This is a great opportunity to see the future of tennis.
This book is a study of recommended tennis practice using the Science of
Biomechanics. It developed over many years of practical study and coaching.
Biomechanics is not a robotic science but a scientific way of examining natural movement and correcting it towards a particular purpose, such as good tennis practice. The study also provides corrective action, so as to avoid injury.
The purpose of this book is to provide coaches and players with technical information which is usually too scientific for coaches and athletes, in sports science publications. Conversely, it is not unusual to hear that many coaches and players find traditional coaching books quite lame. I hope you find the book informative, thought provoking, relatively easy to understand and user friendly on the tennis court.
This is the first volume in a series of books on various sports. Other volumes in the series are currently in publication and will be available soon. There will also be a volume on work posture and injuries.
Always remember that no coaching at all is far better than bad coaching. My :
study invariably shows that the best actions of the championship players are those that have developed naturally, without formal coaching.
First, study the section that deals directly with the basic movement principles.
Much of this section uses Pat Cash and Andre Agassi as models and case studies.
Following this, case studies of various players re-emphasise the good and notso-good practices and outline the potential for injury and restrictive movement.
There will be later editions, where I will include analyses of some emerging players, among others. Please email any suggestions for players you would like included in later volumes. (Any pictures and videos that you would be happy to part with would be gratefully received into my collection.)
The Appendix, which determines the development of models, introduces a little mathematics. If mathematics is not your forte, then skim through this section. You will still pick up the sense of the principles of movement from the case studies.
Enthusiasts will find other useful texts regarding biomechanics and physiology on the internet and in university libraries. However, rarely, sometimes the terms in these texts may be badly defined or incorrect. For example, the following chart (Fig. 1) shows the summation of parts, implying that movement starts at the feet - whereas movement starts from the body centre. The next chart
(Fig. 2) is one I have simplified. A more accurate graph is very complex. Body segments have replaced joints. You will experience difficulties if you think of joints producing force and rotating within themselves.
Figure 1: Biomechanics of Movement (Source: http://www.coachr.org/biomechanics.htm)
Figure 2: Biomechanics of Movement - simplified and adapted by Brad Langevad
In addition, because of gravity, and the attachment of the body to the ground via the feet, the bias of movement is towards the lower body segments. This is why the lower torso, albeit over-lapping the upper torso, begins rotation first (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3a). If Pat was performing this forehand in space, then the movement would be more central, with the lower and upper body more equal with respect to force and time (Fig 3b).
Sadly, science has been discredited by pseudoscience when captured by politics and support funding. Scepticism and honest transparent study are still the hallmarks of good science. In the world of tennis coaching it takes only one person with ‘pseudo-celebrity’ status to teach an error, and all others will follow.
Consequently, failure and injury set in.
Over 20 years ago a coach loved my work so much that, with my direction and permission, she started a company in Europe promoting my theories. She then had to face her own students and tell them that she had been teaching them incorrectly for 10 years. She could not do it, so she taught the old clients with the old method and the new clients with my new methods. I closed the company.
My good friend and Wimbledon Champion, Pat Cash, uses much of my study to keep himself competitive on the Champions Tour. Anders Jarryd, the champion
Swedish player, was a ‘bogey man’ for Pat during their years on the ATP Tour proper. Anders lost to Pat in a devastating fashion in the final of a London
Champions event. In the dressing room, Anders said to me that Pat was a much better player now than when he was on tour; and Pat at his peak was regarded as one of if not the best in the world on the ATP Tour.
Some readers may regard this study as unorthodox; however, Pat knows that it gets results. Using my models as a guide, Pat transformed his game and lengthened his career by eliminating injury. He has been a dominant force on the ATP Champions Tour. I have used my photographs of Pat’s shots for comparative purposes throughout the book.
Pat Cash came to me regarding his forehand and serve. These were his weakest elements and were causing him grief and injury. Pat, his family and I went to
Bermuda for three months, and Pat rented a house with a clay court. Pat and I worked for hours each morning and afternoon; hitting, filming, re-hitting and re-filming in scorching 100° F (38° C) temperatures and with dripping wet humidity. We studied footage at breakfast and in the evening. Pat, being Pat, was relentless in devoting himself to getting his game fixed before he resumed playing in tournaments. He was ‘full on’ whenever required. That took courage.
After we fixed Pat’s forehand and serve, he wanted to look at his backhand, and other strokes. Pat Cash was one of the greatest volleyers, if not the greatest volleyer ever! I had to swallow the lump in my throat when I told him that his volleys could be better, as I could sense his hackles rising. But he took it on, chewed it up and spat it out. What courage it took for Pat, who had such great volleys, to rethink them. Each of us is different, and none of us will be understood fully. Some people have genes and backgrounds that make it extremely difficult for them to challenge themselves, to make significant changes, with the same fearlessness of a “Pat Cash”. Just do your best!
This is not a book designed to criticise coaches. Any seemingly derogatory comments about coaches are directed purely at the problems that all coaches and players are faced with, due to unresearched teaching methods. Fresh off the tennis circuit, and before I began my research at university, | coached using the most bizarre beliefs. I should have been ‘tarred and feathered’ and jailed for life.
I gave the top Junior player in Australia the most atrocious serve, and he quit tennis. Later, I bought him dinner, and apologised. Nor is there any intention to pick on professional tennis players. I think that the analysis of top players is more interesting for the reader than viewing unknown players. And the average amateur club player has many more errors in technique. It can get pretty ugly.
We are surrounded by books, magazines, newspapers, TV commentators, coaching manuals, club members, friends and family, and all are keen to tell us how everything in tennis should be done. Most LTAs grew from a couple of people trying to stop others coaching, whom they regarded as inferior. Possibly one said to another, ‘You have a good forehand. Let’s make that our LTA technique.’ We may respond by saying, ‘Judge not, until you judge yourself’. As frustrating as it is, | would really like to see the end of the ‘bull’ that exists in the coaching world, but I have had to be forgiving, as we all make mistakes. Let’s try to get it right!
Sometimes, the most obvious solution to a problem is not the one that first comes to mind, and humanity may improve immensely by looking ‘outside the box’. In my seminars, I found that approximately 33% of participants understood totally, 33% understood somewhat and 33% just didn’t get it — even though the evidence was right in front of them. Whatever category you may fall into, please persevere. Let your mind extend beyond your current methods and beliefs.
When I finished playing tennis, frustrated by chronic injuries and flaw-riddled shots, | began coaching. I was discussing a certain topic regarding the serve with one of my tennis playing mates when we were practising. He brought up an idea that I thought was crazy. What had been taught to me about the serve was the opposite of his theory, and I was strongly against his idea. About a month later, I got it! That idea is now one of the principles in this book. (For ease of | comparison, left-hander players have been mirrored into right-handers.) s
The next couple of pages contain some heavy mathematical and scientific material. Number benders, like me, will love it. If you can grasp as much of the
Maths as possible, in time you will find everything else so much easier to grasp.
The case studies appear after the basic principles, and their content is much more digestible for the sportsman and layman. During the next section on the basic principles, Pat Cash and Andre Agassi are the primary case studies. This section contains more detail and, consequently, a bit of heavy stuff, such as the description of planes of axis. It becomes a lot easier in the following section that describes the basic principles with relation to numerous other professional tennis players. As you read through each case study, you should find that something you did not quite understand before now becomes clearer. Hang in there!
Please feel free to email any questions to the me at:
Enjoy!
ver 20 years ago, I began to research body angles. Fortunately, at this Ce. computer video graphics software was being introduced. To compare athletes, I developed the process of comparing two or more players, at similar times, on different sides of the screen. This invention was highlighted on international TV shows: Sky Sports, CNN, BBC, Beyond 2000, How Do They
Do That? and National Geographic, among others.
The ‘split screen’ also provided a clear way to illustrate improvement areas for clients. This method was also fantastic for showing and comparing ‘before’ and
‘after’ results following coaching sessions.
Biomechanically, the forehand is the easiest to begin with, so the forehand is described extensively and the other tennis shots are described with fewer examples. Otherwise I would be repeating myself, especially with regard to the principles. Therefore, in many ways, the other tennis shots are described as being variations on the forehand shot. The principles are fundamentally the same throughout all shots in tennis and all actions in other sports.
The position of the feet defines the relationship between the player and the field of play. When the body is too ‘front-on’ to the target, it makes contact easier and slightly compromises the preparation. If you are too side-on, then you compromise the contact and favour the preparation. If you had to choose between being too side-on or too front-on, being too front-on is the safer side of perfect. If you tried to wash the dishes or shake someone’s hand while standing very side-on, you would feel fairly silly and ineffective. I have no idea where the ‘side-on’ idea came from but I suspect that somebody used it in a textbook, and others just copied.
Even the great players’ forehands (pre -1970) were all front-on: Bill Tilden,
Bobby Riggs, Althea Gibson, Margaret Court, Billie Jean King, Rod Laver,
Tony Roche and Evonne Goolagong Cawley. (Rod Laver had the most complete array of all shots. He was the most natural player, technically, in the game, ever.) I also would include Tony Roche, Jim Courier, Pete Sampras, Ivan Lendl,
Bjorn Borg and Marat Safin in this elite group of forehands. In more recent decades, Agassi produced one of the best forehands that we have ever seen. His position is fantastic.
You can find a suitable position if you set up some targets and rally forehands with your friend. If your position is wrong, your direction will be erratic. If you find the good position then your forehand direction will be approximately in line with the target.
In the photograph below, you can see how Margaret Court had a fantastic, natural, foot position. It would certainly be expected that she would have the left hand too low, because in those days, players carried the second ball in their other hand.
The backhand position is slightly more side-on than the forehand, because of the difference in the backswings. The feet need to accommodate the fact that the hitting arm needs to come across the body. The double-handed backhand requires a more front-on position than the single-handed backhand, as it is more similar to a forehand.
The position on the forehand volley, smash and serve follow the same angles as the forehand. The backhand and backhand volley follow the same angles, and the backhand slice and forehand slice are, effectively, backhand volleys and forehand volleys, respectively. The smash is effectively a serve.
The balance principle describes the relationship between the body and the height of the target. The balance should be perpendicular to the intended height of the action.
Using your targets in practice, you can find your ideal balance by observing whether you are short or long of your target. Pat and Andre Agassi’s balance is superb. They do not hit with excessive topspin and/or high over the net, so they only need to be leaning back slightly, as you can see in the photos below.
The balance on the serve is ‘down’ because you are driving the ball down into the court. The same balance is needed for the slice shots and volleys, and because the slice lifts the ball the downward action is needed. Very high volleys are more like serves and they are hit flatter. Unfortunately one is often forced into a backward balance, on smashes, and more downward action is required by the upper body.
Homeostasis is the ability of a living organism’s system to adjust its internal environment, in order to maintain a stable equilibrium of balance, shape, physiology, temperature and economy of movement dynamics. This is the body’s protective instinct. The words that come to my mind when thinking about homeostasis are...tidy, efficient, minimal, secure and humble.
Michael Jackson’s clever dance style used a minimum amount of space. This had the effect of being very illustrative, focused and concentrated — and all with so little effort.
The ‘shaking hands’ shape of the waist-high forehand is the most biomechanically sound shot in tennis. When technique is natural it appears to be almost invisible. There is effortlessness, as if the players are not trying. They often appear to be ‘floating in space’. When there are idiosyncratic flaws, there is high visibility and a view of extra effort, as if the players are ‘over-trying’.
I believe that people with posture, obesity and injury problems are vulnerable to cancer. From a homeostatic point of view, at the micro-cellular level, it would seem feasible for the cells to divide, unnaturally, to push the space into opening out. It then follows that a tumour could appear in this region. The entirety of our human form requires the care for billions of individual cells, which already deal with their own problems. Pushing these cells into situations of stress may cause them to rebel.
There is really no right or wrong way to describe the planes and axis of rotation.
Sometimes in medicine, anatomists use different terms from those used by biomechanists, for example. Some just use the labels X, Y and Z. The point is to be consistent and to know what you are talking about.
For the purpose of this book, rotation around the transverse axis will be referred to as ‘lateral’. Imagine a spear going through your head and down through your body to your feet. The only way that you can rotate around this axis, without the axis itself moving, is around it, like an ice-skater spinning in one spot. Looking at the image below (Fig. 3), the transverse axis is perpendicular to the transverse plane and it is formed by the intersection of the coronal and the sagittal planes.
(The Latin word, sagitta, means ‘arrow’.)
(Left around Right) (Right around Left)
Figure 3: Planes and Axes of Rotation
The sagittal axis is the axis perpendicular to the sagittal plane, i.e. the sagittal axis is formed by the intersection of the coronal and the transverse planes.
Imagine a spear going through your left side and coming out your right side, through your waist. Around this axis, your head can spin to the ground while your feet spin to the sky. Because this is a forward/backward rotation, | prefer to call this ‘longitudinal’ rotation.
The coronal (or frontal) axis is the axis perpendicular to the coronal plane, i.e.
the coronal axis is formed by the intersection of the sagittal and the transverse planes. Imagine a spear through your stomach and back. You can spin left over right and right over left around this axis. And because you remain facing the
‘front’, I like to call this ‘frontal’ rotation.
During the Agassi forehand preparation, the body rotates laterally clockwise
(when viewed from above). During the hitting of the forehand, the body rotates smoothly anti-clockwise. Agassi performs this movement very well, apart from the slight bump in the axis from the ‘knee jerk’ to the right and overuse of the left arm, which would restrict the rotation from operating perfectly, back to contact.
The longitudinal rotation on the forehand should be a ‘falling back’ motion as the ball is lifted over the net with topspin, except for the slice forehand which is rotated down to assist the downward intention of ‘slice’ spin. The flat forehand has only a subtle backward motion as the ball is lifted marginally. Agassi performs the longitudinal rotation to perfection apart from a slight bend in the axis from the forward left knee excess.
The frontal rotation on a right-handed forehand is from left to right. Agassi performs this rotation extremely well, apart from the slight over-downward knee action which moves the axis excessively down-and-up, producing a little bump in the rotation.
Using the X, Y and Z axes to represent the transverse, sagittal and coronal axes respectively, we can give X, Y and Z coordinates to represent height, width and breadth, and we can also develop mathematical formulas for these movements.
We can use any units of measurement from the centre: millimetres, centimetres, metres, inches or feet.
If we represent the central point of the body, behind the ‘belly-button’ or navel, to be zero on all axes, then we may say that at ‘time 1’ (tl), Agassi’s left knee could be -60 units in height (along the X axis), 6 units in width (along the Y axis) and 6 units in breadth (along the Z axis). At ‘time 2’ (t2), the centre of the left knee moves to the coordinates 70: 7: -3 (X/ Y/ Z). As the leg straightens and_ the height from the ‘belly-button’ increases from 60 to 70 in a negative direction
(negative being ‘down’ and positive being ‘up’ from the centre of the body), the knee is going back (-Z) and to the left (+Y). At ‘time 3’ (t3), you may have the coordinates -65: 8: -4.
With some mathematical adjustment, you may develop a formula to describe the knee position at any given point in time as: aT = bX + cY + dZ. With the axes themselves actually moving, we may wish to factor this movement in as well.
With a formula for the model, you can evaluate how far, in each direction, a certain player’s knee is out of position.
Rotation is maximised in all movement skills by sharing the muscle contractions. Strangely enough, ‘more is less’. So if there is not equal share, more is achieved through under-achieving, as the muscles at least have the benefit of interacting, summating, combining and overlapping, like ‘waves of muscle fibres’ flowing together. Feel free to research the roles of Adenosine Tri-
Phosphate Complex and calcium channels in muscle contraction.
If you observe people on a dance floor, you will notice that the best dancers seem to be using their whole body, but each individual part seems to be hardly moving. In contrast, unnatural dancers will tilt over in various directions as their arms, legs and head rule the core of their body.
Agassi has great rotation. The positions of the head and the left knee, in preparation, limit the rotation of these areas and the immediately surrounding areas. I believe that Agassi would be advised to rotate his left arm less. He would also move better as a result. The left knee rotates too far around and down. Under-achieving with the left hand would help the knee to find a more comfortable position in which to rotate freely.
& LJ | f a Vn , : ?
The traditional ‘waiting position’ has some question marks over it. By default, the ‘waiting position’ implies that the left hand, for right-handed forehands, follows the racquet in preparation. You can imagine that shaking somebody’s hand, while keeping the hands together, brings about a ‘cramped’ shape for that action. The left chest area is forced into an area that ‘complements’ the right chest. When you shake hands naturally, you would place your left arm into a balanced and mirror image position. With respect to the forehand, this pressure of the left arm moving to the right, out of a homeostatic design, can force the right side rotation into ‘overdoing it’.
You may also try to run to the ball with your left hand on the racquet; in doing so, you would experience much more difficulty than if you were to run to the ball without placing your left hand on the racquet. Also, in this case, you can allow the rotation of your chest to be governed, more naturally, by your rightarm backswing. The grip can fall easily into the right position without the help of the non-hitting hand. Rod Laver had no real coaching before he was discovered by Australian super coach, Charlie Hollis. Laver had no ‘waiting position’, and consequently he moved well and could not over-rotate. (See the following photos of the left-handed Rod Laver.)
In an ideal world, the muscle fibres overlap in a pushing and pulling wave-like action; a summation of parts. The order of flow should be as follows:
abdominals, upper thorax, upper legs; buttocks, upper arms, lower legs, lower arms. You can observe this when you climb a tree. As you go up to the next branch, you can observe which body parts move first. Agassi’s sequence is interfered with slightly at the left leg-knee region.
A stylish dancer will seem to be moving smoothly, as if every body part is connected. A less stylish dancer will appear jerky. Their legs and arms will seem to be making an extra effort, dragging the body around as if disconnected. With the centre of the body being thrown around, they will be off balance.
This can be easily explained by a handshake, which naturally occurs at an arm angle of approximately 135 . This angle occurs through all actions at all body segments in all sports; a potential number for the meaning of life. These angles also occur through the entire animal kingdom. If the arm is outstretched, you can feel the strain in the shoulder deltoid. If the arm is too ‘bent’ then the lower arm is strained. You would also be standing neither too far to the left, nor too far to the right, of your ‘handshakee’.
Body parts should have enough space but also should be sufficiently compact.
Parts are entering into the zone as other parts move out. You should not attempt to put all the body parts into the same area at same time. This phenomenon is very evident in a too ‘side-on’ forehand and all other flawed shots.
Agassi’s head should be starting to leave the zone at contact, but it gets ‘stuck’ in the zone, and makes the contact area slightly too ‘cramped’. Serving to his body, on the forehand, will give his opponents some rewards.
The contact zone on the backhand is more in front and closer to the body, left to right, compared with the forehand. The double-handed backhand is hit more behind than the single-handed stroke, and further away from the body, left to right, but closer than the forehand. The biggest mistakes are to hit the forehand too close and too far in front, and to hit the backhand too far away from the centre of the body.
This principle describes the variations from the ‘flat’ stroke, which in turn describes the intention of the action. This principle has much to do with the angle of the racquet face and the grip being used. Agassi uses a ‘semi-western’ grip which is ideal for ‘rib-high’ shots. Ideally, the player should move to a more ‘western’ grip for higher shots and to a more ‘eastern’ or ‘continental’ grip for lower forehands. Agassi mostly uses just enough ‘topspin’ to help bring the ball down into the court. He utilises the principle that ‘the shortest distance between two points is a straight line’. When applying ‘topspin’, and maintaining a rhythmic circular motion, the racquet face should start off closed, open at contact and then close after contact. Agassi does this to perfection.
Sometimes when professional tennis players need to run for a wide and low forehand, they need to swing up on the outside of the ball in order to lift the ball up over the net with control. The racquet head will finish on the same side of the body as the contact. The spin serve follows exactly the same principle, except that the players are driving the spin action down, not up. These are two similar actions except that they are ‘upside-down’ and ‘back-to front’ images of themselves. Professional players sometimes use a slight forehand grip on the ;
serve to produce an ‘inside-out’ serve. This serve is hard to keep down but if it goes in, it has considerable power and slides off the court; this shot is also a close cousin to the high ‘inside-out’ forehand or backhand.
Boris Becker sometimes used this serve to ‘skid’ a powerful serve out wide on the ‘ad’ court. Pat Cash uses it as a surprise tactic. The returner has trouble picking it unless they notice the grip the server is using.
The ‘kick’ serve is a myth. There are only flat and spin serves. Your serve will become annihilated if you endeavour to hit up on the back of the ball with a horizontal racquet. You will never be able to get the ball to hit the court quickly, achieve any angle, or establish any movement through the air or off the bounce.
(See Greg Rusedsk1’s serve spin action, pictured below.)
The table below shows the relationship between the particular stroke, position, balance, spin, grip, zone and frontal rotation (axis). The abbreviations are as follows: Forehand (F), Backhand (B), Forehand Volley (FV), Backhand Volley
(BV), Serve Flat (SF), Serve Spin (SS), High (H), Waist (W), Low (L), More
(M), Neutral (N), Less (LE), Right of body (R), Left of body (LF), Lean Back
(BK), Lean Forward (FW), Topspin (T), Slice (S), In Front (IF), Behind (BE).
Table 1: Relationship between stroke, position, balance, spin, grip, zone and axis
| Stroke Position _ | Balance 23 “Spin Ee )Gnp- 2 | Zone : | Axis
‘FHH _Mffonton |LEBK | Minside | Fwestem = LERMIF | MLF- FHW_ | N front on a BK — = el Tae Sy | F eastern _ N es | NLF
FHL |LE fronton |MBK | Moutside T | F continental |LERMBE = LLF-
BHL | LE front on |M BES ‘ah M outside T | F continental LELMBE |LR
FVH LE fronton |_MFW _ MoutsideS_Feasten =|LERMIF | MLF VW Nffonton, NFW NS _—__Feontinental_N Nur FVL _ Mfronton | LEFW | MinsideS _B eastern LERMBE |LLF | BYH _ LE front on _|M FW _M outside S B eastern | LELMIF | MR
BYW _|N fronton = |NFW | INS _F continental \N | NS va BVL __M front on [LEEW | M inside S | F eastern | LELMBE |LR | Sia |M fronton |MFW _ | N flat | F continental | N : M LF |
SS LE fronton | LE FW M outside S_| B western | LERMBE |LLF |
This table is very general, as there are infinite variations in height and an infinite number of grips, and there are many variations. For example, if a player finds themselves stretched high and wide on the backhand volley, i.e. they can’t get their position behind the ball and they wish to ‘cut’ the ball sharply and short, cross-court, they should use a ‘western’ forehand grip.
You can have some fun with this table by playing around with all the infinite combinations which can become apparent in different circumstances. For example, if you change a table cell in the position or contact column, what changes are needed in the other table cells?
The table can also be looked at in terms of a clock face, where the shots opposite each other on the clock face are usually opposite in design, yet they are made using a similar grip. This is why a player with an ‘eastern’ forehand volley grip can have success with high forehand volleys and low backhand volleys but finds high backhand volleys and low forehand volleys difficult. You may say that the forehand volley is at 10 o’clock and the low backhand volley is at 4 o’clock.
You can have some fun with this concept. If you try a forehand volley between _ your legs, you will discover that this shot is easier if you tilt left (your right foot off the ground), use a ‘western’ backhand grip, make contact behind your legs and lean back: you will find it an easy shot. Now, if you make your feet become your head, and turn yourself upside-down, you are getting close to a spin serve action. Furthermore, if you make a few modifications to the original shape, you can now run back to the back fence and play a blind trick shot between your legs back into the court. So, using the 12 o’clock and 6 o’clock positions (on the clock face), with a few bends here and there, we can see that the volley between the legs, the serve, and the shot between the legs made while facing the other way are all in the same family of shots. Having fun? My brain sometimes hurts doing this stuff. Enjoy!
Looking for injury ‘hot-spots’ involves looking for areas of contradiction. The neck and left knee would be the areas of concern for Agassi.
This principle says, ‘Well, where do we start to fix it?’ Coaching requires a little thinking time in order to decide which main aspect will have the most positive effect on all the other problems; as happens when dominoes in a line all fall over after the first one hits the next one, and so on.
Taking the left hand off the racquet a little earlier may limit the turning of the left knee, and may also help to correct the head angle. Then this Aggasi forehand would be invincible. I know that it is difficult to conceive that one of the greatest forehands of this generation could be better, but dedication is just a matter of imagination. Years ago, no one could imagine a perfect ‘10’ score in gymnastics or surfing, but both have been achieved. Imagine how pure tennis shots may become in 50 years’ time, in order for tennis professionals to make a living.
Position: Tomas Berdych has his feet too side-on. This will affect his ability to find the required direction in the court.
Balance: His balance is good. This means that he will not hit many balls in the net or long.
Homeostasis: His protection and use of space is not too bad except that the shape and space of his body is directed towards the umpire’s stand.
Axis: With the left side not clearing, the transverse and coronal axes are thwarted.
Rotation: The left leg and arm have missed much rotation.
Sequence: The right arm ‘choking’ the head reveals the loss in body segment
Spin: He has a good grip for this waist-high forehand.
Injury: The left knee is likely to ‘crash’ first.
Coaching: Work on the left arm. If this doesn’t stop the feet from turning away from the court, then attack the feet position next. Hopefully, this will straighten the axis as well.
Position: The angle of the feet can also be used to describe the relationship between the player and the court. The Cilic forehand has a better relationship with the sideline to his right than with the court. Hitting cross-court with accuracy and pace will be very difficult.
Balance: There is a conflict between the balance of the lower body and upper body. If the lower body takes over, the ball will go into the net; if the upper body takes over, the ball will go long. Cilic must manage these conflicting balances to achieve a successful height over the net. This means that every time he hits a forehand, he will experience the anxiety associated with uncertainty.
On very important points, when the pressure is on, it would be wise to hit to his forehand. Anxiety adds to the muscle tension of vulnerable areas.
Homeostasis: Homeostasis may be considered in terms of ‘space’. For example, you may stand at a cliff and extend one leg out over the ‘drop’. The leg feels unprotected from the body as it extends away from the body centre, and the body itself feels in danger. Extend this thought to a parking space.
You could say that Cilic’s right hip has parked too far away from the curb and the left hip is too far into the traffic. For the body-segment muscles to feel comfortable, efficient and protected, the space needs to be neither too small, nor too big, while retaining symmetry. We are given an ideal space in which to perform various movements. For example, when you climb a tree, you must use your trunk to move your arms up with it, and then bring your legs into the ‘new’ space.
Axis: All the axes are compromised.
Rotation: For right-handers, the left side of the body should move first. It must clear the space to allow the right side to enter and leave the zone. The left arm rotates a4 | before the right arm, the left thigh before the right thigh, and so on. Cilic’s left side is very rigid, and this not only restricts its os rotation but also prevents the right side from circling around.
Sequence: Imagine an ice-skater spinning.
The angular momentum is achieved with contributions from all body segments.
Cilic’s sequence is broken right from the beginning. Even the abdomen, illustrated by the hip line, has been unable to function well. The chest is thwarted, as shown by the inability of the left arm to clear.
Zone: Because Cilic’s body does not clear adequately, his arm is forced in too close. Whenever the arm is too close to the body, the contact is forced too far in front. Serving at the body on his forehand will cause a few ‘freebie’ mishits.
Spin: Cilic should be changing his grip towards a more ‘eastern’ or
‘continental’ grip for this slightly lower forehand. Giving him low forehands will force him to produce excessive topspin as he attempts to open up an extremely closed racquet face, caused by his ‘western’ grip. The western grip is useful only for high forehands.
Injury: The lower back, left knee and left ankle are all in big trouble.
Coaching: First, attack the feet position.
Kim Clijsters has a very good forehand. However, the left arm movement restricts the rotation of the left side of the body, and the head gets stuck in the sequence. From the coaching point of view, working on the left arm would work wonders.
Position: Nikolay Davydenko’s position on the forehand is very good. You could expect his direction to be accurate.
Balance: His balance goes down, which is good for a slice backhand, but it will cause many of these flat/topspin forehands to hit the net or mishit long when he overcompensates.
Homeostasis: His left foot is exposed forward.
Axis: The sagittal axis is thrown out when his longitudinal rotation goes down forward instead of back.
Rotation: The left foot starts in a perfect position to rotate out of the way. The left foot should be more open than the right foot, since the left side needs to clear first. He does this so well in the preparation, but when his balance shifts forward, the weight on the left foot blocks the whole left side from rotating.
Sequence: If you look at the finish, most of the body has rotated, except for the left foot, which has ‘missed its turn’ in the sequence. This has interfered with other body parts, especially along the left side of his body.
Zone: His contact is too close to the body, and therefore he is forced to hit it too far in front.
Spin: He has a good grip for this waist-high forehand.
Injury: The left ankle and left knee are in for trouble.
Coaching: I would consider it necessary to work on Davydenko’s contact position and balance at the same time. He needs to feel more space and let the ball come into the zone, whereby he can do more ‘sitting and waiting’.
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Position: If the lower body takes over, too side-on, the ball will tend to go wide to Novak Djokovic’s right. Overcompensation of the upper body will send the ball too far to the left. In general, he will have trouble with directional accuracy and more difficulty going cross-court.
Balance: Except for very short and high forehands, the balance on the forehand needs to be leaning back, in order to help the perpendicular force, upon lateral rotation, to help the ball above the net. The lower the ball and the further back, in reference to the baseline, the more leaning backwards is required. His lower body interferes with the upward force into the ball. Giving him some low forehands will bring some errors.
Homeostasis: Can you imagine shaking hands with someone with your knees going excessively forward? In this action, the lower body is unprotected from instability.
Axis: All axes have a ‘bump’ from the lower leg position, but the lateral axis is greatly interfered with by the knee.
Rotation: He is losing power and consistency with the contradiction of the lower body; in particular, the left knee should rotate out of the way so that the right knee can rotate in.
Sequence: The sequence of body parts is blocked because the lower body and upper body have different objectives.
Zone: Whenever anybody is facing too side-on, they are forced to hit too far in front, losing a clean contact.
Spin: It will be difficult for Djokovic to create the correct amount of topspin, with the lower body in disagreement.
Injury: Looking for injury ‘hot-spots’ involves looking for areas of contradiction. The waist region conflicts with the legs; therefore the lower back is the most danger. The knees and ankle are also ‘accidents waiting to happen’.
He could also strain his wrist from poor contact.
Coaching: Simple! Just get his feet and his upper body to have the same relationship with the court.
Position: When the lower body is too ‘front-on’ to the target, it makes contact easier and slightly compromises the preparation. If you were going to be either too side-on or too front-on, being too front-on is the safer side of perfect.
Balance: Roger Federer’s balance is superb. He does not hit with excessive topspin, so he needs to lean back only slightly.
Homeostasis: When a player’s technique is natural, it appears to be almost invisible. There is a sense of effortlessness, as if they are not trying. When there are idiosyncratic flaws, there is high visibility, and a view of extra effort and ‘over-trying’. People will be ‘sucked in’ to copying the highly noticeable idiosyncrasy, and will miss the attributes of this high-quality forehand. From a homeostatic point of view, Federer’s neck region is heavily exposed.
Axis: During Federer’s forehand.preparation, the body rotates laterally, clockwise (when viewed from above). He performs this movement very well, although his left arm turns a little too far, which restricts his upper body from rotating back to contact. (See the left arm position at the finish.) During the hitting, his head rotates clockwise instead of anti-clockwise. This not only restricts his chest movement through contact but it also restricts his ability to continue watching the ball and the movements of his opponent. The head and left arm positions also interfere with the frontal rotation.
Federer performs the longitudinal rotation to perfection.
Rotation: Federer has great rotation. The flaws with the head and the left arm are compensated for by his extreme ‘front-on’ right foot. Sadly, two wrongs can make a right, and idiosyncratic weaknesses can be overcome. The ideal way is to make all parts operate, naturally. Players who copy Federer’s head movement mostly have disastrous results because they do not notice the feet position. Faulty idiosyncrasies are the easiest to copy because they are the most obvious.
Sequence: In an ideal world, muscle fibres overlap in a pushing and pulling wave-like action; a summation of parts. The order of flow should be as follows:
abdominals (closer to the platform, ground), upper thorax and upper legs;
buttocks (closer to the ground than the upper arms), upper arms, lower legs and lower arms. Federer has a very good sequence except that the head, neck, chest muscles and left arm are not assisting the motion smoothly.
Zone: His head position means that the contact is slightly too far in front, with respect to the torso. Therefore, the arm is too straight at contact. This will cause some ‘mishits’ and some muscle strain.
Spin: Federer uses a ‘semi-western’ grip which is ideal for ‘rib-high’ shots.
Ideally, the player should move to a more ‘western’ grip for higher shots and to a more ‘eastern’ or ‘continental’ grip for lower forehands. Federer mostly uses just enough topspin to help bring the ball down into the court. He utilises the principle that ‘the shortest distance between two points is a straight line’. When applying topspin and maintaining a rhythmic, circular motion, the racquet face should start off closed, open at contact and close after contact. Federer does this to perfection.
Injury: Looking for injury ‘hot-spots’ involves looking for areas of contradiction. The neck, the shoulder and throughout the right arm would be areas of concern.
Coaching: This principle says, ‘Well, where do we start to fix it?’ This requires a little thinking time, in order to decide which main adjustment will have the most effect on all the other problems; much like dominoes falling. Fixing the head position, the contact point and the left arm position would make this forehand invincible.
Position: David Ferrer’s position is superb.
Balance: His balance is also superb.
Homeostasis: His right knee and right shoulder are getting out of his ‘space’, and his body must work extra hard to bring his right side around.
Axis: The extra tilt to Ferrer’s right puts a little ‘warp’ strain on the frontal axis. This effectively tilts the court, so that the sideline to his left is in the air and the right sideline is driven into the ground. This means that some crosscourt forehands will go too high and the down-the-line forehands can find the net.
Rotation: Despite his ‘over-tilt’, Ferrer rotates his body segments extremely well.
Sequence: Ferrer’s left arm is doing its level best to break the sequence, but he does very well to keep the body moving ‘in sync’.
Zone: Very good contact position.
Spin: You can see that Ferrer’s forearm is facing to the sky. This indicates a
‘western’ grip, which is only suitable for high forehands. He will be suspect with low forehands.
Injury: The wrist and elbow will be in danger because of his grip.
Coaching: This very good forehand just needs some help to keep the left arm from rotating too far laterally and, more importantly, to prevent Ferrer from dropping the left arm down. This should straighten his body. He also needs to be more creative with some subtle grip changes.
For Richard Gasquet’s forehand, it’s all good. From a coaching perspective, I would encourage him to forget about turning his left arm too far. Less is more.
More power is achieved by under-playing rotation rather than over-playing it.
(See the Ferrero video on www.bradlangevad.net for minimal rotation.)
Postion: His position is very good, except that the extra turning of the right foot.
causes some ‘knee jerk’ reactions to correct it. The over-extenuated backswing of the right arm also causes the right foot to over-turn.
Balance: No problems with his balance. There is an interesting fact that many top professionals have poor idiosyncrasies, but they commonly have good balance, which consolidates much of the consistency that they produce. Position and balance are easily the dominant principles.
Homeostasis: The knees are somewhat unprotected, and the right arm draws
Gonzalez ‘back’ and left, out of his ideal space.
Axis: All his body axes are working extremely well. However, you would not walk down the street with this acute knee bend, so the frontal axis has a bit of a
Rotation: Athletic people can move their body out of ‘trouble’, and his left side does well to ‘clear’, despite the over-preparation of the knees and right arm.
Even his head clears into a satisfactory position.
Sequence: There are many segments that are asked to overwork, but the result is considerable.
Zone: When the ball arrives, and you know where you will hit it, you need to move the left side of you body and your head in advance, otherwise the speed of the ball travelling in and out of the zone is too much to keep up with. At contact, your body needs to go ahead of the objective, because the ball will catch up with you. Gonzalez will experience some mishits from staying in the zone too long. The left body parts need to escape from the zone, so that the right-side parts can enter into the zone. Just watch your opponent and the ball, but do not follow the ball into the zone, otherwise you will get stuck, staring at an area that has no consequence on the impact, or on the point itself. '
Spin: As long as Gonzalez varies his grip for different heights, there are no problems here. He closes and opens and closes his racquet face superbly.
Injury: There are no great risks of injury here. He 1s likely to experience only some knee and wrist irritations, in the long term.
Coaching: Take to him the idea that trying is fine, but also tell him not to be a
‘try hard’. This athlete only needs to understand over-rotation and the need to let his natural movement be in more faith.
Justine Henin’s forehand is superb. The balance is tilted slightly down, but that is what you would expect from a high forehand when the ball has a full view down into the court.
Position: Her position is very good, except that her left foot position is compromised, at contact and after, by the intrusion of the left knee.
Balance: Anna’s balance does not need to be as far ‘back’ as Pat Cash’s, since her ball position is higher. Her balance is very good.
Homeostasis: Both wrists need a ‘parking ticket’. You could say that her hands are unrelated to the shape of her body and that they ‘run away’. Hence, they are unprotected from the space that is ‘allocated’ for her action. The body has amazing powers to protect its ‘system’. We can see how one hand moves in the opposite direction to give the balance that the body requires to sustain the total structure. Sadly, two ‘wrongs’ do make a ‘right’. You may say that this is an ‘individual’ way to achieve ‘perfection’, but if you apply the hard decision, individuality is better applied with more ‘pure’ technique, and delivered by unique tactics and shot selection.
Axis: All her body axes are working extremely well. Ivanovic’s left knee gives a bump into all axes, but her consistency at high levels of competition can be related to the fact that there is so much about this forehand that is good.
Top athletes may not be perfect. | put their faulty idiosyncrasies down to faulty, unproven, unscrutinised coaching, that has been ‘drummed into them’ and has shaped their beliefs. Ivanovic may have been ‘nagged’ to bend her knees. You can easily access the correct knee angle. Just walk down the street and you will see the natural knee bend. You would feel pretty silly if you walked down the street with your legs too straight or too bent.
Rotation: Let us imagine the perfect amount of rotation. This would be enough in preparation to provide an ideal amount of impact and force, but not too much, which would raise the degree of difficulty in meeting the delicate requirements of accuracy at contact. It also may be stated that the ‘follow through’ has no effect on the result since the ball has left the strings. The ‘follow through’ is purely a great diagnostic tool; one used to study problems that occurred earlier in the action.
We can discover the difference between rotating more than perfect, and less than perfect. If you have experienced a ‘threatening’ ball, deep and angled, naturally you would have just half-volleyed it back with your forehand. So we may Say that in using the ‘safety first’ idea, you shorten your preparatory backswing. Hence, less rotation is the ‘safe’ side of perfection. If you have ever tried to belt a golf shot and found that you got ‘nowhere’, and did not achieve any sense of direction, you may understand that ‘over-rotation’ is the dangerous side of perfection. Therefore, you may conclude that hitting a forehand ‘soft’ can provide the most effective pace and direction.
In Ivanovic’s case, when you ‘over-rotate’ a body part, such as the hand, you always find an ‘under-rotation’ in the finish.
Sequence: The forearms have limited flow with the hand tissues.
Zone: The ‘extra’ wrist movement will interpret to a contact that moves too far in front. This will result in some mishits, and further anxiety as this trend recurs through the match. Giving Ivanovic a forehand, especially a ball without much pace, in the latter stages of the match, invariably will beg an error.
Spin: The wrist will also provide much inconsistency in the degree of spin imposed upon the ball, with huge jumps in the wrist axes. Ivanovic has a grip suited for high forehands. If she does not let the grip ‘slip’ around towards a backhand grip, or weaker forehand grip, then teasing her with low, slow balls will aggravate her purpose regarding spin, and will elevate her need to evaluate the axis ‘bumps’. Slow balls will encourage her to increase the wrist rotation — towards disaster.
Injury: Did I mention the wrist? Also, the ‘ripping’ of her left knee, from an
‘awkward’ position into a ‘respectable’ position, will aggravate her left knee.
Coaching: Tape her wrists to an obtuse angle, tie a bandage to her left knee, stand on her left side and ‘tug’ on the bandage when she tries to overact it. This is a forehand which is only a ‘hop, step and jump’ from greatness. The wrist may be pulling the knee around and down. These segments are often intricately related.
This is a very good forehand. McEnroe has a lower backswing to compensate for his balance being a bit forward. His balance causes his left leg to be cramped when it should be clearing.
Position: I have marked the left leg in white, to highlight it as the most important point of interest. All the faults relating to Monfils’ forehand are directly related to the left leg. When his left knee turns excessively down and to the right, the feet are turned away from the court and are out of position.
Balance: As the left knee moves forward, a contradiction between the upper and lower body balance is created. The ball will not have a clear intention of the altitude that is desired. If the lower body takes over, then the ball will play havoc with the net; if the upper body takes over, then there will be some balls going long.
Homeostasis: His ‘space’ is a little over to his right, but most of problems are
‘within’ his space. You could say that his legs are ‘tangled’, much as the wheels are bent underneath a parked car; some wheels are too short and some are too long.
Axis: All the axes are bent at the waist.
Rotation: The right leg has to work overtime to get the hip region rotating, and the failure of the left lower leg to clear and rotate out of the way causes the left thigh to be ‘squeezed up’ into a unhelpful position. i
Sequence: Try walking down the street with his shape; you would feel that you couldn’t relax at the waist, and your upper body, in particular, would have difficulty ‘swinging’ in a ‘cool’ manner. The waist blocks the sequence of muscles throughout the body. You could say that the waist is the sufferer and the left thigh is the culprit.
Zone: Shape anomalies cause Monfils to contact the ball too far in front and too far to his left.
Spin: This grip is ideal for this height ball.
Injury: You may say that the symptoms are at the waist and the cause is the extra turning of the left thigh. I would expect his lower back to fall apart first, followed by his knees and right elbow.
Coaching: Did I mention the left leg?
Position: Moya’s feet position has been compromised, primarily because of the
‘axis principle’ being thwarted.
Balance: His balance is very good, but the balance is bent slightly because of the ‘axis’ issues.
Homeostasis: Moya’s ‘space’ is a little over to his right but his body is fairly well protected.
Axis: This is the key area for concern. The anomalies in this very good forehand are all related to the ‘over-tilt’, to the right, of the coronal axis.
Therefore, the frontal rotation to the left is the cause of all his problems.
Rotation: In the preparation, there is a great deal of ‘weight’ on the upper right side of his body, due to the extra tilt of his coronal axis. Therefore, this part of his body has trouble rotating. This is also evidenced by the upper left hand side of the body finding it difficult to ‘clear’; for example, the left hand and the left side of his head.
Sequence: Once again, through the axis error, there is a break in the sequence at the waist.
Zone: Generally, the contact has a good position and shape. The axis tilt means that the ball will be inclined to be directed to his left, and high, so Moya may find that some forehands he directs cross-court will go a bit high and will be poorly directed.
Spin: This grip is ideal for this height ball.
Injury: There are some slight dangers to the lower back, knees and ankles.
Coaching: Did I mention the coronal axis?
NICE! From a coaching perspective | would just encourage Andy Murray to limit the turn of his left arm and right knee.
Rafael Nadal’s forehand is very good. I would encourage him to limit the turn of the left arm. He should also learn to release his head at contact and follow the ball into the court. He is missing out on time to see what his opponent is ‘up to’.
The head is currently blocking the rotation of the chest and abdomen.
Andy Roddick’s forehand is very good. He just needs a slight adjustment to the position of his head and left arm.
Marat Safin’s forehand is one of the finest to have graced a tennis court. Do I have the nerve to criticise his head position?
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Dinara Safina has a superb forehand. My only criticism is that in terms of the sequence principle, her left arm is rotating ‘backwards’ at contact.
3.1 NOVAK DJOKOVIC: @ BACKHAND
Djokovic is simply too ‘side-on’. Even his head position and contact would be improved by working on his position. This is almost a carbon copy of Tsonga’s backhand, except that Novak’s head position has an even greater restriction on the chest movement. The neck, lower back and right knee are on their way to injury but the right ankle/shin area will be the first to experience pain.
3.2 ROGER FEDERER: BACKHAND VOLLEY
Roger is too ‘side-on’. His balance is good. Homeostasis is tidy but he faces the umpire stand. The right arm is too straight and the contact is made too far in front. The rotation gets stuck, especially at the trunk. The forehand grip is better for low volleys where extra lift and spin are needed. Injury will occur at the neck, hips and right knee. Coaching work is needed on getting the eyes and feet to be more behind the ball.
3.3 ROGER FEDERER: FOREHAND VOLLEY
This is a superb action.
The Federer serve is too ‘side-on’, especially the left foot. His head getting stuck facing towards the stars restricts the power and control from his chest region.
As well as Pat Cash, I was responsible for polishing Greg Rusedski’s serve.
(These are my model serves in this book.) Greg’s already lethal serve was giving him pain and inconsistency, and he had not won a match in a year when
Pat brought him to see me. In 10 months we took him from being ranked number 170 in the world to number 19, and he beat every player who had been number | in the world, including Keurten, Safin, Agassi and Hewitt.
In terms of the serves in years past, even though I can find some minor faults in their technique, I rate the best actions as being those of Roscoe Tanner,
John Newcombe, Rod Laver, Tony Roche, Arthur Ashe, Gary Muller, Goran
Ivanovic, Richard Krayicek, Ilie Nastase, Martina Navratilova, Evonne
Goolagong Cawley, Margaret Court, Billie Jean King, Neale Fraser and Marat
Safin, among others.
In contrast, Ferrer is too ‘side-on’. His balance is good but the position interferes with his lateral rotation. David’s contact zone is good except that his position forces him to hit the ball a fraction too far in front. There are no dramatic areas for injury concern. Coaching must be concentrated on improving his starting position and achieving a more ‘front-on’ position throughout the action.
@ 3.6 RICHARD GASQUET: BACKHAND
Gasquet’s position is very poor. The balance is okay, but the homeostasis is all over the place. Contact is made too far in front. The axes are extremely compromised. The grip is okay but it is better used for higher balls. The sequence stops at the hips. Injury is pointing to the left knee and lower back.
Somebody coaching Gasquet could solve all his problems by getting his feet into the correct position. He would prefer going down the line.
But I still like his forehand!
I find the analysis of Justine Henin’s backhand to be one of my most disturbing tasks. There are things to like about her backhand; for example, her balance.
However, her feet position, rigid head and straight arm at contact are woeful.
Commentators and world opinion rate this backhand as outstanding. I do not see this stroke even walking in the shadow of Henin’s marvellous forehand, volleys and intelligent tactics.
The problem is that all the things that do not have any biomechanical merits comprise the popular view of what a backhand should look like: out in front, side-on and with the head down. If you were to analyse some match statistics, you would find that Henin has fewer winners and more errors on her backhand throughout a match than on her forehand.
Nadal’s backhand is simply too ‘side-on’ and the downward pressure of his head position restricts the chest rotation,
3.9 RAFAEL NADAL: FOREHAND VOLLEY
This is a superb action.
Rafael has a very good serve action. He just needs some work on his feet and head position. With his current action, as a left-hander, he will experience some difficulty in delivering a serve to a right-hander’s backhand with accuracy and power.
This is an extremely superb serve, but just too ‘side-on’, and looking up too much.
Safin’s backhand limitations are related to his left foot angle and the position principle. His right foot starts off okay but the right foot turns the left foot around at a time when he should be rotating it away from the contact area to allow the left hip to come into the hitting zone. He needs work on his right foot or he will find the cross-court forehand, especially, weak and inaccurate. There are injury concerns for his lower back and right knee region.
Sharapova is too ‘side-on’, but the major issue here is the massively high ball toss. Having to look so high to find the ball means that her head is in a very strained, upward position. The toss also encourages her to ‘over-bend’ her knees and jump. The jumping action limits the rotation across all axes. The arm reaching will give shoulder injuries.
At this point, since Maria is contacting the ball too far in front, I would like to pass on what I believe to be a related valuable experience that may help me to shed light on coaching problems that we all face.
I was accompanying Pat Cash at a Champions Tour Event in Johannesburg,
South Africa. Gary Muller, as a local star, was a special participant. Pat suggested that I should have a look at Gary’s action and film it, as Gary had one of the most feared serves of any player in his generation. Pat organised a practice session with Gary, who told Pat that he needed to hit the ball way more in front when serving. I had been working hard to get Pat to develop a stronger ~ arm position on his serve and had been pushing him to hit the serve more behind, rather than in front, at contact. | filmed both their serves from the side, where I could most accurately evaluate the relationship of the body when hitting the ball. When I played back the video, sure enough, Gary was hitting the ball about 6 inches further behind his body than Pat. The more Gary continued to encourage Pat to hit further in front, the worse Pat served. I decided to take a step back, knowing that when I showed Pat the footage later, he would realise the error he was making in his serve. Before | did the years of research in biomechanics, | made the same mistake in perception as Gary, many times over.
It is very interesting how we can all fall short of perceiving things. Be very careful about what you hear, and also tread carefully when reading tips in magazines trom so-called experts. Perception is not reality. This is the Zone principle at large. You can experience this concept, first hand, if you find a tree
Where you can reach some branches. Try to reach and break off a branch from the tree, in an arm action similar to a tennis serve. You will feel like you can pull the entire tree down if your arm is at an angle of approximately 135° and
THE BASIC PRINCIPLES: OTHER STROKE COMPARISONS behind your head. You will feel like a weakling if you try this with the arm straight and the branch in front of you.
I certainly believe that it would be extremely difficult for a coach with limited top-level playing experience, even with a coaching certificate, to have great success at coaching. Conversely, some champions are just ‘too much of a player and not enough of a coach’. They may play very well but not know why, technically. It is all about interpretation.
3.14 ROBIN SODERLING: BACKHAND
There are some positional problems affecting Soderling’s lower body involvement, even a ‘pigeon- feet’ action. But his primary concern should be his balance. Everything about the balance of his body spells ‘net’ for the ball. When he overcompensates with his arms, the ball will go skyward. There are also injury concerns for his right shin area.
3.15 JO-WILFRIED TSONGA: @ BACKHAND
Tsonga is simply too ‘side-on’. Even his head position and contact would be improved by working on his position.
3.16 JO-WILFRIED TSONGA: — SERVE
This is a very good action except that Jo-Wilfried should be more ‘front-on’.
His chest movement is blocked because he is looking up at a too-high ball toss.
He has one of the best service actions on the current tour, but there is room for improvement.
Verdasco’s position is reasonable, except that he has shut off his right foot, thereby preventing the right leg from contributing in the rotation sequence.
Homeostatically, there is too much space between the head and a ‘too far forward’ contact, with particular respect to the chest region; therefore it is too far away from the entire body. You would be forgiven for thinking that he has more interest in the spectators in the stadium to his right than in what is happening at the other end of the court. The ‘eastern’ forehand grip is okay for high forehand volleys, but it restricts all other volleys except the low backhand volley.
This raises an interesting question within the spin principle. Is it easier to have one grip for each shot? NO! If you understand that the grip can slip into another position with ease, provided you know what you want to achieve, then itis much simpler to have an infinite number of grips. With an infinite number of grips, you can play an infinite amount of pure shots from infinitely different < heights.
Serena Williams is too ‘side-on’. Being able to rotate quite well despite her position early in the action is a tribute to her athletic ability. Tossing the ball too high has a limiting effect on her chest movement, as her head becomes rigid towards the sky. The contact is made too far in front and the over-reaching will give intense shoulder injuries. Work is needed on the toss and position.
Biostatistics is the application of statistics to biology.
If you are interested, you can research the following terms: Line of Best Fit,
Anova, Regression, Multiple Regression, 3D Cartesian Coordinates, Cylindrical
Coordinates, Spherical Coordinates. These are all ways of comparing variables and describing with constants.
For example, Multiple Regression may be expressed as Y= ax + bx2 + cx3 + dx4 and so on.
If you wanted to make an estimation of what time John left his house for work in the morning you may have a formula such as: John leaves (0000-
2400) = ax day of the week (1-7) + bx season (1-4) + cx (time worked the day before) where a, b, c, d, are real numbers (eg. 12.765). There are statistical mathematical methods to determine the probability of the formula being an accurate assumption. When scientists are estimating the credibility of their experiments, they generally accept that a probability of 90% or more is accurate.
In the formula for John there may be 20 variables, including d (what colour shirt he had on yesterday) and e (how much time was spent eating breakfast). Say the result is 78% probable that John will leave home at 0700, and if we remove the d variable, there is no change to the probability. We can then say that his shirt colour on the previous day has no significant effect on what time he leaves home in the morning. We can shorten the formula in this way. We may find that if we remove the e variable, the probability drops to 65%. We can then assume that the time spent eating breakfast must be included for a significant estimation to be made. Further, we may remove the most significant variable, such as a, and move it over to the constant, Y. Then we would have the following formula:
John leaves on Wednesday = ax1 + bx2, and so on.
We may find that the probability on Wednesday is 92% and on the other days it is less than 90%.
We can then say that it is highly likely that John will leave very close to 0700 on Wednesday, but that his departure time on other days was irregular but likely to be fairly close to 0700.
Biostatistics formulas have many uses. For example, you may want to see if there is any noteworthy variation in a ‘line of best fit’ (described in the next paragraph) for body segment angles, when variables like the player’s height, the player’s shape (endomorph, mesomorph, ectomorph and mixtures of these), the player’s age, the player, the tournament surface or the weather, need to be considered before the finalising of models that satisfy the desired accuracy constraints.
For example, The Line of Best Fit can be used in the case of the forehand, at contact, to attribute the angle of 135 as the most accurate estimation of the wrist angle, when viewed from above. (See Fig. 4.)
Poor, eg: Social Playeri Average, eg: Edberg
Figure 4: Position of wrist at contact — forehand
The most feared forehands produce dense clusters of points at around 135°.
As we extend along to poorer forehands, there is much more variation. We can conclude that 135° is very close to the most effective, and therefore the most natural, position for the wrist at contact. This is when viewed from just one angle — above the player. We must carry out the same test from the front and the side. This must be done at all stages of the action and also conducted on all segment angles: elbow, knees, and so on. We can then produce a 3D model. You can imagine the hours, months and years it takes to develop models in tennis and other sports.
My student and friend, Pat Cash, is magic at converting an ‘android’ model into human form. I put this down to Pat’s intense determination to perfect the natural ease of his technique, his uncanny awareness and a freakish ability to orchestrate his body. There was much perspiration as we transformed science into the natural artistry of the Pat Cash ‘humanoid’.
by Robert Shreeve, London, UK. (Brad's Former Manager)
Athletics, swimming and all sporting contests evolve — new methods and techniques replace past orthodoxies and so performance improves dramatically.
Over the last few years sports coaching methods have focused on:
* Elimination of unnecessary movement
* Greater strength and fitness
* Avoidance of costly injuries.
Technology has accelerated this evolution, not only through new equipment, better clothing and improved playing surface design but also in the use of video” and performance software to analyse and study movement. In most sports, coaches and players who want to be at the top of their profession tend to be hungry for knowledge and have embraced these new methods. Those that have done so have succeeded. On the other hand, some coaches and some entire sports fail to move with the times, partly through ignorance and partly because established coaches, clubs and sporting associations that have thrived under these comfortable orthodoxies are reluctant to change. They resist change and fall behind, producing mediocre and injury-prone athletes.
Tennis is Brad’s primary passion and he played the professional tennis circuit in his youth. Despite the best coaching, a couple of his strokes kept letting him down, and this also led to painful injuries. Brad began to question the way tennis was being taught at senior coaching levels and within professional coaching associations, and the way injuries were being managed.
After completing a science degree, Brad began to explore the use of biostatistics, physics and computer technology to examine the movements of the body and apply it to tennis students. It became clear that conflicting body movements restrict a player’s ability to act fluently and caused injury. Golfers, cricketers and other sportspeople all suffered.
To test his theories, over several years Brad analysed videos of hundreds of athletes, from top professionals to everyday sportsmen. Brad found that the top athletes had a great deal in common, whereas the weaker performers varied greatly. Despite the idiosyncrasies that made the successful actions appear different, they varied only marginally. They were all following the same basic biomechanical principles naturally, and often in defiance of their coach’s methods. To complicate the issue, world champions had fine actions and weaker actions. By giving statistical numbers for actions and adding them, Brad could roughly get the world rankings, with slight variations, explained by intelligence, tactics and other aspects. He found, through interviews, that the more successful actions had been less coached and that the ‘Agassi forehand’, for example, had slipped through the ‘instructor’s trap’ and had developed efficiency naturally, whereas the ‘weaker Agassi serve’ had been engulfed by the instructor’s dogma.
Brad realised that he was not defining actions to justify science; instead, he was using science to explain nature as art.
Brad’s findings were to define the coaching philosophy he has used for the last 25 years. He was biomechanically defining each perfect action; even basic walking, sitting and sleeping. Computer models were developed to compare clients. Brad was helping office workers, drivers, labourers and hairdressers.
Even bank tellers found that they were no longer tired and had increased their efficiency in carrying out their duties. Brad was also in high demand to lecture to major shoe design companies, such as Adidas.
All actions throughout life were strikingly consistent with the biomechanical theory Brad was developing but, most radically, they were very different from the instruction orthodoxy of the day. Even the conventional method for lifting boxes was damaging. Brad realised that when a part of the body is stretched from other segments of the body, there is a division of purpose, and that this is the site of injury. In time, the injury will spread from the ‘hot-spot’ it is that initial separation which is the source of the problem.
Although for the last 25 years Brad refined this understanding and continued to question the old orthodoxies, his coaching methods are based entirely on these fundamental insights. The success of his techniques has led many to believe that Brad’s professional and practical knowledge of biomechanics, particularly in relation to tennis, is unmatched. Wimbledon champion and also Brad’s good friend, Pat Cash, with whom he has worked with for 20 years, using these techniques, believes that Brad is ‘the best in the world’ at what he does. These are kind words, but the results do tend to speak for themselves.
Thousands of words have been written about biomechanics and tennis but the « best way to illustrate the basics of the Brad Langevad method is to debunk a few ‘sacred cows’ of traditional tennis coaching (see ‘Myths’ section, below) and to understand the basics (see Section | on “Basic Principles’).
Here are some classic myths which bedevil the careers of young tennis players, albeit wherein hundreds more exist.
Hitting the ball too far in front of the body isolates the hands from the rest of the body, and eventually causes injury to the entire arm. Control and efficient power is also lost because the body segments are not operating within the body’s natural perimeters. The bones are not able to sit in a natural position and the resulting shape prevents the muscles from overlapping, and co-operating with
The balance of the body needs to be perpendicular to the direction of force, otherwise the hands take the full brunt of the responsibility to control the height of the ball. In other words, the hand can direct the height better if it follows the trajectory of the arm, and the arm can follow the path if the trunk mass is moving around the same height line. As the old saying goes, ‘The shin bone is connected to the thigh bone’ and so on.
Good technique at contact has the natural appearance of falling through space as if in a state of rest, on completion of what is and at the beginning of what isn’t.
The shape of the chest at contact is hugely governed by the head, and if the head is facing down instead of towards the court, then the height is misjudged.
Stiff neck pain is easily diagnosed. Since the ball comes in and out of contact so quickly, to follow the ball and the opponent, you need to bring the head around in advance of the ball, and therefore your imagination must be used for microseconds. Players who stare down at the ball are left with their head staring at the empty space left by the ball, while their opponent wins the point. Tennis must be played in advance to anticipate “ahead”, like chess, and each shot involves a clever transition of one future to another. Players caught in the present are, in fact, swallowed by the past.
This old chestnut is the twin sister of ‘keep your head down’ or ‘keep your head up’. In the case of the serve, an optimal low toss relative to the body is vital to allow a glance at the ball. The opponent and court are much more important than what the pigeons are doing on the roof. The power and control from the
‘trunk’ is lost, otherwise.
Good play is not about watching just the ball; rather, it involves a peripheral awareness of where you are, where the ball is and what the opponent is “up to’. In fact, this is not even watching the ball, as the ball moves away from the racquet rapidly. You need to trust your imagination to keep up with vision of the ball and the opponent. You can think the ball and not just see it. Try closing your eyes at contact and you will find that nothing is lost; in fact, much is to be gained. Just as a segment can interfere with complete body movement, vision
When a player is hitting a ball, the body is rotating around a number of axes, creating various ecliptical pathways whereby the contact has only one point for itself on this gradient. The gradient, or direction, of each body part is changing continually. Therefore, there is only one ideal point for perfect accuracy. The pathway of segments is directed towards the inevitable orbit of the racquet to the ball, and thus immediately away from it. At a single point the racquet is coming towards the ball from one angle, and directly after contact it moves away at another angle. In fact, you need to ‘run away’ from the ball as you hit.
Each body part has its own time, and hence, its own sense of future. The body parts can’t all be at the contact point at the same time, otherwise we would be swallowed up into ourselves. Any attempt to keep the racquet moving in the direction of the ball destroys EVARTTST GF the body. How many TET to
Less is more. When one body part overdoes it, the other segments are rendered more useless. The segments are best utilised when they all appear to be doing nothing, as they all share a small part of the action. Otherwise there is injury and uncontrolled power. Top technique has the appearance of a wrist snap, but the curling effect is actually due to the adjacent body segments as much as themselves. Wrists do not pronate! Curling shapes are simply caused by all the body parts attempting to retain movement within the predetermined perimeters.
This junior, pictured below, had multiple severe injuries from trying too hard.
Tim Henman (right) lacked punch on his serve, also due to trying too hard.
This classic advice is absolute rubbish! The body must slow down at the point of hitting, in order to perform the action adequately. If you move too fast to the ball, you overrun the prime position and you will also require more steps to get back into the court. For the movement to the ball to be continuous, both when hitting and when moving back into the court, you need to move to the ball as slowly as possible. If you move too fast you will give the appearance of being too slow, and you will be advised to work on your speed, and then you appear even slower, and so on and so on. Don’t confuse tennis wth sprinting. Juan
Carlos Ferrero is an example of a tennis pro who is too fast and plays better on clay, where the ‘slide’ slows him down. Panther-like footballers like Patrick
Vieira accelerate through gaps more easily by maximising minimal movement, just as precautionary tennis players react better to drop shots. If the ball is hit into good areas, then you can walk: the tortoise wins!
Running forwards, backwards and sideways while performing different shots involves a variety of 3D rotational combinations at the foot level: heel to toe, toe to heel, out-step to in-step. Between shots, the feet need to maintain a neutral position. Any extra movements or rotations inhibit smooth movement and reaction; and they wear the player out. Don’t confuse a tennis match with a performance of Swan Lake.
The body should rotate only far enough away from the target to start the rotation moving, because the body needs to return the rotation to face the target at contact. Getting too side-on, or trying to maintain a side-on position, limits the rotation and forces the hands to dominate. Massive injuries then extend to the lower back and knees.
When you step in as you hit the ball, you are combining two actions. Moving up to a short ball involves the same smooth transition as moving sideways or backwards; moving to, hitting and moving away are linked as a smooth chain of events without over-overlapping. Try serving while jumping on a trampoline or hitting a forehand while sprinting forward.
There is actually a point where the ball is neither rising nor falling; the easiest time to hit the ball. Top players find this point often. But the safest alternative to hitting at the perfect point is to hit the ball when it starts to drop. Hitting at the perfect point has the appearance of hitting on the rise, but it is not, and it will destroy your control if you try‘to do this. The reason why a half-volley is an easy shot is because at the point that the ball hits the ground, it is still.
Good players let the ball drop when they can’t hit it at the ideal point. Tennis is not about rushing the opponent; rather, it is about putting the ball into the place most feared, by way of the shortest distance, and that is often behind opponents when they make the mistake of speeding to the open court.
You can hit the ball the length of a football field if you want. Tennis has a confined space and the placement of the ball involves a specific speed, not the maximum speed. Distance and accuracy is more important than velocity.
Furthermore, trying to hit the ball too hard increases the back-swing to breaking-point and the body cannot recover to a symmetrical contact. Don’t confuse tennis with javelin throwing. McEnroe made a career of hitting the ball flat and soft with angles and deep skidders. The drop-shots and drop-volleys he practised made him the world’s best player. Ask Pat Cash!
Hewitt and Agassi both take the pace off the ball when the short angles are on offer. Take a leaf out of Sampras’ book of shots; the low flat ball hit more directly to the target and low over the net is more effective than belting a ball high with massive amounts of topspin to keep it in, unless you are trying to bounce the ball over an 8 year old. Generally speaking, the higher ranked players hit the ball softer and more directly. More brain than brawn is needed.
4.4 FAQ.
QO. What about individuality?
A. If you were to have a freestyle swimmer in lane 1, a backstroke swimmer in lane 2, a butterfly swimmer in lane 3 and a breaststroke swimmer in lane 4, then who would win over 100 metres? If you were in lane 2, 3 or 4 and gave up some ‘individuality’, i.e. all swim freestyle, then surely the race outcome becomes more difficult to predict. By eliminating one ‘individuality’ somewhat, we can start eliminating some others. For example, say the swimmer in lane
| has a more natural technique, then would the swimmers in lanes 2, 3 and
4 be prepared to give up some ‘individuality’ to ‘un-learn’ some style from the swimmer in lane 1? Surely the race then becomes even more interesting.
What if the swimmer in lane 2 is clever at pacing the distance and swimming in the wash from lane 3? Wouldn’t the race become even more interesting if the swimmers in other lanes learnt from the swimmer in lane 2? Maybe the swimmer in lane 3 is not clever enough to work out what the lane 2 swimmer is up to. Maybe the swimmer in lane 4 is not very fit. Maybe the lane 2 swimmer is too short and fat. The further we go with this process, the more interesting the idea of ‘individuality’ gets. Bring some waves into the pool and we have ‘a whole new ball game’.
As a keen body-surfer, I know that rapidly changing surf conditions plus the need to turn to catch waves bring about a whole range of situations when some styles of swimming are more useful than others, but that’s body surfing! Tennis is no different, in terms of forehands and backhands and other strokes. Players will have less difficulty with changing a forehand that is unreliable and causing injury than stopping themselves from hitting down the line instead of going crosscourt, or wearing a blue shirt instead of a white one. So if a coach preaches their deep and meaningful search for a student’s ‘individuality’, then they are most likely “copping out’, or not facing the fact that they don’t understand enough about technique to know what ‘natural’ is. And, peculiarly, this coach will often be the person to say the most after each shot the student hits. Usually the coach who knows the most about technique and what is ‘natural’ says the least during a lesson because they can summarise the problem so eloquently.
Brad Langevad, a leading authority on
The Biomechanics of Tennis, uses his years of practical experience and his scientific knowledge to explain how and why players and coaches can improve tennis strokes and avoid injury. Through case studies of champion players and by using split-screen photography, Brad shows how every tennis stroke can be made better.
‘Brad Langevad, the world’s leading tennis biomechanist, has rebuilt the games of Pat Cash, Greg Rusedski and many celebrities.’ Richard Johnson, Sunday Times July 2003 my career.
‘T only wish that I had known these thing I use Brad’s principles in my own coacl is alll can say!’ Pat Cash — Champiot