Tennis Aha

I was looking at some slow motion video of Andy Murray, world number 4 ranked player.

Slow motion video has to be the biggest aid to analyzing the way the pros hit. It's really changed how I look at strokes. Without slowmo, you can't see what's going on. It's too fast.

In tennis, there are two main theories of hitting a forehand. One is called the straight arm forehand. Federer and Nadal use this as does Fernando Verdasco. The idea is you hit the ball with a straight arm. To get the correct angle, however, your arm sticks out significantly to the right and in front of you.

The alternative is the double-bend forehand. Basically, your elbow is closer to your body, and there is a 120 degree bend between the upper arm and the forearm. This allows the forearm to be mostly parallel to the ground. To get a similar effect with the straight arm, you need to have your arm way, way out.

Here's the insight. It's much easier to get the racquet face to point right if the arm is parallel to the ground as opposed to being nearly perpendicular. The double bend facilitates this. The forearm is nearly parallel to the ground, and keeping the racquet face pointed correct is not so bad.

Now all I have to do is try this out on the court.