John Yandell: Building the Modern Forehand: The Backswing(s): Page 3

Quite a range, to say the least! It’s incredible when you think about it. Here are 7 players who have all been at or near the top in pro tennis and the shapes of their backswings are all completely different. And we haven’t even talked about how their backswing motions change-or don’t change-when these same players are rushed, on the run, or when the ball is especially low. (Don’t worry, we’ll save that for later.) So what does it all mean? Despite this long list of similarities and differences, and despite all the unanswered questions, there are two things all the backswings do seem to share. First, no matter what the shape of the backswing, no matter how high or low, the players all keep the racquet hand on the right side of the body. If you look at the hand over the course of the motion, it never goes back behind the plane of the torso. Note that this is the hand we are talking about, not the racquet which may extend well behind the body as we have seen. Hewitt, Hass, and Safin sometimes flirt with the edge of this line with their hand, but they don’t cross…