Novak Djokovic’s Forehand: The Unit Turn

The unit turn: a commonality shared by all good players at all levels. In the first article in this series (Click Here), we saw the surprising combination of components in one of the most effective weapons in pro tennis, Novak Djokovic’s forehand. We described his surprisingly extreme grip and its unlikely combination with his preferred court position, close to the baseline where he takes the ball early. We saw that in this way Novak had synthesized seemingly contradictory elements from the games of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. But we also noted that in other ways his motion was very different from either of these other two great players, and that Djokovic has his own unique blend of technical components. Now in this article let’s go through and look at those components in detail, starting with the beginning of the preparation, or the Unit Turn. In future articles we’ll trace the completion of the preparation, the backswing, the use of the legs and stances, and the set up of the body and hitting arm for the forward swing. Unit Turn Despite the diversity in the swing patterns of top players described in the first article there is one element that…