Shoulder Rotation

In the last article we took a close look at how the grip affects the angle of the racket face on the forward swing in the modern forehand. In this article we’ll move on to the second critical factor, shoulder rotation and how it varies depending on grip style. The second factor to we need to understand across the grip styles is shoulder rotation. In the first article in this series, we saw that that one commonality across all the grips was how far the top players turned their shoulders in the preparation phase. (Click here for Part 1) Virtually every top pro turns until his shoulders are slightly more than square to the baseline and the net, or a little more than 90 degrees. The shoulder turn is a key commonality we identified across the grip styles. The shoulders may be same angle at the completion of the turn for all the grips, but this changes in the forward swing. The total amount of rotation and the position of the shoulders at the contact and at the finish differ significantly as the grips become more extreme. Basically, the more extreme the grip, the more total shoulder rotation. If we…