The Straight Armed Forehand

Straighten the Arm?

So far I have focused exclusively on the “double bend” forehands where the hitting arm is bent at varying degrees and the wrist lays back, forming the hallmark structure of today’s big weapon. If you witnessed Djokovic’s dethroning of Federer at this year’s Australian Open, you saw just how effective this bent elbowed forehand is. Djokovic can take the ball incredibly early. He can hit the ball deep and extremely hard. And he can flatten the ball out or hit with plenty of topspin. It is a stroke that has propelled him to the top of the tennis world.

As impressive and ubiquitous as the double bend forehand is, there have always been players who straighten out their hitting arm on the forehand side. Mark Philippousis and Paradorn Srichiphan are two straight armed players who have been around for awhile. I have footage of Alex Corretja where I noticed he hits his forehand with a completely straight arm. But these players always seemed to be an interesting anomaly – quirky adaptations that didn’t lead to noticeable improvements in the stroke.

There are two players, however, that have taken a quirky adaptation and turned it into a…