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Check out Federer's description of a child hood drill:
Q. When you were much younger did you have an exercise where a rope was placed and you had to topspin the ball with as much top as possible just over the rope, and the rope would go a little bit higher each time? Does that sound vaguely familiar?
ROGER FEDERER: Yeah, well, when I was 14, we had Sven Groenefeld as a coach for a little while. He used to put extra rope over the net, over the regular tennis net, you know, because we were making so many mistakes and the court was so quick. So by hitting it higher, of course the ball doesn't skid through as much, and we had to play more safe and it was very hard to hit winners. So we had to play with more spin, which actually now was a very good exercise because in wintertimes, you know, we would play on this lightning quick surface where you couldn't get any rhythm, you know, and like this you would. It was good exercise.
Q. Is that what helped you develop the great wrist snap that you have?
ROGER FEDERER: Who knows, I don't know. I don't know where it comes from.
He said it was very hard to hit winners. Therefore, he had to work on developing heavy balls that had a lot of speed, in order to hit winners, but that also had a lot of spin, in order to keep the ball down in the court.
Perhaps the best way to develop a heavy forehand is to combine the windshield wiping hand rotation of the western grippers with a conservative grip.
The rotation would give you the spin, and the conservative grip will allow you to hit through the ball more and take it on a rise.
Although this is going off on a tangent: I think taking the ball on the rise and hitting it earlier will make the ball appear heavier too because its coming back at them faster.
A lot of the other western grip players may hit balls that have the same speed/spin ratio as federer, but because they hit them from way behind the baseline, they appear less heavier by the time the ball gets to their opponents racket.
Just some thoughts.
Evan
Q. When you were much younger did you have an exercise where a rope was placed and you had to topspin the ball with as much top as possible just over the rope, and the rope would go a little bit higher each time? Does that sound vaguely familiar?
ROGER FEDERER: Yeah, well, when I was 14, we had Sven Groenefeld as a coach for a little while. He used to put extra rope over the net, over the regular tennis net, you know, because we were making so many mistakes and the court was so quick. So by hitting it higher, of course the ball doesn't skid through as much, and we had to play more safe and it was very hard to hit winners. So we had to play with more spin, which actually now was a very good exercise because in wintertimes, you know, we would play on this lightning quick surface where you couldn't get any rhythm, you know, and like this you would. It was good exercise.
Q. Is that what helped you develop the great wrist snap that you have?
ROGER FEDERER: Who knows, I don't know. I don't know where it comes from.
He said it was very hard to hit winners. Therefore, he had to work on developing heavy balls that had a lot of speed, in order to hit winners, but that also had a lot of spin, in order to keep the ball down in the court.
Perhaps the best way to develop a heavy forehand is to combine the windshield wiping hand rotation of the western grippers with a conservative grip.
The rotation would give you the spin, and the conservative grip will allow you to hit through the ball more and take it on a rise.
Although this is going off on a tangent: I think taking the ball on the rise and hitting it earlier will make the ball appear heavier too because its coming back at them faster.
A lot of the other western grip players may hit balls that have the same speed/spin ratio as federer, but because they hit them from way behind the baseline, they appear less heavier by the time the ball gets to their opponents racket.
Just some thoughts.
Evan
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