Your Strokes:
Kevin Patrick: Forehand

Analyzed by John Yandell

One of the fun things about Tennisplayer is getting to meet and to work with some of our subscribers, players from across the country, and from across the whole spectrum of ages and abilities.

Quite a few subscribers have come through San Francisco wanting to meet us and have their games filmed and analyzed. And that has given us more chances to do before and after analysis for Your Strokes. That's the case this month with Kevin Patrick's forehand.

Kevin played varsity tennis at Cal, so, obviously, he was (and is) a high level player. Now Kevin is a teaching pro and coach at what sounds like a gorgeous club in New Jersey, with a growing junior program. Currently he is incorporating video analysis into his work there. So he wanted to come out, be his own guinea pig, see how we did it, and what he might learn from all that.

I have to say I found the whole experience to be inspirational, seeing a young player and teaching pro embracing the new technologies and resources to improve the games of other players. The experience also turned out to be fun for Tennisplayer's Giancarlo Andreani, who got to be Kevin's hitting partner, and also talked me (finally) into analyzing his backhand. (More on that later!)

One of the most interesting things was seeing that a successful Open level player can make a rapid change in a well developed stroke pattern. I've had the same experience with a lot of high level players, including many tour players, but I never really get tired of watching it happen. For Kevin, the analysis process over two days made an immediate positive difference.

In the case of Kevin's forehand, it wasn't a matter of trying to correct fundamental structural flaws. Instead it was increasing the emphasis on certain elements, again by comparing Kevin's key positions to images drawn from pro models.

At trhe start, Kevin told me he felt the strength of his forehand was that he could rally consistently, loop, and defend well, hitting topspin, often from well behind the baseline. But he didn't feel as confident standing in and exchanging faster balls toe to toe. He also wanted to finish more short balls from inside the court.

Kevin's grip was fairly far underneath the handle, probably about the same as David Nalbandian, or Guga or Juan Carlos Ferrero. His index knuckle is on bevel 4 and the heel pad is in between 3 and 4. (For more on the bevels and the grip structure, (Click Here.) This grip is more extreme than Agassi but less extreme than Roddick. For Kevin, we picked Nalbandian as a model, not only because of his grip, but also because his game style. Nalbandian likes to rally, spin the ball, change pace, and defend--but he can also flatten the ball out and hit winners when he has the opportunity.

So what did we see when we compared him to Kevin? Two things. First we compared the turn. Kevin definitely has a good turn, but what the video showed was that he wasn't quite stretching it out all the way. If you look closely you can see it isn't as full as Nalbandian or any of the top pros.

Check out the difference in the extension of the left arm across the baseline. You can see that Kevin doesn't quite straighten it out. This in my opinion reduces his ability to coil and get all his potential energy into the stroke. At his level, even a small increase in the turn would make a difference.

Look at the difference in the stretch of the left arm.

The second issue was his extension and his finish points. Like Nalbandian, Kevin could turn his hand and arm over and use this rotation to generate a lot of spin, typically finishing lower and more across the body.

What he didn't have was the more aggressive, slightly more extended finish, in which the racket traveled further forward and finished higher. Nalbandian doesn't use this extended finish on all balls, and is a master of the entire variety of shots in the pro game, all of which have slightly different swing patterns. But this more extended finish is associated with hitting a flatter, harder ball, usually with more depth. It's also the typical swing pattern for finishing shots when the player is up on the baseline, or inside the court.

Again if you look it's not a huge difference, but it's noticeable and you can see it in the video. What we are talking about is a matter of degree--pushing the turn a little further, extending the swing upward and outward--maybe an increase of 20 percent or so on both elements. We also took a look at J.C. Ferrero, using some of the same images as in lat month's Your Strokes. (Click Here.) Ferrero's extension is more extreme than Nalbandian's and made a great additional model.

After we filmed Kevin and completed this analysis, we went back out on the court and modeled the positions physically. I had Kevin replicate the turn with a full left arm stretch, and also a finish point that was higher and more extended. I asked him to execute the swing with his eyes closed and to develop a mental image of the positions, and especially, a mental image of how the positions felt.

Kevin made the adjustments virtually immediately. You can see the differences clearly in the video. Watch the left arm. There's no question now that it is fully stretched. You can almost feel the power potential just looking at his turn. Note that the angle of the shoulders is also somewhat more sideways to the net.

It was the same thing with the extension. Watch how Kevin finishes with his hand at around eye level. But also look at the spacing between his hand and his torso. The distance is much greater from his shoulder out to his hand. Looks deadly doesn't it?

One other important point to note. Even though Kevin's racket is extending outward, it is also turning over and rotating as it moves through the stroke. This is a function of the grip. I would recommend checking out the article in the Advanced Tennis section on hand and arm rotation to get a more detailed explanation. (Click Here.)

With the more extreme grips, the hand naturally rotates and turns over as it comes through to the finish, and so does the racket head. For players with more conservative grips, the racket will finish much more on edge on similar balls, similar to Andre Agassi.

The commonality is the distance the hand travels outward and upward, the height of the finish, and the spacing between the hand and the torso. You want that kind of extension no matter what your grip style, but the amount rotation is something that varies, increasing the further you go under the hand. (Unless you are Roger Federer. Click Here to see how he has combined the classic and extreme elements.)

So there we have it. Hopefully Kevin can share some posts with us about how these changes have worked for him, and give us his insight into the process. And also something about how his use of video in his teaching is going, including the way he is using the incredible resources here on Tennisplayer.