Your Strokes:
Ron Milenko: One Hander

Analyzed by Jeff Counts

This month in Your Strokes we take a look at the one-handed backhand of Ron Milenko. Ron recently asked me to film his game to see where he could improve, so we got together and I filmed all of his strokes at 60 frames per second. This gave us twice the visual information of even regular video, which films at 30 frames.

Ron's one-hander demonstrates how a player can appear to be doing things "right", but have underlying technical flaws that only the camera reveals. These invisible aspects are usually what hold the key to rapid improvement.

Let's start with everything that is "right" about Ron's stroke. First he has a good upper body coil with his shoulder pointing in the direction of the incoming ball.

Second, he stablishes a solid, straight arm hitting structure early on in the stroke. A proper one handed backhand uses the arm as a lever that connects with, and lifts the ball, and Ron does this perfectly, finishing with beautful extension. Third, Ron is in a closed stance with all his weight on his right foot, assuring that he is stepping into the ball.

But what did the camera show that pointed a path to improvement? It always amazes me how small technical deficiencies can undermine what should be a solid stroke, and this was true in the case of Ron's backhand.

The most obvious problem was the racket face on impact. I suspected this while where on the court. The beauty of the video is that it validated my analysis, and also, allowed me to show the exact problem to Ron.

If the racket face is not square at impact, or possibly slightly closed depending on the ball, the spring off the racket will never be maximized. Ron's racket face was slightly open face making it impossible to generate proper topspin.

You can go through the entire Stroke Archive and you never find the racket face open for a topspin shot. The more I film club level players, the more I see this hidden problem of the open racket face, robbing players of power and spin on every ball. There was no arguing with the images, so Ron and I could both agree on the need for a change there.

The other problem wasn't so obvious. It had to do with the "slot" position at the start of the forward swing. "Being in the slot" means that the hand is in line with the right hip and racket parallel to the body, with the face slightly closed.
This is a key technical position in all high level backhands.

We used Jose Acasuso for a comparative model. When I compared Ron's racket to the pro model at this critical stage, it was immediately clear that Ron was not getting into the slot properly. Instead of pulling his racket, butt cap first, to his right hip, Ron's racket was rotating outward too soon. Instead of having a slightly closed face, his racket face had started to open up. This accounted for his problems at contact. Finally, the ball was way too close to Ron's body at this stage in the swing. In the Acasuso clip, the ball is still about three feet away from his body when he is "in the slot".

By pulling the butt cap of the racket to the right hip, you assure that the racket does not come "inside out" too early. if the racket starts to move outward too soon, you limit how far in front of the body you can make contact. This is why the top players pull the racket forward first. It gets the racket very far forward before the fast inside out rotation into the ball. If you look at Ron's stroke closely, you can see that his racket starts to travel outward when his hitting hand is at his back hip. Compare this to the pro model, in which the racket starts its inside out motion at the front hip.

So Ron needed to practice getting in the slot. He needed to pull the racket forward until his hand was in line with his right hip, before letting the racket come inside out to the ball. And he had to do this much sooner so that the ball didn't get in too close to his body. By using the image of the hand/hip alignment from the pro video as a reference point, Ron was able to quickly get a sense of how much further forward he need to pull the racket to match the position of a high level backhand.

While the key hitting positons and reference points are crucial aspects of a stroke, other components are equally important. These are rhythm and timing. In Ron's case, he was losing rhythm and timing by dropping the racket to quickly and then stopping to motion.

I realize that a mantra of tennis teaching is "you can never be too early. " Y et looking at Ron's one hander, it is clear that he was getting ahead of himself in his preparation. A key element of timing is letting the racket and arm drop at the right time, so that you don't have to stop the racket at any point during the stroke. You don't want to be too late with this drop, but you don't want to be too early. Either way the timing is compromised. In Ron's case, he needs a slower more rhythmic takeback, so that the racket drop adds fluidly into the rest of the stroke, without any hitches or stops along the way. you can see in the video how the racket hesitates and wobbles where as Acasuso's motion is continuous and smooth.

Every time I do a video analysis of a player, I am always struck by the excitement and joy people get from actually seeing themselves hit the ball compared to a top hitter. There is always an immediate sense of recognition - an almost instantaneous understanding - of what they now need to do to get better. I get the feeling that video comparison allows people to learn and understand in a way that is entirely natural and intuitive - by watching, comparing and copying. After Ron saw his video analysis and his one hander compared to Acasuso, he was well on his way to modeling the proper "slot" position, the closed racket face, and the change in timing that will take his already well established stroke to the next level.