On Court
With Brian Gordon

Sean O’Neil

March is a time to leave the cold of east coast winter behind and make a trek south to bask in the sunshine of Florida. It's only a two or three week break but gets me excited for the warmth of spring and the start of the outdoor tennis season.

It's a wonderful time spent with family and friends as I travel down the east coast and ultimately arrive in southern Florida. My tennis fix is satisfied in two ways. First, the ability to spend several days at the very impressive Hard Rock stadium and watch the high caliber talent on display at the Miami Open. Secondly, the chance to visit and discuss tennis with Dr. Brian Gordon.

Genius

In my eyes, Brian is a technical genius and this opportunity is greatly appreciated. He's always been very generous with his time.

I've been fortunate to visit with Brian over the past few years and each time I learn something new. To be able to meet with Brian and learn more about his philosophy takes the learning process to another level.

It's one thing to read his articles and watch his videos on Tennisplayer, but to see it used in real life demonstrations adds another dimension. On this trip, I was able to have a one-on-one with Brian and ask questions that I had about his teaching philosophy, then watch him teaching one of his newer students for 2 ½ hours.

I was able to be on court, ask questions and take videos. Sejong was the student, and he is a talented 15 year old. His 17 year old sister, who will be attending Harvard, is a past Orange Bowl and Eddie Herr champion.

Both recently started with Brian. But this article focuses on Sejong's strokes. This article focuses on Brian's analysis of the flaws—both obvious and subtle in Sejong's forehand. It was amazing to document what Brian's trained perspective saw in an already elite player.

Sejong has the highest-level potential with his backhand and serve, but his forehand needed major reconstruction. Brian said that he's never seen a forehand quite like Sejong's before.

Analysis

This particular lesson was all about that forehand. But at the end of this article we will also look at that beautiful backhand.

Brian started the lesson with a short court warm-up then moved to the baseline. The longer the lesson progressed, the more he pushed Sejong to see how well the forehand would hold up under pressure.

So let's look at the cues Brian was giving Sejong and Brian's technical description of what he was looking for. The videos illustrate it all!

Brian's Explanation

According to Brian, Sejong was enabling or manipulating the "flip" of the racket by supinating the forearm prior to the forward swing. Supinating means he was turning the forearm backwards which opened the racket face.

Eventually this put his racquet on edge in a way that caused several other problems. Sejong was working on the "flip" to move to what Brian calls the type 3 swing, meaning full straightening of the arm occurs during the flip.

The elbow can be straightened at the end of the backswing--which is theoretically preferred--but in Sejong's case this was too rigid, inflexible and was linked to other unproductive joint motions.

Racket Past the Hand

When Brian warmed up short-court with Sejong he was emphasizing the concept of allowing the racquet to go past the hand in the "flip". In the first video in the animation the racquet head does not go past the hand. In the second it does.

Brian's description of how this is done was as follows. The tip of racquet should rotate from outside to inside, relative to a line through the hand and extending parallel to the line of the shoulders.

This was the biggest emphasis of the entire lesson. In trying to reconstruct Sejong's forehand, Brian was trying to simplify Sejong's swing and eliminate wasted motion that was causing the forehand to collapse under pressure.

Sejong had a habit of allowing the racquet head to "wobble" in the forward swing. This "wobble" was complicating the swing and caused it to break down as he became more and more stressed. It's obvious how the forehand would break down in tense situations with all that excess motion.

The Mouse

Brian used a cue that Sejong should imagine that he has a mouse on the edge of the frame and that the mouse's eyes should be looking the same direction throughout the swing, not moving all over the place.

After working with Brian on this, the difference was noticeable with little to no mouse head movement!

Racquet Hand Level

Another point. On some of feeds, Sejong would keep his hand level with the contact point and not allow the hand to drop below contact, thus limiting spin, trajectory and consistency.

Brian says the hand should exit the backswing 6-8 inches lower than it will be at contact. This ensures a relatively level swing plane.

Racket Head Outside

One of the most important aspects of the type 3 forehand is to keep the racquet head on outside of hand in the takeback as we saw above in the warmup. Sejong occasionally would point the racquet straight back at 6 o'clock and not 5-5:30. Keeping the hand/racquet on the outside, in the backswing, enables the correct mechanics of the "flip" and the stretch-shortening cycle to occur.

The tip of the racquet should rotate from outside to inside relative to a line through the hand and extending parallel to the line of the shoulder. This is the same explanation as allowing the racquet to go past the hand when pulling forward.

This was Sejong's first session with Brian. He learned the concepts and made some real progress. But as Brian says you can't fix everything without some grinding. Let's come back and film him after Sejong has been working with Brian for an extended period.

Sejong's Backhand

As a bonus, here are front and rear view videos of the simplicity and beauty of Sejong's backhand. These are perfect examples of the correct mechanics that Brian has stressed and written about on Tennisplayer.

Notice his waist level backswing with the right arm straight and a slight bend in the left arm. The racquet head is above the hands and to the outside.

At the start of the forward swing, Sejong's right hand—the bottom hand--pulls forward while the left hand--top hand--will push through. Notice how naturally the racquet "flips" because of this pull/push effect.

Secondly, notice how quickly the left arm straightens as it pushes forward so that it is straight at contact. The right arm bends, as the left-hand speeds up and right hand slows down.

The follow through is relaxed and the swing is effortless as Sejong exhales. His backhand is repeatable, dependable and has great economy of motion.