An Interview With John Yandell
Part 2

Paul Fein

Why has the forehand become one of the big debates in coaching today?

Because people like to talk about what the top pros do. If the top pros are doing something that seems different or new, the lemmings want to jump on the bandwagon, so to speak.

Some coaches are shameless enough to say, "I will teach you the secret of Nadal's forehand. And if you want to be a top player, you have to hit like Nadal."

I'm not going to mention any names, but I've seen coaches actually claim that they have players that they've trained in this method, but then you look at the video of them, it's not what Nadal is really doing. I know one pretty well-known coach who is touting this as the only way that everyone, men and women, should be taught, including senior players. That could be right, but I don't think so.

I believe the forehand has more variability than any other stroke in tennis.

Absolutely. For starters, you have six different grip structures. And that can be combined with two hitting arm structures. And that can be combined with four stances. And that can be combined with tremendous variability in hand-and-arm rotation and in body rotation.

On your website, Brett Hobden analyzes the seven different topspin variations that pro players hit on a regular basis. (Click Here.) How important is it to be versatile? And what is the best forehand grip to hit all those topspin variations?

It's great to be versatile, but I don't think there is one best grip. This is a function of your style and your level.

For example, Robert Lansdorp was the first person to coin the term "reverse forehand." He did it in relationship to actually studying Pete Sampras when he was training Pete and seeing what Pete did on that running forehand where he finished his followthrough on the right side.

Pete had an Eastern grip. Now the guy in the modern game who used the reverse forehand the most, not just on balls he takes on the run, but also balls in the center of the court, is Nadal, and he has an extreme grip.

All the grips have pluses and minuses. You have the potential to vary the spin with all the grips. The big factor in choosing a grip and the spin level is the place where you are going to be striking the ball, the height of the contact point.

The players who tend to hit closer to the baseline also tend to hit the ball early, like Federer and like Agassi did. They tend to have more conservative grips because the natural contact height on those grips is lower.

The players who tend to play 10 to 12 feet behind the baseline, with Nadal being the extreme example, tend to have more underneath grips because those go naturally with the higher contact height.

Andy Murray has one of the best backhands and backhand return of serves on the tour. He holds his arms far from his body. What are the pros and cons of doing that?

I'm not so sure Andy Murray holds his arms farther from his body than anybody else, at least when it comes to the forward swing. There are two predominant hitting arm structures. Nadal is the third more exotic form with both arms straight. The two main structures are with two arms bent, like most of the women. Murray is what is called bent-straight. With the bottom arm bent and the top arm straight.

So Murray is probably slightly farther away because his back arm is straight at ball contact. That's the way Lleyton Hewitt hit his backhand.

The exact contact point is in part a function of the hitting arm configuration. So I'm not sure the distance away from the ball is a plus or minus. Everyone thought that Hewitt hit with both arms straight because he took his arms back that way, but that's not what happens at the contact point. All these strokes have inside out swing shape. It always comes from the inside of the body moving outward on an arc.

What are the most important ways that women's serves differ from men's serves?

Most of the women use more extreme stances than the men. Most of the women tend to use pinpoint stances and often extreme pinpoint stances where they are bringing the back foot up and often around and to the side of the front foot. That is combined with a more open body position at contact.

The women tend to start with their torsos perpendicular to the baseline or even slightly open and then rotate them until their shoulders are parallel to the baseline at contact. That stance is related, I believe, to the torso position because when you drag your right foot, or your back foot, way around, it's going to naturally open your hips.

The third factor in that constellation is that the ball tends to be tossed more out to the right. Therefore, the contact point also tends to be more out to the right, which makes sense if you're rotating farther.

And so the women are hitting the ball quite hard right now; some of them hit serves 120 miles an hour. But I believe they're hitting the ball much flatter, with sidespin but less topspin.

In general, even when the men use the pinpoint stance, they tend not to use the extreme version. Their torsos at contact tend to be slightly closed to the baseline. And the ball position at contact is more to the left, which is associated with more topspin.

Why and how are Serena Williams' first and second serves more like the men's serves?

Serena is just a little less extreme than most of the women. She doesn't have an super extreme pinpoint stance. She doesn't rotate as much with her torso at contact, the way Venus does, who has a much more extreme pinpoint and rotates and is more wide open. And Serena's contact is also a little more to the left and closer to the men's model.

Serena's serve reminds me of Sampras' serve.

I think it's not nearly as extreme as that. There is a continuum here. Where is your ball toss position? How much do you rotate your torso? And what's your stance? Serena, among the women except for Justine Henin, is shifted the most back towards the men, although Henin changed that in her last incarnation, tossing the ball way out to the right. I'm not sure why she started doing that.

Since Serena is acclaimed as the greatest server in women's tennis history, should women try to serve exactly like Serena?

That's a good question. I don't know. One question is: Why do the women serve the way they serve now? Is it the way they are taught? Or is there something in female physiology that makes it more difficult?

In general, we know that when you toss the ball to your left and hit more topspin, you're going to lose some speed. I'm waiting for a female athlete, like Serena, or possibly even more athletic and taller than Serena, to try to totally model her serve on someone like Federer or even Sampras.

France has had up to five men ranked in the top 50 and up to ten in the top 100. Do French players have a distinctive style?

Is it French players or the personalities of the players who are French? It's difficult to say whether it's the individual player or it's the country. You look at a player like Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He was a phenomenally talented shot maker and an unbelievable athlete, but was very up and down, emotionally and mentally.

You could say the same for many of the French players going back to 1988 French Open finalist Henri Leconte. They're aggressive shot-makers but tend not to be as level-headed and determined mentally as some of the other European players like the Spaniards, or like the South Americans.

Do you and your staff have any connection with the United States Professional Tennis Association or the Professional Tennis Registry?

I speak regularly at coaching conventions all around the country and the world. I've spoken at the PTR national convention and at the USPTA national convention and a numerous USPTA regional conventions. It's valuable for me because I get a lot of feedback. I get to test a lot of my ideas in front of groups of my peers and present and argue coherently in a way they find valuable.

One of the things I most enjoy during my presentations is when someone asks a question and I reply, "I don't know what the answer is. I have to think about that." Sometimes they evaluate differently what we both see in the video, or perhaps they see something that I don't see, or vice versa.

Sometimes we may focus on different elements in the technique. The video resources allow us to collaborate and engage in a non-confrontational dialogue back and forth so that we can both learn.

The average distance moved per stroke during a tennis match is only about three yards. What have you learned from videotaping the pros are the keys to develop an explosive first step as well as the agility to change direction quickly and regain your court position?

Dave Bailey's work on the website has identified the patterns of out-steps, steps to the ball, stances, contact movements through the ball and recovery steps for all the different situations. You can look at what the top players do.

Rather than explain why or how something happens, you should simply look at what happens and use that as evidence of good technique and what top players are doing. This gives you a range of options to experiment with. You will determine what the best option is for you.

Is there less variability for footwork than for strokes?

I don't think that's true. If you look at the Bailey articles, there are at least three different ways to take the first step with the outside foot. You can do a drop step, a pivot, or a step out. The size of all those can be different. The angle at which they are taken can be different. You can do a shuffle step to the ball or a cross step to the ball. You can use small adjustment steps. You can arrive with larger running steps. Then you have the whole issue of stance.

You have the breaking steps—which is what happens afterward. Does your back foot swing around? If it does, then when? On your recovery, do you take one crossover step or two steps? Do you take shuffle steps?

What Dave's work has shown is that footwork is just as complex as the pure biomechanics of the stroke production. Dave's work is fascinating.

What are the best drills for kids 6 to 12 and teenagers to improve their footwork, balance, agility and speed?

I'm not a developmental coach. I don't train players on a daily basis. So drills really aren't my expertise or specialty.

However, I have personally observed what Rick Macci does, and it made a lot of sense to me. Rick constantly combined the widest possible variety of all types of sideways, backwards and frontwards motions to make players' movement as seamless as possible and to let their natural athleticism come into play in all the patterns of movement on different surfaces.

In your website overview about the "Mental Game," you wrote: "It's too bad that more players don't put a fraction of the effort into developing the mental game that they do into obsessing about their strokes." Who are the leading pioneers and thinkers about the mental game? And what findings about the mental game have been the most important for tennis players?

The two leading guys are clearly Jim Loehr and Allen Fox. There are some fabulous younger guys who have come along, such as Jeff Greenwald, who also writes for our website. And we also have a great new series from Sean Brawley based on the principles of The Inner Game of Tennis.

What Allen and Jim first pointed out is that there actually is such a thing as the mental game and that the processes you go through mentally and emotionally are as important, if not more important, to the outcome of matches as the sort of robotic focus on technique or strategy or footwork.

What were their most important findings?

Jim has made many important contributions, but his breakthrough contribution was to study the patterns of behaviors between points and to see that players behave in disciplined, ritualistic fashion between points. And this seemed to correlate with their mental strength or their ability to control themselves emotionally and stay positive.

Allen's work complements that because he's delved into the inner space of sub-conscious emotional thoughts and forces that are active when most players play matches but which they aren't aware of. Allen has developed a very disciplined, rational mentality and approach to dealing with the player's emotional side to mitigate its negative aspects.

Which players during the Open Era have been the strongest mentally?

Anybody that plays at the top level of the world is mentally strong. You have to point to the guys who have won in the clutch. Pete Sampras, in his book, A Champion's Mind, talks about how he believed in himself. Basically he believed he was the better player when he walked on the court.

Most players are not naturally like that. You don't win 14 major titles, as Sampras did, without being mentally strong. Much less 20 or more like Federer, Nadal, or Djokovic.