The Straight Armed
Forehand:

Part 2

By Jeff Counts

In my first article on the straight armed forehand (Click Here) I explored how the modern straight armed forehand works and suggested some possible advantages to this technique, including a contact point further in front, and more leverage from shoulder to hand. Despite these differences, however, most straight armed forehands look to me a lot like the double bend forehands I have written about.

In this article, I would like to look once again at two straight arm hitters, Srichaphan and Philippousis, along with an interesting clip of Alex Corretja. We'll do this as a segue into an analysis of another straight armed forehand that is, in my opinion, shockingly different. And it's the forehand of Raphael Nadal.

Nadal straightens his arm out just like these other players, but he uses the straight arm to achieve very different things in my opinion. I hope that by comparing and contrasting Nadal to these players, we can begin to get a handle on what Nadal is doing, and how he has taken the straight armed forehand in a whole new direction. I will suggest at the end of the article that I don't recommend copying his technique (if it is even possible), and I don't see any rising stars hitting this way. But an exploration of the straight armed forehand would be incomplete without a look at what this young technical genius has been able to do by adding his own twist to the stroke.

Ingredients of the Modern Forehand

In the clip to the right, both Srichaphan and Philippousis use staple elements of the modern forehand to hit the ball, starting with shoulder rotation. Both players stretch their off arm across the body to fully coil their upper bodies. Then the shoulder line uncoils from perpendicular to the net (or even farther) to parallel to the net. As they uncoil the torso into the ball, the wrist will lay back and the butt cap of the racket will point at the incoming ball. The torso rotation is then accompanied by the straight arm lifting upward to the ball, while the racket travels an "inside out" path contact.

This combination of torso rotation, arm lift, and an inside out racket path creates tremendous racket speed while allowing them to preserve the hitting structure (the straight arm). All these ingredients are fully present in the double bend forehands as well. (Click Here.)

The second ingredient that both the modern straight arm and double bend forehands have in common is the full windshield wiper finish. In my article on the double bend windshield wiper forehand (Click Here), I showed, graphically, how the racket and arm travel in an arc in front of the body. Rather than swipe across the body, the arm and racket lift upward and curve in a rainbow like motion - allowing you to really engage your shoulder and hand together in the follow through, while at the same time adding torso rotation. When the stroke ends the arm is stretched all the way across the body and the butt cap of the racket points towards the net.

The straight armed forehands have larger wiping arcs because of the straight arm, but the rainbow like path in front of the body looks the same. In short, whether players hit with a straight arm, or with a bent arm, they are relying on the same general rotating and lifting movements and they both maintain a hitting arm structure through the hit.

I would like to look at one more example of a player who hits with a straight arm to get a final sense of what this fundamental stroke looks like. A few years ago I was lucky enough to film Alex Corretja, and realized that he hits his forehand with a very straight arm - just like Srichaphan and Philippousis.

I was able to shoot his forehand from the side, and I think the clip nicely shows all the points I have discussed so far. First, notice how Correjta really extends his left hand and arm fully across his body to initiate the stroke. This sets up a big upper body coil that he will use to really uncoil his torso into contact. As he starts to rotate his torso into the ball, watch how he lifts his straight arm upward to the ball.

On contact notice how he continues to lift his arm upward, from shoulder to hand, through the hit as his torso continues to rotate. Overall, get a sense of how much of his body he is getting into the ball. The full torso rotation, the straight arm lift, the engagement of the shoulder and hand. All these powerful elements are being delivered into the ball.

What I find most striking about Corretja's forehand is the huge arc he draws with his arm and hand from contact onward. His wrist is very stable through the hit as the mass of the arm, shoulder, and racket lift very high upward before then arcing across.

And Then Came Nadal...

If we left the stroke with Srichaphan, Philippousis, and Corretja, I'd say the straight armed forehand was just another way of hitting a solid modern forehand. But my assessment changed when Raphael Nadal burst on the scene with a straight armed forehand so explosive, it threatened to topple the greatest player of all time. A forehand so wicked that Rafa is virtually unbeatable on clay. When you watch Nadal hit a forehand the shot just looks different from anything Srichaphan, Philippousis, and Correjta are doing. In fact, when I watch Nadal play I sometimes wonder if I'm even watching tennis. With his signature reverse finish, standing way behind the baseline, it looks more like table tennis to me than tennis. To get a sense of what he is doing, let's start with the first place where things start to look really different - the pull to contact.

It Starts With the Pulling Motion

In my last article, I showed how the racket gets pulled through a slot to initiate the forward motion, but Nadal takes this pulling motion and exaggerates it - radically. I see him exaggerating this pulling motion in three distinct ways. First, as his torso starts to uncoil into the ball, and the straight arm starts to come forward, the racket radically changes orientation. The butt cap of the racket, which was pointing to Rafa's left hip, now points radically to the left - in the direction of the left net post. It looks like the force of this shift causes the racket to snap back in the opposite direction and get pulled forward.

This extreme sideways orientation to the ball will let him pull forward and away from the ball, rather than just forward to the ball, creating more distance for the racket head to get pulled, and allowing him to approach the ball at an extreme angle.

Not only does he pull at a more extreme angle to the ball, but he starts the pulling motion farther back than Srichaphan, Philippousis, or Corretja. Also, his racket remains laid back a lot longer as pulls his hand almost to the ball itself. While Srichaphan and Philippousis pull for a moment, it is quickly followed by an inside out racket path to the ball. Not Nadal. He keeps pulling so that his left hand almost goes past the ball while the racket head trails radically behind. I drew a red circle around Nadal's hand to show how close his hand is to the ball while the racket still is being pulled well behind his hand. By pulling the racket head forward over this kind of distance, I believe Nadal is storing a tremendous amount of energy. It seems as if he keeps this energy on hold all the way up to contact, where he then will unleash all the tension in his arm.

My hypothesis is that the straight arm is what makes this extreme pulling motion possible. It just wouldn't be possible to pull the racket like this with a bent arm. But beyond the straight arm, what Nadal is doing here is extraordinary. To pull this off he is combining three elements in perfect sequence. Watch how he uses a pulling motion, along with torso rotation, and a lifting of the arm, to create this extreme racket path. It's a remarkable mix of motions and body positioning to get the racket to travel this way.

Even The Wiper Motion Looks Different

With such a radical pulling motion to the ball, it makes sense that Nadal's wiper finish would look different as well. By pulling the racket farther than his peers, and by pulling all the way up to the ball itself, Nadal is able to really unleash on the ball in a briefer more concentrated manner. Unlike the full wiper arc of Srichaphan and Philippousis, Nadal's arc is faster and more extreme occuring over a shorter period of time.

He doesn't draw a full arc in front of the body. As he lifts his arm upwards, he also starts to rotate his hand from left to right. Very quickly after the hit, his straight arm breaks off at the elbow, probably from the force of the lift and rotation.

Once again, we see several motions interacting here, and it is hard to tell what role they all play. The lifting upward of the arm, the rotation of the hand, and the breaking off at the elbow are all intermixing elements that generate tremendous power and spin. I will suggest, however, that Nadal is not "wristing" the ball, by any means. It is a common perception that wrist movement, or wrist rotation, or the "stretch shortening cycle" is the key to his forehand. This is a very short sighted understanding of what is happening. The hand rotation, I think, clearly adds to the spin of the ball. But the power comes from the entire arm lifting upward as the hand starts to turn. His entire arm and shoulder are working the ball as his hand rotates.

In the picture on the left, I superimposed the contact frame with a frame several moments later. You can really see just how high the arm has lifted through the hit. This entire arm, from shoulder to hand, is lifting the ball. And this makes sense, considering how strong Nadal is, that he uses his tremendous upper body strength to drive and lift the ball. At the same time, you can see how his hand has completely turned over in this short amount of time. It is my belief that this combination of arm lift and and quick hand rotation that give him his trademark combination of power and spin. If you look at the Srichaphan, Philippousis, and Correjta forehands, you never see finishes like this. Although they also lift the arm and rotate the hand, it isn't in such a violent fashion. Instead they draw large arcs in front of the body, ending with the arm extended across their bodies.

Nadal's combination of arm lift and quick hand rotation is most obviously on display when he hits his trademark "reverse" forehand. If you study the clip, you can see how the reverse finish would come very naturally to Nadal. His hand rotates over so fast, and the arm lifts so powerfully upward, that the finish behind the head isn't much of a variation for him. Indeed, if you watch Nadal play, he uses this reverse finish more than any other player I have studied. When I said earlier that sometimes it looks to me like Nadal is playing table tennis, not tennis, I am really referring to this extreme finish.

As strange as this forehand looks, I think you can see the combination of arm lift and hand rotation - just with a much more extreme ending position. This reverse forehand of Nadal's is certainly the most extreme tennis stroke I have ever seen, and it looks so different from what anyone else does that I find myself drawing analogies from other sports to make sense of it.

One motion that jumps out at me is bowling. If you watch top bowlers throw a "hook" - a powerful ball that has heavy hooking spin on it - you will see them finish in the same way - with the hand up by the right ear. And as they release the ball, the hand starts to rapidly turn the ball. I think that Nadal's reverse forehand works the exact same way - leading to the same kind of powerful spin you see in top bowlers. The combination of arm lift, hand rotation, and an extreme finish on the same side of the the body for top bowlers is so similar to what Nadal does here that I can't help but draw the analogy.

Whether you agree or not, I think we have to acknowledge how different Nadal's forehand is. From the exaggerated, angled pulling motions to the wild finishes on the same side of the body, Nadal has almost created a new shot. Like Federer, Nadal seems to be tapping into power and spin sources that are just beyond what other players are doing. In a future article, perhaps, I will at Federer's forehand in this light--especially his straight arm version.

Until then, I hope I have at least suggested some interesting ways that Nadal exaggerates the modern straight armed forehand. Above all, I hope the article shows just how complex Nadal's forehand is. This combination of ingredients - and they way they all come together - is astounding to me, and something I think only a special athlete could put together.