Grand Sam:
Sam Stosur's Forehand

Tom Downs

In my first Tennisplayer article on Sam Stosur's serve I talked about my history with Sam going back to the Australian juniors, and then how we reconnected at Saddlebrook where I was coaching after Sam won her first Grand Slam double title. (Click Here.)

In that article we outlined the key technical components of her serve. We also saw how in so many ways it resembled the motion of top male pros, something that is still unique on the women's tour.

Now let's do a similar analysis of her other major weapon, her forehand. Like her serve Sam's forehand is very different from most other top women, with elements usually associated with the so-called ATP forehand.

As the first article explained, at Saddlebrook I had the opportunity to work with Sam one on one on a regular basis. When I met her, her serve was basically fully formed, but it wasn't the same story on her forehand.

Although the shot was a major weapon and very explosive, she was still working on mastering her advanced technical swing, and how to make it work in certain situations.

During our time together, Sam and I worked on certain drills that did two things. Some reinforced fundamental elements in an advanced forehand. Others specifically addressed problems she was having in certain match situations.

The results were significant for Sam and resulted in improvements that showed in her later singles results, and I want to share these same drills here.

I believe they are very powerful for players at all levels who want to improve the technique and the effectiveness of their own forehands. This is especially true if you have tried to shift your forehand swing more toward the men's pro model.

The Men's Model

As we saw in the first article, from the beginning Sam wanted to play like the top men, and her junior coach Ian Brady helped her lay the foundation for that in developing her signature shots.

So let's look at those components on her forehand, starting with the preparation. Watch how, as her motion starts, the racquet is pushed up and away from the body with the left hand.

This first move is critical. As well as setting the racquet position, her use of the left hand facilitates terrific upper body rotation.

Her left arm stretches further and harder across her body than any of the other current top women. Note how it is pointing at the sideline and how much her torso is turned.

Another key point that distinguishes Sam's motion from other women, is that she keeps her racquet more on the right side of her body throughout the backswing phase. This is one of the major characteristics of most of the men's tour forehands, as described by researcher Brian Gordon in his brilliant new articles on the site. (Click Here.)

From the top of the backswing, Sam's racket drops into the slot position and then travels on an inside to outside and upward path toward the contact. Like the men, Sam also loads the weight strongly on the inside part of her right leg.

As she uncoils, the hips then lead the forward swing, and the torso and shoulders really pull the racquet toward the ball. The wrist is relaxed through impact and the entire arm and hitting arm structure rotates tremendously from her right to her left as she moves through the swing.

This rotation, commonly called the windshield wiper, is a core characteristic of Sam's forehand, and responsible for the high levels of spin she can generate. While not reaching the spin levels of the men, Stosur's forehand is substantially heavier than that of the other top women.

While her ability to generate heavy spin helped make Sam's forehand a unique weapon on the women's tour, at times this advanced swing path has caused her problems. This was particularly true earlier in her career.

Sam would often pull the hand across too fast, shortening her extension and taking away pace and depth. This tendency created problems when she wanted to flatten the ball out.

This same tendency could also cause her to smother higher mid court balls, making errors hitting into the net. This was understandable given that her basic finish was so different than the followthroughs of other top women with flatter forehands.

All the top women hit windshield wipers at times. But because they play flatter than Sam, they tend to finish more swings up and over the shoulder with the hand and racket.

The challenge was how to get Sam to hit through the ball more without trying to alter the basic shape of her forward swing or completely changing her wiper finish.

One of the issues was Sam's hitting arm structure, which was a classic double bend. Sam would naturally set this up at the start of the swing with the elbow bent and the wrist laid back.

However at times she would pull the hand across too and too sharply, increasing the bend in the elbow and reducing the extension.

Some of the drills we devised were tailored to modify this tendency naturally and automatically without going into complex technical analysis or suggesting fundamental structural changes.

These had an impact you can see in her game today. Note in the animation that when she drives the ball, Sam actually achieves something close to a straight hitting arm structure on many forehands.

Although Sam has kept her radical wiper motion, her tendencies to make the types of errors described above are all reduced in Sam's forehand . She has significantly increased ability to hit outward and more through the ball.

In part these improvements were also due to her increased maturity, confidence, and experience in tour singles, but I believe that the work we put in did play a significant role.

It's interesting to note that these changes were not a result of detailed technical discussions regarding the shape of her hitting arm. Rather they were a natural adjustment as she responded to the feeling of the drills.

And I believe that this type of work can for you as well in the drills demonstrated here.

The first two drills help improve important core elements in the men's pro style forehand. The first is the ability to load the outside left leg and uncoil it in the forward swing. The second improves the racquet positioning in the slot, helping the forward swing to start from the right side.

The other drills are more specific to the issues Sam had with flattening out the ball, and achieving more extension. I believe these are issues are very common at the club level.

As noted all these drills are fundamentally similar in one way. They are based on feeling rather than technical explanation. They all force the player to execute critical parts of the forehand motion correctly for the drill to succeed. What makes this approach so effective is that the player is learning by feel, something that translates naturally into hitting tennis balls with the same improved motion.

Try these drills for yourself and let us know how they work. I'd love to hear your thoughts about them in the Forum!