Danielle Dotzenrod
Forehand Evolution

Analyzed by John Yandell

When we first looked at Danielle Dotzenrod's forehand, we documented the problems in her swing and showed how she made some fundamental changes to create a rock solid base for her forehand. (Click Here.)

Now in this article we'll take a look at the further evolution of the shot. If you have seen Danielle appearing on our great new Tennis Channel ad, you may have already noticed the differences and how far she has advanced her technical swing. Basically her swing has gone "modern." By that I mean she is hitting her basic drives with advanced elements including additional shoulder rotation and a full windshield wiper motion.

To me the way her forehand evolved is a fascinating test case. What technical elements should a player develop, and in which order? How far should a player seek to move toward the advanced forehand elements on the pro model?

The more I see the more I realize there aren't any black and white answers. Some players will gravitate toward more advanced elements, incorporate them, and then make them work at their level. That seems to be the case with Danielle. So let's see how that happened, starting with a review of the initial changes.

The first major component we added to Danielle's motion was the development of what I call the pro turn position. This is a pro element, yes, but one that every player at every level can easily imitate, and one that makes an immediate, huge difference. (For more on the turn, Click Here.)

Danielle learned to stretch her left arm fully across her body, pointing at the sideline and parallel to the surface of the court. This turned her shoulders 90 degrees plus to the net and also allowed her to coil on her outside leg.

She felt immediately the increased leverage this position gave her. In her work for the Tennis Channel, she's become an advocate for the pro turn when she talks to players or coaches--especially those that think the left arm points at the ball in the preparation.

Danielle also made a second major correction in the path of her forward swing. Her forward motion was too radically upward and too short, resulting in reduced extension and a loopy ball with too much topspin in comparison to her velocity level.

To eliminate this, we worked hard to develop a simple, classical finish. We defined her point of maximum extension - the point at which her racket traveled the furthest outward and upward. This was with her wrist at about eye level, the racket hand about even with the left side of her body, and great spacing between her racket hand and her shoulder.

We also worked on creating a vertical racket position at this extension point. This meant that she swung through the shot with the face of the racket basically on edge. This I felt was critical because of all the excess motion in her original swing and the high arcing ball she produced.

It's the old style classical finish you see in the basic forehand from Robert Lansdorp (Click Here) and others. It allows you to really drive through the ball with maximum pace but still hit enough spin to control the shot up to the highest levels of the game.

And I thought that might be where Danielle's forehand would settle in because she was absolutely crushing the ball, hitting a much flatter, more penetrating shot with great depth, and doing it consistently.

Advanced?

But as we worked one interesting issue I noticed was her natural tendency to hit with a high degree forward shoulder rotation. This means that at the end of the swing the right shoulder was more forward and closer to the net compared to the left. A more classical model would have the shoulders parallel to the net.

I felt that it was best to just leave this alone and see what happened over time. In high level forehands, however, this rotation is often paired with another advanced element. This is the full windshield wiper finish. (For more on the wiper Click Here.) I wondered whether this was where her stroke might eventually be headed.

So as an experiment I showed her the variation for the wiper and the differences compared to the classical finish. At a minimum, she'd eventually need that to deal with high heavy balls and low angles. But I didn't really push it, and we went back to working on the more basic structural changes.

This I think is where you reach the line between helping players develop and possibly impeding their development. I knew from experience that it was rare to see a player below quite high levels of the game who could make these advanced elements work consistently. But I also felt that Danielle should have the freedom to experiment and synthesize a motion that she could really call her own.

The Pause

There was one other issue. A couple of astute observers wrote in after the first forehand article, commenting on the "pause" between Danielle's turn and the start of the forward swing. And they were right - it existed.

Isn't a smooth rhythm a characteristic of all good strokes, one asked? And the answer is yes, usually. Again it's a fascinating issue in teaching. When we began, Danielle had a continuous, fluid forehand motion. It's just that the technical positions were substantially off what she needed for consistent, effective forehand.

So I didn't care too much about the rhythm. To me the critical factor was that she feel that new full turn, and also, the full extension position. I encouraged her to make that turn as fast as possible at the start of the motion, and I didn't mind that pause. In fact I think with some players, that feeling of making the turn and just staying there for a small interval helps them really feel the checkpoints.

My belief was that Danielle would eventually make it seamless. One tremendous asset she had was her willingness to work in controlled drill, hitting basic ball after basic ball to build up her technique, confidence and feel. I had to smile when she told me one of the first things she had done when she took up tennis was buy a portable ball machine.

So many players labor under the assumption that understanding technique is the same thing as developing technique. They go directly from a tennis lesson to a league match and then are surprised when they play more poorly than before. As a trained athlete Danielle knew the process, and the work she put in on the machine, mixed with live hitting produced really paid off.

The Pay Off

Several weeks later when I came to LA again to work with Danielle prior to shooting the Tennis Channel commercial, I was amazed to see how it had all evolved.

Danielle was still owning the turn. She was extending through the forward swing better than many pro players. The pause had disappeared. Her rhythm was smooth and she flowed through the stroke from start to finish. The ball was tremendously explosive coming off her racket.

But there was more interesting development. She had incorporated the full windshield wiper finish on her own. This meant that her hand and arm were rotating in the forward swing so that the tip of the racket went from pointing at one sideline to pointing at the other, turning over about 180 degrees.

She had also maintained or even increased the advanced torso rotation, and this was working in perfect combination with the wiper. It all just looked natural and appropriate.

As we have seen in our pro analysis, these are two of the components that allow a player like Roger Federer to hit through the ball with supersonic pace and generate mind boggling levels of spin. (For more on Roger's forehand, Click Here.)

Danielle isn't hitting the ball quite as well as Federer, yet anyway. But the Tennis Channel crew and the members at the Riviera Country Club watching the filming could tell something really good was happening on that court.

Not every player will naturally move as far as Danielle when it comes to synthesizing advanced elements. I still believe that for many if not most players a more conservative mix of elements is the key to maximizing their forehand effectiveness. But that's one of the things that is so great about tennis - every player gets to create their own strokes and their own game and find the combinations that work for them.