Your Strokes:
Phil Picuri Forehand

Analyzed by John Yandell

It had to happen sooner or later. After 5 years of publication, our first repeat appearance in Your Strokes! On the second go round, we'll analyze the forehand of our long time friend from Switzerland, Phil Picuri. (Click Here to read the Your Strokes I did on his serve 4 years ago.)

Phil is an accomplished player as well as an advanced student of the game, if you follow his posts in the Forum. He has wins in 5.0 tournaments, and his legs still look springy as a deer, having reached the prime of his career at age 65.

Phil had already posted some links to his groundstrokes in the Forum, but I asked him if I could do a fuller analysis of his forehand in Your Strokes. This was in part because of the quality of the video and that gorgeous red clay court.

But another major reason is the great camera angle. That rear view allows us to focus on the key relationship between technique and timing, a relationship that is often overlooked by players trying to make technical improvements.

So what does that rear camera angle show? Well, first, that Phil has a well established and versatile stroke and great feel for the ball. And that he has good technical elements.

He starts with a unit turn. He keeps his arm and racket on the right side throughout the backswing. His arm falls into a strong double bend position as the forward swing starts. And he extends very well through the forward swing outward and upward toward the target. And his posture is impeccably upright.

Timing and the Turn

But in the three forehands in the sequence he posted, we can see that the timing of the first half of his technical motion could definitely improve. By this I mean the timing of when he reaches the turn, and also the extent of the turn motion itself. Let's start by looking at some pro examples and see what that means.

We've talked repeatedly about how the preparation on all good forehands starts with a body turn. The first move is to start to turn the feet and torso sideways.

As this unit turn starts, the hands stay together and the racket comes along for the ride. So it is true that the "racket preparation" starts immediately as an automatic part of the body turn.

But note that that this is very different than the idea of immediately taking the racket all the way back with the racket arm. This inevitably restricts the overall turn and causes the hands to separate too soon.

So the motion begins with a body turn. But at a certain point, usually with the shoulders turned about 45 degrees, the hands start to separate. This is in my view the true start of the backswing.

The racket arm now starts up toward the top of the motion. Meanwhile the left arm straightens and extends across the baseline, basically perpendicular to the sideline. As this is happening, the shoulders continue to turn, eventually reaching 90 degrees to the net, or sometimes slightly more.

At the point at which the shoulders are fully turned, the left arm is fully stretched, pointing at the sideline. Depending on the player, the arm can be angled a little up or a little down--or it can be basically level with the court. When the left arm stretches, the racket hand is usually at the very top of the backswing, or close.

Timing

The big question, however, is when does this happen? At what point in the flight of the oncoming ball does the player reach this full turn? This is the key to timing the forehand.

The answer for top players is this happens at the time the ball bounces on the court. If the player is fully turned at the moment the ball bounces, then he is ready for the forward swing and usually able execute with confidence and high technical quality.

Making the turn at the moment of the ball bounce is a critical timing mechanism. It's a prerequisite to consistency, accuracy and power.

This is one area I think Phil can definitely improve. If we look at his motion, it starts with a body turn, as noted. But if we look at the position of the arms and the racket at the bounce, we can see that the timing of his motion is late, compared to our models. We can also see that it could be fuller.

That is what makes that rear camera angle so great, we can see all this so clearly. So I suggest to every player that they film themselves from behind to evaluate the timing the extent of his or her turn for themselves.

If we look at the moment of the bounce, Phil's shoulders are turned slightly less than 90 degrees. But more importantly, perhaps, his hands have yet to separate and the left arm therefore hasn't started to stretch across his body.

After the bounce his shoulder turn continues, and the hands then separate with the left arm going partially across his body. It's not a bad turn at all--far better than most of non pro players I have worked with.

Still he never reaches the full turn position outlined above. In my opinion he is giving up some natural body leverage that he could easily incorporate and that would mean more natural pace and actually this would happen with less effort.

The related issue is the use of the available time in dealing with balls in different areas of the court--especially balls that might come with more speed.

In the examples Phil shared with us, he is reaching his maximum turn not when the ball is on the court surface, but rather at something close to the top of the bounce.

That is about 10 frames--or a third of second--after the ball bounced off the court surface. It's a big percentage of the total time between hits, which is about 1 and 1/3 seconds in these exchanges.

That's a lot of time to give up. It means that balls hit with sharp pace could cause problems, balls on which he would have more time and more leverage with if he had a faster, slightly fuller turn.

I think we can actually see this if we look at the differences in the three forehands he sent in. Two are hit from an inside out position. The other is a ball hit relatively short and to the forehand side.

The movement to get around and away from those inside balls takes extra time and extra steps. The third ball is fewer steps and I think we can actually see his preparation is slightly further along at the bounce in this example. Just one more reason to be aware of the correlation between the turn and the bounce on the court.

One final thought. My suspicion is that if Phil completed his turn sooner, his hands would also separate sooner and his backswing might expand slightly. That wouldn't be necessarily bad.

Right now his hand never reaches higher than mid chest level. He could be a few inches higher without being in danger of adding too much motion. Or he could actually continue on the current compact path and just go straight back. In this case, his arm and racket would probably be further back at the bounce.

Either way would be fine. It's worth noting though that based on my experience, greater use of the left arm often leads to a slightly larger, more circular backswing. It won't be a problem so long as he keeps his motion on the right side with that great double bend hitting structure.

So that's it for this month! I'm curious to see if Phil tries to implement any of these changes and if so what happens. Hopefully he'll send in a link so we can all see the result.