Anastasija Sevastova – Forehand 3.0

Hard working and physically strong Anastasija Sevastova (*1990 / LAT) was the first Latvian female professional tennis player reaching the WTA top 50 in singles (in the 90’s, Larisa Savchenko (*1966 / LAT) was WTA #1 in doubles) and she might have opened up the way for her currently even more successful compatriot Jelena Ostapenko (*1997 / LAT). Anastasija reached the top 50 WTA ranking already in the age of 20 years (2010), but after her quite serious troubles in 2012/13, she, unfortunately, had to stop her career and split from her Austrian coach. She decided to come back with a new Austrian coach in the year 2015 and reached her career-high of WTA #15 in October 2017, just a few weeks after reaching the quarterfinals at the 2017 US.Open.

Anastasija is mainly an aggressive baseliner and forehand belongs to her main weapons. As can be seen below, she fulfills well the main TENNIS 3.0 principle, which is the body energy dominance of the strokes demonstrated by the long elbow extension away from the body against the target. Small timing details and certain stiffness (mainly in the direct stance as shown below) can sometimes partly block the dynamic of her pronation as well as the full body rotation and thus to certain degree limit the optimal body energy unloading against the target. Mainly under the pressure of the world best players, this tends to lead to more errors then.

Anastasija Sevastova (*1990 / LAT) – Forehand 3.0 in a practice – 1 of 4 – push-off with the inside leg (=direct stance) – good focus, the racket is early in the slot – 2017 US.Open – New York / USA

Anastasija Sevastova (*1990 / LAT) – Forehand 3.0 in a practice – 2 of 4 – impact – far in front with extended elbow and perfect eye control – 2017 US.Open – New York / USA

Anastasija Sevastova (*1990 / LAT) – Forehand 3.0 in a practice – 3 of 4 – follow through 1 = targeted pronation – long extension with a straight elbow and perfect eye control, the axis of the body rotation is inside of the body, but a certain stiffness in the body limits the full body energy unloading – 2017 US.Open – New York / USA

Anastasija Sevastova (*1990 / LAT) – Forehand 3.0 in a practice – 4 of 4 – follow through 2 = relaxation – 2017 US.Open – New York / USA

Anastasija Sevastova (*1990 / LAT) – Forehand 3.0 in a practice – 1 of 3 – impact – far in front with a straight elbow and perfect eye control – the inside/front/left leg, which pushes off the ground (=direct stance) seems to be almost fully extended a bit too early – 2017 US.Open – New York / USA

Anastasija Sevastova (*1990 / LAT) – Forehand 3.0 in a practice – 2 of 3 – follow through 1 = targeted pronation – nice elbow extension away from the body and perfect eye control, the straight front leg might then partly limit the optimal body energy unloading – 2017 US.Open – New York / USA

Anastasija Sevastova (*1990 / LAT) – Forehand 3.0 in a practice – 3 of 3 – follow through 2 = relaxation – the relaxation starts mostly with the elbow bending and its timing is one of the crucial factors influencing the stroke quality – 2017 US.Open – New York / USA

Anastasija Sevastova (*1990 / LAT ) – Forehand 3.0 in a practice – 1 of 2 – impact – with a fully extended elbow and a perfect eye control – 2017 US.Open – New York / USA

Anastasija Sevastova (*1990 / LAT) – Forehand 3.0 in a practice – 2 of 2 – follow through 1 aka targeted pronation – body energy was unloaded against the ball/target, very controlled posture – 2017 US.Open – New York / USA

This article covers certain aspects of Anastasija Sevastova’s forehand and forehand in general only! Further photos, more details about her forehand and other strokes as well as about the strokes of other players are available upon request at drmgb11(at)gmail.com. Some significant details of this kind, necessary for a top tennis performance as well as for a sustainable tennis training/development in general, are being discussed also in the seminar “TENNIS 3.0 – Future of the Game”, which is available worldwide upon request – www.tennis30.com / www.tennis30.cz

Photos (August 2017) & text (December 2017 & January 2018) copyright by Dr. Martin G. Baroch. Any further publication of either any of the photos and/or texts with the explicit written permission from the author/copyright owner only!!