Tag:French Open

Dominik Koepfer – Solid Leftie Forehand 3.0

Already there he did belong to the rather smaller group of players understanding quite well some of the main elements of the Forehand 3.0 Code while often successfully following the necessary reference points leading to the body energy dominance of his forehand strokes...

Stan Wawrinka – Dominant one-handed backhand 3.0

One of Stan's biggest weapons is, since the junior years already, his signature one-handed backhand 3.0, which he plays on a big radius with very dominant long-axis supination, as can be seen below. Such a dominant stroke trajectory of the helix form (3-D action) leading to optimal...

Roger Federer – Secrets of his Service 3.0

His Service 3.0 is an almost ideal stroke with a high level of the racket stability in the space, thanks also to the underlying helix form. The next main deciding aspect is the (in most cases) nearly perfect body energy unloading against the target based on the well-controlled (targeted) long-axis pronation. The photos below show that (in a contrary to the rather dangerous myths about the necessity to swing the racket by the non-dominant (her left) foot, as preached for decades in most of the tennis books and by most of the tennis coaches), Roger stays....

Bianca Andreescu – Solid Service 3.0

While looking at Bianca's strokes, what strikes the eye first is her clean Forehand 3.0 technique. The "cultural differences" in the approach to the forehand belong, in my opinion, to the main reasons why she is currently significantly more successful than her fierce opponents from the ITF Juniors Tour. Also, Bianca's service had a very clear Tennis 3.0 style with a sound body energy unloading into....

Serena Williams – Probably the best female service of all time

Serena's service during the 2018 Wimbledon Championships while also adding few images from far back in 2003. It is interesting to see that her core service fundamentals have been quite the same in 2003 already and this speaks for the quality of her coaching before that. In short, Serena's service is very simple, well-focused at the decisive elements (not quite clear to many in the tennis field) and practically free of any potentially disturbing idiosyncrasies. Some of the main decisive elements to be mentioned are a relaxed balanced starting position, a very stable quite high toss, a delated...

Sebastian Korda – Clean 1st Service 3.0

Below, I am focusing on his 1st service technique as I have analyzed it during the 2017 French Open Junior Championships. Sebastian's service is dominated on the backswing part by a calm body pretension buildup and an almost straight tossing motion, both free of any major idiosyncrasies. This is followed by a solid push-off leading to a good extension and then by a very.....

Denis Shapovalov – Powerful 1st service 3.0

From the strokes, the service belongs to one of Shapovalov's strengths, but small improvements (part of the Tennis 3.0 Code seem to be missing) could probably make this leftie service to an even more of a constant weapon. Below, I am showing some of Denis' services at both the 2017 French and the 2017 US.Open. The opening of the racket...

Reilly Opelka – Rather troubled forehand

Below, I am comparing Reilley's forehands at these two above mentioned events. I am surely aware that the coordination and an exact footwork are challenging at Reilly's size, but what I am focusing at is the way how he approaches the given strokes as this gives me certain information about the mental image of the stroke in his mind. In the case of an optimal "3 Step Tennis Stroke Regulation", the player puts the priority at the creation....

Catherine Bellis – Forehand 3.0 with potential

Below, I am comparing Catherine's forehand during her 3rd round match at the 2014 Orange Bowl (against Shiskina / USA - the first tie-break set was very tight there) and her forehand in a practice match against Kayla Day (USA) during the 2017 French Open. At her example is then also quite well possible to explain the certain mystery of the stances.....

Stefanos Tsitsipas – One-handed backhand 3.0 then and now

The one-handed backhand can be considered as Stefanos' signature stroke. He belongs to the rather small group of the young players playing the one-handed stroke on the backhand side. In general, the one-handed backhand variety gives a better chance for the acceleration but can be also rather more challenging...