ANALYSIS: The Gasquet Backhand

Richard Gasquet's backhand is a personal favorite of mine. It's the main reason I try to catch every match he plays. When it comes to one handers, it's like nothing we've seen. Sure Gustavo Kuerten had a massive one hander, but his extreme grip handicapped his variety. Gasquet's stroke is designed for limitless possibilities. Let's take a look at how and why -

Breakdown:

Takeback: Gasquet has a massive takeback on this shot. He uses his left hand to pull his racquet behind him and above his head. This results in a massive shoulder turn. As you can see in this picture his chin is actually over his shoulder and resting on his back. Anyone reading at home should try doing this - its almost as hard as licking your elbow :). It's simple physics - the more energy you store, the more you can release. Gasquet is making sure he is gathering as much power as he can before striking the ball. Why doesn't everyone do this you might ask? Well, a massive take back is time consuming and requires an increased sense of timing. Without perfect timing and early preparation it can be a big weakness of faster courts. Fortunately Gasquet has both, as proven by his success on grass.



Foundation - Gasquet is leading the shot with his right foot, stepping into the ball. Knees bent, hips relatively perpendicular to the net, and perfectly balanced. He employs a closed stance almost every time, as is customary with a one handed backhand. An open stance one hander is inefficient and frankly illogical (though have seen him do it when he's in a pinch). Unlike an open stance two hander you cannot use your other arm to provide leverage. The ball at this moment is only a couple of feet away from him and yet he is still in full coil.


The swing: Moments before impact, the butt of Gasquet's racquet is pointing at the ball. This is a good habit to form on both the forehand and the backhand. His left hand doesn't release the throat of the racquet until it drops to about hip height. There it stays or sometimes moves back, providing balance similar to a tightrope walker. His right arm is straight at the moment of contact, reducing the chances of mishits and timing errors. Contact is out in front. His head is still locked on the point of impact which is where it stays for much of the follow through. Again, that is another great habit for any stroke, as it keeps prevents you from opening up your foundation during a swing thus adding accuracy and power.


The Flick - This little portion of the swing is what allows for such variety and is what I believe is the key to this great shot. Gasquet's takeback and preparation for every backhand is extremely similar no matter how he plans to hit it. But how he maneuvers his right forearm and wrist at the moments just before and after he strikes the ball is how he can change the trajectory and pace of the ball so drastically. It is hard to describe in words really. And because it is such a quick and violent motion it is hard to understand unless you try it yourself. Fortunately, we can study this portion of his shot by taking a look at the resulting follow through.

The follow through - Just look at this for a moment. It's insane. If you were to superimpose two images of Gasquet's backhand, one during the peak of his takeback and one during the end of his follow through, his racquets would touch. Does your backhand do that? Probably not. And not many pros do it either. Granted his swingpath isn't always as extreme as the one in this picture but it is a good illustration of all the energy he stored up at the start of the swing being fully released. A more conventional Gasquet follow through is shown below. It is important to note that the follow through is a direct result of the flick as discussed above. A flat shot produces a follow through that goes across Gasquet's body and and a racquet that ends up about head level. A heavy topspin shot will feature a follow through similar to the statue of liberty's pose with his racquet high above his head.


Hope you've enjoyed this analysis!

Indian Wells Preview

A big breath of fresh air - that's what it feels like when Indian Wells rolls around, especially for me living in the midwest. A sunless winter full of snow doesn't exactly provide a cheery mood as I try to wait out the terrible lull in tennis between the Australian and the first Masters Series tournament of the year. Yes yes I know we've got tournaments like Rotterdam, Acapulco, Dubai, etc. Its enough to tide me over, but without the big guns such as Fed, Rafa, and Delpo I find it hard to make time to watch more than just the final.

Even Andy Murray can't bring his full dedication to these tournaments. He's been infamously quoted saying things such as 'If it was a Slam or something, my tactics and my game style would have been a bit different.' Kudos to Novak Djokovic though. He's been in the trenches since he left Australia, playing making the semis of Rotterdam and defending his title in Dubai. He thinks the players owe it to the fans to give their all wherever they go, especially when tournaments like Dubai offer the top players several hundred thousand dollars just to show up. I completely agree. Sometimes players just don't realize how well off they are. Hopefully Murray will learn a lesson from this and either change his outlook on these smaller tournaments or learn to keep his feelings to himself.

Roger Federer has been dealing with a lung infection for the past few weeks but is in Indian Wells now practicing which means (hopefully) that he will play for the first time since Melbourne. Rafael Nadal has confirmed that he will play as well, but no longer being ranked #2 means that it is possible he could meet Roger before the final. Not counting the Master's Cup, such a thing has not happened since the semis of Roland Garros 5 years ago! 8 of the top 10 men's players are slated to show up. The reigning US Open champ Juan Martin Del Potro is out with a right wrist injury and Fernando Gonzalez is opting out due to the tragic Chilean quake. Its a good field, and one that will bring us the biggest match ups since the Australian Open.

Novak Djokovic is my pick to win the title provided he won't succumb to fatigue during the tournament. He hasn't stopped playing yet this year, and is in the best form of anyone going into Indian Wells. Federer has been recovering from an illness, and Nadal has been taking it easy since retiring against Murray in Australia with yet another knee injury. Both of those guys should be fairly rusty. Murray should be very fresh, making him a major contender for the title. Davydenko, one of the hottest players of the year, recently pulled out of Davis Cup with an injury. That makes it hard to say how he will be feeling next week, but if it is anywhere near 100% he is going to be a major threat to the rusty Federer and Nadal.

The Man vs the Boy

Andy Murray had been playing some of the best tennis of his life. He had a 6-4 lifetime record against Roger. He varied his game enough to blast Nadal away 2 rounds prior. Yet Federer was able to pull Murray into a tennis vacuum. Precedent and form seemed to have no effect during this year's Australian Open final. This was a grand slam final against the best player ever to live. The biggest stage ever. Normal rules don't apply.

Andy Murray began the match with a glimmer of hope. He did an amazing job of making Federer hit backhand after backhand. No matter where Andy was on court he was able to flick the ball to Federer's left nearly every time. As a result the rallies were long and grueling, and much of the first set was decided inevitably by unforced errors. But the glaring difference over the course match was Murray's inability to sense a short ball, take advantage of it, and transition properly. Nobody does this better than Roger Federer.

Now there is a difference between being passive and not hitting the ball aggressively enough. Andy Murray hit a good number of hard shots and winners. Only problem was, he was waiting for the ball to come to him almost every time. If one of Roger's shots landed short, Andy would often wait for the ball to bounce to him, hitting it while it was dropping instead of moving up a step or two and hitting the ball at the peak of the bounce. And when he did step in to take a ball early he would often roll it back cross court. This pattern of play gave Roger all the time in the world and he took it, giving a dazzling display of skill.

As well rounded a player as Murray is, and as well as he defends, he has no big weapon in his game. No one shot that can take over a point or rip control from his opponent. Many of the top players of this generation fall into a similar categories. The absolute cream of the crop - those who have been winning slams - have weapons. Weapons that are bigger than anything the game has seen before.

Sorry Andy, your game still needs to grow. You have to win a grand slam final - you can't just wait for your opponent to lose.

Mr Djokovic Finishing Strong

We've known for a long time what a danger Novak Djokovic is to his fellow players. After all, he has beaten all the top players, has several masters titles, and has won the Australian Open. While he's won more matches than anyone else this year the world seemed to focus more on Federer and Nadal (and even Murray) since January. Now that the year is winding down, the marathon man Djokovic seems stronger than ever while Federer is distracted and Nadal is struggling for form.

For most of the year some speculated that the controversial racquet change Djokovic made was affecting his game too much. For me, his forehand was clearly off and he was struggling for confidence. All of a sudden, none of that seems to be an issue. Over the past few weeks in Basel and Paris Novak has been striking his forehand as well as I have ever seen. Unlike Federer, Djokovic doesn't often spray this shot into the stands. And unlike Nadal, Djokovic can penetrate through the court quite easily. Both Roger and Rafa displayed their greatest weaknesses to Novak as they fell tamely over the recent weeks to the Serbian.

If the world number 1 and number 2 can't regroup and get these weaknesses under control again, the rock solid Djokovic will be standing there ready to knock them down. Novak in my mind is the big favorite going into the year end championships in London. Nadal showed yet again that no matter how badly he is getting his butt kicked he will not change his game drastically enough to throw he defeater off course. Roger just seems incredibly unfocused to me. Granted he has a good reason (the new kids) but if he seriously wants to be a contender for several more years he will have to find a better balance. Murray's tame game won't work well on an fast indoor surface against the elite players in the world. He is still far too defensive in his play.

Now there are other players who will be in London, but all things considered at the moment Novak Djokovic is the strongest force in tennis.

Del Potro's Doomsday

Tennis, like most sports, is a continually evolving game. Wilander ruined serve and volley with his consistency and mental brilliance. The power of Lendl and Sampras took it from there. Hewitt's neutralizing counterpunching grabbed the reigns after that. Then came Roger, the all around expert. It took a special breed of super strong, super fast competitors a la Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray to steal some of the limelight. But even they are having trouble wrangling the crown from the almighty Federer. Perhaps their evolution isn't quite drastic enough.

Enter Juan Martin Del Potro.

At a towering 6'6", he is the tallest man to ever win a grand slam. That is saying a lot considering his style of play. Think tall champions of the past. Goran had arguably the best serve in the game of tennis. Unfortunately his inability to support that weapon with anything else kept him from winning more than a single major. Safin was the closest thing we had to the next step. Fortunately for today's champions, Marat's mental instability has extinguished the bright flame of potential he once had. Del Potro could easily outshine them both.

Juan Martin is rare breed that combines agility, consistency, and tactics with his extreme size and power. In my eyes, his greatest strength is hitting giant winners from further back more consistently than anyone else so far. It allows him to go from defense (which he is surprisingly skilled at) to offense on a whim without even changing court positioning. He's having his cake and eating it too. While this is a huge asset, he's shown its not what he relies on all of the time. Against Rafael Nadal in the semis of the US Open, Del Potro stood firm on the baseline and took Nadal's high bouncing-spin on the rise like it was nothing. That takes serious timing. And oh yeah - he can crack his serve over 140mph. Something tells me he will improve this number as well. We may soon see the first man in history to hit over 160mph.

If Juan Martin Del Potro continues to improve he could very well put an end to the Roger-Rafa battle for number one by simply stepping over both of them like a bouncer breaking up a bar fight.

Quiet Class triumphs over Angry Arrogance

I always thought the Kim Clijsters vs Serena Williams match would be an entertaining one, but this one was unforgettable. Kim kept her head down and played an extremely mature match while Serena struggled against someone who could match her own level. Having smashed a racquet in the first set Williams had earned a warning. As per the official rules, any subsequent warning would result in a single point penalty. Unfortunately, Serena could not contain her anger after a 2nd serve foot fault was called on her to make the score 15-40 in the 12 game of the second set. Once she berated the line judge, the tournament supervisor had no choice but to give another warning which garnered a point penalty giving the match to Clijsters.

Now Williams has never really been one to give her opponents or fellow players much credit or praise. Earlier this year she was very vocal in her disagreement over Safina's ranking and she very seldom blames a loss on anything other than shoddy play.

This may sound harsh toward Serena, but you have to consider everything. From time to time everyone can lose their cool and to be honest Serena only let slip out her mouth what I'm sure tons of players have thought to themselves before. The tragedy came as a result of a compounding effect afterwards. Instead of owning up to her bad choice Serena made no attempt to reconcile or even acknowledge much wrongdoing in the press conference after the match. Perhaps in a day or two Williams will issue an apology. But until then, these two instances of bad behavior show very little class. It may be cliche, but someone think of the children! As a multiple slam winner and hall of fame player literally millions of children look up to Serena. Hopefully she will come to her senses in a few days so that the little ones who idolize her don't learn that just because you are the best does not mean you are allowed to 'shove f*cking balls' down anyone's 'f*cking throat.'

Winning by not losing

Let me start by saying that Andy Murray is a great tennis player. He's a brilliant tactician and a hard worker. Everything he has earned up to this point has been a result of his great drive to improve, and now he is climbing to the very top of the game. But all of that won't keep me from falling asleep every time I sit down to watch one of his matches.

Now I realize it is a bit ridiculous and selfish of me to criticize a tennis player for not being entertaining. The only reason I feel strong enough to blog about it is because I feel it isn't the greatest thing for the sport overall. This is a man who is challenging for number one by playing passive, slow paced, consistent rally tennis. His main strategy is to make his opponent lose in a flurry of unforced errors. We've seen this before - Lleyton Hewitt played a very similar type of game when he was #1 several years ago. The difference was personality. Hewitt was a feisty competitor who really had to pour himself all over the court in order to fend off the big hitters of his day. By contrast Murray has a sort of sleepy type of game combined with a fairly negative attitude. These factors don't garner him tons of fans outside of the UK.

With Federer and Nadal slowly playing back into form I hope to see them contending for the bigger titles again. All due respect to Murray, but I just want to be excited to watch tennis on the weekend again!