The ATP Finals in Turin, Italy will feature the world’s best male tennis players with the most powerful backhands on tour. Despite this, these players often find success by hopping around the backhand and positioning themselves to transition to the more powerful forehand.
Most points end in four shots or fewer, but once a rally reaches the fifth, players must seize the advantage. “Forehand hunting isn’t about trying to finish the point, it’s about controlling the point and attacking it as quickly as possible,” said ESPN analyst Patrick McEnroe.
Being the first player to change your backhand to a forehand (known as an inside-out forehand) is an advantage as it puts you in a defensive position when hit by your opponent’s backhand and opens up the opposite corner.
“The forehand is a bigger weapon and it’s easier to manipulate your opponent because you can create better angles,” added Michael Russell, coach of Taylor Fritz, one of eight participants in Turin.
Craig O’Shannessy forced one of the best backhanders, Novak Djokovic, to hit more forehands when he coached him between 2017-19.
O’Shannessy, who focuses on statistics and patterns, has research showing that forehands are on average eight miles per hour faster than backhands and that two-thirds to three-quarters of all winners are typically hit with forehands.
“That’s important information: ‘Even if your backhand is great, it’s nothing as an offensive weapon compared to your forehand,’” he said. “I always called my forehand my sword and my backhand my shield.”
The runaround forehand is typically struck with an open stance, allowing players to disguise their direction, he added. “You’re upgrading your shots and freezing your opponents.”
O’Shannessy’s study divides the court into four quadrants. A is the extreme forehand side. B is the forehand side near the center. C is the backhand side near the center. D is the backhand sideline.
He said players should switch the ball from their backhand to their forehand because more balls land in the C quadrant than anything else. The majority of forehand winners actually hit from the backhand side, while players make fewer mistakes on the forehand from that position.
Of course, this strategy is not new. Ivan Lendl popularized the inside-out forehand in the 1980s, and players including Jim Courier achieved it in the next generation. But the growth of this tactic over the past 20 years has, of course, come from Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
“Rafa was the king of the runaround forehand, but he was left-handed. For right-handers, Roger was their man,” O’Shannessy said.
He pointed out that Federer hit two-thirds of his shots from the forehand, with more than half often coming from the backhand. The average player’s forehand success rate is about 53%.
“When I worked with Novak, we completely copied Roger,” he added. “Hitting 53% of your shots with your forehand is a joke. “Everyone should follow Roger.”
(The strategy is different for left-handers, with an inside-out forehand moving into the forehand of the right hand, and while Nadal has proven its worth, O’Shannessy said left-handers should first hit an “inside-in” forehand to the backhand of the right hand to move over it.)
McEnroe said the speed of the shot and the speed of the player make the backhand more important, allowing attackers to open the court more at different angles, including short balls that pull opponents further up the court.
“Also, if you hit a relatively good forehand into the corner of your opponent’s backhand, their shot may land more in the middle, so you can now hit a forehand crosscourt into open space,” he said.
However, McEnroe and Russell offer some caveats about this strategy. McEnroe said that going around the backhand to hit an inside-out forehand “is enticing your opponent to hit a backhand down the line.”
At the ATP Finals, he will be “wary” of overusing that approach against an opponent like Alexander Zverev. He can hit a great backhand down the line and force opponents out of position and vulnerable. Trying to open the opposite forehand corner is less effective against a player with Carlos Alcaraz’s speed.
Also, sometimes players may go too far to hit a forehand, go into the doubles alley or even go off the court looking for a forehand opportunity, he said. “At the highest level, it’s very dangerous,” he said.
Russell said this was especially true for a player like Fritz, who was confident with his backhand on a fast, low-bounds court like Turin.
“If Taylor goes around with the backhand, he’s exposing himself too much,” he said. “You have to calculate movements and spacing. If you don’t shoot well enough, you’ll end up in a defensive position even though your goal was offense. It depends on the opponent’s positioning. “If he’s in the middle of the court, he’s not going to be able to create as many angles.”
But O’Shannessy doesn’t take caution about court speed or the quality of his opponents. First of all, players who avoid the backhand are forcing their opponents to run, which is always important, but especially so at the end of the year when energy is low.
“You’re hitting more winners, but also your opponent is generally more likely to hit that ball crosscourt at you, so you don’t have to get to the middle and do less running, which means It puts less strain on your body. “he said.
In response to the debate about allowing backhands into the A quadrant, he said these players can generally cover the court well enough to get there and will be in position to hit a big crosscourt forehand to an out-of-position opponent. . It’s in the “D quadrant” on the backhand side.
So elite-level players in the ATP Finals won’t have O’Shannessy in the way of his forehand hunt.
“I’m going to coach every player there to run their backhand,” he said.
