Tour Strokes — Table of Contents
Table of contents for the Tour Strokes series — current pro player technical analyses.
Tour strokes
Section Overview
John YandellEditor
The strokes of the top players fuel the evolution of the game. Whenever a new player emerges, the requests we receive for footage of their strokes increases exponentially.
To be honest, sometimes everything the top players do isn't applicable to players at all levels. And sometimes it is. Sometimes the top players are just the most popular examples of technical elements that all good players share at all levels. And sometimes they break the barriers with technical innovations that change the game.
If you're around tennis coaches muchor take regular lessons--you know that the strokes of the great players are the working language of the profession. This means that virtually every knowledgeable teacher has his own (sometimes adamant) opinions about what the great players "really" do.
It's also likely that if you talk to a few different coaches, or read their articles, you'll find just as many different viewpoints on what that "reality" really is. What's the technical key to Agassi's backhand? Why did Pete Sampras have the heaviest serves of all time? Has Andy Roddick surpassed Pete with his abbreviated take back and supersonic racket speed?
In this section, we present the viewpoints of some of the greatest coaches in the gamesometimes the coaches who helped them develop those strokes in the first place: Rick Macci and Nick Bollettieri for example. If you have been confused and heard or read contradictory claims about how the great players hit the ball, their voices can provide clarity and credibility. And it won't be just opinionwe'll back it up with the incredible visual resources of Tennisplayer. Those resources, for example, are the basis for the series I've written trying to comprehend all the elements and the full complexity of the Sampras serve.
We'll break the strokes down, explain how they evolvedand advise you on what you should and shouldn't copy for yourself. We're just getting started on this section. As we go forward we plan to expand it to provide a comprehensive perspective on the pro grame.
The only place you can find it is here on Tennisplayer.
John Yandell
My Take on Leylah Fernandez's Forehand - NEW
Mysteries of Medvedev's Forehand
Kei Nishikori Serve
Dominic Thiem Second Serve
Alexander Zverev Serve
Coco Gauff Forehand
Andrei Rublev's Serve
Andy Murray's Serve
Stan Wawrinka's Backhand
Maria Sharapova Serve
Tomas Berdych's Forehand
Juan Martin Del Potro's Forehand
Serena's Serve and Venus's Two-Hander
The McEnroe Serve
Justine Henin Serve
Jimmy Arias
My Dad and the Modern Forehand
Rick Macci
The Andy Roddick Serve
The Andy Roddick Forehand
The Venus Williams Backhand
The Venus Williams Forehand
Developing Capriati's Groundstrokes
Nick Bollettieri
The Andre Agassi Forehand
The Agassi Backhand
The Tommy Haas Backhand
John Yandell
The Sampras Serve
High Speed and Heavy Spin
The Racket Path
The Sampras Toss
Developing Advanced Footwork
Radical Torso Rotation
The Left Launch
Deception
Second Serve
Doug Eng
The Modern Two-Handed Backhand: Building Your Two Hander
The Modern Two-Handed Backhand: Two Paths to Power
Modern Two-Handed Backhand: Grip Combinations
Improving Your Service Rhythm
The Three Service Rhythms: Part 2
The Three Service Rhythms
Jason Frausto
Donald Young's Forehand
How Rafael Nadal Changed His Forehand
Forehand Differences: Pro Women and Pro Men
Peter Smith
Pete Sampras and the Two Step Volley
Bobby Bernstein
The Pro Return of Serve
Bill Mountford
The Modern Volley
Christophe Delavaut
How Rafa Changed His Serve and Won the U.S. Open
Jeff Counts
The Forehand: A Spring Event
The Forehand: A Spring Event: Part 2
The Windshield Wiper Forehand
Coming into Contact: The Double Bend Forehand
The Straight Armed Forehand
The Straight Arm Forehand: Part 2
The Straight Arm Forehand: Part 3
Bungalow Bill
The Waves on the Shore and the Role of the Wrist
The Philippoussis Backhand
Dick Gould
Learning From the Greats
David Porter, EdD
The Components of the Modern Forehand
Jeffrey F McCullough
The Two Handed Forehand: Past, Present, Future
Nate Chura
The Boris Becker Serve
Tom Downs
Grand Sam: Samantha Stosur's Forehand
Grand Sam: Samantha Stosur's Serve Motion
Paul Cohen
A Comment on Locked Elbow and Bent Elbow Forehands
Source: tennisplayer.net archive — Tour strokes TOC.docx (John Yandell teaching library, 2002-2022). Extracted and rendered as HTML for Tennis Future Lab.