The Grip Shift and Unit Turn
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The One-Handed Topspin Backhand
The Grip Shift and Unit Turn
John Yandell
In Part 1 of this new series on the one-handed backhand we looked at the two major grip variations, the Classic grip and the Extreme grip, and showed how the players construct their grips by the way they connect the hand to the racket. (Click Here.)
Now let's start to work our way through the stroke itself, including the commonalities and the variations between the grip styles. In this article we'll cover the initial preparation, including the grip shift and the unit turn. We'll discover something very surprising about the grip shift. Then we'll see the core similarities between the classic and the extreme versions when it comes to the first move.
The grip shift and the unit turn across the grip styles.
Grip Changes
The first element to look at in the preparation is the grip change itself. You might assume that with the more extreme backhand grips, or even with the strong classic grip used by Roger Federer, the grip change could become a challenge.
Most pro players use a forehand grip with part of the hand shifted under the racket handle to Bevel 4 or even further. To get from there to the modern one-handed backhand grips, players would have to rotate the hand 3 or even 4 bevels. Since the time between the hits in baseline exchanges is about one second, you might assume a severe grip shift would add an element of complexity and difficulty to executing the stroke.
Watch as Federer shifts to a neutral or intermediate grip after his forehand, then makes the backhand shift.
You might assume that, if the players were actually making that kind of grip shift. But they're not. When I started looking closely at the high speed footage I was amazed to see what was actually happening. So far as I know, it hasn't been previously understood or analyzed.
The players aren't making that huge grip shift because they are not holding their actual forehand grips in the ready position. But they aren't waiting with their backhand grips either. Instead they are waiting with a grip somewhere in between. The starting point for most pro players actually appears to be an intermediate grip something like an old style eastern forehand, with the index knuckle on bevel 3 and the heel pad on bevel 2.
What this means is that the players are shifting their grip on both groundstrokes, not just to hit the backhand, but to hit the forehand as well. From this neutral starting position, they are rotating the hand downward toward the bottom of the frame for the forehand, or are rotating the hand upward, toward the top of the frame to hit the backhand. Instead of rotating 3 or 4 bevels, the shift is more like one and half bevels or two.
Extreme players like Gonzo also recover to an intermediate grip and shift to the back as part of the first move.
The shift is even less in the case of a player like Roger Federer. We know that Federer's forehand grip is one of the most conservative in the pro game, with most of his hand directly behind the handle and the index knuckle shifted slightly downward, what we have labeled a 3 and 1/2 / 3. (Click Here.)
Federer's backhand grip is also classical, as we saw in part one of this series, with his index knuckle and most of his heel pad directly on the top bevel of the frame, what we call a "1 / 1" in our new terminology. So from the neutral position the distance he has to rotate is even less. Does that help or make things easier when you play up on the baseline and try to take the ball earlier and on the rise? It couldn't hurt, and it might be a critical element for success for attacking baseline players.
Watch what happens in the Federer animation as he finishes his forehand. You can see how he switches back to this intermediate grip position. Interestingly, it appears to be the same grip he uses to hit his forehand return.
Some players like Justine open the fingers and rotate the racket with the left hand to execute the grip shift.
The grip shift for the backhand begins virtually instantaneously when he recognizes that the ball is a backhand. Watch how Federer cradles the racket lightly at the throat with the left hand. He relaxes his fingers and then rotates the racket hand to create his backhand drive grip with the index knuckle and the palm on top.
It's the same sequence for the extreme players, they just have slightly to go further from the intermediate position. Watch the animation of Fernando Gonzales, who has an extreme semi-western forehand grip as well as an extreme backhand. Like Federer he waits with a neutral grip that is roughly halfway in between his actual grips, and shifts going both ways. Like Federer he uses the opposite left hand to cradle the racket while the hand rotates toward the top of the frame. The shift begins immediately at the start of the backhand motion.
Virtually all the players I studied for this article are using some version of this neutral grip and dual grip change pattern. They all come back to the intermediate grip position, and then shift the grip one way or the other, depending on whether the next ball is a forehand or a backhand.
The unit turn: torso arm and racket rotating together with minimal or no arm motion.
A few players make the grip shift in a different way, by opening the racket hand and using the left, opposite arm to actually rotate the frame of the racket backwards. Justine Henin-Hardenne and Paradorn Srichaphan are good examples. Instead of cradling the racket and turning the hand, Justine releases the fingers on the racket hand and then uses of the left hand to rotate the racket shaft back towards her until the bevels are aligned with the key points on the hand. But which ever way the change happens it's instantaneous with the start of the preparation.
Preparation
Which brings us to the next aspect of the preparation. "Take your racket back early!" It's the universal teaching mantra in private lessons across the planet. We spent quite a bit of time investigating why this phrase was bad advice on the forehand. (Click Here.) And it's the same on the one-handed backhand.
It's not that you don't want to initiate the preparation immediately upon recognizing the shot. You do and that's critical. The failure to prepare is probably the most basic problem in teaching. Late preparation is shockingly universal in club tennis. But the point is that the racket doesn't "prepare" independently of the rest of the body.
The Unit Turn: the sideway rotation or turning of the feet and the torso.
The racket preparation happens as part of a larger pattern of body movement that involves the feet and the torso. This movement is the Unit Turn. It's the fundamental, critical move that all good one-handers share, at all levels of play. In this first phase of the preparation, the racket preparation is automatic as part of the unit, the same as we saw on the forehand. The racket is basically along for the ride.
This is why the advice to prepare by "taking the racket back" is so counterproductive. Trying to follow this advice, club players pull the hand and the racket sideways across the body. Meanwhile the shoulder turn is severely restricted. As the arm and racket move, the elbow bends too much too soon and the hand and racket move too far to the left and the side of the player's. The result? The classic club one-hand backhand, a weak push hit mainly with the arm, often with the elbow bent and leading the forward swing.
The actual footwork patterns and positions at the completion of the unit turn vary depending on circumstances.
The antidote is understanding and executing the Unit Turn. It has two interrelated components. First, the feet turn sideways. Players initiate this with any one of a number of possible step combinations: pivot steps, smaller or larger sideways steps, sideways steps combined with shuffle steps, or drop steps, for example. The player turns with the foot closest to the ball, but the opposite foot naturally turns sideways as well.
Which step pattern a player uses to initiate the motion depends on where he is on the court, how he is moving, where the ball is that he is moving toward, and how much time he has to execute.
These footwork options have been described in several great articles in the footwork section (Click Here), from Michael Friedman, Bob Hansen, and Pat Dougherty. We also have a new series on court movement coming soon from Australian coach David Bailey that will go into even more comprehensive detail about the entire range of footwork options in the modern game. But the key point is that these steps are part of the sideways turning motion of the body.
Gaudio: pure unitary rotation of the shoulders, arms and racket.
The second component of the initial move is the shoulder or torso turn. The step and the body turn begin at the same time. If you look closely at the movement of the shoulders, the arms and the racket, they turn seamlessly, usually with minimal independent movement. Everything rotates as a unit until the shoulders are about 45 degrees to the net. The angle is universal in pro tennis at the completion of the unit turn on the one-hander. Depending on the factors outlined above, the feet can be in wide variety of positions and alignments when the shoulders reach the 45 degree angle, but the point is that the feet and the shoulders are working together to initiate turn.
The Gaston Gaudio animation is a great example of this pure, minimal unit turn in the upper body. After the grip shift, the hands, arms and racket are virtually still, moving only as a function of rotation of the body sideways. It's beautiful, simple, and efficient.
Guga's unit turn with the additional upward movement of his hands.
Some players have some independent movement with the hands during the unit turn. Sometimes this is associated with the grip change, as we saw with Justine Henin-Hardenne. As she rotates the racket, she extends her hands out away from her slightly and straightens out her arms as she shifts her grip. But as the hands are moving outwards, she is also initiating the sideways movement with the feet and body. Probably the most extreme example is Gustavo Kuerten who starts the hands moving upward as he is turning.
In other cases, this movement is more an illusion. Richard Gasquet, for example, points the tip of the racket upward as he changes the grip, but still turns with virtually no backwards motion in the hands or arms. It's just that the racket is at a more extreme angle than most of the players.
The position of Gasquet's racket can create the illusion that he is starting the backswing during the unit turn.
Every player looks slightly different depending on how they hold the racket at what angle in the ready position, and how they change their grip. But the commonality is the predominant use of the feet and shoulders in the first move and the angle of the torso at the completion of the unit turn. This appears to be virtually identical for all the one-handers both with classical and extreme grips.
So the intermediate grip and the unit turn are major commonalities across the grip styles. In the next article we'll look at the backswing and the completion of the turn, where the similarities differences between the classic and extreme styles are more ambiguous and complex. Stay Tuned!
John Yandell is widely acknowledged as one of the leading videographers and students of the modern game of professional tennis. His high speed filming for Advanced Tennis and Tennisplayer have provided new visual resources that have changed the way the game is studied and understood by both players and coaches. He has done personal video analysis for hundreds of high level competitive players, including Justine Henin-Hardenne, Taylor Dent and John McEnroe, among others.
In addition to his role as Editor of Tennisplayer he is the author of the critically acclaimed book Visual Tennis. The John Yandell Tennis School is located in San Francisco, California.
Source: tennisplayer.net archive — The One Handed Topspin Backhand-The Grip Shift and Unit Turn.docx (John Yandell teaching library, 2002-2022). Extracted and rendered as HTML for Tennis Future Lab.