The topspin forehand is the second most important shot in tennis. You might be able to win a match without one, but you won't enjoy it. The topspin forehand is the swiss army knife of tennis strokes. It can hit winners from the service line and passing shots from behind the baseline. It is offensive and defensive at the same time. It is, at once, the most natural and most complex way to strike at a ball so, more than any shot in tennis, it is the best friend of the more-talented and the worst enemy of those of us who are less-so.

The topspin forehand seems to be quite simple and natural for those with plus-sized talent which is remarkable given the complexity of the stroke. There have been many variations of the stroke over the years. Champions have been crowned with forehands comprising a variety of grips, backswings, follow-throughs, and stances. In recent years the stroke has evolved towards a common form that pros have optimized for the professional game. As recently a 10 years ago there were still two common styles of topspin forehand )as brilliantly analyzed by Christophe Delavaut) dubbed the "ATP-style" and the "WTA-style". Not wanting to be justifiably accused of sexism, and in recognition of the fact that most of the women in the WTA nowadays use the so-called ATP-style forehand, I will redub them the Fed-style and the Borg style. There are so many differences between these two styles I have chosen to deal with them in different chapters - as though they were two species that evolved separately, but my treatment belies the truth: The Fed-style is the ultimate evolutionary expression of the forehand. It represents a hybrid of the old eastern grip-style forehand of Rod Laver and John Newcomb and the semi-western/western grip style popularized by Bjorn Borg. The Borg style forehand is easier to teach and to learn than the Fed-style but it is less versatile and powerful. The Fed-style forehand is as complicated and difficult to learn as the kick serve, but the payoff is the potential for a 100+ mph groundstroke with tons of control and topspin to keep the ball in play. It is also easy on the arm and gobs of fun to hit.

Foundations

Allow me to confess a touch of childlike awe when I watch Roger Federer crunch a topspin forehand. I am blown away by the enormous arc of his backswing, the intricate flip of the racket as it starts forward, the left arm reaching across the body as if to catch the ball out of the air, the astounding racket head speed and the long, collapsing follow through. The grace of the stroke, its mind-bending complexity, the power without effort and spin without contortion all conspire to evoke a sense of magic; that somehow Roger has transcended the bounds of science and reason. Of course, the always suspicious adult in me at first assumed all of these things are mostly the flourish of an accomplished magician. Meer showmanship, perhaps with a touch of misdirection lest some talented up-and-comer figures out the trick and turn this formidable weapon against him. Of course, my instincts, as per usual, were pathetically wrong on all counts. Federer's forehand is not a magician's illusion. The entire stroke reflects bedrock principles of physiology and physics. Every facet of it contributes to power, control or spin. There is real magic in it; components that are important but completely invisible to the naked eye, even when viewed using high resolution, slow-motion video analysis. It is an understanding of these invisibles that allow us to make sense of what is going on in in the Federer-style topspin forehand. It turns out that they are the basis for all excellent tennis strokes and apply widely to sports as disparate as hockey, golf and ping pong.

The Invisibles

The invisibles are forces. Forces are always invisible. We can only detect a force by the effect it has on an object. If your coffee cup flies off your desk, you can but presume that a force was suddenly applied to it, run screaming from the room and sell your home to people who refuse to believe in spooks. Like the flying cup-and-saucer, Federer's folding follow-through is the evidence of invisible forces applied to the racket at or just before the moment of contact. Certainly, those forces are not evident before then. The racket appears to take a straight, true course from the end of the backswing to the point of contact with the ball; elbow straight, no pronation, no sign of any mysterious forces. That means the forces that so contort the follow through are either generated after the moment of contact (and what would be the point of that?), or they were present before contact but were balanced and therefore an opposite force temporarily blocked their effects. I admit that a third "possability" would be that they were generated during the point of contact, which is what people used to believe about Rod Laver; that he was forcibly "rolling his wrist over the ball". Without going into endless discussions of nerve conduction velocity and muscle contraction delay blah, blah, blah; suffice it to say: not possible. So the invisible forces have to be stored in the arm and then somehow released at just the right moment to exert beneficial effects on the flight path and spin of the ball.

Storing Force

The stored forces are held at bay by the acceleration of the racket which begins immediately following the backswing "flip", continues for a few hundred milliseconds then stops just before the moment of contact. That's right; all evidence to the contrary, pro tennis players do not drive through the ball. I know your coaches and teachers taught you to do that, but they were selling you the blackest of black pearls.

The forward acceleration of the racket is countered by the inertia of the racket head. The racket head, like all material objects, resists being accelerated. For a moment the racket head stays in place as the wrist begins to move forward, resulting in the racket head flipping behind the wrist. From that position the wrist must drag, not push, the racket face into contact with the ball. This flipping of the racket winds up the muscles of the forearm stretch-shortening them and thereby storing the forces that will ultimately be used to inject control and spin into the ball. The racket head is held in this position by continuous acceleration. All the while, the stored forces in the muscles are trying in vain to flex the elbow, pronate the forearm and flex the wrist in the palmar and radial directions. The acceleration that imprisons the stored forces is the result of a wave of power, generated in the legs and propagated through the body to the hitting hand. As the wave dissipates and the acceleration ends, just before the moment of contact between racket and ball, the now unopposed invisible, stored forces in the forearm are released. That release of forces, if properly timed, injects direction control and spin into the ball during the .05 seconds that the racket is in contact with it. There is essentially no effect on the direction or speed of movement of the racket head until after the ball has left the strings. Immediately following the ball's departure, the stored forces contort the hitter's arm into a pretzel, thereby providing the only visible evidence that they exist.

Why Store Forces?

Why not brush up the back of the ball to add spin as in the Borg style forehand? Why not just combine control forces along with power and drive the racket head through the ball? The answer: too many directions. A moving racket face can only point in one direction and move in another. To add topspin, you need to point the racket face forward and move it up at a steep angle. The rule of thumb is that if the racket face is pointing in one direction and moving in another, you get spin.

That worked for the forehands of Borg, Sharapova and a host of other pros over the years. Problems arose as the racket technology improved to the point that 100+ mph groundstrokes became possible and eventually commonplace. To keep a topspin ball from flying over the baseline when you are dragging up on it, you need to do two things; one is to angle the racket face down a bit to compensate for the upward drag. But while angling the face of the racket helps, it cannot compensate for the misdirected impulse you create when you drag up on the ball. The second compensation is to tolerate balls that clear the net by 4-6 feet but rely on the topspin to bring them down. That last method works for a ball going 40 mph, but at 80 mph no amount of topspin will keep the ball in the court. For faster balls, you have to hit the ball closer to the net and add heavy topspin to keep it in.

Hitting closer to the net means a smaller target target, so one needs more control over the height of the ball. If your only control over the height of the ball is how closed (i.e., pointing towards the ground a bit) you have your racket face then you have another problem; addressing the ball. To get the ball and racket strings to meet is harder if the racket is moving up and across the incoming flight path of the ball.

If also you must angle the racket face down as you are pulling it up the apparent string surface area as seen by the ball ball is much smaller, which can lead to a lot of frame shots and whiffs - and forget about hitting the sweet spot. As they are want to do, amazingly talented players like Rod Laver and Pete Sampras, relying on instinct, learned that if they "covered" the ball, that is pronated in the follow through, and timed things just right they could achieve heavy topspin without the extreme angle-of-attack of the racket prevalent amongst the heavy topspin hitters of the day. During the late 60's many of us oddly-abled players, trying desperately to reproduce Rod Laver's forehand prowess, came up short - mostly burying balls in the base of the net as we vainly tried to roll over the ball as he seemed to be doing. We really could scarcely have guessed what Laver was really doing with his forehand - he was using stored pronation force to generate topspin with a level swing instead of a steep angle of attack, thereby removing one constraint on the direction the racket head needed to travel. A flatter racket trajectory meant that he could address balls coming in at 100+ mph, aim through a very narrow window over the net and still generate enough topspin to keep his own "rockets" from flying to the moon. Today's pros like Federer have refined this technique to such an extent that speeds of well over 100 mph and rotational velocities of 2000-5000 revolutions per minute are possible. This drive for efficiency has actually made the shot easier for us to analyze and reproduce as long as we are willing to accept that there are essential components of the stroke that are unseen, unheard or even unfelt; hidden stored forces, moments of obligatory relaxation, waves of power coursing through our bodies and sourcing of energy through dynamic balance. In applying these concepts we mortals do not have the distinct advantage of multiple coaches yelling at us; reinforcing or discouraging good or bad behaviors, because what coaches in their right minds would waste time on us? We have to be our own coach, which is way harder but way worth the effort.

Grip

The Fed-style forehand grip is the first and most significant differentiator from the Borg-style. The Borg-style forehand requires the semi-western or western grip. The best grip for the ATP-style forehand is halfway between the semi-western grip and the eastern forehand grip. This grip should put the base knuckle of your index finger on the ridge immediately below the face of the grip that is directly behind the racket. Your choice depends on comfort, but once you understand what is at stake, you might find the decision easier.

The choice of grip for nearly every stroke is all about forearm rotation (pronation and supination) and spin. After 40 years of telling us that topspin is added by "brushing up the back of the ball" tennis teaching pros are beginning to notice that playing pros are achieving skads of topspin without much "brushing" going on. To create extreme topspin, the modern forehand reduces the need for a steep angle-of-attack by adding stored rotational force to the stroke. To create topspin with rotational impulse, one must pronate the forearm and slightly "cock" or radial flex the wrist in the backswing then as the racket accelerates forward the inertia of the racket head uses the leverage provided by the wrist cock to force the forearm into supination, winding up and stretch shortening the pronator muscles. The proper grip is the one that allows you to store the muscular force easily and then release it efficiently at the moment of contact; experience tells us that the ideal grip lives between the Semi-Western and Eastern Forehand grips, but, understanding what is at stake, you should adjust your own grip for comfort and effectiveness.

Footwork

Fed-style forehand footwork is simplicity itself. Watching Federer's (or Nadal's or Steffi Graf's) elegant ballet can be rather discouraging to those of us with dominant clutz genes. The combination of lightness of foot with too-too solid court purchase, quickness with deliberation, gentle violence and their ability to accomplish two or three things at once with a single step is beyond daunting. It leads to a throwing up of hands and concluding that it is all genius and has nothing to do with us normal people. Wrong-o! Professional footwork has everything to do with anyone who wants to play great tennis. The more clumsy you feel, the more you can improve your game by focusing on your feet. Far from being complex and elaborate, pro footwork is simplicity itself.

The foundation of pro-level footwork is dynamic balance. What distinguishes the pros from the rest of us is that they are never in static balance when the ball is in play. The server and receiver are both actively entering a state of dynamic balance before the toss goes up, and they don't revert to static balance until the ball is called out. Maintaining dynamic balance means constantly shifting one's entire body weight from one foot to the other with knees always flexed. That's it. That is the secret of pro footwork. Everything else is improvisation based on the situation and can you can master it with little practice, less training, and no talent.

Doin' the Forehand Dance

So, before the stroke even begins one must get the feet moving and then keep them moving. This requirement seems completely contrary to the old saw that called for you to "Step into the ball!" Your feet need to be continually playing a game of catch with your bodyweight starting long before the ball ever gets to you. If your weight is on both feet for too long, you have fallen into static balance and you are in trouble. To reach and maintain dynamic balance your feet should always be in motion. Current teaching pros call this "chirping", referring to the sound of rubber-soled tennis shoes on an asphalt court surface. You need to start chirping as soon as the ball is in play and keep on chirping until the ball is called out. You need to chirp right through the stroke; this has been dubbed making "adjustment steps", and indeed the constant shuffling of the feet helps to get your body in position to hit the ball, but also these steps serve to maintain balance and improve court purchase for power, control, and mobility.

The first 'step' of the Fed-style forehand is to plant the left foot (assuming a right-handed player) in a position to comfortably rotate the hips away from the oncoming ball into the backswing. At this point, you have not created any power, but the left foot has been planted as an anchor to brace for a forceful transfer of weight to the right foot.

The next step is a weight transfer from the left foot to the right foot. The solid purchase that makes this push-off effective comes from the weight transfers that comprise chirping. In essence, you can hear solid contact because with each chirp you end up applying a momentary force to the court that is 3-4 times greater than your total body weight. The solid court contract you get from dynamic balance is why even the lightest professional tennis player can put so much weight into the ball.

Since you have that kind of ground-force-contact at your disposal any time you need it your footwork does not have to be formulaic or pre-planned. If you suddenly need to go right, left, forward or back, you can always count on having a foot ready from which to push off. Entering dynamic balance feels as if balance, mobility, and power have suddenly become a simple matter of will. It is white magic.

During that first transfer of your body weight from the left to the right foot, you create the first phase of the power wave - a 'dip' that powers reverse-rotation of the hips that motivates the backswing proper (or load). At the end of this transfer, you will have consolidated all of your body weight on the right foot. It is at that juncture that we encounter a major dichotomy between two distinct choreographies depending on the stance one assumes during the stroke: the semi-open stance or the fully open stance.

Semi-open Stance Forehand

With all of your body weight concentrated on the right or rear foot, the left foot is free, and you can move it to a point best suited to catch the weight of the stroke; generally to the left and in front of the right foot (see semi-open stance in the figure above). Repositioning the left foot occurs during the lock or backswing proper phase of the stroke. To clarify, the movement of the left foot is not a 'step' because it does not include a transfer of weight. Before the end of the lock, you begin to transfer your body weight from the right foot back to the left foot. That weight transfer creates the forward peak of the power wave, which is primarily responsible for creating racket head speed for pace and stored force for control and extra spin. Of course, the weight transfer precedes the rotation of the hips and shoulders that it ultimately motivates, since the wave must propagate from the feet, through the body and ultimately to the ball.

As you consolidate your body weight on the left or front foot, that foot begins to push back against the weight transfer, stopping your body from 'stepping over' the front foot and, more importantly, opposing and ultimately reversing the direction of the power wave. This last counter-move is key because that last dip in the power wave triggers the explode phase which stops the acceleration of the racket thereby allowing the release of stored control and spin forces into the ball. In addition, even though the last leg of the power wave is a 'dip' which actually slows down the forward rotation of the shoulders, it nonetheless adds immensely to racket head speed and the pace of the shot using the same 'slingshot' mechanism as a trebuchet. In summary, the choreography of the semi-open stance topspin forehand comprises planting the left foot, stepping back to the right foot, stepping forward onto the left foot and pushing back with the left foot.

Open Stance Forehand

As with the semi-open stance, starting at the point that all of your body weight concentrated on the right or rear foot, the left foot is free, but instead of moving it forward you drag it to a point around two feet directly to the left of the right foot. Again, the right-to-left weight transfer creates the main power wave but it it begins earlier and is quicker. This means less shoulder turn and less power than can be achieved in the semi-open stance, but it can be deliverd more quickly. The open stance is appropriate for return of serve or defensive shots, but if you try to crank the forehand from behind the baseline with an open stance you are likely to be dissapointed with the result.

Once all of your body weight is on the right foot; you must still generate a counter pulse in the opposite direction to power the explode phase and create the slingshot effect. You accomplish those ends by pushing back with the right foot and by counter-kicking the left foot in the forward direction.

One needs to learn how to hit the topspin forehand from both the open and semi-open stances. The pros use the open stance for high balls, wide balls, short balls and the return of serve, reserving the more powerful semi-open stance for behind-the-baseline balls from midcourt and for intimidating the person at the net.

The Stroke

Before you wade into the details of the topspin forehand, you might want to review the sequence of events that comprise the foundation of all tennis strokes. I will wait... Well done! Now I am going to go through the components and point out unique features as they apply to the Fed-style topspin forehand. With all due respect to those who were born sinister (left-handed), I am going to assume a right-handed player in my descriptions. I hope that it in some small way compensates for the mysterious advantage you lefties naturally hold over the rest of us.

The Unit Turn

The first move is simple but violent. You need to get your hips and shoulders sideways to the net, and your feet positioned to generate the first component of the power wave - the component that throws the racket away from the oncoming ball and powers the lock (or backswing proper) by setting the front foot. That's it, but you must do it fast. It needs to be done early and quickly because you are moving a lot of weight and you don't want all of these awkward movements to disrupt the rest of the stroke. Too many players combine the unit turn, pose and lock into one backswing, producing a long, flowing, balletic movement evidencing the form and grace of a young Baryshnikov. Don't! The unit urn should be sloppy, early, quick and violent. It should not be pretty. It begins the instant you recognize that you are about to hit a forehand and it ends in the Pose.

Getting the shoulders turned is key. You must keep the arms inside the 'zone of experience'

The Pose

The Pose serves as the target position for the Unit Turn and puts the hitting arm in position to successfully lock the arm in the backswing proper. The right elbow is away from the body, racket almost vertical, left hand still holding the throat of the racket. Generally, motion doesn't stop during the pose but slows down a whole lot. During the Unit Turn and Pose the feet are continually chirping, fine-tuning the position of the lower carriage; setting the left foot in preparation to push off into the backswing proper and getting the right foot ready to reflect your body weight back into the stroke. You must complete all of this before you reach the pose.

The Lock

During the lock phase, or backswing proper, weight is transferred from the front to the back foot, rotating the hips then the shoulders, driving a subtle reverse-rotation of the body and drawing the racket away from the point of contact. The hitting shoulder and forearm relax completely allowing the racket to fall back and down as if you are laying the racket flat on a table directly behind you. The shoulder and forearm are passively pronating due to gravity pulling the head of the racket down from its high perch in the pose. The racket face ends up pointing at the ground or even slightly back towards the base of the back fence, increasing pronation. The racket parallels the back fence, so the wrist is still 60% cocked. The angle between the racket and the forearm is important since it creates leverage that will result in supination stretch shortening during the load. The elbow is bent, also to create leverage, but in this case, the bent elbow is designed to shorten the distance from the hitting shoulder to the racket to maximize rotational acceleration early in the stroke. The bent elbow also puts the elbow flexors, the biceps and brachialis muscles, in a position to stretch-shorten during the load and store directional control forces. These forces will take a ball coming in from any angle with any type of spin and redirect it at a target just over the top of the net. The right foot is firmly set and is beginning to push off and turn the hips starting the forward 'peak' component of the power wave.

The Load Phase

As the peak of the power wave reaches the shoulders, the right-hand reverses direction from backward to forward and begins to accelerate toward the point of contact. The relaxed arm and inertia of the racket head cause the racket head to stay put as the hand draws the racket handle forward. As a result, the racket flips over until it is located behind and below the wrist, racket face pointing at the back-right corner of the court. Meanwhile, the arm straightens at the elbow. The new position of the arm is called the lag position because of the way you drag the racket behind the wrist.

Setting the tone of the forearm muscles is the key to storing spin and control forces in the forearm using stretch shortening. If the tone is too tight, the muscles will not stretch in the load and what you have is basically a push. If the tone is too loose, the racket flips too easily, and you get stretching without shortening. Signs that one has failed to set proper tone include lack of topspin, lack of control and shanking the ball (from not allowing the elbow to extend). There is no firm guide for how much tension is ideal - it is completely a matter of feel, but awareness of your responsibility to set tone is essential.

The Lag Phase

As the power wave crests in the upper carriage the rotating shoulders drag the racket around the body in a wide orbit. This period of racket acceleration is called the lag phase. Note that the racket is being pulled, not pushed into the ball.

The purpose of the lag phase is twofold: to accelerate the racket, creating racket head speed for raw power, and to bottle up the stored forces in the arm until the exact moment they are needed. The lag phase is when one feels the real power generated by the legs. Note that the arm muscles are not contributing to power at this point - they are busy holding onto the stored force and channeling the wave of power from the legs. At the same time, you engage your entire body in guiding the sweet spot of the racket to the ball (addressing the ball). The left arm is now retreating before the advancing right arm as it passively allows the shoulders to bring the hitting arm across the body.

The Explode Phase

Just before the strings contact the ball the left arm stops retreating, and the shoulder rotation stops its accelerating and starts slowing down. The abrupt decrease in acceleration releases the forces stored in the muscles of the shoulder and forearm injecting directional momentum and spin directly into the ball. Ideally, these forces do not affect the velocity, position or orientation of the racket face until after the ball has left the strings. The forces themselves are invisible. If one drives through the ball, e.g., fails to stop the acceleration of the shoulders in time, the stored forces are released too late to have any effect on the ball. If released too early they affect the orientation of the racket and interfere with the addressing of the ball.

The explode is heralded by a sudden dip in the power wave. This wave shape is difficult to create by just pushing off of the back foot than not pushing off. That creates a dip, but not a steep plunge needed to turn off the acceleration of the lag phase quickly. During the early load phase we rough out the wave, then make additions and subtractions as needed. The most important subtraction is to push back against the power wave in the last half of the lag. That will slow the shoulders and release the control and spin forces stored in the forearm. Remember that a wave must propagate from its source to its sink, so this push-back must happen well before the moment of contact. This is the reason why we try to remember to "Step into the ball early!" We need to consolidate our weight onto the front foot so we can use it to steal reverse momentum that we can then use to oppose the formidable peak of the power wave.

The Follow-Through

Who cares what happens to the racket after the ball is gone? You do. The follow-through is a direct result of everything that has come before. It is the only tangible evidence of the existence of the mysterious and occult stored forces that are responsible for the control and spin and therefore the consistency of the forehand. The forearm and shoulder should pronate violently, and the elbow flex in the follow through, the racket wrapping itself around the left upper arm, the racket face rotated until it points nearly to the left side fence. If those things don't happen, something went wrong in the stroke. While it is too late to fix the ball you just hit into the back fence, it is not too late to fix all of the shots that will come after it. Broadly, if the right arm doesn't crinkle up into a knot in the follow through then either the stored forces were never stored, or they were never released. Either of these can be due to tension or tightness in the wrong part of the stroke. It is the delicate dance of muscle tension that makes advanced strokes so hard to master and manage. Just as the power of the stroke travels in a wave through the body, violence and relaxation also come in waves. You follow the violence of the unit turn with the complete relaxation of the lock phase followed by the crescendo of the load phase into the violence of the lag phase which must peak and then quickly dissipate in the explode phase. It is dizzying. Get tight in the lock phase, and you fail to flip the racket in the load. Get loose in the Load phase, and you load nothing. Get tight in the Explode phase, and the release of forces does not happen. Since tightness is the most common malady and the most difficult to prevent, it is always the first pathology that we look for when diagnosing stroke dysfunction.

Disorders of the Fed-style Topspin Forehand

• General Forehand Pathology
  • Forehandophobia Syndrome
• Addressing Disorders
  • Crooked Elbow Syndrome
    • shanking off end of racket
    • failure to relax elbow on Load
    • premature Explode
  • Uberspin Syndrome (see below)
  • Balance Disorders (see below)
• Impulse Disorders
  • Uberspin Syndrome
    • shanking off bottom of racket
    • hitting long despite topspin
      • pulling up through the ball
      • too steep angle of attack
    • hitting into the center of the net
      • forced or early pronation
  • Hot Shoulder Syndrome
  • Tightness Syndrome
• Balance Disorders
  • Frankenfeet
  • Knee Lock
  • Failure to Launch
  • Failure to Catch

Crooked Elbow Syndrome

One obvious difference between the Borg-style and the Fed-style forehands is the right elbow at the moment of contact; in the Borg style it is bent, and in the Fed-style it is straight. The bent elbow of the Borg-style permits the forearm to rotate around the upper arm in a windshield-wiper type of movement and develop topspin by brushing up the back of the ball. There is a myriad of issues with this, not the least being the difficulty of controlling the height of the ball and lack of power on the forehand compared to a classic flat forehand with a straight elbow. The Fed-style forehand reflects the classic straight-elbow flat forehand with its shallow angle-of-attack, minimally open racket face and extended elbow at contact. All of these attributes contribute to solid ball contact and excellent power transfer. Control and topspin come from the stored forces generated during the lock and load phases of the backswing. If you pull the racket in towards your body or fail to extend your elbow during the load phase, expect power and ball contact to suffer. Often you will find yourself hooking the ball into the left side fence.

Uberspin Syndrome

If one is an un-natural athlete, hitting a forehand can be pretty traumatic. Since the forehand is the most natural stroke in tennis, we are expected to be able to hit the shot with our eyes closed. For players like us for whom nothing is natural the forehand is often the least reliable stroke. One of the more automatic parts of the forehand for the talented player is the ability to control spin on the ball. The point of contact is in front of the body, and there is pretty good leverage from the shoulders, so almost any kind of spin is possible. When we have to hit a topspin forehand drive, and we are nervous about hitting the ball long we tend to yank up on the ball to make sure that there is sufficient topspin to pull it down. Pulling up through the ball is a bad plan because a vertical force applied at the moment of contact adds vertical impulse to the ball elevating its flight path to the point that no amount of topspin can bring it down into the court. The result is that we cause the very thing we most fear - long ball after long ball. To cure this syndrome, we must restrain ourselves from trying to add additional topspin to the ball by pulling up through it. Instead, we must trust the stored force and make sure we relax through the moment contact so you can inject stored rotational force into the ball.

Hot Shoulder Syndrome

Power in any stroke comes from the legs, passes through the body like a wave and is transmitted to the racket as racket head speed during the Lag phase of the stroke. There is some power that comes from the control forces stored during the Load phase. That is it. One cannot add power to the racket during the moment of contact without interfering with the delivery of stored control and spin forces. To add pace at the moment of contact, one would have to accelerate the racket head through the ball. But it is exactly the abrupt termination of the acceleration in the Lag phase that releases the stored control and spin forces in the shoulder, arm, and forearm in the explode phase. If one keeps accelerating through the stroke, those forces stay bottled up and can have no beneficial effect on the flight path or spin of the ball. The result is a faster, flatter ball with a nearly random exit vector from the racket face. Instead, we need to apply all of the racket head acceleration during the Load phase and make sure we stop that acceleration just before contact. When we complain that our "timing is off", it is often due to an early or late start of the explode phase with concomitant lack of control. The best solution to this issue if it arises is to use the left hand and arm to stop the rotation of the shoulders at the appropriate moment. One can think of it as reaching to catch the racket in the follow through.

Forehand Topspin Short Stroke

Well, since you have worked so hard to get to this point I feel that you deserve a bonus. Once you fully understand the full Fed-style topspin forehand it is easy to learn the short stroke version. Short strokes are more compact versions of long strokes. They are optimized for situations when you don't have all the time in the world to hit the ball, including returning a hard serve, chasing down wide or short balls, dealing with a weird bounce, a deep drive, a close-in ball - basically 80% of the shots you hit in a real game. That begs the question; when do we use the longer version? The full out groundstrokes should be used to break out when you are pinned behind the baseline by the depth of your opponent's offensive ground game. That is when you need blistering pace and vicious topspin to allow you to aim for safe targets and still drive your opponent back on defense. In most other situations, the return of serve, for example, you want a solid ball with depth, moderate spin and lots of control.

Shortening the Topspin Forehand

Federer's forehand is like a Mozart Symphony. So, if you don't have time to perform the entire stroke competently, what do you leave out to make it quicker? Do you play it faster? That would be a travesty. No, the answer is that the long strokes just have "too many notes" to handle a return of serve. Something has got to go.

We start by eliminating the lag phase entirely. If we go right from the load to the explode, you retain the all-important addressing of the ball, control, and spin, but give up some of the dizzying pace of the ball. If you are returning a 100+ mph serve, however, you can steal pace from your opponent and if you are hitting from the midcourt you need pinpoint placement to exploit the available angles, not pace. So, you dump the lag. Without a lag, you don't need all of that backswing so that you can abbreviate the unit turn.

Leave the backswing proper alone; it doesn't consume that much time, and it is important. Same for load, explode and follow through. You can view the result in the animation above. It is modeled directly after Federer's return of serve (follow the "source" link to the Stroke Lab if you don't believe me!) This beautiful, compact stroke is the Swiss Army Knife of forehands. As versatile as it is, all it could do is pirate your opponents' pace and spit it back at them with control and topspin it would be well worth your time to learn and practice.