A John Yandell Classic -- Federer's Backhand Return

[joeldrucker]

Our founder, the late John Yandell, took the deep dive to unsurpassed heights. Check out his exploration of Roger Federer's one-handed backhand return -- great questions, sharp answers, useful information.

https://www.tennisplayer.net/article/john-yandell-one-hand-backhand-return-of-serve/

Please chime in as you wish.

[don_budge]

Our founder, the late John Yandell, took the deep dive to unsurpassed heights. Check out his exploration of Roger Federer's one-handed backhand return -- great questions, sharp answers, useful information.

https://www.tennisplayer.net/article/john-yandell-one-hand-backhand-return-of-serve/

Please chime in as you wish.

I wish. This particular deep dive was way too deep for me to read through. So, I'll just chime in. It appears to me that Roger in the pictures is all pre-racquet switch. He is using the smaller head in all of the pictures. What difference does that make? I think it made considerable difference. It is a question of where to place the return...always.

I watched and wrote about nearly every match that Roger played from 2011 onwards. My interest in tennis returned when I started teaching tennis here in Sweden to put food on the table. It didn't pay a lot, but I got to eat. It always seemed to me that Roger went into matches trying to drive as many returns as he could off of the backhand side. That sometimes seemed to handicap him. Particularly with the smaller head on his racquet. When you drive the ball you use overspin and what does overspin do? It makes the ball dip or land shorter in the court. When push came to shove and matches were on the line later in the match, he always resorted to slicing the ball back in play and using more and more air over the net to get the ball deeper into the court. His stock return late in matches were deep into the backhand side and as close to the sideline as he was comfortable.

By PLACING the ball so deep in the court with as much margin for error over the net he was effectively taking the air out of the ball. It was much more difficult for the server to generate a offensively pressing shot from deep in the backcourt while having to generate their own speed off of a nothing ball. When he was trying to play driving returns, many time the topspin was leaving the ball shallower in the court and gave the server an opportunity to be more aggressive. Since there was no such thing as serve and volley for much of his career from 2011 on, it made all the sense in the world to just neutralize the serve and reset the point with his return after the serve. When Roger finally switched to the larger head he could be much more aggressive with his backhand, particularly on returning second serves.

This tactic of return makes all of the sense in the world when playing the single handed backhand game. Conventional wisdom would dictate that you play defensively and tactically with the backhand and try to get the ball on the forehand to be more aggressive. It's a percentage game and this is why the larger racquet head made such an enormous difference in the Federer game.