Have a Question for Me?

[stotty]

Not specifically I don't think. I have seen Brian Gordon get kids 15 degrees or so shy of the trophy position. Then start the motion.

You see what I mean here....the kid has a decent motion but drives up, in my view, a tad early. He is starting to come down to the ground at contact with the ball. With Roger it's the opposite; his body has still rising at contact.

The kid's right leg also moves up and round too early.

It's a right sod to re-synch things.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5sixru

[John Yandell]

Maybe have him toss a little more in front and see if that changes anything.

[teachestennis]

Did the article about your thoughts on the Serve from last month get edited? Seems some of your comments about the role of the "bow" in the serve are missing or the terms changed?

[John Yandell]

No but there is a different article about the myth of the bow:

https://www.tennisplayer.net/article/the-myth-of-the-archers-bow/

[stotty]

I am finding with quite a few juniors the leg drive on the serve is often a little early or late.

With regard to the leg drive on a serve, in a ideal situation, the player's body should still be rising up when they make contact with the ball, right? That's certainly what Roger is doing, so ideally high level juniors should do the same?

Do you find this a fairly common problem when you measure the timing of the leg drive with juniors? Or is junior tennis an area you don't get too involved with?

Some juniors are actually starting to fall back down before they strike the ball. Hi-speed video can reveal so much like this. In cases are kids where kids are driving fractionally early, often the tossing arm isn't fully extended (vertical) and rectifying this seems to do the trick. Any thoughts?

[ralph]

John, do you know who is responsible for the development of Roger Federer's strokes? Every shot seems to be the prototype for how to hit the ball. Has he had the same coach over the years or has he searched out various coaches to develop each stroke?

[John Yandell]

Stotty,
Your questions require pondering--will be back. Just crazy now filming in Montreal.

[John Yandell]

Ralph,
I think the answer is Peter Carter, the young South African Roger worked with who died. Giancarlo and I were discussing. He is Swiss and knows a lot more details. I have asked him to post on the subject!

[ralph]

Thanks. I will be looking for the post. Should be very interesting to learn how Fed's game developed, particularly his strokes.

[giancarlo]

Hi Ralph:

Below is some information on the coaching of Fed, for the early years.
Also, Sven Groeneveld worked with Fed when Roger was at the National Training Center in Biel. Sven was the Head Coach there for at least a year. In terms of actual stroke development, Fed often credits Peter Carter with giving him the beautiful technique. In addition, we also have to consider Fed's idols: Sampras, Becker and Edberg (he also admired Marcello Rios for his playing style). I heard from someone who also briefly coached him through Swiss Tennis' Coaching education that he just wanted to play like Sampras. Take a look at the clip, and you might be able to see some more resemblance of a Pete-like forehand style (racket tip is pointing to side during ready-position), and the swing shape looks more like Pete's vs. Fed's current Forehand swing, starting with the racket tip pointing straight up. For the backhand, when looking at early Fed footage, it looks a lot more classic with the racket tip not pointing as vertically up to the sky, in fact, if we did do a side-by-side, it looks very close to an Edberg backhand. Okay, we could and should probably do a full video article on this, but that's enough for now. . If you have more specific questions, I will try to answer them. Thanks, gc.

1989-1994: Seppli Kacovsky (Switzerland); Kacovsky was the head coach of the Old Boys’ Tennis Club in Federer’s home town of Basel. Roger joined Old Boys' when he was eight years old and trained there until '94.

1991-1995, 1997-1998: Peter Carter (Australia); Carter privately coached Federer on a weekly basis, from the age of 10 to 14. They reunited again in a new training facility in Biel in 1997 and Carter continued coaching Federer on and off until he turned pro.

1995-1997: After he became the Swiss junior champion, Federer was selected to join the Swiss National Tennis center in Ecublens. He continued to train there until he finished school.

1999-2003: Peter Lundgren (Sweden); Federer chose former top-25 player Lundgren, who he met in Biel, as his coach as he entered the professional circuit. He still consulted frequently with Carter.

[ralph]

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my post. One would think if he admired Sampras so much one would a more Sampras like serve, or am I wrong about this point.

[John Yandell]

I think that Roger's serve is similar to Pete's just less extreme. Both are platform with big body turns. Both hit all the serves off one toss. Both have great internal shoulder rotation.

[don_budge]

Found this video on youtube. Look familiar?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNaFmTTXOhg

[don_budge]

Another one....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGA8sdCktf4

[John Yandell]

God thanks I hate YouTube so much I don't even know the steps to take--thousands of views!