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Excellent video, as always. An interesting point is that top level players many times have no idea how they hit a forehand. They just learned as kids the proper fundamentals, and without realizing it, they acquired a certain "style". I have talked to top level players here in Chile, some would be equivalent to 5.0 or 6.0 nationally ranked players, and ask them what grip they use, and they have to pick up their racquet, and hold it how they normally do in order to describe their grip. They're never worried about which bevel or which part of the hand. And many don't pay attention to how they do their backswings. They just do it. In a nutshell, they never copied anyone and have no idea of the nuances of their stroke mechanics. I think Federer once said he had no idea how he held the racquet, he just did it. Also it depends on which racquet they used as a junior. Guys like Connors, McEnroe, Sampras or Agassi, started out with heavier wood racquets, ergo their simpler, straightforward style. I'm sure Alcaraz never touched a wooden classic, and started out with a featherweight graphite. Ergo, his more "charismatic" backswing. Technique follows technology. As carved skiis changed the way we ski, featherweight graphite with poly strings change the way we hit a forehand.

Thanks for pointing this out. I'm in the middle of retooling my forehand and this understanding is very valuable. Swing efficiency is paramount!

Amazing the amount of info in 10 minutes! And you get right to it. Thank you for that.

What a great video! Understanding the difference between style and fundamentals is so crucial. As a baseball coach, that video even help me in that regards! Thx!

This is the exactly the video I needed! Thank you and well done!

I am new to tennis but I played squash for years before. My squash coach would never force a swing on his students (except a few fundamentals). When we first started, he always told us to find our own natural swing. He only kept asking us to just keep our arms relaxed and never clutch the racket tightly! And he also said the same applies to all racket sports.

After watching and digging a lot of tennis video coaching online, you are the best to me. You cover the perspective no online coach out there has explained. Amazing knowledge! Tks so much.

Omg , such a super valuable video !!!!!! THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH FOR THIS INFORMATION !!!!!

Thank you very much. Now I came to understand why my forehand swing is tough to achieve enough swing lag to generate enough power.

It's actually something you can't force. During practice I always wanted to immitate Rafa's forehand style,. But when I play matches where I don't have time to think about the swing, it natually becomes a lot more similar to Novak's style which is what Nick described as the simpler form.

Creeping on 200k Nick! Well done

Can I just say watching you coach and teach things like Take Back makes me realise how badly I've been coached. Not a single time has my coach said to me to develop my take back on forehand. I've been hitting forehands without one and doing ok but I understand the importance of it and I'm determined to develop mine thanks to you. Your a credit to KZfaq Nikola.

Agree, especially for recreational players djkovic style is more suitable than Federer.

Excellent work ❤

Great explanation

Excellent tip. Thanks for saving me the headache of a new forehand!

Hello Nic Great tennis journey day after day!!! I hope ur dreams are loaded with winning forehands .. 😅

The best ground stroke is the one that gives you, and you alone, the most precision and depth, with the lowest unforced error rate. I have learned to play using the continental grip and a wooden racquet. As the years went by, I constantly adapted my grip and ground strokes to "gel" with the ever changing racquets and balls. Right now, I am using anything between eastern and semi-western, depending on surface and opponent (low, flat strokes to high bounce, heavy topspin).

Hearty congrats on the 200k subscribers Nick

Great resolution. The colours are vibrant.

Thank you you are very observative to the real problems. I argue with my coach because she always says to open further back and i since i copy and is less work to not open so far had desbielief Thanx again

I just focus on what I'm trying to do with the ball. If I want topspin vs flat vs slice the motion I have to make is different.

Being 41 and having learned tennis in the late 80s and early 90s, I was always liking the forehand of Andre Agassi and later Yevgeny Kafelnikov. In my younger days, I think my forehand was a mixture of both (style wise not quality). After quitting from competitive tennis for almost 25 years and starting again at 39, I fixed some parts based on recreational tennis players like Mark Sansait, but also Djokovic and many WTA players regarding forehand preparation and keeping the racquet head up like the basic modern forehand. The loop gets really behind my body. It is my best shot by far, probably somewhere 4.5 level, but still I need to remind myself to keep the arm more relaxed and to really let the follow through happen instead of actively stopping the movement. The result of these issues is losing a lot of energy while playing and getting more tired than my opponents.

For some time I have done tactical analysis on TennisTroll channel and during that time, by sheer data, I discovered that "forehand paradox", that players would make more unforced errors with their stronger shot. This is probably due to 3 reasons: 1) they use the forehand more often (I only counted absolute numbers, not relatives) 2) they run around their backhand and so have less time or are less well positioned to execute the forehand 3) they take more risk with it, especially when running around because they're out of position or they think they need to strike a killer shot. You're saying it's a more complex shot. You're the expert - so I won't argue with that. Just adding my 3 cents.

Hi. Thank you for your videos. Can you share how to vary spin? It's easier for me to hit topspin on the forehand than to hit flat. Is it important to vary?

So happy to hear you mention Fernando Gonzalez, his name strangely seems to be omitted often when discussions arise about forehands. My opinion... Worst forehands to try to emulate... Medvedev, Tiafoe, Kachanov, among others of course.

Keep it simple and have a good strategy and plan

Great video, similar had Tomaz from Feeltennis, the point is that men pros have got extremely strong muscles and very flexible meaning stretchable tendons by playing tennis from early youth many hours a day, look at wta forehand e.g. Halep - longer backswing dropping racket on edge, on the contrary Raducanu trying more ATP forehand ofcourse excellent, however, many Times is lacking power in decisive points especially on slower surfaces against players with wta forehands, for us mortal men on recreational level is probably better to play wta forhand and use atp like when ball comes back fast like on hard surface or when returning, otherwise I find more useful to go with longer C shape backswing with having much easier relaxed arm while racket is halfway being supported with non-dominant arm, similarly is better for me to use longer pathway on serve where I automatically obtain racket head drop, as I don't have power and indurance to keep jumping 2 meters into court after hitting serve like superhumen pros do, generally when I watch even young guys who play competetively, and pritty well, I would say that their main problém is that they immitate pros in most aspects, you can't do that unless playing and training 6 hours a day, sleeping 9 hours at night, and having not other demanding tasks to do

Yep.... I have a habit of finishing my forehand with racket on the side of my arm instead of over the shoulder like a Kyrios .... except I'm under 6ft and not as athletic....had to unlearn that.

Rune's takeback isn't nextgen and is easy to limítate it in theory. Resembles much of Nole's tenets but Rune's achieved even less independent use of his arm. When confortable and emergency shots, his right arm is pretty much a whole unit rotating at once. He keeps the same arm elbow structure from the takeback till the finish: upper body and arm like "welded". Little use of flick of the wrist or a volitional motion. Little of delay in his arm too= Lots of advantages and stability in his impact. In lower balls he just needs to lower rather not only knees but a straight chest to keep his arm structure the same and avoid using much of his wrist. The famous lag is produced naturally out of pure centrifugal force bc his upper body that is "welded" to his arm bc of pure acceleration makes his chest goes slightly first followed by his "immobile" arm structure type 90° with his racquet face pointing to the sky simultaneously with his trunk side. To accomplish it, the shoulder can't be completely loose once he's set up the racquet. That it cannot act as a loose free pivot. Has to have some kind of movement restriction. There are really a few forehands like this. Nole is rather similar. Roger had elements of it too. Most players use a short shoulder internal rotation instead of pure massive shoulder abduction because of the different alignments of the upperbody parts. If you search youtube there's beautiful anatomically descriptive demonstrations of this massive upperbody power in many sports that used the arms including tennis and the very few ones that have it. But nothing is so easy. Requieres to develop first new neuromuscular connections to feel it and above all sync it well.

Congratulations on 200k nick

What's with the all white racket? Did you spray paint your Babolat to avoid advertising for them?

That's why I just copied Holger Rune's forehand which is super easy. No complex takebacks or high arms. Just a simple straight takeback with point of the racket aiming at the sky and then a whip. Samsonova has kinda similar motion but her racket on takeback is not 90 degrees like Rune's.

Good vid. I recently opted for a lighter racket so that I could swing a bit quicker. So far it has helped. My forehands are more accurate and more consistently in the court. However, I did lose a bit of power that I had with my heavier racket. But at my age and low recreational level, power is not so important. I'm trying to keep it as simple as I can while actually getting to and doing the "lag" phase of the swing -- and so far I'm happy with how I'm hitting my forehands now. I've found that the most important thing for me seems to be to keep my eye on the ball through contact. Taking my eye off the ball is my most common mistake. But when I watch the ball all the way into my racket, then I almost always hit the shot where I want to hit it. I've also experimented with a bit more of a Western grip, which also seems to help. Thanks for your tips and analyses.

The next gen forehand feels very natural to me. I like the crooked arm, and the loose wrist, and a very natural swing path. I am a more advanced rec player probably, but for me its actually really nice.

wich raquet are you using now nick ? pure drive no more ?

Another really good video. The title Don’t Copy the NEXT GEN Forehand fits me. I'm older. I use the McEnroe forehand where the racquet starts low. Not the most powerful, but simple.

What racket is that Coach Nik?

Yeah great vid, I agree with not copying the next gen forehand, I was hitting rubbish for a few weeks so I gave it a go and weirdly I hit alright the first time out but it went downhill from there. Plus I found that purely through the profile of the swing meant that I was straightening out the natural angles on the court and it's a worse forehand to defend with, maybe that was just the way I was executing it, from medium paced ball I could hit well but too straight, from a low fast paced shot couldn't block through it so I only had a slice to defend with.

When I grip the racket at the end like Borg I can hit the ball in wiper swing with more power and safety than I would grip it in normal, I don't know why? Is it a stance thing? Open and closed?

What racket is that?

Ok. Essentially, players do still have the option to copy, especially the Zverev, and Federer options, but they would have to accept the risks involved. I do wonder if the rackets they use, or grew up using may have also influenced how their technique developed.

My forehand style is Monica Niculescu

Nick! Which brand is your racquet? All white looks sooo sick

I can’t remember if you mentioned Kyrgios and Thiem. Their forehands are a bit extreme from my point of view. It’s kinda a mix of the two styles you talk about in this clip. High elbow during the take back and racket parallel to the ground & pointing forward, but they generate a lot of speed. What’s your take on that?

I would disagree with the premise that next-gen forehands are as good as modern forehands. They are of course great, simply due to the fact that they are being used by exceptional athletes. But I don't think they are optimal. There is this great blog called "a thread of order" who describes why the next-gen Forehand is less reliable in great detail. It simply comes down to too many moving parts. The wrist becomes pivotal to the movement, but the wrist is also the weakest link in the kinetic chain. The windup is also more complicated and thus takes longer. This is reflected in the worse returning abilities of many new gen players - they just cant react to fast serves in time with their long-winded swing. You are also working against gravity by starting your swing with your raquetface horizontally to the ground, at least compared to the much simpler modern forehand swingpath. It can also be noted that Federers swing during his prime was notably simpler and closer to a del-Potro like simple modern forehand.

Depends also if you're a player that takes balls early or if you stand 10 feet behind the baseline

How Interesting. In Sampras' book, he explained how he targeted Jim Courier's "fearsome forehand", his words. Because he identified Courier took a long swing on return of serve so he used the serve out wide to open up the court and expose Courier's relative lack of speed, and get Courier frustrated. I enjoy players talking about the tactical side, doesn't happen often enough because in general sports media not interested in that stuff.

I have a weak arm I am not able to generate good racket speed. My racket goes towards side when drooping the racket. Plz advise should i change my take back towards fence to generate high racket speed

Yo ya desde pequeño agarraba asi la raqueta por que se me hacia cómodo😂

Just a small nudge on Hubert Hurkacz's name pronunciation. It's not "Hoocards" but "Hoorcatch". Cheers!

Club players dont need crazy western forehand grips we need an economic take back and a good swing pattern using unit turn .

Just because you need lag doesn't mean you need that crazy lag like Roger and Rafa at recreational level. Just let the gravity do its job for you, and focus on what's in front of you.

You don’t create the lag by moving your racket back with a wrist movement!! The lag is just the result of a relaxed wrist. It just happens when you accelerate the racket forward with a loose wrist.

Good video but I have to disagree with the part where you said that these players have always played the same way as they do now. They are evolving, just look at the djokovic how he played his forhend lets say in one of his first apparences in grand slam against safin in australia( thers a video of it) compared to the forhend he hits today.

98-2008 Federer forehand had less lag and he was using a 90sq +\- inch racquet, still absolutely devastating.

I played Gonzalez in jnrs

You forgot del potro and Tsitsipas.

Nik…can I send you video clip of me playing tennis to evaluate and critique? I want to improve without wasting time. Feel like ive hit dead end as “self taught”. $ isn’t an issue.

He didn't know the essential difference between next-generation forehand technique and modern forehand technique.

Don’t Copy the NEXT GEN Forehand ❌ - what I meant to say was, "If you copy a Next Gen FH and it doesn't work, don't copy it" 🚶

Sounds like wta forehands ;)

In the description, your "Gear" links to a blue babolat. What racquet are you hitting?

This is still free guys. Don't say anything

sorry, but want sinner aggressive playstyle

Again I disagree: you can copy the next gen forehand and hit balls with good paces as 4.0 players.

The next gen's forehand was still destroyed by Djokovic any way. Look at Musetti.

"Who-cardz" is hilarious ))) the guy is so boring that even Nick doesn't know his name's pronunciation ))) hahaha

Dude I dunno if you are confusing people intentionally or you are just a bad coach!

This guy shouldn’t talk about forehand at all. He has such a bad technique…and this is so unimportant detail he mention!! Really… who is putting this comments here? „great video” - paid/fake accounts?. Please start playing correct technique yourself. Check any video of Patrick Mouratouglue and you will see whats important and whats not… so borring story here