How To Hit Your Tennis Forehand Like Nick Kyrgios - Tennis Forehand Analysis.

Hey everyone, Simon here from Topspinners Training and in this video I want to show you how to hit a forehand similar to Nick Kyrgios'. Nick has one of the biggest forehands in the world and in this video we're going to break down and analyse exactly what he does with his technique and during the stroke that makes it so unique and so different from the rest of the guys on the tour. There are three main elements of the Kyrgios forehand that we're going to focus on in this video. The first one is the roll of his elbow in the preparation and the backswing. The second one is where the tip of his racket is pointing during the stroke and the third one is his swing path. Now the first thing to mention is Nick's forehand grip. He uses a hybrid forehand grip which is in between the full western and the semi-western. Now here we'll see Jack Sock holding the full western grip and you'll notice that his index knuckle is on the bottom bevel so his index knuckle is underneath the racket when he's holding and waiting for that forehand. This is the eastern backhand grip so if you reverse this, this would be my eastern backhand grip. The grip that Stan Wawrinka, Roger Federer and many other single handers use for their backhand. Now if you flip the racket from here to here this would be the full western grip. Now there are images of Nick in an almost full western grip and there are also images of him close to a semi-western. So his grip is a hybrid grip between both and his grip will play a vital role in the swing path as you'll see later on in the video. Now at the start of the swing Nick will have the side of the strings he's going to make contact with facing the ground, facing the floor. So his racket is in that position as he starts his preparation. This is different to players like Wawrinka, Federer and Nadal who will have their strings facing the opponent like so right from the start of the swing. So Nick is in that position and the first thing he does is he starts a swing by lifting his right elbow. Now this lifting of the elbow is not something that is new. This is something that we've seen before with Ivan Lendl, Pete Sampras and with Andre Agassi. All three of those players started their swing by lifting this right elbow and what this does is it creates space right from the start of the swing between the arm and the trunk. Now too often we'll see club players swinging the whole way through with this elbow tucked into their trunk and what this does is normally it causes them to be jammed at a point of contact. It also limits the amount of space they can accelerate their racket. If my racket is down here from this position to the contact point is extremely limited whereas if I lift my elbow now I have a lot more distance to actually swing that racket and speed it up during that contact point. This is what we want. We want space to accelerate that racket and this is exactly what Nick does from the start of the swing. He's creating that space by lifting his elbow right from the start. So he's lifting the elbow and at the start of the swing the tip of the racket will be pointing down towards his opponent. And once again this is very different to a player like Federer, Nadal or Wawrinka who will have the tip of the racket pointing up to the sky when they start their swing. So Federer will be in that position, Wawrinka will be in that position and Nadal will be in the same position. Nick however has his racket, the tip of the racket pointing towards his opponent at the start of the swing. Another thing that you'll notice at the start of the swing is his use of the left hand. Now the left hand is vital in helping him prepare this racket head. So he's in that position and a lot of club players by this time they'll already take the racket away from the left hand, from the non-hitting hand. So they'll start the preparation and they'll release the left hand off the throat. Nick however holds the throat of the racket until the racket is passing his actual head. So he'll get to here and he's still holding the throat of the racket. What this does is it allows him to stay relaxed with the hitting hand because the tension of the racket, the weight of the racket is in that left hand. So he's able to lift the racket in a very relaxed way which is allowing him to stay loose with the muscles of the right arm. So he's lifting the racket here, he's got space with the elbow and he's creating a lot of distance now from this position for him to accelerate from here. If you imagine the racket starting in that position and then he's going to make contact down here. So the distance that his racket is going to travel from here to here is quite extreme. This is very different to someone who's just going back to here and then accelerating from there. And he's reaching a position similar to this where his right elbow is up at shoulder height. So as Nick's in this position this is where his elbow will do a little bit extra. This is where his elbow will start pulling back and stretching the pec muscles, the chest muscles. Now if you've ever been in the gym and you're doing your back rows, you've got the weights in front of you, you've got the machine in front of you and you're pulling the back muscles like so. This same motion with the elbow going back is what Nick is doing on his forehand. So he's starting off here but as he gets behind him this elbow is pulling back, stretching the chest muscles and really getting them engaged. Now the chest muscles are one of the strongest muscles in the upper body and this is something that we saw Pete Sampras doing. Sampras would start off here and he'd stretch the chest muscles by lifting this elbow back. This engages the muscles so it's stretching them and then releasing. So you're getting that muscle firing during the forward phase of the swing. Stretching them, releasing them. Exactly the same thing that Nick Kyrgios does on his forehand. Now this is a very clever way of increasing the power and also increasing the range of motion with your arm without breaking the body's line. Now if we stop Nick's forehand in this position and you took away the racket and you look at just what his body is doing, his arm is in a position very similar to Andre Agassi's forehand where the right elbow would be up at shoulder level and the forearm and the palm of the hand is higher than the elbow. It's identical to what Nick is doing but with a different grip. So Agassi used the eastern forehand grip so when he reached that position his arm was like so. The side of the strings were facing the right side of the court. Nick however because of his grip is slightly different with the racket head. Now from this position here what Nick will start doing is dropping the racket head and the tip of the racket will go from pointing down the court to then pointing to the right side of the court. Now if we look at a player like Wawrinka in that back position his strings will be facing the back of the court like so. Now if we look at a next generation forehand, players like Jack Sock, they have very similar back positions with the racket head where the racket is in that position here. Now this isn't something that they've invented, this is something that players like Marat Safin used to use also Mark Fedepusas. Both players used this type of forehand in the early 2000s. So this racket being in that position is not something that's new either, this is something that Kyrgios has adopted on his own forehand but it's something that we've seen before. By having the racket like so, from this position once they start the racket lag phase the racket now has to flip over so the racket is pointing to the right side and now it flips over to where the racket head is pointing backwards so you're going from this position to this position so it's creating more space for them to accelerate. Now there is another way for them to create that space and that would be by having a bigger loop so someone like Del Potro has a very high take back and a very big circle on his forehand but if you don't want to have such a big swing the other option is making a little bit more compact with the swing but having the racket in that position here so you have a lot of distance to accelerate that racket. Now Nick's swing path is very unique and something that we haven't seen too often on the tour. Because he lifts his elbow so high and has the racket head in that position from here Nick handles high balls very well and he actually attacks those high balls and he's happy hitting the ball at head height. Now from here because of his grip he's able to handle those high balls very well. If I had an eastern forehand grip and I try to hit my shot up here it's very hard for me to control that high ball but with the almost western grip it's much easier for me to hit that shot and close the strings and come on top of the ball using that windshield wiper motion and this is exactly what we've seen Nick doing. He has a high take back, he has a high preparation phase but then from here he hits the ball and travels down. Nick is able to finish down by his left hip and this is a very different swing to a traditional swing. Most coaches will teach you to have a circular loop with that low to high swing so you're able to produce that topspin using that low to high follow through. Nick however will often use a high to low swing path so this is very different and this is something that allows his forehand to be aggressive on those high balls. Now something else that allows Nick to have such a massive forehand is his coil and uncoil. He has a great wind up with the rotation so as he's preparing he's doing everything we've covered with the rack ahead but he's also coiling up his upper body and storing energy in the trunk muscles especially the obliques. Often you'll see Nick in that back position with his back facing the net and then from that position he's able to uncoil which will produce a lot of power. So this coil and uncoil is something that any player should be trying to use on their forehand. As you start your swing it doesn't matter how you swing with your racket you want to feel that you're coiling the upper body and then releasing. So you're using the trunk muscles especially the obliques, the side abdominal muscles to create that massive rotational power through the swing. So from that position here Nick will then start that lag so you'll have the bottom of the racket pointing towards the oncoming ball. He uses a bent elbow forehand which means his elbow stays bent all the way through the swing. Now Nick mainly uses the open or the semi open stance on his forehand and the reason for this is again his grip. Now someone who's using an almost western forehand grip or the western forehand grip if they step forward and put this left leg forward if they're a right hander into that neutral stance for them to actually hit that shot becomes very hard because they rely on rotation. So a player with a western grip relies on this rotation of the trunk and of the hips to actually have a longer contact zone. Now if I step forward and I'm using the eastern forehand grip like a Federer I can make contact in different positions because of my grip. My grip allows me to have the strings flat towards the court in different positions because of the grip. So with the eastern forehand grip I can make contact here, I can make contact here or I can make contact right in front of me like so. So my contact zone and the amount of distance I have to make contact and a clean contact is much longer than someone who uses the western grip. With the western grip you have to time the ball perfectly so that you make contact in that similar position. If I make contact slightly late behind my body's line with a western grip my strings are facing towards the ground that ball is going to bounce on my side of the court. Similarly if I make contact too far in front of me it's hard for me to control the rack ahead with that grip. So if you are someone who uses an extreme grip and you want to step forward it's going to be much harder for you to time that contact point so that you're actually able to make a clean contact and finish and still use that rotation. With Nick he uses this right leg to load up on and he's using that open or semi-open stance which will allow him the freedom of the rotation. So from here he's in that position and he rotates and the power is generated from the outside leg, the right leg. So a brief overview of Kiryov's forehand. The first thing to mention is he uses an extreme grip. He's got the hybrid grip between the semi and the full western. He starts the swing by having the tip of the racket pointing to his opponent. He leads the swing using his elbow, lifting it up to shoulder level but also stretching the chest muscles by pulling it back. He then reaches a back position where the tip of the racket is pointing to the right side of the court. He uses an extreme bend in the elbow to create a massive lag on the forward face and his swing path will change depending on the height of the ball. He often uses that high to low swing path to allow him to attack those higher balls. Now if you have enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up. Now this is just one of many forehands that we analyze inside our Forehand Revolution Course. So if you want to see more videos where we break down the best forehands in the world I'll leave a link below this video so you can go and check out our full Forehand Revolution Course. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to the channel and please make sure you turn on that notification bell. If you're simply just a subscriber but haven't turned on the bell, YouTube won't notify you when we have our newest videos released. Also are there any videos you'd like to see from us in the near future, leave a comment down below and let us know. Signing off, Simon from T2T, all the best and see you soon guys!