Jannik Sinner’s Next Gen Slingshot Forehand Explained

Hey guys, in today's video I'm going to analyze Yannick Sinner's slingshot next gen forehand. I have made videos on Yannick's two-handed backhand and his serve. And those strokes kind of look like slingshots and so does his forehand. I'm going to put a link in the description, I want you to check those videos out. So Yannick Sinner is the slingshot man. Let me first tell you some of the more conventional things that Yannick does on his forehand that you will find among the vast majority of top ATP players. So Yannick makes perfect contact with his dominant shoulder way out front. He has a bent arm forehand and a vertical swing path, which means that he imparts a tremendous amount of spin on his forehand. So Yannick gets a heavy amount of spin on his forehand and I compare it to someone like Federer. So he doesn't hit the ball with as much height as Djokovic at times or Nadal. He does hit the ball lower over the net. Of course Yannick just like everybody else can play with more height as well. But his general forehand, the one that he rips has a flatter trajectory. Now don't confuse this with a flat forehand. Yannick gets a tremendous amount of spin on his forehand, but if you look at his swing path and if you take a look at this diagonal line, it's going to be more straightened out than some other players. So players that have a tendency to play the ball a little bit higher will have a line that goes slightly more upwards. So Yannick does go up and over the ball, but his swing path is more shallow, which results in the ball going lower over the net, but yet the ball has a tremendous amount of RPMs and spin on it. And now let's get to some of the unorthodox elements on Sinners forehand and I'm going to explain why I'm calling it a slingshot forehand. So first of all, Yannick has a conventional finish. He goes to his left shoulder, but often the racket loops out. So he lets the racket swing out all the way, but he loops it here and brings it back down on this side. Now interestingly, Yannick also has a wrist break in his forehand. So if you pay close attention, you'll see that the wrist is bent. Once the racket tip starts to go down from a vertical position, the wrist bends. Now don't confuse this with Yannick wristing his forehand. If you take a look at the moment of contact and shortly thereafter, the wrist is not bending, but once that racket starts to go up, the wrist goes along for the ride. And when that racket starts to go down on this side, the wrist breaks as he's finishing around his shoulder and then looping the racket back out. So this is something that's perfectly safe to do because the wrist starts to bend in the deceleration phase. And this is very unlikely going to cause Yannick wrist problems in the future. All right, now we get to the interesting part, which is Yannick's preparation on his forehand. And this is the reason why I'm calling it a next gen forehand. But first we have to understand how Sinner makes that perfect contact that I mentioned previously. So Sinner, just like all high level players, makes contact with the dominant shoulder in front of the non-dominant shoulder. And the way this contact is accomplished is by opening the torso prior to the forward phase. So when that butt cap starts to point towards the ball in the lag phase, the chest has to be already somewhat open towards the net so that as the player continues to rotate they are intuitively going to make contact with the dominant shoulder in front. Now of course there are many styles when it comes to preparation on the forehand, but generally what you will see from players is that on the very bottom of the racket drop is where the rotation is initiated. So the non-dominant arm moves out of the way first and it is then when the torso starts to rotate and the racket starts to lag behind. And at this moment in time the chest is already open. Now just like I do for all professional players that I analyze, I take a look in their junior days and I want to see the evolution of a stroke. And Janik's forehand has evolved a lot. Interestingly, his elbow position was quite low. He had more of a conventional racket drop where the strings were pointing towards the back fence and the racket would drop from here with the strings pointing towards the ground and he would initiate his torso rotation and lag the racket and make contact with the dominant shoulder in front. So Janik in his junior days had a modern forehand, but then when he came on tour I started seeing some next gen elements. And what is a next gen forehand? Well the position of the elbow is different and the position of the racket face is different as the racket starts to drop. So Janik loops the racket just like everybody else. The strings are positioned in front of his head. But from here instead of going back and dropping the racket like this the way he did in juniors now the elbow stayed much higher and the strings turned towards the back fence and the tip of the racket was pointing towards the side fence. And this is what I categorize as a next gen forehand. However there were some players in the past such as Jim Currier that utilized this style as well. And what I saw from Janik early in his pro days I'm still seeing to this day all the way to Wimbledon 2024. The racket drops straight down the elbow is higher than it was before and the tip of the racket is going towards the outside. It is now where Janik starts getting his non-dominant arm out of the way and when that racket flips backwards and gets to this point this is where the torso rotation is initiated. When he reaches the full lag his chest is already open towards the net and he makes contact with the dominant shoulder in front. So the way the forehand looks now compared to his junior days is more slingshot like because he has more whip in the back of the stroke. Basically the racket has to cover more ground going from this position to this position compared to going from a position where it drops straight down and then goes to a lag. There's a further distance here so it looks whippier and longer in the back. If you combine that with the fact that Sinner lets his racket swing out in the very back the entire thing looks very whippy. So this forehand style whether it is something that evolved naturally or something that was developed I'm uncertain of that but I am certain that the forehand that Janik has now perfectly suits his whippy style that can be seen on other strokes as well such as his two-handed backhand and his serve. Now I have received messages with players showing me their Sinner forehands and it often turns into a disaster because one thing that you have to realize is that when you make your preparation longer in effect Janik has made his preparation longer. He used to go here now he goes here. So the racket has to cover a longer path to get to the lag. So this is something that requires very fast movements of the racket that some players simply don't have. Now to be fair I do coach some high level juniors that have Sinner type forehands next gen forehands and they hit them perfectly fine. So what you have to look for is that your fundamentals are intact. So you have to be able to create a full lag meaning that the racket tip ideally needs to be pointed slightly back at the recreational level. This is sufficient as well where the tip of the racket is pointing straight towards the back fence. At the more advanced levels you actually want to have enough acceleration where the tip of the racket goes backwards. So if you have a Sinner preparation with an insufficient lag instead of forcing a Sinner forehand you might be better off with a different preparation that makes the lag easier. The same can be said for a poor contact. If you adapt a Sinner style forehand and now you're making contact way behind like this you're probably having a hard time sequencing your rotation. So you might be better off with a more conventional racket drop that by the way a lot of players in the top 100 ATP and WTA use where the racket is dropping straight down and now it's going to be a tad easier to time that rotation right on the bottom portion of the racket drop. Again the racket has to cover less ground and it's possibly easier to accomplish a lag and a proper contact point. Now of course if you're someone that's getting all the fundamentals with a Sinner style preparation then by all means continue hitting your Sinner forehand. See the thing is there's just some players who are more slingshot like. They are just whippier in the way they play tennis. I'm certainly not one of those players. But Sinner on his serve, his backhand and his forehand has these loosey-goosey slingshot style elements that suit his game perfectly. Now I rank Sinner's forehand among the best in the world because Sinner has such a fast arm he can hit the ball extremely hard and hit winners at will when he's playing his best tennis. And because Sinner is so whippy and so loosey-goosey a lot of people confuse this with a slap shot forehand. And this is definitely not happening on Sinner's forehand because if you pay close attention when Sinner makes contact with the ball his racket face will sometimes close. This is something that you'll see often on the HP Tour because he makes contact towards the bottom part of his string bed so naturally the strings have a tendency to close. Of course this is not the case on all his forehands. But if you pay close attention there's a lot of control applied to Sinner's forehand in this zone right here. This is where you get all the control for the ball. So he's absolutely not slapping at the ball, smacking it. He's putting a tremendous amount of control and topspin on the ball and he has the combination that a lot of the top players have which is control and power combined.