Why Wawrinka’s Backhand Is So Powerful

Stan Wawrinka has one of the most legendary one-handed backhands of all time. He's won three grand slams, he hits winners from all over the court with this backhand and he's taken out some of the biggest players in the world. So in this video we're going to get into exactly how he generates so much power on his one-handed backhand and why it's so effective even against the best players in the world. He's still playing to this day and he's going to be one of the most, he's going to go down as one of the most legendary one-handed backhand players of all time. So let's get into the video. Alright, so when Stan is in his ready position you can see he's in a chopper grip on the bottom hand and the left hand is on the throat of the racket and as the ball gets hit by his opponent he's going to make a quick grip change and he's going to actually use that left hand after he does his split step to actually turn the racket here. So you can see that there's a slight grip change he's making, you can see the thumb, the hand slightly relaxes to allow that grip change to happen but you can also see how he uses that left hand to turn the racket to get the strings pointing out to the side on the tape back. So now you can see he's really starting to coil those shoulders, he goes from getting side on so he gets his chest from being front on to being side on nice and early and his goal is to get set with the racket back before the ball lands on his side of the court and you can see he does a really good job of turning those shoulders and actually bringing the racket back. Helping him do this is that left hand, okay, so it's really important if you have a one-handed backhand that you use that non-dominant hand to help assist the racket get back into the right position. So here he's getting into the set position and now let's just have a look at the height of the racket. So we can see that the height of the racket is slightly above head height, he doesn't have the highest tape back and that's what makes it nice and compact. He's able to play from far behind the baseline but this also allows him to play up on the baseline where some other players, a little bit like Sitsapas on the one-handed backhand, has a slightly higher preparation which sometimes causes him issues when playing up close to the baseline. So you can see that the strings are side on, the tip of the racket is pointing up at a slight angle, it's not directly vertical, you can see it's almost leaning a little bit towards down the other side of the court and that's due to his wrist position. So you can see that the right arm has a slight bend in the preparation and by having that slight bend in the preparation that helps keep his elbow and his arm quite relaxed in this position. A lot of club players or people who struggle on their backhand actually sometimes tense a little bit and they have that arm slightly too stretched which works for some players. Dominic Thiem got to that straight arm position a little bit early but I think in most cases it's better to have a slight bend like he's doing just to keep your arm relaxed. The other thing is how tight should we hold the racket in this position? The left hand should be very relaxed on the throat it's just assisting the racket in that position and also the hand should probably be about 4 out of 10 in terms of how tight you're holding that grip. Some players tense too much in the hand here and they're not able to get that relaxed power when they drop the racket head. The next thing we're looking at is the elbow position. So you can see he gets to this position as he starts to step into the ball. He gets to this position where the racket is fully back and this is when he's kind of almost doing that bow and arrow. He's stretching the bow back, I like to call it, and he's storing that energy in his core and it's all ready to be released now. So this is almost like if you use the bow and arrow and you're pulling it back he's loaded there ready to release. You can see he's got a nice knee bend, he's got the weight on the back leg ready to shift forward onto the right foot as the racket drops. So now let's have a look at the racket drop and this is the real key. You can also see that the left elbow is high, it's not tucked too low down by his waist. It's important to keep that elbow up in that position to help get a really good racket drop but by also keeping the elbow up in that position it prevents the racket from dropping behind your shoulder and I see that all the time with people who struggle on their one-handed backhand. They actually let the racket tilt kind of over their shoulder this way and that really causes them problems on high balls that makes them really late on contact. Whereas what you'll see with Stan, he's going to make a really subtle movement in his left hand to help aid the racket drop the right way and let's just have a look at that now. So we can see that he's going to start to do this racket drop, you can see that the left hand is still on the throat of the racket. A lot of club players let go way too early and you can see that he's going to get all the way into this slot position here and I say to a lot of people can you get the racket to your left pocket, can you keep the left hand on the racket until it gets to your left pocket and that's just a good way to kind of remember to do this. This position is really key, you can see that the strings are almost facing the back wall and the tip of the racket is sort of off behind him slightly but keeping that left hand on the racket can really transform your backhand if you're a one-handed backhand player. So you can see that that arm has kind of straightened out and now it's just about releasing, releasing all of that energy that you've stored out to contact. We can see that the ball is coming in and this is where he is as the ball is rising to the top of the bounce. So let's just have a look at the release, so he's dropped that racket head all the way down under the hip and he's leading out to contact with the butt cap facing at the ball and the left hand still on the racket. I really think Stan does this better than almost all the one-handed backhand players in terms of how long he keeps the left hand on the throat of the racket and when you practice this it feels quite strange at the beginning to be honest, it actually doesn't feel very natural. You kind of just picture just having the racket back and just releasing both arms but you've got to be very mindful of that position. So strings are now side on, tip of the racket is pointing back and the butt cap is leading through to contact now. You can see he's really focused, he's really focused out on the ball with his eyes, his head, his chin is forward so he's not kind of watching to the side. Sometimes I had a tendency to do that a little bit, my head would would not be looking directly ahead because I'd be waiting for the ball to come to the side of me whereas you want to picture yourself hitting it far out in front, as far out in front as possible. So here you can see he leads to the ball with his arms straight right, so this is a real key. The arm is straight in that position and he keeps it straight, he keeps it straight, there's not a bend and by keeping it straight it's going to give you a really solid contact. If there's a slight bend when that ball hits the strings it's going to have an unstable contact right because too many things, there's too many variations can go wrong. Your arm's not in a solid position, you can see it's nice and extended a little bit like on a straight arm forehand like Roger does, you know that is a strong position to be and you've got to think doing a one-handed backhand, you've got to do it in a very repeatable way that is almost quite effortless and if there's too many variations that leaves too many rooms for mistakes, especially if it's windy and you know conditions are tough you've got to have a really repeatable swing, especially at top level when the ball is coming in at you at 90 miles an hour. So here you can see he's made contact nice and out in front, head is facing this way and I think this is a key because if you look at some other players like Federer, he'll be looking a little bit more down here and he holds it, Federer holds the backhand a little bit longer than some other one-handed backhands and some coaches say that's due to him being sort of left eye dominant, could be true, whereas Stan possibly might be right eye dominant so he's looking at the ball further in front of him potentially which is an interesting one. So now let's have a look at the follow-through and this is the part where you really extend, you add racket head speed in this position so from here having a strong forearm to really grip up the back of the ball and either hit through it or add a bit more shape or add a bit more topspin to the ball is a real subtle key right at the point of contact and takes a lot of practice. And you can also see that he's using his hips, if I just show you here, his hip is going to uncoil at contact right so all that rotational power is also being utilized in the motion and he's very solid isn't he, he's got a very solid core, strong body which really allows him to have a lot of strength over this shot and just look at how high he finishes up above his shoulder, sorry for stuttering there, he finishes nice and high right so he's back over the green line and that racket head is pointing right off into the sky this direction right and what a lot of good coaches they'll say is can you squeeze your shoulder blades together a bit like you're doing sort of that rear delt exercise in the gym, it's a good one to practice if you've got a one-handed backhand, squeeze your shoulder blades together and that will really give you a strong sensation of coming through contact, you need a good flexibility in the shoulder and the chest muscles to really help you achieve that position so the arm's actually gone behind his body and that shows you how much he lets the racket go all the way through contact whereas a lot of club players they might not finish all the way through so that just tells you how much he's letting the racket head go through the ball and then he's going to come back round, that left hand's probably going to catch the throat of the racket again making it very repeatable because that's just going to help him with that preparation back into the next one so let's just watch it again, so notice when he moves wide for this one how that left foot turns out first so that's a real key, you've got to try to get to the ball in efficient steps so the left foot's turning out first, he's loading on the legs, racket comes through, racket drop, butt cap pointing to the ball, straight arm at contact and then really accelerating up and over through contact, so hope you enjoyed this video guys, if you want your own backhand analysed by me just check the link in the description and I'll see you on the next video, thanks again, Jack!