re: Tennis 2019 -- The Unofficial Non-GS Thread

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You may not have noticed, but Felix is the only young player I haven't really argued against, in terms of his future.

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Was just giving you a hard time.

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ETA: If I had to nitpick something... his forehand is currently one of the worst on tour, in my opinion. Is it Benoit-Paire bad? No, but pretty close. It has too much topspin and he struggles when trying to flatten it out to hit winners.

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I was actually thinking that his backhand was too topspin-y. It's of course still better than every American on tour save maybe Fritz. And also better than the one-handed offering of his canuck brethren. I just don't understand why any kid would hit a one-hander. "because Roger Federer does it" is not an acceptable answer imho.

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The good news? In terms of correctability, I would think a forehand is easier to fix than some other strokes or characteristics.

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Probably true. It's a more natural motion. I radically changed my forehand grip a couple years ago and was able to get comfortable with it relatively quickly.* It took me several months to figure out the old grip was better, and when I switched back it was like I had never changed it at all.


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*why did I do this? I was trying to copy the forehand of this guy from my hometown. His forehand is both fairly unorthodox and ridiculously nasty. He basically hits it with a ping pong grip....so take your regular forehand grip and put your index finger along the the length of the grip, and leave the other fingers wrapped around like you normally would. I figured switching to his grip would give me his forehand. It did not. I don't know how he hits his forehand the way he does, but the angles are insane. I think he just has better hand-eye than me.**

**that being said, i could hit some amazing shots when I used that grip, but the consistency wasn't there. Maybe if I'd been using it my whole life... But since I hadn't, I went back to ole semi-western. I rarely hit it for a winner, but I fricking never miss a ball. Well...at least when I was still playing tennis. Haven't played in several months.