Federer, Djokovic and Nadal - They All Tap The Dog

Good Doggie!

So, what is it that all three of the top players in the world have in common on their forehand? They all "tap the dog."

In learning from one of the leading teachers and academy owners, Rick Macci, here in Florida, he took me through how similar the stroke of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic are. He calls it "tapping the dog" and I will explain what he means by that.

If you look at the forehand video of Roger Federer in the previous post below, the "tap the dog" position comes at 11 seconds into the video - racquet strings closed to the ground and his elbow creating space between his elbow and rib cage. Imagine if he dropped his racquet, opened his palm, and tapped a dog on the forehead - that's the position.

This position is quite interesting in fact. The elbow is away from the body. Many students of mine ask if the elbow should be in tight or away from the body as the racquet comes down out of the higher part of the loop. Away from the body is the answer for these three players - Nadal possessing the most compact swing his elbow does not leave much space until he starts his forward progression.

Big Players Don't Push... They Pull!

But what is even more interesting to note is that each player literally pulls his racquet hand forward - think of a pulling action forward across the middle of the body. This action pushes the racquet "inward" from the "outward" position where it lies when they "tap the dog". So these three players are not laying the racquet back inside and back to where it points to the back screen - the racquet is pushed there by the force from the "pull" forward of the racquet hand toward the ball. Their motion forward is a lot earlier than us mere mortals and because of that the racquet moves backward and inward even as their hitting hand is moving forward toward the ball.

This pulling action is quite evident between seconds 4 and 5 (0.04 to 0.05) on the Djokovic forehand video and at 0.10 on the Nadal video. In fact Nadal's racquet is already quite close to perpendicular to the back screen and it moves way inside behind him prior to moving forward toward the ball, even though he has pulled his hand quite forward already.

But in my book, Roger Federer has the most classic forehand in this regard. His "tapping the dog" position is nicely away from his body and the strings are almost fully closed. As he comes through the swing, he pulls his hand through around 0.14 to 0.15 and you can see how the racquet head reacts and comes back inside toward the back screen and bit toward his back hip prior to moving forward. Look at how early his hand is in comparison to his racquet. His hips are already rotating at 0.15 and not until 0.19 does he make contact.

I know it's slow motion, but he's so early and the racquet speed at contact is so fast, the racquet comes and catches the hand to be parallel with his hitting hand at contact. The hand had been leading the swing the entire time! But the racquet's speed at the end of the swing is too fast and catches up with the hand and then bypasses the hand into the follow through.Guess that's one of the reason he's won more Grand Slams than anyone else alive.

The Spheres Of The Tennis Swing

In order to simplify a backhand or a forehand groundstroke, I often teach what I term "The Spheres of The Swing" which is another way of saying keep the racquet on one side of the body.

Often, a student will come to me and say he or she is late on most hits. Usually, what I see is that the student has taken the racquet back beyond the perpendicular (pointing at the back fence) and around behind their derrieres or rear end. If, as a professional teacher, you can see your student's racquet behind their butt, the racquet has gone back too far.

Rick Macci, one of the leading teacher's in the country, describes "tapping the dog" on the forehand as one way to stop the student from taking the racquet back too far. I use it as a tool to keep the racquet on the forehand side of the body throughout the stroke. If you look at the link below, Roger Federer hits the "tap the dog" position, which is palm facing down around hip height, at 0.48 seconds in the video. From there, he almost pulls his hand forward while extending his arm, which puts the racquet into the perpendicular to the net and back screen position just before the racquet head begins to move forward.

Remember this: If a student goes back too far on the backswing and behind their back into the other sphere, chances are they are going to be late making contact. Also, if the swing forward starts behind their back, their swing tends to be more circular, with a centrifugal force and focus, around their hips and bodies, rather than with a linear focus toward their objective and through the ball's path. Keep it simple and keep the racquet on the forehand side of the body while hitting a forehand and vice versa for the backhand.