If you want to really be a player, then you need weapons.
Yes, you can just run all over the court and not miss, but even as a rabbit you need weapons. After all, rabbits have great speed, agility, determination and usually annoyingly good passing shots and concentration.
But a more obvious way of developing a weapon is to have a big shot. When I was a kid, it was all about the forehand. Agassi, Courier, Lendl etc were showing that stepping around and whacking the first ball with your forehand was the baseliner's equivalent of hitting the wide serve and volleying to the open court. My favourite exponent of this was Agassi.
And this just wasn't because of the fake mullet, jean shorts, bandana and colour configuration that made him look like a human peacock ... but that certainly didn't hurt his case either. And yes, you better believe I had some Agassi gear in my wardrobe as a kid.
I just loved Andre's forehand. For me, it's still the best forehand ever. Apart from hitting the ball in front, finishing the stroke, hitting from an open stance etc, the thing that always stood out for me about Agassi's forehand was his awesome turn at the start of the stroke.
On this video, look at his left arm at around the 12-19 second mark. It stays on the throat of the racket until the bounce allowing him to track the ball perfectly and then extends to the side of his body and holds there for a prolonged length of time. Andre is loading the gun big time. He's storing energy in his body like someone would store canned food in anticipation of a war breaking out.
And then boom!
I've always had a good forehand and I know that one of the reasons for this was watching Agassi for hours and hours when I was a kid and copying him as much as I could. Maybe I was lucky that I somehow noticed this great unit turn of his and decided I should probably do this too. Maybe I was lucky ... definitely lucky more like it.
Nobody told me about this, it was just something I discovered on my own. I guess what I'm saying is that you really need to work on developing a big shot like Andre's forehand and if this is something you are able to achieve in a natural way like I did, then that's just as good and in my opinion better, than developing it via formal coaching.
Watch the best and learn from the best.
Yes, you can just run all over the court and not miss, but even as a rabbit you need weapons. After all, rabbits have great speed, agility, determination and usually annoyingly good passing shots and concentration.
But a more obvious way of developing a weapon is to have a big shot. When I was a kid, it was all about the forehand. Agassi, Courier, Lendl etc were showing that stepping around and whacking the first ball with your forehand was the baseliner's equivalent of hitting the wide serve and volleying to the open court. My favourite exponent of this was Agassi.
And this just wasn't because of the fake mullet, jean shorts, bandana and colour configuration that made him look like a human peacock ... but that certainly didn't hurt his case either. And yes, you better believe I had some Agassi gear in my wardrobe as a kid.
I just loved Andre's forehand. For me, it's still the best forehand ever. Apart from hitting the ball in front, finishing the stroke, hitting from an open stance etc, the thing that always stood out for me about Agassi's forehand was his awesome turn at the start of the stroke.
On this video, look at his left arm at around the 12-19 second mark. It stays on the throat of the racket until the bounce allowing him to track the ball perfectly and then extends to the side of his body and holds there for a prolonged length of time. Andre is loading the gun big time. He's storing energy in his body like someone would store canned food in anticipation of a war breaking out.
And then boom!
I've always had a good forehand and I know that one of the reasons for this was watching Agassi for hours and hours when I was a kid and copying him as much as I could. Maybe I was lucky that I somehow noticed this great unit turn of his and decided I should probably do this too. Maybe I was lucky ... definitely lucky more like it.
Nobody told me about this, it was just something I discovered on my own. I guess what I'm saying is that you really need to work on developing a big shot like Andre's forehand and if this is something you are able to achieve in a natural way like I did, then that's just as good and in my opinion better, than developing it via formal coaching.
Watch the best and learn from the best.
