Rafa Nadal And Buggy Whip Madness

Wimbledon finished last weekend and Rafa proclaimed himself the “king” of professional tennis.

What an amazingly gifted tennis player and athlete.  Rafa does so many things well, it is downright scary!

But the one shot that I believe sets him about from the best in the tennis biz is the BUGGYWHIP forehand.

This shot has revolutionized tennis and just about anyone who aspires to make it on the pro tour has to have this shot.

As a tennis player wanting to improve check out this video to learn what to avoid and what to focus on when mastering this effective shot.

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Hey everyone, it’s Jeff here at JeffSalzenstein.com, and Rafa Nadal just won Wimbledon and I can talk for hours about all the things that he does well — maybe not hours — but I can talk about a lot of things that he does amazingly well.

The first thing that I want to talk about today is the BUGGYWHIP forehand with a reverse forehand.  Now, that forehand has become very popular, and what’s interesting is that type of forehand has been used for many years — Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, a lot of top forehands in the world used the reverse forehand and that’s when the racquet swings over the head like this.

 

That shot has been used probably for 100 years in tennis.  It’s become more popular now that Rafa Nadal has made it famous.  Announcers are starting to mention it on TV.  I still think there’s some misunderstanding about how to use it, when to use it, but obviously Rafa Nadal has used it in generating incredible pace, incredible topspin, incredible versatility on the different types of shots — approach shots, running shots, shots under stress.  You need to have the reverse forehand, or what I call the BUGGYWHIP forehand, to be able to be successful at the highest levels of the game.

And the key thing that I want to talk about today is that a lot of people, when they watch the reverse forehand, they think that the racquet goes straight up like this.  That is incorrect.  I’m going to tell you right now, if you swing like this, unless you’re hitting a quick topspin lob or you’re flicking the ball, you’re going to set yourself up for a possible shoulder problem and you’re also not going to have an effective BUGGYWHIP forehand.

Now, the reason why Rafa’s forehand is so effective, and for that matter, Pete Sampras and Federer and all the other, John Isner, all the other top guys in the world using this type of forehand, is they’re getting incredible extension.  So when they swing on the reverse forehand, the racquet goes out before it comes back.

So a lot of times when I teach the reverse forehand, I actually have a player stop the racquet with the hand in front of the head.  So you’re going to stop the racquet with the racquet in front of your head.  You’re not going to let the racquet fling over your head like this.  Now once you learned how to extend first, then you can relax afterwards.

So go ahead, go out on your local court.  Try it out.  See if you can get the extension that Rafa uses and let me know how it goes.

Thanks a lot.  Talk to you later.

 

Jeff Salzenstein

http://www.JeffSalzensteinTennis.com

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