The Perfect Forehand Doesn’t Exist—Former China National Team Player Explains Why

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He is absolutely right. Bio mechanically speaking every player has different height, different length of joints, probably slightly different mobility as well. Different spine, different posture. But as the guy in the video said, all of the key points are the some. You need to snap your forearm, to snap your forearm you need have the elbow at the ball height, otherwise the ball will go sky high. So despite the strokes looking differently, they have the same core concepts. Each player needs to compensate differently for their bodies.

To put it abstractly, if you strip the players from flesh and replace them with joints and bones represented as lines, the strokes will start to algorithmically similar.
 
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My first coach insisted I use a whipping wristy style forehand. I improved rapidly and could hit the ball really hard. I then took lessons from someone in the top 100 and they insisted my motion be concave up and I should really hit through the ball when I was looping. This method might work if you speed glue daily and have the touch of someone who practices 8 hours a day. It didn't work for me and after 6 months trying very hard and losing tons of rating points, I switched back to my old method and got back to my old level.

In China, my coach insisted on no wrist at all and no whipping motion. All the power and motion had to be coordinated all at once. I could no longer hit the ball hard as before. I might have been a tad more consistent but against better players, this kind of loop was useless.

So what is the moral of the story? There are multiple theories on how to loop properly. Find something that works for you and stick with it.
 
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