Sebastian Korda Forehand Technique: Complete Breakdown

hey what's going on guys Jason frosto for tennis and leash. net today we're doing a deep dive technique analysis on one of the smoothest forehands on the ATP Tour we're looking at Sebastian Corda forehand if you want to find out what the keys to his forehand technique are stay tuned it's coming up next all right so before we jump into the side by-side technique analysis let's let this play once in slow motion guys you get a look at his actual technique here right fashion doing a good job here very very good forand technique that anybody can copy the footage on the left side of the screen over here is from slow-mo tennis's YouTube channel make sure you check them out and then on the right side of the screen it's from tennis only so also check out their YouTube channel and support their content so from here guys first things first we're just going to go back a little bit he's in the ready position couple things we see in the ready position right here right with the racket position left hand on the throat of the racket so the non- hitting hand should be supporting the racket as we're turning and getting everything going just from our split step position right here also a couple other things that we see his hitting elbow here right elbow little bit away from the body in the ready position I'm looking for a little bit of spacing here when we're in our ready position if we put the left hand on the throat of the racket that's an easy way to help get that spacing that we see right there so that's super important and then just from that position right there let's go forward a little bit see a nice wide split on the left side and right side of the screen when we're in the split the biggest technical checkpoints I'm looking for are are your feet past the width of your shoulders right so feet past the width of the shoulders and we see that with quarter here on the left side of the screen so that's really really important and then just going forward from that position guys couple more keys here he's stepping around on the right there a forehand right inside outter inside in but the left hand remains on the throat of the racket right here so we have that good position with the left hand on the throat of the racket he tends to let go a little bit earlier than a lot of players on tour somebody like a Carlos alcarez doesn't let go of the throat of the racket until they get to about their back shoulder or even beyond the back shoulder area right but we can see Corda here again if just go back he lets go middle of the chest to his right peack area so right around here is where he's letting go so a little bit sooner than somebody like alcarez does right and the reason we want to keep the left hand on the throat of the racket the biggest reason is it helps us we can see it here on the left side it helps us to coil our shoulders and get a nice turn of our shoulders and our upper body right here which is really important we're trying to use our body as a unit we get a unit turn we want to use that turn to go back into the ball and really deliver a big shot and by coiling and using our upper body here to do that we get much more power on our stroke but leave that left hand on at least until again middle chest back shoulder area it helps you to coil for the shot couple other things that we see Corda has kind of implemented a very much kind of a Fetter style so we can see his racket when he lets go here doesn't have much forward tilt on it like somebody like a Carlos alcarez right or a tasi konakis not a lot of forward racket tilt here the tip of the racket is angled yes a little bit we can see that but nowhere near some of the other players cuz he doesn't raise his right elbow up closer to shoulder height and he also uses what I've coined you know five or six years ago now as a half loop on his forehand that means his hitting hand right here does not go up to his shoulder height which used to be the standard you know for the last 25 to 30 years he shortened that to more of a feder style a half loop on the forehand you can see his hitting hand only comes up to just below his chest area on most balls right so again more of a half loop on his forehand not bringing his hitting hand here up to the height of his shoulder so a very compact swing he's a big guy 6'5 very strong so he may not need as big of a loop as other guys on the tour do and we've seen a big adoption of this half Loop or no Loop style in the last 5 to 10 years since that F video came out but from this position right here right again he's got a little separation with the hitting elbow still from his body doesn't let that get tucked tight into his torso right and then from that position he goes goes down into classic Pat the dog position right setting up the forehand leg I call this touch the cart but here we can see a couple things that are really good in his forehand and his forehand is very similar to Fed in terms of the preparation and how he's setting everything up but it does get a little bit different at this stage of the swing and the differences are a lot of times feder instead of having his racket kind of tilted up like this with the wrist in a stronger position a lot of times Rogers tip of his racket would dangle down and the wrist would be in a little bit more of a floppy or weaker position nothing wrong with that just very relaxed but Corda tends to end up in this position we can also see when his left hand comes off the throat of the racket right here that his left hand extends off into his right side or our right side here right we can see that in both videos from this position and this position we also see the use of in both videos a semiopen stance in both cases where the right foot steps out and we plant most of our weight on the right leg here and then the heel of the left shoe will be a little bit off the ground in this position right here so again semi-open stance in both videos racket in a very similar position another key position something you're looking for here guys chin right his chin overlooking the front shoulder here a little bit so again there's a lot of things technically that are going on here the cool thing about teaching technique like this to Juniors or other players adults is that if you do one thing a lot of things will take care of themselves for you as you're teaching somebody so you don't need to teach them every single one of these little details these are just sort of the things that you look for when you're examining technique in general right so again here gets into this position the old Pat the dog position his chest is turned and sideways his belly button sideways to the side fence semi-open stance in these particular shots but we know that sometimes right players are going to step into some balls with neutral stances just not nearly as often as semi and then from this position here watch his left arm especially on the video over on the right watch the left arm it clears a path and starts to rotate his hips and shoulders but clears a path that's something a lot of people struggle with is clearing the left arm especially when kids are first learning have trouble clearing that left arm so make sure people are clearing that left arm and getting it to tuck towards that body and kind of get out of the way couple other things that we notice here right racket strings are pointed a little bit down towards the ground from that position as well we can see the grip here to me even if I zoom in on that a little bit he's in around a three and a half position semi- Western's four Eastern is three he's kind of between the two at three and a half you know uh with his grip position so not extreme and also not too mild not at three not an Eastern grip but three and 1 half position with his heel heel pad and his knuckle and then from this position guys we can see legs are bent right from that semiopen stance but he's also going to extend up with his legs and body and use Ground Force to generate force on the forehand so he really extends up with his body his legs here you can see his legs went from a position where they were very bent at this stage right and now that back leg especially the right leg straightens out at contact because he's using the ground forward to initiate the swing and to generate power in this position as well a couple other Keys If you're trying to get that ATP forand leg make sure that in this position right here you have your right arm your hitting arm very relaxed right here guys very important to have that right arm relaxed if you have the right arm relaxed it's going to make it easier for the racket to lag behind your hand and your body and then as he uncoils his body here hips and shoulders start to uncoil the big key position that we see is the tip of his racket is going to end up behind his elbow and that's a big key that we're looking for that means the size of his racket leg is a significant amount it's a large amount when he legs it and he's going to get a lot of Racket head speed and power with that big leg position right there so again from here keep everything relaxed start to rotate the body the legs the hips and the racket should lag behind your arm at this point then from here we'll notice the right hand also will will go from left to right in the space so the racket will travel in a position where it kind of travels this way okay when the racket travels like that we have an inside to outside swing which helps to generate Top Spin which is key on the forehand side so an inside to outside swing with that tip there and then another big thing that we notice here with Corda in most players right is that most players get a lot of space between their hitting elbow and their body or their hip at contact right there so there's a good amount of gap between the hitting elbow and the body at contact The Only Exception is if we get a little bit jammed on a forehand but again some good things here and then also at contact with the ball the eyes tend to be looking down at where contact would be right that also helps you to not give away your intent your direction on your shot and then from this position right here at contact as well what I'm looking for with most players is is your hitting elbow in front of your hips at contact act that's going to be the case most of the time some exceptions to that can be when we're going inside out or inside in a forehand or if we're a little bit late on a contact we're making it more of a defensive shot but again I'm looking for contact with the elbow in front of the body here belly button facing forward chest facing forward we've really rotated into the shot and then just from here if we look at contact again on a lot of shots if we're trying to penetrate the cord I'm looking for the hitting hand like we see on the right to really go out and across and wipe at the same time the old windshield wiper but go out and across as we follow through and we go low to high and we lift on these forehands so what Corda does here right guys is he really implements a lot of things that are just sound fundamentally that you can Implement into your own forehand technique all right guys that wraps it up for this deep dive technique analysis on Sebastian Corda forehand if you found this video helpful or you feel like you learned something today make sure you hit that like And subscribe button I'm Jason frosto for tennis and le.net I'll see you next time