At Wimbledon this year Fabio Fognini took Carlos Alcaraz to five thrilling sets (click here for highlights), something that nobody saw coming. Fognini is at the very tail end of his career. At 38 years old, the Italian hadn't won an ATP Tour main draw match in nine months before stepping onto the court to face the nearly invincible 22 year old Carlos Alcaraz, fresh off his Roland Garros conquest.
Although age has clearly caught up to Fognini over the past year, anyone who has followed his career knows what a brilliant athlete he is. At 5'10, Fognini punches way above his height, with powerful, penetrating ground strokes combined with outrageous shot making. He was No. 9 in the world in 2019 and has won nine ATP singles titles, including the 2019 Monte-Carlo Masters. He has wins over Nadal (at the Monte Carlos Masters), Sasha Zverev, Juan Martin Del Potro.
I have been watching and filming Fognini over the past few years, fascinated by his ground stroke technique (and mercurial personality). After the news broke that he almost took out Alcaraz, I went to my footage, shot at 960fps, and thought it was time to break down his forehand first.
The body stores and releases energy like a whip
Fognini is very powerful and hits an incredibly heavy ball. But he combines this power with an initial whip like movement that I compare to a shark whipping it's tail to propel itself foreward. This initial whip like motion is best observed from a rear top angle which I was lucky enough to capture at 960 fps.
Watch the clip above for a few moments and watch how the tip of the racket snaps back towards his right leg, nearly touching it, before being pulled forward and then whipping inside out into contact. (Click here to see a music video I created showing a variety of players doing this). I didn't fully understand how this whip like movement occurs until reading Brian Gordon's work on Tennisplayer. Specifically his description of the flip, the dynamic slot, and the "sling shot". (Click Here to read Brian's description of "the dynamic slot".
But I also want to make the analogy that this explosive motion is similar to how a shark uses it's body to create whip in its tail.
"As the shark swims, its body and tail work together in a coordinated way. The body often undulates, with the head and front part of the body moving in one direction, while the tail moves in the opposite direction. This creates a wave-like motion along the body, which helps generate propulsion. The elasticity and flexibility of the shark's body allow it to stretch and then whip back, providing efficient thrust to move forward. "
Winding up the body
A Kinetic Chain of Angular Momentum
Notice how Fognini's entire motion coming into the ball resembles that of the sharks tail. The body moves in one direction while the tip of racket moves in the opposite direction. When this energy is released it's released as angular momentum in a burst of speed. I reversed the clip at the end so you can get a real sense of the flow of energy coming from two big rotations - first the torso rotation followed by the racket head rotating inside out.
It makes sense to see this entire motion as a wave of undulating motions, akin to the shark's tail. Rather than forcing acceleration, we see twists and rotations store up energy before releasing the tip of the racket head outward in its own wavelike motion.
The path of the racket
A great reference point when hitting or when teaching the forehand is to have the player feel the tip of the racket point towards the right leg before sweeping inside out. This will teach the inside out path of the racket that often does not come intuitively to players. Especially when we frame the stroke in purely linear terms like "take the racket back", "meet the ball in front", and "follow through".
The next illustration shows how the tip of the racket moves in a curved arc. It starts pointing backwards toward Fognini's right leg and then travels outward in an arc before turning back into the ball. Because the tip of the racket is covering a much larger distance than the hand, it speeds up before coming back around into contact, leading to a burst of racket head speed.
Adding Power and Weight Through the Ball
Fognini does an incredible job of pushing through the ball using his right shoulder. It's how he turns all that angular momentum into a powerful forward (and upward) movement through the ball. In this month's forum post (click here) on the Fognini forehand, our long time poster "Stroke" referred to Fognini's forehand as the "Bruce Lee 1 inch punch of forehands". I couldn't agree more.
If you aren't familiar with this concept, the one inch punch comes from martial arts and was popularized by Bruce Lee. By using the arm as a lever, supported by the powerful shoulder, a tremendous amount of force can be generated over a 1 inch path. I think the perfectly captures how Fognini is able to deliver so much power through the ball. But before looking at the one inch punch, this animation captures how Fognini powerfully drives through the ball.
I slowed down the above animation from contact on so you can see how the racket and shoulder work together to push through (and lift up) the ball. Fognini has exquisite extension and it is a big reason why his ball is so powerful. However, extension is not unique to Fognini.
John Yandell is famous for his insight into how the racket and arm move through the ball like this, even in the modern windshield wiper forehands we see, before any wrapping occurs. An article I go back to time and again is his article "Commmon Elements Across the Grip Styles". On page 3 of that article (Click Here), John shows six players who all achieve the "universal finish", just like Fognini here. And his article "The Myth of the Wrap" (Click here) also shows this point of maxium extension.
I drew a white line from the racket at maximum extension to show how the strings are still face the net. Imagine you are pushing a heavy object. The hand and shoulder would continue to face in the direction of the push as the shoulder, arm, and hand push forward. John referred to this as the "power palm" position.
I would also note that as the push is occuring, the arm is lifting upward to impart topspin.
But the key takeaway here is that rather than coming across the body, power is transferred through the ball through the shoulder and hand pushing forward. It is only after this powerful push forward and lift upward that the shoulder rotates up to 180 degrees to create the wiper finish. See my article on the "Windshield Wiper Finish" for a description of how the wiper motion is driven the hand, arm and shoulder (Click Here) and results in what I call the "Box Finish", which I teach to my students.
Key Takeaways
So what can you learn from Fabio Fognini's forehand? I would suggest that a great forehand has two critical elements - a wavelike motion coming into contact combined with a powerful push and lift of the ball on contact. One without the other, however, won't work. If you don't have the wavelike inside out motion coming into contact (the shark's tail), you won't have enough speed coming into contact. And if you don't have a drive and lift of the ball using your right shoulder, you won't have any weight behind the ball. But combine the two and you just might create magic. Like Fabio Fognini.
In the next article we will look at Fognini's extremely powerful backhand. The same elements are there. The wavelike rotations into contact. The powerful drive of the shoulder and arm. But with two hands on the handle. Stay tuned for that!
Oh, and what about that "one inch punch" Stroke mentioned? Check out this video on YouTube.