02 December 2010

HIGH AND LOW ELBOW: AAMIR ATLAS KHAN vs. ADRIAN GRANT

We have discussed a couple of times 'racket-preparation' and we came to the point that the more compact the backswing the more control and the more deception there might be in your shot. Nevertheless, there are a couple of players who have higher and wider swings. One of them is surely Aamir Atlas Khan. In the below rally it makes a really nice contrast with Adrian Grant  who has a rather compact backswing. Stop the footage for example at 0:29 and at 0:32, the only other guy that comes to my mind now to exagerate the forehand back-swing so much is German Simon Rosner. But Khan raises his elbow exceptionally high even on the backhand side where generally it's a natural choice to keep the elbow tight to the body (see for example at 0:08 and more significantly at 0;15). Of course these observations have to be taken with some reserve as they mainly concern basic strokes (and rather the forehand side); on the stretch or at a high volley everybody will raise his arm (elbow); and of course even 'compact swingers' will adjust and raise their elbow when they don't need deception just pure pace, or vice versa, 'exaggerated swingers' will also tighten their swing when it comes to a stuck ball in the back corner or when they play a drop shot off a loosish ball. Anyway, in Khan's case, the swing just looks natural the way it is, therefore I don't think that a more compact backswing would necessarily improve his shots' quality (except maybe his deception).