ATP vs WTA Forehand: Which One Should YOU Be Using?

Today I'm going to be showing you what the difference is between ATP forehand and a WTA forehand. Now I'm just generalizing in the sense of you know a lot of guys have this type of swing and a lot of girls have this type of swing but not everyone has the same swing so it's not specifically ATP. All the ATP players have this type of swing or all the WTA players will have this type of swing but I think this video will help you out on how you can switch your forehand if you're a guy to switch your forehand more like more like the ATP pro style like the the men's players do or if you're a girl and you want to play or change your swing more like the guys do then I think this will be the video for you. This also took me years to figure out decades actually not just one or two decades but it took several decades for me to figure out what the difference between the WTA and the ATP is. It's because naturally I was actually more of an ATP style and I was hitting my forehand more of an ATP style not saying the new generation or the next generation of forehands but I'm just talking about the ATP and the WTA style so there's this distinct look on these WTA girl players that some intermediate or beginners and intermediates have this type of swing if you're a recreational player so a lot of when when these players came to me and asked me can you switch my forehand to look more like the ATP style player because it looks like for me my style of forehand it looks like more of a WTA style so here's the difference. Now ATP style is going with the hand or with the elbow leading the hand and the elbow back first and the tip stays pointed more towards your opponent so it doesn't have to go like this necessarily which some players do and lift their elbow but what I'm saying is as you're taking the racket back the racket is pointed towards the more towards the opponent maybe out of 45 degrees a bit less going this way and then they take the racket back and go on a full swing. WTA players because I know I've taught WTA players and ATP players on the tour WTA players tend to take the racket tip back first so when they take the racket tip back it looks like this okay so a lot of recreational players they complain that they look like WTA players a lot of the guys do so I was trying to make the make their switch I didn't say necessarily the WTA was bad but I knew why WTA players were using that type of style of forehand. I'm going to go into that in a second but that's how you switch so the first thing you need to do is if you're swinging if you want to switch to more of an ATP style your tip can't lead first you can't take the racket back first because a lot of coaches will tell you when you're beginning or intermediate player you have to take the racket back you have to take the racket back a lot of players think okay the literally the racket tip has to go back so that's why they kind of stick to that and that's how they learned it now there's a couple things happening on that swing when you actually do that it's actually one of my most watched videos actually it was early on a couple months ago I shot a video uploaded a video I helped tennis spin Harry on how to load the shoulders to to hit the forehand and a lot of you commented that that helped helped you out a lot and the thing is when you go with the racket tip back first it actually locks the elbow and the shoulder that's okay but the thing is the elbow is not going far back enough so your your swing path is limited and you're not really using your whole shoulder muscles here and here and the lats so it kind of limits your your usage and you're kind of using your rotational power versus your whip and the lag and whatever you want to call it but you're not really catapulting the racket so then why do you WTA need to or sometimes need to swing like this now because I've taught WTA players and ATP players I knew how to go and make the switch from the WTA style to the ATP style but the thing is I was convinced long time ago like if girls could just play like guys they would do really well but there's a lot of coaches in in the forums and whatever like they talk about that stuff and they're like oh they just need to play more like guys but girls what as I was teaching WTA and ATP their body works differently so they generate power differently and another thing was their range of motion is very very different what I figured out was when I was teaching these girls to hit more like guys not only they had trouble with the timing but their elbow was moving around too much and they're a lot more flexible than the guys are so when they're taking the when they're taking the elbow back they're taking it back way further than than we can or I can so I was like when I was watching that wait there's something wrong here it's very good to go to your limit because the range of motion limit because that creates tension and what the tension creates the power when you release that tension it creates the power but the thing is these girls were so flexible that it wasn't creating tension and literally they're taking the racket back and the elbow all the way back like so far back that it wasn't creating tension and because they're so flexible it wasn't creating tension because their range of motion is a lot more than us when you're more flexible you have more range of motion and it takes more range to get to the limit of that range obviously and it's not really creating the tension that I wanted for these players and the power so I was like okay now I know why the girls do it the reason why the girls take the racket to back on some of these a lot of these girls are because it locks the elbow and the shoulder in place and they could hit it more consistently with power and the way they generate power is they create the power with the whole body rather than guys do like they create the power from the core and the um and the swing actually the the arm actually generates the power not the body we'll talk about that next time but the thing is if you move your body too much it doesn't create power for you especially the guys but the girls actually need to use the rotational power so they had to lock the elbow and the shoulder in place so they could hit it consistently hard so it doesn't move around so much so I'll show you I'll show you how to do it okay so I'm going to show you the WTA method first where the tip goes back first and then you use the rotation to hit the ball so more like the the tip has to go back and hit like this again the tip goes back first now that you've seen that I'm going to do the ATP my method I'll do it one more time the ATP method has the the racket tip pointed forward more longer than the girls that's the difference again it's here the hand or the and the elbow leaves a little bit more first now you could go Pete Sampras way and kind of lead with the elbow first but and Taylor Fritz also but I personally don't like that method I'd like to kind of keep the elbow and the hand a little bit more uh equal than the elbow so so when should the tip pass this mark here so after you take it back of the middle of your body it it's okay to start moving back move the tip back so as long as you don't want to go like this that'll mess up your timing like I said with the next gen forehand but you want to go here as the racket crosses the midpoint of your body then you go back and hit the ball so do less talking I'll try to hit this time now for me I do it almost exactly as it passes the midline but you could hold it a little bit longer for more power because obviously when you have the tip here you're going to have more momentum from here and it's it's going to create a little bit more of a sense of urgency to get the swing going forward but timing wise it's it's better to kind of let the tip go back a little bit earlier not too early like the girls do whatever works for you whatever worked for me I tried different styles I tried uh Agassi style you know I actually looked like Agassi when I was younger like hitting style and the form because I placed my game around him but you could go I tried Sampras I tried so many different swings but you know you just have to stick with what works for you and you don't have to necessarily go from the WTA style to the ATP style if it works well but today I'm just showing you the difference of it okay so today I talked about the difference between the ATP style and the WTA style forehand and it's just the way it looks and not that one is better than the other it's actually whatever works for you so when I was working with different types of players girls guys you know high level low level it's about finding the the most efficient way and it's what works for you it's not trying to copy someone uh in the comments I saw in the comments today someone said I just I don't care if I win or lose I just want to look like and look beautiful that was really funny but yeah some people you know you could be happy with that but you don't have to change your swing from you know the like I said ATP style to WTA style or WTA style to ATP style like it's just up to you just try give it a try and see if it works if it works well stick with it uh if it doesn't work well you're probably missing a couple components there so you should probably get some lessons or get some help with some coaches in your area or you could ask me I'll try to find some way to have conversation with me I usually try to get to all the comments but there's more and more comments and it's it's difficult for me to reply to all the comments but I'll try to set up something so I could have more I could communicate with you guys a little bit more everyone thank you so much for subscribing I think I just passed 3,000 subscribers let's keep it going I'm gonna post more videos for you guys and post more comments so I have more ideas on the next video thanks