Hall of Mirrors - And Failing Forehands

by Pete Bodo

Mornin'. This will be a brief one, folks, because I'm working on an exclusive story most of you will be very interested in come tomorrow. Be warned, though, but it has nothing to do with doping. Reviewing the comments (and I'm sorry I couldn't answer many of the questions put to me) just reinforced my conviction that the doping subject is a hall of mirrors. Broken ones. You see everything both reflected and distorted there. But you can always find one panel that shows you exactly what you hope to see.

This morning, I was chatting with Barbara Travers of the ITF, who read both my post and the comments on the Rochus allegations. She asked me to inform those readers who don't know that the ITF has a page(s) on its website dedicated to the anti-doping effort; you can peruse all the details at your leisure here.

We just finished a podcast on the Fed Cup, which will be up shortly, and wrapped it up with a brief discussion about the Rochus allegations. In the course of our conversation, I mentioned one fact that I want to share here. Most doping allegations grow out of observation of a player's performance or physique, but I have to ask you—did anyone on earth suspect the most high-profile and unequivocally guilty doper busted so far of using PEDs? Of course, I'm speaking of roley-poley Mariano Puerta. Funny, he was the most successful cheater (a three-time ATP tournament winner and former French Open finalist).

So much for trial by bicep...

Those of you who know and love our Portuguese friend and frequent correspondent Miguel Seabra might be interested in some comments he made on my last post speculating on Caroline Wozniacki's future. (Relax, this is not doping related, but I'm sure someone will start trying to visually measure her calf muscles and begin jumping to conclusions.)

Anyway, Miguel thinks Wozniacki's forehand is prone to failure, and he followed his message on the subject (unfortunately, I can no longer retrieve that email on this computer; maybe he can re-post that original criticism in the comments below) with these further thoughts on the state of WTA forehands:

Besides the 'forehand fail' epidemic based on bad technique, another big problem in women's tennis today is poor movement to the forehand side—thus making shaky forehands look even worse.

Here's a list of Top 100 regulars whose forehands are technically inferior to their backhands:

—Caroline Wozniacki
—Victoria Azarenka
—Shahar Peer
—Nadia Petrova
—Maria Sharapova
—Andrea Petkovic
—Agnes Szavay
—Vera Dushevina (who used to be Douchevina until someone advised her to change to Dushevina some years ago...)
—Bethanie Mattek-Sands
—Dinara Safina
—Alizé Cornet
—Katerina Bondarenko
—Monica Niculescu

Some of them, like Andrea Petkovic and Alizé Cornet, claim the forehand as their favorite shot. But in their case, they have extreme grips and really need time to prepare their forehands—when rushed, they don't look that good at all.

Of course, there are several players who also have a slightly/clearly better backhand than forehand, but still have a good balance between both shots because the forehand does not look that bad. Examples:

—Jelena Jankovic
—Flavia Penetta
—Daniela Hantuchova

Somehow, Venus Williams' forehand is in a category—I'd say—of it's own: too patchy. She can hit huge winners, but the forehand can really go away. Kim Clijsters had the same problem, but overcame it, even though forehand still breaks down sometimes (WTA Championships, from when she was leading 4-2 until the beginning of the third set).

In this 'forehand fail' scenario, a few interesting points:

—Justine Henin was the player who improved her forehand the most; she was known for her backhand from early on, but she got to number one after turning her forehand into a technically solid and forceful shot (even though Caroline Wozniacki's forehand still looks bad, she also improved it dramatically).

—Vera Zvonareva has a really good cross-court forehand that creates a lot of problems for her opponents (Vera exploits the poor movement of some women to their forehands as well as their technical weakness). It's a detail in her game that helped her get to number two in the world.

—Francesca Schiavone masterfully uses her slice backhand into the opponents forehand, taking the pace off the ball and keeping the trajectory low to dismantle an opponent's shaky forehand—or break her confidence in that particular shot.

There are not a lot of ATP-like forehands on the women's tour—that is, fewer women can effectively run around their backhands to hit forceful forehands, which is standard operating procedure on the men's tour. Just like Steffi Graf, the original Fraulein Forehand (as christened by Pete), here are the WTA players whose forehand can be described in this context as "masculine:"

—Samantha Stosur
—Svetlana Kuznetsova
—Ana Ivanovic

The funny thing is, shaky forehands have always been with us: some of them sliced, others just plain vulnerable. Do the names Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario ring a bell?

It's always good to hear from Mikey!