Jim - Recognising positive attributes is another skill too.  Here at this link I can recognise something positive in a 9 year old's attempt to play this game, ie early preparation, angle of the backswing, watching the ball, balanced footwork.  A damn good start to making progress.

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You are right Hamburglar, it is probab;y just a matter of style but it is a style that catches the eye and I feel shows a lot of positive attributes.  I have been trying to emulate some of these, such as keeping a good distance from the ball and the high back swing, and I definitely feel my forehand is improving as a result.

I agree the Grant v Gaultier encounter was a good match and it was great to see Adrian win against one of the top ranked players.  I hope he gains in confidence and pushes on from here to chalk up more similar victories and break into the top 10. 

Cheers

Jimbob

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Shib, I think that the swing should always be controlled.  Power without control will result in loose shots that will be exploited by your opponents.  Admittedly, the particular swing technique of Adrain that I described during his match with Gaultier was usually seen when he had a bit more time at the back of the court and was wanting to send it back deep, which he usually achieved with medium pace by hitting the shot around the cutline level on the front wall, but he still managed to generate power when needed or appropriate.  All the pros in my opinion demonstrate total control with their swings, which is what sets them apart from the rest of us 'mere mortals'!  If you have a PSAlive.tv account, I would recommend downloading some of the excellent World Open matches, or perhaps catch some of the forthcoming live matches from the Qatar Classic this week.  Watching the pros is certainly helping my game at present.

Cheers

Jimbob

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shib - if the first priority in the shot is control, then the swing needs to be controlled; if the first priority is power, then the swing can be more relaxed and not as controlled.  We come back to that old argument about power v control.  Is that clear?

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I noticed you used "highly controlled" to describe Adrian's swing. Is this a good thing? Someone I was playing against came up to me and said my swing was very controlled and that if I let it go more I would have more power.

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Jimbob - why your picture did not come up was, you forgot to put in a caption, so it is fixed now, and I will leave the pic on the initial post as it is a good visual shot.  That is a good pic taken while Adrian is in front of his opponent.  Good preparation, deceptive, balanced, and from that position Adrian can hit whatever shot he pleases.

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Hi Rippa.  I have searched the World Open galleries on Squashite and the best image of Adrian's forehand I could find is this one.  It's difficult to appreciate the stroke from a single image and it would obvioulsy be best viewed on video, but I think this image shows lots of the positive elements of his technique, including leading with the butt of the racket and open racket face, plus as you can't actually see the ball, I am assuming he is really giving the ball lots of space for that wide arc in the swing.

Although I have not tried the technique consciously as I have only played league games recently (and you don't want to start trying new things in those circumstances!), I have noticed that my game has generally improved lately, particularly on the forehand side, with two successive comfortable wins.  This may of course just be due to being generally inspired by watching these two fantastic matches from the World Open that I downloaded from PSA Live!  I don't mind where it comes from and long may it continue!

Cheers

Jimbob

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What you say, all sounds good to me.  Plenty of backswing to get the ball to rebound to length, plenty of room to swing and weight transfer to get the power and speed, controlled action.  Jim, try it yourself driving the ball from the back wall to the front wall to rebound to the back wall again.  You need a good swing, particularly if the ball slows-up at the back wall, and there is not much pace to work with.

Is there a picture of Adrian's swing anywhere?  They say a picture means a thousand words!

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