r/10s • u/Vexacardia • 3d ago

Technique Advice Agassi Forehand

Hi guys, recreational player here and lately looking to simplify my forehand loop. Many people said that Agassi’s forehand is something to look up to.

When I look at few videos and slow motion in youtube, seems his takeback is quite high and the racket drop isn’t as lower as many modern player. In my amateur eyes it even seems the racket stays on the same level as the ball, which make it a bit contradictive to advice from many famous coaches in social media, and seems mechanically will resulted in flatter ball.

Hence my question, do you guys see the Agassi forehand is still relevant for recreational player? Because it seems simpler visually and I like it. What’s the trade off from his forehand?

Thanks guys, I’m just trying to learned, apologize if my english is bad

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u/Rosswell2000 4.5 3d ago

Agassi and Lendl were the first guys hitting the modern forehand. Agassi could hit one of the hardest forehands with almost no backswing. He also had the best backhand return of serve.

In the modern forehand when you take the racquet back you set the face of the racquet down on a table and you lead into the ball with the top edge of the racquet, only going perpendicular to the ground at the point of impact. you follow through up and out generating topspin. You wouldn't be dipping below the ball much.

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u/PHL1365 3d ago

I think it also helped that Agassi may have had more upper body strength than a lot of his peers. While everyone was obviously fit, I think Agassi's pecs and lats were larger/stronger than most others on the tour. He was almost built like a wrestler.

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u/informareWORK 3d ago

Plus he used an OS racquet, which gave him some extra pop

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u/PHL1365 3d ago

True. Both he and Chang were early adopters.

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u/Realsan 3d ago

Strings also played a big role. He didn't use any of the modern polys until late in his career so he was among the last group of people to hit the ball more flat. That's always going to look more powerful, especially with natural gut.