By Christopher Clarey
“Times have changed,” Roger Federer mentioned this week as he seemed again on his early days at Wimbledon.
Serve-and-volley was the rule then for the lads, not the exception. Points have been shorter however the photographs typically slower. Modern string and racket know-how and trendy coaching strategies have helped all skilled gamers generate extra tempo and spin from excessive positions, and no shot higher exemplifies the shift than the one Federer, 39, has popularized over the course of his 23-year skilled profession.
It is finest generally known as the squash shot, partially as a result of Federer performed squash in his youth, and it’s a lunging forehand slash, sometimes from an open stance.
It is a spectacular shot to look at and, as Federer as soon as instructed me, “a very fun shot to hit.”
But it’s not sometimes excellent news when you must use it.
“Honestly, it’s your last-resort play,” mentioned Mackenzie McDonald, a 26-year-old American. “Maybe your only option.”
But in tennis, gamers regulate to the problem and the danger. As professional tennis has accelerated, they’ve created new methods of defending, and the squash shot has grow to be a staple by way of the years, maybe much more within the ladies’s sport than within the males’s.
“For me, that’s a sign of the influence of Fed across the whole sport,” mentioned Brad Gilbert, an ESPN analyst and former top-five participant, referring to Federer.
It can also be a tribute to Kim Clijsters, the highly effective and elastic Belgian star whose trademark was her sliding forehand slice, typically hit out of a close to break up.
Clijsters’s newest comeback is on maintain for the second at age 38, however the shot is just not.
Barbora Krejcikova, a flexible all-court participant, put the squash shot to frequent and wonderful use on clay in her shock run to the French Open title final month. French veteran Alizé Cornet deployed it in successful an acrobatic match level within the first spherical of Wimbledon towards Bianca Andreescu, who likes the squash shot, too.
On Friday, Ons Jabeur, maybe the craftiest of all the brand new ladies’s tennis stars, used it on match level in her third-round victory over Garbiñe Muguruza on Centre Court. Muguruza, a relentless hitter, struck a backhand down the road with authority. Jabeur stretched to her proper and chopped a forehand crosscourt to get herself again right into a rally that she ended up successful.
“So many players are doing it now,” mentioned ESPN analyst Mary Joe Fernandez, a two-time Grand Slam singles finalist and former Fed Cup captain. “It’s a great-looking shot and effective most of the time, because it’s a hard, good slice, and it stays low. It’s an added shot. It’s definitely one I didn’t have and one I don’t think my generation had. But it’s a way to sustain the point, and more often than not, it works.”
Players additionally use it as a change-of-pace passing shot. Anastasija Sevastova known as on it typically in her victory final month over Elena Rybakina within the quarterfinals of the grass-court Eastbourne International. Rybakina repeatedly made volleying errors off the shot.
“It throws players off guard,” McDonald mentioned. “I feel it’s actually harder to hit a volley off a slice than a ball with topspin.”
The forehand slice has been round for the reason that starting of garden tennis. It is one of the simplest ways to hit a forehand drop shot, in fact, but it surely additionally was lengthy the favored methodology for approaching the web. The forehand slice stayed low and sometimes skidded away from the opponent, making it troublesome to hit a strong passing shot, significantly with the picket rackets and intestine strings of yore.
But the racket frames are carbon-fiber weapons now and, most necessary, the strings are fabricated from polyester, permitting gamers to take big cuts on the ball, even when off-balance, and nonetheless create the spin essential to drop the ball, with topspin, at a web rusher’s ft. The know-how can even assist them hit a low, firmer slice with each the backhand and the forehand.
“Good luck hitting that shot at full stretch with gut string and a wood racket,” Gilbert mentioned of the squash shot. “You are making that once a Christmas.”
Although professionals usually lobbed from that prolonged place in Gilbert’s period, gamers did use a model of the squash shot prior to now. Australian greats Roy Emerson and Rod Laver defended with a sliced forehand every so often. Paul Annacone, a former top-20 participant who coached Federer, mentioned he recalled Swedish professional Mikael Pernfors hitting forehand slices on the run within the Eighties and the early ’90s.
But Pernfors was an outlier. The distinction now could be how a lot firmer the shot feels and appears and the way properly it may be managed. Even with great racket head velocity and with a must generally regulate the forehand grip on the stretch.
“Every time I hit it, I am amazed that it actually stays in,” Federer as soon as mentioned.
The shock issue has clearly worn off, and skeptics have grow to be believers.
“When I first saw Fed do it, I thought it only works for a genius like him,” Gilbert mentioned. “But after seeing Daniil Medvedev and so many others use it, I had to reevaluate. It works much better than I thought, and it’s the poly strings that allow players to make that tomahawk swing and still be able to hold the ball and keep it in the court. It’s an even harder slice than the one-handed backhand.”
Gilbert sees gamers reconfigure factors with it, turning an excessive defensive place into one thing nearer to an offensive one.
“I’m cured, it works,” Gilbert mentioned with amusing. “You see guys in control of a point suddenly asking, ‘What just happened?’”
Gilbert mentioned he remained unconvinced about one other newly widespread shot, the between-the-legs, back-to-the-net “tweener” that gamers typically use after monitoring down lobs.
“It looks brilliant, but I still don’t think it’s as effective as throwing up a lob or running around it,” he mentioned. “But the squash shot is a lot more viable. I think it is here to stay.”
McDonald, a former UCLA star within the midst of a resurgent season, has practiced typically with Federer, even touring to Dubai to coach.
“It’s funny in practice, because he’s always playing, working on those shots that wow people,” McDonald mentioned. “He’s always practicing those hand skills that wow you. When you see him hit a squash shot or a drop shot winner off a return, he actually practices those things, sometimes just for fun. But that’s why he’s come up with those shots through the years, because he’s always testing things out. He’s different in that sense than a guy who is just banging out a bunch of forehands and backhands in practice. He’s always sharpening his hand skills.”
But although the rise of the squash shot will probably be a part of Federer’s legacy, McDonald mentioned his inspiration for making it a part of his arsenal was truly not Federer. It was Steve Johnson, a 31-year-old American participant ranked 74th.
“I might have used it some in college, but being on tour, you are trying to find that 1% difference and having that squash shot is maybe part of that 1%,” McDonald mentioned. “Stevie Johnson was one of the guys who really hit it well. I’ve seen him hit dartlike winners off it. When you see that, you want to do it, too.”
So it goes in tennis because the instances and the techniques change.