Sport is full of beautiful "things." Karl Malone's high screen for teammate John Stockton, and then his subsequent roll to the basket was a beautiful thing. The 5-4-3 double play (where the grounder is fielded by the third basemen before being wheeled to second, then slung to first) is a beautiful thing. And a touchdown pass up the seam on 3rd and 17 is a beautiful thing.
Tennis, like all other sports, is full of such beautiful things, none more aesthetically striking than the inside-out forehand.
A forehand is considered inside-out whenever it's struck from a player's backhand half of the court (ad if the player is a righty) and travels across the court to the opposing player's ad side. So basically (if you're having trouble wrapping your mind around it), the person hitting an I/O forehand SHOULD have hit a backhand, but "ran around" the shot to hit it with his forehand (since most players get more stick (a.k.a. oomph) on their forehand shot than their backhand), and angled it steeply back to the opposite side of the court.
In order to get away with this, you've got to really pull the trigger, because running around the shot means you've moved so far off the court that anything coming back will be (most likely) for a wide open winner.
Roger Federer hits the most eviscerating I/O forehand in the history of tennis. See for yourself. My favorite part of this video is the awe that soaks all of the color commentary. E.g. at the 1:50 mark Fed plays a point against Marat Safin and, after a sizeable rally Safin makes the irreversible mistake of clipping the net, giving Roger a short ball to run around. The whole world knows what's coming--and so the commentator says (with 100% confidence, and more to himself than anyone at home, really) "see ya." It's phenomenal. Immediately afterwards is an apt tweety bird comparison.
Or how about at 2:59? When Federer (obviously zoning) runs around James Blake's SERVE (!) and murders it inside-out? It catches the commentator seriously off guard: "Oh look out!"
Videos like these are a lot of fun, especially watching the younger Fed in his prime, playing with a style that left the rest of the tennis world in absolute can't-find-the-words-shock.
I've been playing tennis with Scott over at the tennis court across the street from my house about once a week. It amazes me how you can hit the ball perfectly once and then on the next volley do exactly the same thing and send the ball over the fence. It's very frustrating. I cant imagine hitting the ball with all my strength and keeping it in play. I just try to bounce the ball off my racket; just to keep the ball in play so we can volley a couple times. I've got a lot of work to do.
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