One of my favorite forehands belongs to former ATP pro Benjamin Becker. He gained fame for being the player to end Andre Agassi's career at the US Open in 2006. When I first saw him I loved his explosive, almost straight armed forehand. I first filmed him at the Citi Open where I watched him practice close up. He just crushed ball after ball with incredible power and great spin. His forehand really demonstrated how "pulling" the racket through, rather than swinging it, was the key to amazing power and spin. The straighter arm really helps make this pulling motion clear.

In the first half of the animation you can see how Becker is pulling the racket, butt cap first, through the slot. Tugging forward on the racket handle, with the butt cap pointing to the oncoming ball, accomplishes two things. First it gets the racket head to lag behind. Second, it gets the entire arm to pull forward.

The second half of the animation shows an equally important dynamic. After pulling the racket through the slot, Becker KEEPS pulling the arm and racket until the entire upper arm gets pulled well in front of his body.

The still image on the right shows just how far the pulling action goes. The key indicator of a full pulling motion is that the elbow has been pulled in front of the body. And here we can see Becker's elbow is well in front of the his body. In fact his hand is about a foot in front of his body and is pretty close to the ball at this point, while the racket still lags behind his arm. One very effective "tip" is to imagine you are going to hit the ball with the butt cap of the racket. This will guarantee you have pulled your arm all the way through with the racket lagging behind.

In the big animaion at the top get a sense of how the arm gets pulled all the way through, starting from behind the body all the way to contact. The racket lays back in the hand at a 90 degree angle as the arm pulls forward, creating lag. As the racket gets pulled, it moves through the crticial slot. But the pulling doesn't not stop there. Becker KEEPS pulling forward as if he is going to drive the butt cap of the racket into the ball.