Roger Federer BH?

[butcher]

is it just me or are there more people here who think federer BH is too weak?

i understand it should be weaker than FH but this is really too much. i played more than once with the same guy as fed and as đok and i always do better with đoković no matter who is he playing with. i also do better with other players (raonić, del potro etc.). it seems to me that his BH is great weakness that can be easily be exploit. and when you look at other top players they dont have such big weakness.

i just calculated (bh power + precision + consistancy) for every player to approximately evaluate players backhands and federer has one of the worst BH (6th). only isner, lopez, llodra, gulbis and meltzer have weaker. and everyone except lopez has much less top spin which means that they possibly have even stronger BH

[djarvik]

I believe his BH now is more or less inline of what we want it to be. Maybe we can lower it 1% or so on power and consistency. He has TONS of other assets and it is important to build your game-play around them.

I share the sentiment that Federer has great backhand, but consider the facts: he rarely makes more then a handful winners from that side and generally will try to run over it every chance he gets, at time even if there is very little chance. He shanks tons of them and it is usually a "target" side for ALL of his opponents. That means he does get the ball from that side a lot, yet still, not making many winners and generally has hard time hitting down the line. Don't let that one "highlight" BH fool you, if you put it into a context of the whole match and calculate how many errors, weak BHs, slices, shanks he makes before that "one magical" BH, you can see his BH is quite average in a physical sense.

The way we had his BH before, you could score as many points with it as with FH, You didn't feel the pressure of needing to hit the FH, you could have just opted for hitting a BH even if you had plenty of time to run-over and hit FH.

Right now, you cannot do it as much (still can BTW, he still has a great BH), you would need to play the style of Roger to be successful - and that is MISSION ACCOMPLISHED as far as I am concerned.

Please understand, a lot of the "skill" in the Top 100 of ATP does not come from "ability". There is a difference in "ability" through the players, but it is minimal. Most of the difference is in the psychic of players, their chosen style of play and their approach. Physically the difference is minimal.

Lets take the Federer BH example: The reason it is "perceived" so good is not because the shot physically is so good, but rather because of how Federer uses, when he uses and with what intent. His eye and sense of timing is to me second to none in ATP, and overshadows his physical ability. So guess what? ..... the sense of timing and eyes should NOT be represented via stats, this should be YOUR ability to control him

Another note, I suggest you read up on how TE treats stroke stats. Combining all three stat categories is NOT the correct way to evaluate efficiency of the shot. The stats are dependent one on another. Also One Handed BH is more powerful by default in TE and has more reach by default, so comparing 1hBH to 2hBH is not really the right thing to do without taking it into account.

And yet another note sorry. BHs will get weaker for most of the roster in the next update. Depending on the player of course, but we want our rallies to be structured a bit more, a mid or semi mid court ball should be hit with FHs, always, just like it is being done in pretty much all ATP matches.

[butcher]

I share the sentiment that Federer has great backhand, but consider the facts: he rarely makes more then a handful winners from that side and generally will try to run over it every chance he gets, at time even if there is very little chance. He shanks tons of them and it is usually a "target" side for ALL of his opponents. That means he does get the ball from that side a lot, yet still, not making many winners and generally has hard time hitting down the line. Don't let that one "highlight" BH fool you, if you put it into a context of the whole match and calculate how many errors, weak BHs, slices, shanks he makes before that "one magical" BH, you can see his BH is quite average in a physical sense.

i don't say it is fantastic, but he has good BH. he shouldn't have one of the worst backhands in the game and i believe he has.

The way we had his BH before, you could score as many points with it as with FH, You didn't feel the pressure of needing to hit the FH, you could have just opted for hitting a BH even if you had plenty of time to run-over and hit FH.
Right now, you cannot do it as much (still can BTW, he still has a great BH), you would need to play the style of Roger to be successful - and that is MISSION ACCOMPLISHED as far as I am concerned.

he had much better FH back than also and many people, including me, very often played FH in situations where many player would play BH in that situation.

Please understand, a lot of the "skill" in the Top 100 of ATP does not come from "ability". There is a difference in "ability" through the players, but it is minimal. Most of the difference is in the psychic of players, their chosen style of play and their approach. Physically the difference is minimal.

Lets take the Federer BH example: The reason it is "perceived" so good is not because the shot physically is so good, but rather because of how Federer uses, when he uses and with what intent. His eye and sense of timing is to me second to none in ATP, and overshadows his physical ability. So guess what? ..... the sense of timing and eyes should NOT be represented via stats, this should be YOUR ability to control him

i agree with you there, but the problem is... if i have all that ability i would still choose player with better backhand cause this is limitation on my play and i just say his BH is not that limited. BH and FH are most important if you play for the baseline. and roger plays mostely from the baseline. if you look at đoković for example... he has very good FH and great BH. roger has great FH and bad BH. my point is, if two equally good players play, đoković will win much more matches than federer. it is just too big weakness. many players play on his BH not because it is bad, but because it is weaker than his forehand.

Another note, I suggest you read up on how TE treats stroke stats. Combining all three stat categories is NOT the correct way to evaluate efficiency of the shot. The stats are dependent one on another. Also One Handed BH is more powerful by default in TE and has more reach by default, so comparing 1hBH to 2hBH is not really the right thing to do without taking it into account.

And yet another note sorry. BHs will get weaker for most of the roster in the next update. Depending on the player of course, but we want our rallies to be structured a bit more, a mid or semi mid court ball should be hit with FHs, always, just like it is being done in pretty much all ATP matches.

that's true. that is why i said it was approximately. just wanted to point out that he has one of the worst BHs.

just wanna hear other opinions, maybe its just me. but i have a feeling its much more difficult to play with roger than with many other players. and i believe it shouldn't be like that.

[Marco_Theo_81]

hmm... I am honest with you, I had to change with Murray, that BH and the bit lowered speed induced me to do this step.
Sorry Roger..

I am just not that good to anticipate and return with the FH, inside out. Before the update winners were possible with Fed FH, but now... Well Al might be right, in reality Fed hits a few winners with his BH. So it is ok I think.
Fed is now a much harder character to use in my eye for average players...

[C4iLL]

I personally agree with the point of Butcher, another error from the staff with the 1.11 version...

I also heard from a lot of people that Nadal is still as overpowered as before or even more !
Why not retiring him from the lineup as he hasn't played for almost one year now and as it's difficult to find a balance with him ?

And by the way, the volleys animations of Llodra are so ugly and unplayable that I now volley better with Gasquet than with him... It's like Llodra doesn't want to extend his arm on FH volley, as if he has an injury, it's ridiculous ^^

[djarvik]

Of course you do

C4ill, I have just about enough remarks about the stuff from you. Seriously. You need to stop. This is uncalled for.

Can you keep it on Federer? Take your Llodra discussion in the thread you created and if you wish create a new one for Nadal. No need to make a salad here.

Can you elaborate/argument where you agree with Butcher, besides the obvious "sticking it to the man" reason? ...and try to keep Llodra or Stuff out of it.

[C4iLL]

Calm down Djarvik, it's not my fault if there are now more unbalanced things than ever !
Fortunately there are people like Butcher, Florian, Inseedious, me off course and other Avengers who are worried and who are willing to save the ITST nation !

So about Butcher's point, it's simple, for me Federer BH is a bit too slow. It's as if he can't accelerate anymore with his BH.

As we start from trend to build the roster, it's relevant to make his BH a weakness. But should it be so slow ? That's the question. And for me, the answer is no : the Fed user should be able to hit winners with this BH as the Real Fed does.
But not regularly : it should be a huge source of faults !

Why not puting like 0 in consistency to get that result ? Hiting a winner with his BH would become random... A bit like in real life ! I haven't tried the 0 consistency effect, so it's just an idea

[djarvik]

Calm down Djarvik, it's not my fault if there are now more unbalanced things than ever !
Fortunately there are people like Butcher, Florian, Inseedious, me off course and other Avengers who are worried and who are willing to save the ITST nation !

So about Butcher's point, it's simple, for me Federer BH is a bit too slow. It's as if he can't accelerate anymore with his BH.

As we start from trend to build the roster, it's relevant to make his BH a weakness. But should it be so slow ? That's the question. And for me, the answer is no : the Fed user should be able to hit winners with this BH as the Real Fed does.
But not regularly : it should be a huge source of faults !

Why not puting like 0 in consistency to get that result ? Hiting a winner with his BH would become random... A bit like in real life ! I haven't tried the 0 consistency effect, so it's just an idea

I am very calm my friend I also didn't fault you for anything other then repeatedly disrespecting the efforts of others.
I like how you name dropping in search of support, its funny. You forgot Dimitrov BTW.
The patch now is more balanced then it was before, that is for sure. That is if you and I have the same definition of the word balance. ...and ITST nation doesn't need "saving", it needs feedback. Constructive, un-emotional, not self-preservation-driven or self-serving, unbiased, respectful, knowledgeable feedback. Feedback that doesn't evolve around "me, me, me, me".

To your response regarding Federer, I wont say anything beyond what I have already said, since I have not seen any arguments against that, besides the obvious users not happy with their player change, but nothing tangible. "Should be" needs to be argumented in a spectrum of the whole roster and with a balance in mind, and not equated to "want".

Also, C4ill, lets be friendly OK? ...I said this before and say this again, NONE of the changes made were directed personally at anyone and Elias explained the Llodra situation perfectly. You are of course free to think what you want, but since you expressed it already, no need to echo yourself every time. While we don't share the point of view, it was made perfectly clear. Lets leave it at that and move on OK?

[straightcash05]

Not related to the game, but I noticed that someone (I think Djarvik) said Fed rarely hits BH winners. This is true in most tournaments, especially clay. But in Indoor matches he hits quite a few BH winners often. Against Nadal at the 2011 WTF, he had something like 21 BH winners, which were a few more than his FH total (i don't remember the exact number of either, but it was a very high amount of BH winners). Now he rarely hits that many BH winners, but on indoor and courts like Cincinnati that are very fast he hits just as many as most other players do.

There is only a select amount of tournaments a year on these surfaces though, and in general he shanks quite a few more BH's than he hits winners. Was just pointing out that on a fast surface he hits his BH as good as all but a few players I think

[VMoe86]

Against Nadal at the 2011 WTF, he had something like 21 BH winners, which were a few more than his FH total (i don't remember the exact number of either, but it was a very high amount of BH winners).

Before coming up with such numbers, do your homework and rewatch the match. It does not take much time: The match lasted in total 60 minutes, so skipping all pauses and Nadal's time-wasting, you are closer to 30 minutes. You will get the following result: Single-digit BH winners (5 or 6), double-digit FH winners (around 15) and the remaining were all service winners (he had 28 winners in total).

Federer hits winners off his BH when he takes the ball early and indoor surfaces (or low-bouncing surfaces) allow him that a bit more often. What makes Federer's BH a good shot is the way he is using spin and slice, asking different questions and eventually getting a weak response allowing him to run around his BH and win the point with his FH.

[Florian]

Fed's BH is especially good at making winners mostly on indoor courts and grass when he counters dtl the ball during a rally. Certainly not as often as his fh winners...but yeah his bh slice is quite a true weapon.

[inseedious]

I'm switching from Wawrinka to Federer and I must say that Fed's backhand is still not bad after the nerf. It's way more realistic as I feel that I have to anticipate the ball to make a good bh, just like Federer does. You must not just look at the statistics, because, of course, Federer can score some winners with the bh, but his bh is not a weapon. All Federer's bh winners are scored when the court is open or thanks to his counter and anticipating abilities (we can see a lot of those winner on very fast hard courts, like the hard indoor ones you were talking about). The nerf is very realistic also because it's now impossible to hit efficient short accelerations from the bh side, which were very unrealistic. Before the nerf, Fed's bh was a big weapon thanks to Fed's punch skill and his medium-low spin. Fed users are now discovering inside-out fh, that is a very beautiful and tactic aspect of tennis.

[VMoe86]

Thanks for this impression inseedious, this was exactly the point. In general the goal is to make the gameplan about bringing the forehand into play. In Federer's case this should be more emphasized than with other characters. It's not that easy to make these changes to all characters, it takes quite some time, but eventually we get there.

[inseedious]

You're welcome, vmoe. In fact, before nerfing Fed's bh and speed, his inside-out were still a good weapon, but considering his good bh, it was better to charge the bh than move to hit an inside-out fh (I'm directly talking about power and precision not about personal feeling or comfort).

[straightcash05]

Against Nadal at the 2011 WTF, he had something like 21 BH winners, which were a few more than his FH total (i don't remember the exact number of either, but it was a very high amount of BH winners).

Before coming up with such numbers, do your homework and rewatch the match. It does not take much time: The match lasted in total 60 minutes, so skipping all pauses and Nadal's time-wasting, you are closer to 30 minutes. You will get the following result: Single-digit BH winners (5 or 6), double-digit FH winners (around 15) and the remaining were all service winners (he had 28 winners in total).

Federer hits winners off his BH when he takes the ball early and indoor surfaces (or low-bouncing surfaces) allow him that a bit more often. What makes Federer's BH a good shot is the way he is using spin and slice, asking different questions and eventually getting a weak response allowing him to run around his BH and win the point with his FH.

I had the matches mixed up, I meant the year before when he beat him in the final. The number I believe was still lower, but around like 10. I tried to look up stats for the match, but google got me no where and ATP.com stat records are pathetic for the main site of the sport (other League/associations of sports you can look up about any stat, especially from the last few years). Best I could find was that he hit 30 winners in the match. Didn't specify the winners. I did see a play-by-play chart from a google link, looked to me like about 10 BH winners. But he hit numerous big BH's that forced Nadal errors. I think I was remembering those and thought of them as winners as it had been awhile since I saw the match.

Anyways, the point was that he was hitting alot of big BH's all over the place in that match, and clearly his BH is much more effective on the fast surfaces. That was the point I was trying to make.