Will Hamilton: It's Thursday June 25th and welcome to FYB second installment of our strategy quiz. Today's question deals with Roger Federer's inside-out forehand. Before we get to today's question, let's briefly explain what exactly is an inside-out forehand, in case you're wondering. Well, an inside-out forehand occurs when you have a backhand to backhand rally. And we'll say, Federer is at top of the courtyard, this is Federer. And so, the ball is going backhand to backhand, but then Federer decides to run around his back and he's going to move to his left and hit a forehand instead. And typically on a pro tour, pros, particularly in Federer's case, have better forehands than they do backhands. So, now that Federer is hitting a forehand, he can comfortably hit a pretty flat ball into the corner, he can put some more spin on the ball, pull his opponent off the court or he can hit to the open court and force his opponent to run for the ball. So, by running around his backhand, Federer opens up more options, he has more shots he can hit because his forehand is better than his backhand. And that tends to be the case for more pros on tour. Most the guys you see on the Men's Tour in particular have better forehands and they do backhands, so they are always looking for situations to run around their backhand and hit a forehand.
Now, Federer does this stuff differently in a backhand to backhand rally than most of the other guys on tour. What he does is he alternates between a slice backhand and a topspin backhand far more frequently than the other guys on tour. And for that reason, he is presented with more opportunities to hit an inside-out forehand. So, today's question is why is that? Why does the slice topspin combination alternating between the two create more opportunities to hit inside out forehands? Now to quickly recap the strategy quizzes, each quiz consists of two videos. In the first video, I pose the question and then in the second video, I give you my answer and explain my thought process. Now the second video, the answer to this question is on our website fuzzyyellowballs.com. And if you're watching this video on Youtube, there's a link in the description of this video that will take you to my answer. If you're watching on FYB, the second video is directly below this one. So, once I am done talking, go ahead and listen to my response. But before you go, please leave some comments and let me know what you think the answer of this question is?
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