Comparison and Analysis

Through using Tracker to analyze Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic’s forehands, I have come to the conclusion that Novak Djokovic’s forehand is faster as his take back speed and ball speed values are larger than that of Roger Federer. However, Roger Federer has a faster racquet speed.

 

To generate maximum groundstroke speed with the least amount of effort, the hips and shoulders should rotate well before the arm. After comparing each player's forehands, it is evident that both players rotate their hips n the same style. However, Roger Federer’s shoulders are wider and rotate more before impact, giving him an efficient yet speedy forehand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, even though his forehand might be more efficient, my data analysis shows that Novak Djokovic has the faster forehand as it produces a faster ball speed value. This could be due to the fact that Djokovic generates more power with his swift take back swing- as analyzed using Tracker software. In the respective videos, it can be seen that Roger Federer has a straight back swing whereas Djokovic has a looped motion backswing. A straight back swing as opposed to a loop backswing makes it more difficult to generate racquet head speed.

 

As I further researched each player's forehand techniques, I learned that Roger Federer tends to hit his forehands with more topspin than Djokovic. This means that the initial accerlation of the ball coming off the racquet would be slower compared to ball that is being hit more flat. All these factors contribute to Novak Djokovic having a faster forehand swing and ball than Roger Federer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Errors

While analyzing I came across a few difficulties. The two videos I analyzed gave me very different results. Even though I analyzed two different tennis players, the values for acceleration of the ball should be similar, however, the values I got were very different. For Roger Federer, I subtracted the initial velocity from the final velocity and got 7.10 m/s^2 for the acceleration of the ball.  However for Novak Djokovic, I got much lower values for the initial and final velocities. In order to reach similar velocities, I decided to take the average of the velocities for Djokovic’s ball and as a result, I got similar values. For Djokovic, I got m/s^2 for the acceleration of the ball.

 

There are many errors that need to be taken into consideration. For example, the videos that I analyzed might not have been in the same setting. Meaning the person that they were hitting with wasn’t constant therefore, the speed at which the ball was coming at them would have differed. The videos taken were also taken in a practice setting instead of a match setting so both players might not have been hitting their forehand to the best of their ability. So it is only safe to assume that in a practice setting, Novak Djokovic is faster disregarding the possible errors.

 

Uncertainty

Uncertainty comes from tracker while measuring the distance and time because I am not completely accurate when I plot the points on tracker.