Here is an article that popped up on my radar about the forehand. It read something like my forehand is better than my backhand. Then the author studied the statistics of forehand winners vs backhand winners and discovered to his shock that the backhand was often more consistent than the forehand.
Now this is not exactly ground-breaking news to the racquetball elite players. Intuitively most of them know to attack the forehand, even if the forehand is great. Why? It opens up the entire court. Think of football where the teams run plays that go nowhere but those plays set up big plays later in the passing game. In our sport establishing a drive serve to the forehand opens up the entire court and allows players a better chance at attacking a backhand.
But wait! There is another reason to attack the forehand. There are more moving parts in the forehand. Technically the backhand tends to be flatter and there is less “pendulum” in the trajectory.
Some years ago I was at a tournament coaching the greatest on the IRT tour. We were in St Louis and a grizzled veteran of the 80’s racquetball Professional wars was shocked my player was attacking the forehand of his opponent.
Well, the player I was coaching was left handed and the opponent was right-handed. In simplest terms that meant his backhand vs this player’s forehand. It was a mis-match. I am often blown away at player’s game plans when they attack strong backhands and ignore the forehand inconsistencies.
Think about it from an opponent’s point of view. I had a weaker forehand that backhand so when someone served me there I was aggressive early in the match. That often worked as opponents went back to my backhand. Moral is do not let a few good forehands deter you! Attack!