The new weapon that helped Alex de Minaur enter the top 10 on the ATP circuit

De Minaur checked the first box, namely raising his forehand rating above the circuit average of 7.5. Imagine how powerful he would be if his forehand rating reached 8.4, the same as Carlos Alcaraz. With his exceptional speed and rock-solid backhand, de Minaur would instantly become one of the favorites to win a Grand Slam trophy.

When de Minaur won the 's-Hertogenbosch tournament in the Netherlands two weeks ago, his forehand rating was 8.4. The improvement of the forehand was a key factor in winning the title.

As De Minaur's forehand is not his favorite side, he hits too many backhands in matches. Since about 70 percent of winning groundstrokes come from the forehand, this limits his offensive ability. De Minaur hits roughly the same number of forehands and backhands.

Among the top 10 players, only Daniil Medvedev averages fewer forehands than de Minaur. With his prolific speed in hitting forehands around the court, and his greater confidence in his forehand technique and strategy, de Minaur could easily become one of the leaders in this critical category.

Success in tennis is based on incremental improvements, and de Minaur achieved that with his forehand.

For example, his average forehand speed in 2023 was 114 km/h (71 mph). The track average was 73 mph. This was an obvious red flag for de Minaur, as he really shouldn't be below tour average in any aspect of his game. In 2024, he's gained two more miles per hour and sits right in the circuit average of 73 mph. That's still far from Sinner's average of 79 mph, but de Minaur's forehand is heading in the right direction.

Another matchup metric on the right wing that shows notable improvement from last season is match-winner average.

In 2023, de Minaur averaged 6.7 forehand winners per match. This season, it is 7.2. On the one hand, he must be happy with this improvement. On the other hand, the circuit average is 7.8. This is another critical aspect of his game that simply cannot be lower than the rest of the tour, with the vast majority of players now ranked lower than him.

One obvious way to get more performance from your forehand is to give the ball more shape. This means adding topspin to push the ball away from the net and make it dive further into the court on the other side. The Tour average for forehand topspin is 2,698 rpm. De Minaur is significantly below that average, at 2,261 rpm. For context, Medvedev is known for hitting an ultra-flat forehand, but even he gets more spin on his forehand, averaging 2,418 rpm.

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De Minaur would do well to get under the ball more and rip it on contact. A little more spin would allow the Australian to add more power to his forehand, knowing that it would dive safely into the court on the other side of the net.

The two greatest weapons on tour are the serve and the forehand. You could say that De Minaur's two greatest weapons are his backhand and his speed.

His forehand starts to raise his hand as a third.

Craig O'Shannessy is a world leader in the teaching and analysis of tennis strategy. He is the creator of the website Brain Game Tennis and was a member of Novak Djokovic's coaching team.

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