Dinara Safina Photos: Picture Gallery of Strokes

Dinara Safina uses nearly classic two-handed backhand form here. The line from her back foot to her front foot is roughly parallel to the sideline, and her weight is on her back foot as she gets ready to transfer her weight to her front foot as she swings. Her knees are bent so that she can drive upward as she drives forward. With her racquet well below the ball, she will be able to brush up the back of the ball to create topspin. She departs somewhat from classic form by having her racquet point almost at the right sideline instead of at the back fence. This extra-rotated backswing results partly from her exceptionally strong shoulder turn and from having her wrists, which we'll see in the next photo, extremely laid back. The angle of her string bed is also more vertical than we'd expect. More downward tilt is usually necessary to keep the racquet from meeting the ball with an upward tilt that would only be suitable for a lob, which she's unlikely to hit on a short ball like this, or a slice, which she couldn't hit from below the ball.