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 Custom Search Fernando Gonzalez Ciuffardi (born July 29, 1980), nicknamed El bombardero de La Reina (Spanish "The La Reina Bomber"), is a professional tennis player from Chile. He is known for having one of the hardest hitting forehands in the circuit. One of his other nicknames is Mano de Piedra ("Stone Hand"). Throughout his career, González has defeated many former number-one players, including Lleyton Hewitt, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer (all while they held the top spot), Andy Roddick, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Carlos Moyà, Gustavo Kuerten, Marat Safin and Pete Sampras.
Custom Search Fernando Gonzalez plays as an offensive baseliner. His groundstrokes, especially on the forehand side, are extremely powerful, even amongst his contemporaries. His speed and agility allow him to hit winners from practically anywhere in the court. However, as offensive baseliners are, he used to be prone to make a huge number of unforced errors and was less consistent. His new coach, Larry Stefanki, has helped him develop an extreme slice backhand which combined with his aggressive forehand has propelled his retrieving abilities to a new level and has given him much more consistency, resulting in less unforced errors. In addition, Fernando Gonzalez can also approach the net by chipping and charging and has a wide array of passing shots including the slice backhand passing shot, rarely used in modern tennis. González's serve has also changed since he started working with Stefanki. His first serve used to be only a flat serve, but since late-2006 he has increasingly used a three-quarter of strength slice serve to move his opponents out of the court and increase his precision. The addition of an extreme slice backhand and a slice serve have made him a markedly better player as he has a wider array of choices to get him out of jams or move his opponents to set up his powerful forehand.
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