if it's the "TE Animation Team" wants to create the additional animations, then of course, that'd off-load a ton of work off my hands and make that feature possible...

If you want to do that, you don't have to do exactly identical preparation, but :
- it's better if the preparation time (ie: before the hit) is identical between the anims
- center of body during the whole preparation should be very close in both anims
- racket sweetspot on hit should be almost in identical place
so in case of swap during the preparation, it'll look almost ok