3-D Serve: The Final Chapter

[BrianGordon]

As a card carrying member of the joe-blow club here on tennisplayer, I’d like to wish everyone a happy holiday season. I appreciate the fortitude of those who have suffered through, and commented on, the parts of my serve series this year.

The process by which these pieces go from my convoluted neurons to your computer screen is a brutal one for several, but especially John. He has the task of taking unintelligible technical mumbo-jumbo and translating it into a tolerably unintelligible article.

The final part in the series is especially challenging in this regard. While a treasure trove of information for those interested in stroke mechanics, the concepts are a bit more abstract. Since our goal is for the information to be useful on some level, I’ve asked John to delay publication until the February issue.

This will allow us to make it as understandable as possible, and is necessary because we are pretty far apart on what that requires in this case. I mention this because I’ve suggested on this forum it would be out in January and don’t want the rest of you joe-blows to think I’m slacking off. Sorry to be the bearer of this heartbreaking news (note sarcasm).

Happy Holidays - Brian

[bottle]

Against Consensus

Having read, in the current issue of The New Yorker, what the late editor Gordon Lish did to the late writer Raymond Carver, I would simply say:

Since the goal here is more racket head speed, just present the full evidence even when conjectural behind the differing viewpoints and let the reader then decide?

There have been, so far, such incisive numbers and graphics along with direct coaching insights, that, nothing at the end or pinnacle of the serve should suddenly become bromidic, vague and catchall like instruction in "Tennis" or even worse "Tennis Life" magazine with "Ace", the Brit version now seeming by far strongest of the three.

Your whole wise series, I think, clearly hasn't offered ultimate answers, just little increments of consciousness-- better source material in other words than we have ever seen.