A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

From Progression to Procession

A progression is something that keeps going past something static or is that a procession?

Remember, the language of search is not how-to.

Desired pattern (today): Grip change and rise of racket and gentle, closing fall of racket butt with racket head still cocked.

What does "closing" mean then? That strings close to face outside fence as they peak and begin to fall.

Pet the mangy mutt with your hand, not the strings.

Then fire leg to accelerate the flip, which will become tighter and faster (but longer!) because of the cocked racket tip.

Leave wrist laid back throughout, returning it to neutral position only after the hit.

Note: If your best waiting position is flat wrist with Roger's 3.5, then simply cock wrist up as part of the unit turn with left hand to stay on racket throat for a long time. Or wait with wrist already cocked so that racket tip starts high (this simplifies backswing into something completely horizontal but seems mechanical and limiting on backhand side, so I don't like it).

[bottle]

Quick-hand Ben

Also known as (AKA) Fast-hand Hogan.

AKA to me as my emerging continental forehand compared to my other continental forehand which already is in maintenance.

I've got to have my freedom to fool around to find my Quick-hand Ben, or Big Ben, suggesting reliable clockwork, or little Ben, again suggesting Ben Hogan.

But as tour technician Ben Ford once stated of me and another person sparring with me perhaps in this forum, "You both know just enough to be dangerous."

One implication of which is that people who know just a little less are protected by their innocence.

To avoid hitting the ball into the rafters as always happens with continental grip according to Coach Kyril, one needs to close the racket head. I propose to do so-- today-- by bowling the racket sideward more than backward.

It's snowing here in Grosse Pointe though nothing like Moscow, but there shan't be indoor tennis for me until Friday, so the plan is a bit abstract.

Both arms shall nevertheless bowl down and up toward the side fence as the body turns, which reminds me of a play I once saw at the National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem called "As the Sauce Burns."

We neophyte golfers were sometimes taught to start the swing by using our knees to bring the racket head, I mean club head, straight back from the ball on a line with the target.

But how can a club or a racket or anything go straight when the body is in a turn? Simple. By going up.

But how much? To be worked out on court, or on a snowy day like today in appellate court.

(The boy puts a tennis racket in his hand, big knuckle on 2.5 pointy ridge, and strides toward tall windows where he won't hit anything. The racket arm stays bent as the strings swing down and up roughly toward the side fence. There's body turn left over which returns racket inside. But no more lift from the shoulder pivot i.e. multi-directional hinge. All lift at this point comes from laying up wrist.)

Now the swing starts forward, duplicating the most recent move but baseball-like yet slow. Baseballing is a strange idea when combined with golf, but one can see a bit of it in the Hogan swing. In fact, if Ben Hogan continued his baseballing, his swing would go high over the fixed ball, missing it altogether.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ywZ4b6vjFc

So one changes trajectory, straightening arm for sudden movement straight down before up.

[bottle]

Tiny Ben and Tiny Tom

Idea for the previous post came from MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES, the 1976 Pasarell, Okker, Ashe, Solomon and Roche book which has never made anything easier for anybody. How could Tom Okker, with his weak grip, close racket in just the place he did for his famous topspin forehand?

Well, he did it somehow with a huge loop. Me, I try for the same hooded position, which is farther forward than I am used to. I try for it with a bowled (bold) backswing like John McEnroe but in which initial action is toward side fence instead of straight back. Bowling straight back feels very good to me but isn't.

Hooding the racket by bowling it straight back puts it way back, too far back to produce effective topspin. The swing one wants with both knees right-angled and never coming up practically smashes right foot in a neutral stance-- in fact the racket head reaches low point just in front of that foot and only a smidge to outside to avoid injury according to the book's photos of Tom Okker. What I'm trying to describe, overall, is a "manufactured" figure eight loop, to use Rick Macci's adjective for something unnecessarily too hard for most people to do. This shot nevertheless aspires to perfection, maybe even eternity since it's an M.C. Escher's moebius strip.

Note: I won't be surprised if somebody now wants to see the Okker book art or "furniture" or photographs, but our new Dell printer doesn't have a scanner and I don't think even a good video would reveal the smooth but precisely defined three dimensional racket head path I'm advancing here.

[stotty]

Idea for the previous post came from MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES, the 1976 Pasarell, Okker, Ashe, Solomon and Roche book which has never made anything easier for anybody. How could Tom Okker, with his weak grip, close racket in just the place he did for his famous topspin forehand?

Well, he did it somehow with a large loop. Me, I tried for same hooded position farther forward than I was used to with a bowled (bold) backswing like McEnroe, in which initial action toward side fence, instead of straight back which felt good but wasn't, seemed the solution.

For my friend, bottle. A breakdown of Okker's forehand.

[bottle]

Thanks So Much

And it's a beauty that has no doubt intrigued many a player over the decades and led him astray. But I refuse to use the word "unorthodox" since so many others starting with Jack Kramer already have.

I have met a new somebody obsessed with this shot about once every five years. This time as I circle back to it I try for a smaller loop that still will work-- no frame 4 but yes a frame 3 but with wrist laid up. And definitely frames 6 and 8 .

Right now I go only by the sound of the swoosh.

[stotty]

And it's a beauty that has no doubt intrigued many a player over the decades and led him astray. But I refuse to use the word "unorthodox" since so many others starting with Jack Kramer already have.

I have met a new somebody obsessed with this shot about once every five years. This time as I circle back to it I try for a smaller loop that still will work-- no frame 4 but yes a frame 3 but with wrist laid up. And definitely frames 6 and 8 .

Right now I go only by the sound of the swoosh.

It's frame three that intrigues me. A continental grip (I think) yet the racket face is facing toward the ground...not easy that.

I don't think the shot is as unorthodox as it was once thought to be back in the day. Actually it more closely resembles a modern forehand in some ways.

I think "orthodox" is a moving target. It's hard to decide what "orthodox" tennis technique really is.

I guess good tennis technique is like pornography...hard to define...but we all know it when we see it.

[10splayer]

It's frame three that intrigues me. A continental grip (I think) yet the racket face is face toward the ground...not easy that.

I don't think the shot is as unorthodox as it was once thought to be back in the day. Actually it more closely resembles a modern forehand in some ways.

I think "orthodox" is a moving target. It's hard to decide what "orthodox" tennis technique really is.

I guess tennis technique is like pornography...hard to define...but we all know it when we see it.

I see many modern components to his forehand, absent the flip. Even though he closes the face in frame 4, look what happens next. He begins to supinate, and rotate his arm externally as he further drops the racquet. As a result, there is nothing to flip. IMO, the real defining "move" in the flip, is that the arm need be internally rotated, when the pull occurs.

If he would have kept the same arm position in frame 3 as he laid down the racquet in the backswing, he would have had to "flip" the racquet at the bottom. But he doesn't. Just my 02 cents

[stotty]

I see many modern components to his forehand, absent the flip. Even though he closes the face in frame 4, look what happens next. He begins to supinate, and rotate his arm externally as he further drops the racquet. As a result, there is nothing to flip. IMO, the real defining "move" in the flip, is that the arm need be internally rotated, when the pull occurs.

If he would have kept the same arm position in frame 3 as he laid down the racquet in the backswing, he would have had to "flip" the racquet at the bottom. But he doesn't. Just my 02 cents

Extremely glad you posted this comment, 10splayer. I concur. I was going to post a thread with this photo sequence challenging posters to determine whether Okker is flipping or not. It's very deceptive, isn't it?...not made easy by the fact he is wearing a tracksuit top. I thought Okker was flipping at first but slowly came to the conclusion he wasn't.

I found Okker a tough one to diagnose...the hardest one yet actually.

[bottle]

My Adaptation

Analyzing this shot is fine intellectual pursuit, and I've tried to do it periodically, and was very surprised the first time I met somebody else doing the same thing.

This guy was a good competitor and beat me the one time we played singles, but was playing at less than his true potential because of his insistence on his Okkerish experiment.

Friends through his relatives later told me about his great success in Florida in USTA seniors tennis.

The first reason I'm excited about these present experiments of my own is Steve Navarro's idea of using Ben Hogan's right hand in the Gary Player video for a continental forehand.

Using that, I become an adapter of Okker, not an imitator. Okker is just the take-off point.

First difference is that in frame 3 the arm should be bent and the wrist laid back (or "up").

First very important similarity is that hips and shoulders start rotating very early-- the "baseball" section of Ben Hogan's forward golf swing.

I feel that the bent right arm smoothly turns out to acceleration point as identified in one key photograph in Percy Boomer's golf book.

One doesn't need to own the book-- in fact a girl stole mine-- but one would be smart to ask, "Where exactly in this desired tennis stroke does slow smoothness end and abrupt acceleration begin?"

The answer probably comes from the present Rick Macci Tennis Player video, which is about a completely different stroke delivered with strong eastern grip or more.

The patting of a mangy mutt suggests some gentleness. In desired stroke here, the gentleness is the gentle baseballing.

Me, I plan to own and use both strokes. For topspinning a real low ball, I don't think you can beat a continental forehand, and I've seen it done.

Well, what happens immediately after the "baseballing?" The arm suddenly straightens so that racket head whirls inside of hand and nearly squashes your right foot.

In a nano-second the swing trajectory has changed from baseball to bowling or golf.

In another nano-second, well, take it from Tom Okker's actual words: "The top-spin forehand is hit with the racket strings looking down at the court. Arm and wrist are firm through impact, as in the flat forehand, but they roll over together as the racket meets the ball in order to cause the strings to brush up and over the ball and impart the desired top spin."

All I can say right now is that there is a hell of a swoosh.

[bottle]

Brosseau on Serve: Make Elbow Go Up All The Time

Okay.

[tntenniswhiz]

Extremely glad you posted this comment, 10splayer. I concur. I was going to post a thread with this photo sequence challenging posters to determine whether Okker is flipping or not. It's very deceptive, isn't it?...not made easy by the fact he is wearing a tracksuit top. I thought Okker was flipping at first but slowly came to the conclusion he wasn't.

I found Okker a tough one to diagnose...the hardest one yet actually.

When he starts attacking the ball it looks like the typical WTA forehand, maybe Sharapova like, racquet parallel to the ground?

[tntenniswhiz]

Extremely glad you posted this comment, 10splayer. I concur. I was going to post a thread with this photo sequence challenging posters to determine whether Okker is flipping or not. It's very deceptive, isn't it?...not made easy by the fact he is wearing a tracksuit top. I thought Okker was flipping at first but slowly came to the conclusion he wasn't.

I found Okker a tough one to diagnose...the hardest one yet actually.

When he starts attacking the ball it looks like the typical WTA forehand, maybe Sharapova like, racquet perpendicular to the ground?

[bottle]

But...

[bottle]

Continental Topspin

My scheme for when the snow melts and I get to a court keeps evolving, and that evolution contains my hope for something more than a little interesting.

I'm glad that Greg Lumb, like others (myself included), is pointing to the frame where Okker's racket is almost perpendicular to the ground.

But anybody can do that, even a Sharapova hitting through the ball so much that it splats.

But to do that for topspin with a continental grip like Okker's, and to do it just where Okker does it (not farther back toward rear fence) and make it part of an organic whole and single image presents a special challenge.

And people don't like a special challenge. They prefer to cop out by saying something profound like "Continental grip sucks."

My present idea is, from continental grip cheated left, not to take racket down and up like John McEnroe, but to spiral it mildly upward toward side fence and then draw it back with a cocking at the wrist.

Now we've reached the frame that Greg Lumb pointed to. We've done this but hardly in a direct way. How we've reached this closed position is just as important as the closed position itself in view of what's about to happen.

I see this proposed stroke as continuous loop but not upright loop. I stress that this loop has in it large sideways components.

My proposed stroke also is a dive-bomber right to the end of its followthrough, but of course I haven't tried it yet.

Could be lousy. Could be great, in which case I'll be very happy.

[stotty]

I saw Okker play at close quarters at an indoor event in London in 1977. His forehand was a great shot, relative to its time and wooden rackets. He hit it hard and with a lot of topspin. He could moonball very effectively. It was the flowing looseness of the shot that I remember most. His backhand was very flimsy and was a weakness.

I also saw him play Borg in the 1978 Wimbledon semi-final. Okker should never won the quarter final against Nastase to reach the semi. Nastase messed around and gave the match to Okker on a plate. Nastase didn't want to win because he didn't want to face Borg again. You could sense it. Nastase had become phobic about playing Borg, understandably...Borg was impenetrable while Nastase was neurotic and full of holes.

Great though Okker's forehand was, Borg's was better; Okker missed some forehands; Borg missed virtually none. Okker lost 6-4, 6-4, 6-4...easy...but it wasn't quite the route the pundits thought it would be.