A New Year's Serve

[stotty]

Edberg and McEnroe, Stockholm Kings of Tennis Just Five Years Ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs2MPHxAmxg

Terrific. Both men still volleying far better than most players today.

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Edberg and McEnroe, Stockholm Kings of Tennis Just Five Years Ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs2MPHxAmxg

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Gadfly, Io, Io, Moo, Move it, Io

I was advised by the wife of a college president in Middletown, Connecticut more than half a century ago that my value as a journalist was as a gadfly.

So here goes. More insight please, tennis teaching establishment, on the differences in arm bend among different servers.

Also, please and double-please, could someone offer some meaningful discussion on the subject of different racket pitch at service address?

I've been waiting for that one for at least 20 years.

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Isner Fully Bends Arm; Raonic Does Not Fully Bend Arm

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Will the Blocks Fall Down?

I don't think so. Already I've hit some wide slice serves from the deuce court that were in a different league of depth, height, speed and break.

I'm not yet at the engineering stage but still am tweaking my blueprint.

Nobody squeezes their arm together as soon as John Isner. Certainly not Milos Raonic. He never squeezes it together anyplace, at least not here:

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...0240%20fps.mp4)

Does Isner's elbow also remain needled for longer than other servers who squeeze it together like him? Could be.

Key words from Brian Gordon, directed in general rather than to a specific serve, are to the effect that the abduction/adduction rotation of necessity must be extremely fast, and it goes "up" and "forward."

A sudden change of direction then must be taken into account.

Isner's compressed elbow does not continue up the edge of his bod as if he were doing a jumping jack.

It has been screwing up in that direction with smooth speed but now must jump with a turn.

For this purpose some available range of elbow lift must have been preserved.

I see the ESR, the EFR and the wrist extension as a single swirl to the right that now continues but in larger form.

The squeezed elbow smoothly keys upward while perpendicular to side fence.

Suddenly it jump-twists forward which multiplies torso twist in the same arc.

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...1%20500fps.mp4)

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A New Interpretation of Isner Serve Adduction that Allows an Imitator to Do One Less Thing Without Harm to his Upward Rotations

It's all about screwing. The arm completely bends, at which point the elbow begins to screw. It screws through low point and continues to screw for about half of the one tenth second zoom to the ball.

The shoulder adduction, in other words, just continues something one already was in the process of doing.

In no way does it interfere with ESR, EFR and wrist extension, the three-rotation sequence that marks the start of the one tenth second upward zing.

Just slow down the beginning of the screw by one nano-second to make everything happen where you want it.

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The Arm Bends Completely before the Elbow Starts to Screw

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...r%20500fps.mp4)

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A Second or Doubles Serve or Two

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...1%20500fps.mp4)

Completes cantilevering lean at side fences before he steps.

I am comfortable with speculation, would like to become adept in dreaming, too.

Once John Isner has screwed up his elbow, it is so high, that, one has to strain to imagine it going any higher in the crucial adduction stage.

That helps me to think the adduction is forward and in a bit toward body core.

With torso twist-- simultaneous-- taking everything up a bit more.

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...r%20500fps.mp4)

A big thing that Brian Gordon and John Yandell and Rick Macci all are emphasizing right now is coordination of the beginning and end of leg drive with the beginning and end of racket drop.

In Isner's case the leg drive seems to start when the racket, thanks to the screwing elbow, is at top dead center or a little past.

The screwing is continuous then with arm immediately pressing together to help get the racket to low point, i.e., the end of the backswing.

Here is where the one tenth of a second sequence up to the ball begins.

The legs, synchronized with the arm movements, have fired but the bod still is reacting.

In my case at least no animals were harmed in the making of this design and no ESR was used in the process of lowering the racket head.

ESR (external shoulder rotation) therefore is available as first of the elements in the upward racket zip.

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Isner's Serve, Continued

The wide stance is huge. No, the huge stance is wide.

After the pinpoint is established he bends his knees more!

And then the pinpointed foot with heel upraised gives a bit but never completely flattens as it lifts off.

In a sense then he loads on the rear foot three times, once when he steps, once when he bends more, once when he lifts off.

I want the pattern of this serve for spin in old guy doubles but here nevertheless is a first serve.

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...1%20500fps.mp4)

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A Visual Argument for the Becker-Edberg One Hand Backhand

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpZnZlXWxQw)

The first thing to understand is that it is steeper than most one hand topspin backhands.

Perhaps one could compare it to the Sam Snead as opposed to Ben Hogan swing in golf although I am not prepared to return to my caddy days and once again try to analyze anybody's golf swing. (I just react here on the "look" level like a dermatologist.)

But tennis? No. Let's analyze.

First, the Becker-Edberg is steep in contrast to video of Don Budge and a thousand other one-handers that reveal some kind of figure eight.

Not for Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg. That might take too long for them. They generate pronounced stretch of the shoulder housing at top of the backswing.

This enables the arm to catch up with whatever the bod is doing. A shorter backswing may fail-- so block the ball in that case with slice?

Essential to the Becker-Edberg, it seems to me, is timed straightening of the arm melded with roll to properly transfer energy through the hand while "turning the corner" of the shot.

The racket tip comes around fast and inside out.

Is there more roll after contact? Probably some but also a feel of both ends of the racket proceeding together. I call that a hybrid follow through that affects what happens on the ball.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpZnZlXWxQw)

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Report Card on Two Parks in Grosse Pointe, Michigan

One park, even if you don't ask, will leave one net up for the practice of swerves.

The other, despite a polite request, won't.

A for first park, F- for second park. (Don't they even have an old beat-up net someplace?)

I am consigned to park # 2 but, fortunately, enjoy imagining a net.

Last winter someone stretched a cloth tape from net post to net post on the same court of twenty I mostly use.

But a no net court has advantages.

You never hit the net. You are quicker getting to the other end to pick up your balls.

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More Screwing

Screw the elbow up like John Isner. Forget any dirty jokes about growing an extra foot at the same time. Observe in the following video exactly what we are talking about. Other servers lift their elbow up. John screws it up. And screwing it up might be just the ticket for a rotorded server.

But don't screw this up. There-- the last obvious joke. Can we just refrain from jokes for the few minutes of this post?

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...1%20500fps.mp4)

Other servers may get their arm to a right angle. Not the same as pressing the halves of the arm together as Ivan Lendl advised in one of his two books. C'mon, reader, be honest. How often does anybody even discuss the important subject of how much to bend the arm and when and where?

Some servers never bend beyond a right angle. Others get to the right angle then get to the squeeze briefly on their way to contact. Other variations exist too. Squeeze first then open a little but don't compromise the snap?

John Isner glides his racket way out toward the RIGHT fence then bends his arm all the way across his back for a LONG RIDE.

Now if your name is John Escher and even if it isn't and you possess normal human curiosity maybe you should give John Isner a try. Well, his serves aren't slow. They don't go as slow as yours, reader, right?

We can't suddenly make ourselves as tall as John Isner but we could try getting our arm all pressed together and keep it that way for a long time to screw the elbow up and around like a swamp buggy fan to drive what had been broad movement into a tight circle, a much more succinct form than that of most serves.

Maybe it's just that John is so large that certain things become visible. I can see adduction (which to be good must be pronounced and as Brian Gordon recently said and showed us with a young girl's arm must be very fast because of what it triggers next). I can see this adduction if I watch a bunch of the Isner service videos.

Any rotorded server in my view should try anything if he is unsatisfied the way he ought to be.

If he is pinpoint he should try platform. If he is platform he should try pinpoint. John Isner is pinpoint and with the back toes is pinpoint like someone in ballet.

Well, how long should the motion dependent arm snap be? Maximum or middle? Which is more powerful?

Is there DTUT in this serve? No. One arm goes before the other. I suggest trying both ways.

Isner's left arm rises first. Escher's right arm goes first. This means Escher can spend more time in crossing his back at least for now but I want to try both ways.

Left arm first might be better for a pinpoint, right arm first for a platform-- will have to see.

What a change of direction there is-- a 90-degree corner actually-- in the body movement of a John Isner serve.

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The Real Significance of Hips-Jut

In the 1970 FUNDAMENTALS OF TENNIS, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, Stanley Plagenhoef shows a bunch of great servers hitting the ball while jutting their hips slightly toward rear fence.

Well, if they were extending body and arm rather than folding from the hips, how could this be?

All I can come up with is that they started that way before all the extension.

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Further Speculation during the Annual Meeting of the Rotordation Society in Jefferson Plantation, the Highest Tennis Resort in the Ozarks

The group discussion was lively and raucous as a person might expect.

On the one hand were the benders of elbow before lifting it.

On the other the lifters of elbow before bending it.

"Conventional! Ordinary! Banal!" was one strident shout.

"Listen," Maggie Han, five-year president of the society finally declared. "We've discussed this matter until we are blue in the face. It's time for a vote. All in favor of lift-bend raise their right hand. Five votes, Mr. Secretary Tom. All in favor of bend-lift? Five votes, Tom. Record it. That leaves 31 votes according to my calculation for simultaneous lift and bend. But let's see the hands. Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnine...Only 23 votes? That means eight persons absconded."

I take this final tally very seriously and now twist my elbow gradually as it rises above the line between my two shoulder balls, rises as it keeps twisting as it opens from compacted to a right angle which shortens the whip-crack distance for arm to passively get itself straight while still working the racket tip out to the right.

The key to me is the sudden last instant leap of elbow upward to fire the passive whip-crack, and for this I enlist the service of both legs which I have purposely delayed although they were ready to go to work before that.

I really want to declare, like Vic Braden, these words: "Fire the extensors, baby!" and am convinced that this is the best way to go.

On the other hand it's a long drive from the Ozarks back to Detroit offering much time for further thought.

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To Learn Better

Using one's computer, click on "Past Issues" directly under search box. Click on October 2018 . Click on "The Serve: The Rotations in the Upward Swing" to obtain this link (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...n_upper_swing/).

This is not my favorite of the Brian Gordon videos. That would be the one where he describes himself as an eight-year-old. But this is the one describing seven upward arm rotations, and it starts by showing exactly where the tenth of a second tract begins.

The first of the seven rotations is 1) Tatiana coming out of her backswing with a little ESR or external rotation of the shoulder (upper arm backward twist), 2) forearm supination (the opposite of pronation), 3) wrist extension, 4) batting in cleanup extremely fast lift of shoulder almost straight up, 5) motion dependent straightening of the arm 6) ulnar deviation, 7) ISR plus wrist extension to straight with ulnar deviation continuing just past contact snakelike.

Three more mental steps, I believe, also must be mastered: A) synchronization of lower and upper body, which is one of many items requiring personal interpretation since I am the guy here trying for a better serve. There is no break or jackknifing from the hips. That is a likely factoid from archaic instruction and from the airborne Roger Federer's slight jutting out of hips toward rear fence (happens from his pulling up legs into the plane like landing gear after the ball is gone?). Instead of a page break being inserted into one's heighth, everything is about straightening body and arm. The rear hip also is driven around a bit by rear foot as rear foot also drives bod into a spoke-like somersault with both legs driving bod into being stretched and straight (AKA Alexander Technique in which one strives to put more space between the vertebrae).

B) Translate forward rotations from angle numbers to fixtures around the court, e.g., flat serves could be 90 degrees straight at target, slice could be 30 degrees to the right of that, kick could be 30 degrees to the right of that, with you having previously appropriated landmarks as if you were navigating toward visible land from far out at sea.

C) Work on transition from forward bod rotation to torso twist (exactly where?) but keeping in mind that the torso twist is included in the slight pitching forward of your head.

Personal note: I cannot afford to give away any ESR in the backswing. I therefore must use other means to place racket head in a somewhat downward pointing direction.