A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Has anyone checked? Is John Isner still wearing his ANATABLOC hat at the U.S. Open?

[lobndropshot]

Nope he has a lacoste hat

[bottle]

Untried

We found the forehands of Chris Evert and John McEnroe to have more in common than anyone in the history of the world suspected.

In both cases there was a scythe-like stroke with a burst of kinetic chain embedded in the middle.

An arm roll sent added energy 50-50 up and through the ball in the case of McEnroe. That and his grip were the difference.

As we try now to apply these lessons to Roger Federfore, with grip again a difference, we ask ourselves, "Is the Federerian mondo or flip or wrist snap-back which we most desire truly a unified and simultaneous phenomenon? Second, through what stages of the forward swing should this phenomenon last?

We try therefore to sequence forearm roll backward and wrist layback with forearm roll backward to come first as arm swing (from shoulder joint only) begins its scythey path.

Reader, if you remember from your day in a field of high straw if you ever had such a good day, you didn't want the blade to get cockeyed on you as it went down.

No, a scythe wants to cut a horizontal swathe leaving the straw in a contiguous bunch. You could almost grab this cut residue in your fist and place it upright in a vase of water.

So, we assign backward forearm roll to beginning of arm swing. As Muhammad Ali's kinetic chain from ankle to fist used in his jab chimes in the wrist lays back to the max.

Since previous segment of the body decelerates as subsequent segment accelerates whether we like it or not, the arm now snaps and rolls around as if done so by John McEnroe albeit with different direction and grip.

Note: Keep the down and up backswing in the slot but with a bit more length-- or height-- than in the other two shots. And if the backward forearm and wrist sequence doesn't work, reverse the order so wrist layback occurs first-- before returning to complete simultaneity in which wrist layback and forearm roll backward occur precisely at once.

[bottle]

Credo

I was getting old. So I shortened my strokes. In so doing, I discovered more feel.

Intellectually, you could say, I became an opponent of big overhand loops.

But that would not be entirely true. It is the "mechanistic" loops I oppose, the sterile ones that resemble a 19th century flywheel in the Smithsonian.

I totally love as instigator of feel the expression "patting the dog," so overhand loop in itself cannot be my villain.

I myself used the expression "racket descending like milkweed" to describe the backward and downward arm extension in Roger Federer's most famous stroke.

That expression like most tennis bon mots is just several words, but LadyPro of this forearm reported back that she used them with success with her girls.

Feel and economy are the goals however one arrives at them.

I am fascinated though that one can get a good upper body turn to hit solid forehands without keeping opposite hand on the racket for a long time as taught by almost everybody.

Call this late realization on my part.

[bottle]

Thumb Wrestling Pushed

"Yeah, you're pushing your luck, too, Escher," someone may say. I don't care.

I did a bunch of experiments mostly derived from single sculling and eight-oared crew in which I rolled fingers within a given grip to look for subtle variations of pitch.

No one in this forearm said anything. Similarly, Steve Navarro sometimes will state that no one is listening to him. But I tell John Isner to change his hat and he changes his hat (for which I love him and will root for him). And most of the mainline television announcers share Steve's judgment that modern players do not come into the net enough-- they say so all the time.

Whether those talking heads are attuned enough to every equipment change implication brought up by Steve, I doubt, but maybe they are not far from such realization.

Steve certainly is correct in identifying commercial forces opposed to actual improvement in the game-- an identification that the tennis world is all too likely to resist.

But do I think that my telling Isner to take off his ANATABLOC is the reason he took it off? Possible but doubtful.

He reached that decision through other means but my timing for that particular shot was pretty good.

When Luke Jensen came up to me on the opposite side of the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club fence and I introduced myself as Bottle who writes for the forum at TennisPlayer, and he said, "So you're the one and only Bottle!" did that mean he had read my posts? My partner Hope thinks so but maybe not. Did I not hear him using similar ploy with all the players he was instructing on court? A great tennis teacher is a master psychologist who constantly makes each student more aware of his or her individuality.

So, reader, wave that thumb around like an inchworm just crawled out of a puddle of LSD.

Who cares if Roger Federer uses a 3/3 ? Put bent thumb on top dead center and hit a Federfore that way one time just to see what will happen.

[bottle]

Bruce Belfry Hits the Chris Evert Forehand All Around the World

The sponsors for our movie crew rented us a VW Vanigan on the South Island of New Zealand, but we failed to stay to the left and so ran into the side of a truck carrying wool.

While the wool's resilience lessened total damage to the Vanigan, our serf boards up on the roof were smashed. The serfing we did after that was body serfing. The Pacific gave us no trouble but the Tasman Sea badly rolled us.

Remember, in tennis instruction, we is I is you is they. And the locals probably called the truck a lorry. But in my misspelling I misspoke. For a long time I have been under the influence of what I have been telling all the tennis clubs that have honored us as guests.

After altering the grip of every tennis student and self-feeding a few balls, I always explain that Count Tolstoy had a lot of serfs and when he went down into his fields to cut hay the serfs just watched him and never said a word.

This silent compact had dual purpose, I say as I gently swing my racket: Better scything and better tennis on Leo's new court, the first in Russia. The best scything we as Americans know, I always explain, is this from Robert Frost:

"There was never a sound beside the wood but one. And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground."

[bottle]

Objection from a Tennis Student

"So Bruce," one tennis student said. "This is not the modern way to hit the ball."

"Maybe not," I replied, "but it is effective. And if you want, I can also teach you a Federfore hit from very similar preparation for maximum disguise. But first you need to learn the flat shot without suspecting that you won't like it. Do you not think that Chrissie was able to handle the heavy topspin of Gabriela?"

This evoked the silence of a stunned sheep-- appropriate since we were in New Zealand. Without missing a beat or a shot, I continued with my little ready-made speech.

"You can start with the down and up of your own serve if that is the sensible kind of serve that you already have. In match play some of these forehands will surprise you with their goodness even as they teach you that drop as part of the forward swing is, strictly speaking, not a necessity."

"On other balls however you will bowl back your strings too high. This will cause you to hit slight backspin-- not a tragedy though undesirable in most cases.

"The answer as so often is a question. Or two. Where is my apogee? Where is my perigee? Furthermore, what is an apogee and a perigee?

"An apogee in a tennis stroke if not far point is the high point, the perigee the low point. So you will not be stupid when considering your Chrissie-style forehand to push your perigee to a point farther back. And since we have postulated that the two arms shall resemble one another in every possible way, the perigee of the opposite hand shall now be located at a point nearer to the right fence.

"Down together and up together. That is the secret to good rhythm in the Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe backswing system. But why-- I'm asking you-- must the two parts ever be even?"

The student could not answer.

"Think gentle slope," I said, "with a steep if smaller hill at the end. The two hands slide down their respective slopes to rise in unison. The racket will go more to the outside. The racket will rise then to the inside. Because it comes around one's body as it rises, it doesn't rise so much-- especially good if you are a tall person."

(Note: The racket can do all this and still stay in the slot.)

"Now, to reverse direction you can retrace the path down the small hill. Call this a hitting drop? You can if you want. But your racket or your scythe will travel forward too. You will add energy to the swing before you then scythe low to the ground and through the ball.

"Suppose you did not do this but instead cut off the top of the hay? Leo himself would not fire you but one of his foremen would."

[bottle]

The High of Playing Tennis and Winning after Serious Injury

The level of the tennis played would not have mattered. I would have been elated if I beat anybody or could play at all.

As it happened however we were in a vacation house up north-- at Glen Arbor on the Michigan side of Lake Michigan.

The house Hope rented was a short walk to the beach and a short walk in the opposite direction to the center of town.

In the few days we were there we never drove once except when we did the dune walk in Sleeping Bear National Park.

That bare-footed adventure-- in which you climb one dune only to find another and then another higher and then one higher yet-- told me that my Achilles sprains were gone.

Not that I didn't already know that. The day before, Hope's daughter Melissa, Melissa's husband Greg, and Melissa's youngest, Maxine, went to play switch-off doubles with me on the nicely surfaced town courts.

Two weeks before that, my orthopedist ordered an MRI-- because my acute pain despite my sessions of physical therapy had lasted five months.

Jeffrey the orthopedist was afraid that the X-rays might have missed a 50 per cent tear about to become a full tear.

Options could include immobilizing my right foot in a boot, injections and/or surgery.

The MRI showed two very small spots on opposite sides of the ankle-- more like a bit of fraying of a rope than small tears. Other interpreters at Beaumont Hospital did call those white spots small tears but Jeffrey said he wouldn't. He pointed to a thickening of muscle above the sprains-- a good sign.

The physical therapy was continuing at 6:30 a.m. two days a week.

Also Jeffrey prescribed heel risers for my shoes. A new pair of tongueless Diadora tennis shoes arriving in the mail just then fit my feet like two gloves. I had decided to order them no matter what.

The heel risers wouldn't work in the canary colored Diadoras but that was okay.

The new shots I invented during the layoff all seemed to work. More important, the sprains did not hurt for the first time either before, during or after play.

Now, neither Greg nor Maxine wanted to play. I believe they felt they didn't fare well enough the first time out.

So Melissa and I walked to the courts to play singles. But one of the town shop-keepers saw us warming up and said how crowded the courts were and asked if we would consider doubles.

Our opponents had come to the court with him-- two elderly women who let's say were the geriatric champions of northern Michigan.

We started to play. Every ball came back. The score was suddenly 2-0 geriatric ladies.

Melissa and I looked at each other as if to think "We're better than this." In fact, Melissa's USTA mixed doubles team just qualified for the Ann Arbor sectionals.

Before I served she said, "May the force be with you."

0-2, 1-2, 2-2, 2-3, 3-3, 3-4, 4-4, 5-4, 6-4 .

[bottle]

Did John Isner Have a Separate Contract Superseding his Agreement with ANATABLOC?

One can tell that I am interested in questions such as this through the similarity of two names.

John Isner is the name of the tall guy with the big serve. John Escher is the formal name of "Bottle," although my older sister Drusilla as in the Cinderella tale named me "Bottle" shortly after my birth.

To complicate things farther, John Isner and John Escher used to live only 20 or 30 miles apart, I in Winston-Salem, he in Greensboro.

Now that former governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell is convicted on 11 counts of corruption thanks to his relationship with Jonnie Williams, John Isner must be glad that he has minimized his own relationship with Jonnie Williams through changing his hat.

But will Nick Bollettieri allow Jonnie to keep his condo at Nick's Academy?

And did John's contract with Lacoste maybe predating his contract with Star Science (producers of Anatabloc and other substances that possibly are not science) proscribe that he wear a Lacoste hat at the U.S. Open although he could wear any other hat he wanted at the minors just like any American?

The silence of those who know the answers leads to my honest speculation. I simply wish to learn if John Isner made a conscious decision not to wear his ANATABLOC, knowing as I do that real sun block works better.

[don_budge]

Our government...hard at work

http://news.yahoo.com/trial-dealt-hit-ex-governors-reputation-171905027.html

Nice to have you back. It must be beautiful up there around Glen Arbor this time of year. You got to treat those geriatric old girls just like the rest...don't toy with them. Good to hear your Achilles problems are improving. Do your exercises...you will be ok.

[bottle]

Hey, I Think I see Something I'm Going to Report it

In the repeating video on this page, Roger's hand stays back all through his wiper or arm roll.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/new_issue/2014/september/

Yes, this lesson is about keeping one's head sideways and rock still (or "keeping one's chin behind the ball" as my golfing father used to say).

Another phenomenon apparent in the video however is this business of keeping wrist laid back.

And by saying that, I don't mean that Roger JUST refrains from closing the wrist during contact.

He also refrains from sending half of the roll through the ball the way John McEnroe does in his forehands-- half up, half through.

I love that, try it often: Leads to a very quick ball. I use Australian grip although the name of it is less important than where I put my thumb.

I have been working on an abbreviated grip style which encourages more grip changes during a single point.

If you just adjust thumb without moving the rest of your hand nothing good will happen.

But if you relax hand treating it as a patch of ectoplasm, you can achieve any heel of hand and big knuckle double position you like but through a shortcut.

And tennis is all about shortcuts.

On a Federfore then somewhere near a 3/3 grip but with bent thumb resting top dead center you can use your wiper to go up back of the ball only.

Forward component in Roger's stroke then comes from other sources.

Okay, is there proof in this pudding?

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_forehand/mac_forehand.html?MacFHCenterSide1.mov

Going through the shot with arrow button only, one can see McEnroe's racket still square after the ball is gone. Shortly thereafter the racket tip rolls ahead of hand. Not a definitive answer then. Everything should be tried. It's what I'm gonna do, not McEnroe or you.

[bottle]

Today's Federforial

That Roger Federer has lost to Marin Cilic in the 2014 U.S. Open semifinals in no way detracts from the stealability of Federerian arm roll.

Here is Federerian arm roll once again as seen in repeating video on the right hand edge of the following page:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/new_issue/2014/september/

From being a varsity Dad Vail eight-oared championship four-man (1959, 1960 and 1961) and from being head rowing coach at West Virginia University and Skidmore College in the early 1980's, I know two things about arm roll.

When, while rolling in rowing, you press with your hand, the blade of the oar flies up.

The official term for this is "skying." Another way of expressing this time-wasting and crab-inviting phenomenon is to say that you are a jerk who is causing his crew to lose some race.

In ping-pong however I know that pressing while rolling is not out of the question and feels good as attempted slam.

Similarly, in tennis, one can press one's roll to slam. Not champion Lucy Venable but her daughter also singles champion one time used to do this on every one of her forehands at Crooked Run Racket Club in Front Royal, Virginia.

Me, I did it on every one of my forehands when Katharine Hepburn and I beat her brother Dick and my brother Derek at Fenwick, Old Saybrook, Connecticut.

Later, when teaching tennis, I advised my students not to do it for fear of becoming erratic. But I myself do it-- at the age of 74-- as a test of erraticness on a given day and out of desire to win on that day.

The second thing I know about rolling while rowing (called "feathering") is that if you do it with delicacy you don't damage the position of your handle.

My question: Is Roger Federer's wiper changing position of his hand? The answer is no.

A third but related question: Is the in-place feathering of Federer's racket due to impact of the ball on lower half of his strings as has been popularly supposed or continuance of the roll after the ball is gone?

And if the latter, should we not replace the word "delicacy" with the word "vigor" and act thereupon?

[bottle]

Intentional Weakening of Front of Forehand Grips

It is Sunday morning and my opponents don't know yet that my right Achilles feels ready to go.

So I'll just self-feed and have plenty of fun that way.

I bring attention to the part of the Evert video I recently posted where Chrissie advocates an opposite thumb's width between bottom three fingers and drumstick of the hitting thumb.

If the best available on-line instruction for throwing a curveball puts some air between palm and fingers, I don't see why a tennis player shouldn't experiment with less clunky and less nervously clutched forehand grips.

First goal: More scythe-like feel on flat forehands.

[bottle]

The Dumbest Coach in Any Sport I Have Ever Seen

Like it or not, I found myself watching a JV high school volleyball tournament all day long.

The captain of one of the teams has a connection to this family.

She reported this to us between a series of close losses. "She (the coach) thinks the solution to every problem is to keep me out of the game."

Poor L. Then, when she finally was in a game for a few seconds, she missed a couple of easy service returns.

This is a 14-year-old who stars on travel teams. She had her choice of playing varsity as a sophomore or being captain of the JV and chose JV.

The irony of her playing badly was that when she was in the game her whole team nevertheless played better.

Coach here was the villain. Whether this coach knew it or not, her secret wish was to erode everyone's confidence.

"Oh, but I wanted to show the rest of the team that they were better than they thought," she might say.

Not the way to do it. You build on strengths.

[bottle]

Post Court Conclusions

Roll up the ball and turn the racket immediately over after contact while hitting a Federfore. That's what you do in a serve, isn't it?

Roll to have racket square immediately after contact in a McEnrueful in process of completing the roll.

Bowl back higher than ball to bring strings down for scythe-like swing through the ball in your (my) flat forehand.