A New Year's Serve

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Commentatoes on John McEnroes

There aren't John McEnroes. There is only one.

Patrick McEnroes: A few more there.

What about John McEnroe commentating upon himself? He doesn't do it very much, preferring to speak with his racket.

Or John McEnroe on McEnruefuls, which are imitation of John McEnroe strokes.

Again, reader, you won't get much from John, who is more than happy to speak about any other kind of player under the sun, male or female.

For good comment on John McEnroe, try Jimmy Arias.

Even there, though, Arias isn't apt to say much about John's use and lack of use of arm roll in his ground strokes, so we few players who love our McEnruefuls are pretty much left to our own devices in making this stuff up.

What is likely to happen to us, over time? Well, we always will learn from John McEnroe volleys the more trouble we take to study them, but we probably will have given up on his topspin backhands some time ago because of the unique structure of his grip and wrist.

And his serve? Impossible.

That leaves his forehands. One can be imitative there if not too closely so. Today as on many days I contemplate a single subject, arm roll in an Australian gripped McEnrueful-- more adaptable than the roll in all other forehand grip structures, in my view.

I advocate a down and up backswing as the lynch-pin of this forehand grip. The racket falls a bit to the outside and then cocks up slightly to the inside though still in the slot.

I don't even know any more how bent or straight the arm ought to be. Slightly bent at the cusp of those two possibilities.

Well, if down and up backswing is basic what about a shock and awe overhand loop? Fine if it brings racket head to the same stopped place to hit the normal slap-shot.

Reader, if you are capable of shock, you may be shocked by my word "stopped" over "slowed."

Sorry, but that's what I believe. The slap of slap-shot then includes forward roll. The rest of the stroke is a Chris Evert forehand, finishing at shoulder level and out to the side. One puts so much stick on the ball that one can, optionally, over-roll to egg it and still clear the net thus creating what Tim and Tom Gullickson used to call "pop-top," especially if facing heavy topspin coming the other way.

For a short angle off of a low ball, the roll is later and therefore completely different and more upward.

Yes, John McEnroe has freaky hand-to-eye but common sense is available also in the adaptability of Australian grip.

And the overhead shock and awe version of this forehand offers easy opportunity for grip change and abbreviation into dog pat of a Federfore/ATP3 .

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Oh goodie

Something weird to try from the Stockholm Open before abandoning it. When Alejandro Falla serves he opens his racket extremely much during his first drop then closes it extremely much as it goes up behind him.

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Bone on Bone: Back to Welby Van Horn\'s \"The Basic Serve\"

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/teaching_systems/welby_vanhorn/welby_learning_perfecting_serve/welby_learning_perfecting_serve.html

We went to the movies this weekend with another couple, Gretchen and Frank. My friend Frank, who designed the hood ornament on a lot of Detroit cars as well as the one on top of the Chrysler Building as you drive up I-75, used to be a good skier and a good tennis player.

As I walked behind him through the movie lobby, I realized that he could barely lift up his feet. The walker he was pushing would barely go unless Gretchen pulled on it. I decided right then that I am never going to have a knee replacement.

So what if my brother-in-law, who is the same age as Frank (80) has had two knee replacements and still hits lots of home runs in national level seniors softball.

I have a dark side that makes me identify more with Frank, and I don't think I should give in to it.

Instead, I'll wait for distribution of the new arthritis medicines or give myself an injection of W-D 40 .

In the meanwhile I'll revert to Furniture One in the above article, good enough for my purposes.

Note how the lady in the video practically keeps her front foot flat. See how she opens up her racket behind her head. I don't care if Welby Van Horn advised palm down. That palm faces up so far as I am concerned.

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~

I see now, in re-reading this whole Welby Van Horn article, that getting racket away from body is what the whole "palm down" vs. "palm up" discussion is about.

The lady's palm in "basic serve" is slightly down as racket goes down and even up but then opens a little to form a nice tomahawk preparing for very full pronation.

While I love both dead guys Van Horn and Braden, I don't see the "imagined mirror in Braden's palm" preparing for examination of cooties in the back of anyone's hair.

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Arrival of an Important Book in the Mail

A pretty humbling experience, if you ask me. The book, SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER: WELBY VAN HORN and his TENNIS TEACHING SYSTEM, by Edward Weiss, is about 300 pages all of which I have read in the past 24 hours.

That is no way to read a book full of tennis basics that insist all by themselves to be returned to again and again in intervals with enough time and practice in between for stuff to sink in.

But it's a start.

One hopes, immediately, that one's waist high forehand volley contact will henceforth be characterized by racket butt pointing at left hip.

One realizes immediately (or could) that the more unusual aeronautical term "banking" is far superior to "cartwheeling" as a verbal device useful in developing better serves and ground strokes both.

Will one reset one's outside foot just a bit to the right at the end of a square step forehand? Do the same thing if retooling one's basic serve? I can't see why not.

TRUE TENNIS MASTER is a great book I expect to spend a lot of time with.

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Slowing Down One's Strokes

Being able to swing both slow and fast isn't going to hurt anyone. Entranced as I've been for a long time with the concept of self-feed in the game-- a new/old program that Scott Murphy embarked on after hitting with Karsten Popp, something that passing players, pros and non-tennis players are apt either to mock or praise (more likely mock), consider this simple exercise from Welby Van Horn, page 106, SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER:

"You can not only practice swinging in slow motion in front of a mirror, you can also practice it on the court. The best way to practice it on the court is by using one of Welby's many unique drills. In this drill, the student tries to complete the proper follow through on the groundstrokes at the same time that his or her shot lands on the other side of the net. This drill really forces the student to slow down the swing since at normal speed the follow-through finishes considerably before the ball bounces on the other side. The drill teaches racket control and touch and, like all slow motion drills, develops feel of the correct stroke."

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Dare You Eat a Peach?

Also, reader, dare you take the dampeners off of your tennis rackets? From SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER: "Like a violin, the racket is a stringed instrument and requires proper feel and touch to be used properly..."

"...Welby does not like the use of string dampeners in rackets because it diminishes the sound of the hit, thereby reducing the utility of the learning tool of hearing the hit. (Of course, if you need the string dampener to reduce vibration because of tennis elbow, by all means use the dampener.)"

It is fun to examine every photograph of a tennis racket in this book. Some of the rackets include dampeners but most don't.

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Banking Self-Fed Inverted Loop Forehands

Whether these forehands are within Welby Van Horn's "range of correctness" for post wooden racket tennis, they can incorporate his use of the aeronautical term "banking."

To bank, whether in a serve or a forehand, one can simply declare oneself a small plane and then tip one's wings as if performing at a local air show.

While Welby and Ed Weiss do acknowledge the inverted loop as possibility, they limit themselves to straight back and overhead loop forehands for examination, i.e., instruction, and offer warnings that one's experimentation (a good thing!) not scoot one's core game outside of Welby's Range of Correctness.

I accept the warning and proceed.

I started something, after all, before I read SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER.

Right shoulder can drop as racket drops. Which is to say that left shoulder can rise as left arm immediately points across to aid body turn.

Grip is more on top of the racket, but square step is the same, pivot of adjustment foot up on ball of the foot the same, slight replacement of adjustment foot, "the third movement," is exactly the same.

As one's hips and shoulders rotate forward, one's right shoulder rises a bit.

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Forehand Short Angle (Pro Shot) Revisited

O wrong, so wrong to try and figure things out!

Andy Borowitz: "SOME FEAR EBOLA OUTBREAK COULD MAKE NATION TURN TO SCIENCE."

Reading Richard P. Feynman some decades ago opened me to a more expansive definition of science that includes a lot of individual experiment as opposed to a broad-based Framingham study of heart disease.

Feynman did a study where he made his friends count seconds up to 60, then compare their accuracy to that of an actual watch. Anxiety and other environmental variations were introduced for purposes of quantifying specific effect.

My attempt to master the forehand short angle or pro shot closer of tennis has never been 100 per cent effective.

I nevertheless return to this experiment again and again.

Today for this purpose I use the grip called "Australian" by Ellsworth Vines but "composite" by Welby Van Horn and lots of other persons. Whatever this grip is called, it's halfway between continental and classic eastern forehand.

I've recently tried to describe this new plot suggesting down-and-up backswing uncharacteristically out to the side combined with non-propulsive or at least very gentle simultaneous though independent rotations of hips and shoulders.

Finally, late but slow and smooth arm roll melding into slow arm swim creates a vertical or slightly beveled string bed and maintains this constant angle for very long duration.

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A New Cue for "Cut the Wire" Backhands

Did Roger really assert the importance of "cut the wire" as reported to me third-hand through a teaching pro in Birmingham, Michigan?

Jeez, I can't get anyone to discuss the subject with me.

I just liked the sound and philosophy of those three words, "cut the wire."

So I went ahead and implemented them.

Today's idea: For very sharp short backhands whether sliced or topped, set hoop out front, then pull elbows and hands straight back.

This will build tension throughout the hoop but especially at the bending resisting elbow.

And one will not harm arm at all. Furthermore, its length at contact won't matter-- not if you totally relax it when you cut the wire.

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Keep the Leaves: A More Sensible Guide to Gardening

Keep the Palm Down: A More Sensible Guide to Serving in Tennis.

Welby has got me re-convinced.

Of course the palm must open at some point in the service motion; if it doesn't, how is one then to develop all the "internal arm rotation" that everybody agrees is great?

And one must move the leaves into mulch piles; one can't just leave them where they lie.

Similarly, andirons are better in a fireplace than a grate.

I'd say one more thing. Do away with the drones. They are big flying phalluses intended to impress the world with American masculinity.

But they, direct offspring of the buzz-bombs of World War II, didn't work then either and in fact always have opposite effect from that intended.

As Malala told Malia in The White House, drones create new terrorists.

Did Malia listen? How about her father, one thousand times dumber?

A fifth point: We ought to be less trivial and superficial when it comes to the president. We need to choose our criticism of him more carefully. Accuracy is as important in life as in tennis.

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Riffing on "Banking"

Repeating furniture number one: The Basic Serve:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/teaching_systems/welby_vanhorn/welby_learning_perfecting_serve/welby_learning_perfecting_serve.html

If right shoulder goes up to the hit as part of a wings waggle it waggles down right after the hit-- no?

Maybe the hitting shoulder hasn't been doing this. Maybe it thought it ought to stop at contact or just before so that arm could spring ahead through the romance of deceleration-acceleration.

Romantic claptrap would be more like it.

Athletic motion is formed by what comes immediately after it.

Shoulder coming down immedately after it goes up makes it go up with more assurance and speed.

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Three Choices

Probably the most assured slice serves ever can happen if one keeps one's front foot flat like the lady in furniture number one (first video here).

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/teaching_systems/welby_vanhorn/welby_learning_perfecting_serve/welby_learning_perfecting_serve.html

Not the fastest, but the most accurate, out wide from the right-hander's deuce court.

Now let's re-check Dennis Ralston, to see how much he lifts his front heel up.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/famouscoach/denn_ralston/developing_the_slice_serve/developing_the_slice_serve.html

Oh, whoops, I forgot, his feet are cut off.

Well, one can hit with front foot flat or have heel come up. If it comes up, it should do so as the arms are falling down. One can do a Rory McIlroy backswing, with shoulders turning at the gut and hips then taking over all as the arms fall down.

Arms then can go up together as one shifts weight from back foot to front foot, knees bend toward side fence, hips glide toward the net (the bow), front shoulder banks upward, rear shoulder banks downward getting ready to bank upward and then downward.

No body turn, please, during this part of our stripped down serve.

Now the heels can tread and trade position, the front one going down as the rear one comes up.

Or one can send rear leg forward turning it inward to form a pigeon toe for a bit more push. (I can read, you see, I can read SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER-- not too bad an idea.)

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Basic Serve

The serve is changing, so I don't know why any description of it shouldn't.

Quiet front foot even more. Every up-down puts weight on rear foot. "Up" puts weight on front foot. "Down" puts weight on rear foot. Try this pattern several times before starting a serve and vary the number of reps? Find the number you like best-- maybe none?

There is some backward turn. Glom on left arm for a while. Left arm comes across into tossing position thanks to this turn.

Now glom on right arm for a while. How far back do you want it? The two arms start down and then separate. They would stay together for longer if slanting to the outside but I didn't choose that route, preferring to use the constant of gravity all I can. So both hands continue straight down after they separate. Left hand can then get still while palm down hitting hand and racket continue back. How far back? Pretty far back to what feels good.

The up together toss is done with a bow (rhymes with beau) but no body turn. The non-turning hips slide toward net while the knees, parallel to each other, bend toward side fence. The toss is the press is arm going up as shoulder goes up-- two different mechanisms SIM not SEQ and unified.

The ball has been arced so hit it. Do so with hips and shoulders. Left shoulder will rise a little to end up pointing at left fence corner. Another player couldn't push you over (see this phenomenon in Tai Chi).

When grooving this serve let everything be slow, including rate at which the ball departs. This slowness or lousiness will become a virtue as "banking" comes into better focus. Banking is one shoulder being higher than the other then lower and then the two of them evening out-- think wings of a small plane.

The right heel can pivot up (fast). The right heel can then pivot over (slow).

With all that in place, one can add speed to the natural tomahawk throw thus created, but can best do so through various instances of blind faith.

Trust the looseness of one's spaghetti arm. Trust external rotation of upper arm to move edge of racket to where you need it. Trust the upper arm to create fast twist. Recognize that tomahawk throw and "internal rotation of arm" are one and the same thing. Let go to keep racket on edge until very close to the ball before it naturally veers and inverts out to right-- all one release though with assured form.

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Revised Short Angle

O wrong, so wrong to try and figure things out!

Andy Borowitz: "SOME FEAR EBOLA OUTBREAK COULD MAKE NATION TURN TO SCIENCE."

Reading Richard P. Feynman some decades ago opened me to an expansive definition of science that includes a lot of individual experiment as opposed to a broad-based Framingham study of heart disease.

Feynman did a study where he made his friends count seconds up to 60 then compare their accuracy to that of an actual watch. Anxiety and other environmental variations were introduced for purposes of quantifying specific effect.

My attempt to master the forehand short angle or pro shot closer of tennis has never been 100 per cent effective.

I nevertheless return to this experiment again and again.

Today for this purpose I use the grip called "Australian" by Ellsworth Vines but "composite" by Welby Van Horn and lots of other persons. Whatever this grip is called, it's halfway between continental and classic eastern forehand.

I've recently tried to describe this new plot suggesting down-and-up backswing uncharacteristically out to the side combined with non-propulsive or at least very gentle simultaneous though independent rotations of hips and shoulders.

Finally, late but slow and smooth arm roll melding into slow arm swim creates a vertical or slightly beveled string bed and maintains this constant angle for very long duration.

Replace the above explained shot on the theory that weakened body rotation does not need to exist at all.

Reader, don't point across with opposite hand in the accustomed manner. Let this already special shot become even more special. You can still point with the opposite hand, just point somewhere new. And with little of any involvement of shoulders rotating backward. Keep them more or less parallel to the net. More precisely, line them up with the intended target.

Hitting arm will still bowl down and up more or less toward the right fence with slap-shot mode still in effect.

Reader, don't point directly at the oncoming ball. Tom Okker, a very smart guy, wrote long ago that such a move was "overly mannered." And as tennis players we need to draw on human intelligence wherever we can find it, maybe in Holland.

But to Ziegenfuss (goatfoot) the ball a little, i.e., to use arm and late body sequence on the forward swing might be a good idea.

Where to point then? The answer should be general. Somewhere toward the net.

Reader, arm roll should still be delayed. The arm in other words shall not roll as it comes down in the slap of slap-shot (that being an effective formula for hitting deep ground shots with "no turbulence" in the contact area to use Welby Van Horn's phrase). The proposed late arm roll shall meld into arm swim just as a small bit of forward shoulders turn also chimes in to avoid a decel and give followthrough someplace to go.

That leaves footwork. What should it be? A final step with inside foot? With outside foot? Don't step at all?

All good possibility.

Reader, you may get hit in the chest but I hope not.