A New Year's Serve

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Closers, Cont'd

The most original technical chess book ever written starts at the end of a chess game-- a checkmate-- and works backward. This pattern is repeated throughout the book. The author is Bobby Fischer.

I'm thinking now of a checkmate on every tennis point. If I am wrong and my opponent reaches my closer and sends it back, the point starts all over but at least from a position of forced weakness.

If my opponent or opponents are able to answer these closers with strong shots of their own, I didn't do my job well enough, didn't succeed in producing a closer in the first place.

The two closers or checkmates I propose are first a high forehand slap-shot through the open court and a backhand dink to the side T whether loaded with topspin or slice.

The slap-shot closer, discussed before, is an ultimate crunching shot in tennis. Because of its speed, the opening through which it is hit does not have to be narrow. I watched a top player-- THE top player (?) at South High School in Grosse Pointe, Michigan work with soft shots toward a similar decider again and again.

That was a nice match I saw. He, lanky kid extraordinaire, hit his final sockdolager with a high but squat loop off of a semiwestern grip-- a killer every time.

Me, I want neither that grip or any loop-- he can have them. I want, as I said, a slap-shot, a Chris Evert whollop hit from racket lifted above the ball and then swung over the top of it finishing moderately high out to the side. By now I have explained, I hope, both how this shot is an actual slap-shot and how it is not. Whatever it is, it is not subtle. Initially, it stays in the slot except when hit with an Australian rather than eastern grip. Then I bring it high behind the body and roll the racket head forward as I slam down on imaginary ice.

I save my forehand loops-- my Federfores-- to help set up this final shot.

To go the opposite route, the short backhand checkmate, just think for now, reader, not what sets this up but how to hit it.

Again, I have proposed a special shot, a cut the wire backhand which always can improve.

Whether sliced or topspun, the primary characteristic is not a loop but a hoop building tension as the hips roll forward.

The hoop is formed by arms and body and racket. One needs to form this hoop shape early simultaneous with a step-out. The two best pressure points are left (opposite hand) on the throat and back of right upper arm. Getting those conflicting tugs right should take care of most of the intricacies between them.

But should there be movement within the hoop as tension builds? Not an absolute requirement but I think so. At first I thought there should be resistant yet yielding radial wrist movement. Right, and this should endure.

I add to it now however some new scissoring of the arm also in a way that exerts resistance.

In motion produced torques as of wrist and elbow-- as are about to happen here-- we ought to ask how much range of free motion there should be, should we not?

Radial movement of the wrist is always going to be a small and finite amount requiring no further thought.

Ideal amount of bend at elbow for the cut the wire release however could be anything. How can you know until you have tried different amounts? And should passively extending arm shoot straight by contact or still be straightening? Darned if I know. The only test is what works best.

Drill: Alternate grip and set of hoop on successive shots to produce both sliced and topspun checkmates. Bent diagonal thumb positions: 7, 7.5, 7, 7.5 . Hoop tilts slightly up, down, up, down. Just did it with a fallen stick in a garden we're taking care of, knocking the tops off of weeds before I extirpated them.

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Ducky Adduction with Duct Tape Leading Back to the Other Side

One's addictions in serving are just as serious as one's adductions.

But we want to operate on the pre-verbal level.

So start, reader, by going "quack-quack" and "aflac."

Or as our crew coach used to say before he got Alzheimer's, "Take ten deep breaths. Now blow it out your ass!"

All this is leading to the old conundrum regarding the shoulder.

Is tennis adduction the same as scapular adduction or should one be seduced by both of these addictions?

Perhaps the answer is to quit quacking and start mah-mah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ing or is that goat instead of sheep?

Last Saturday night in the revitalized downtown of Detroit we saw a light show involving three curious Icelandic sheep danced by three women from Italy.

Kids in the audience had battery operated hearts attached to their chests.

When these hearts lit up it was time for the kids not to go to a medical appointment but to climb up on stage in front of huge waterfalls and volcanoes and glaciers and splashy meadows on curved movie screen enclosing them.

After 50 minutes, with everybody in the crowd bah-bah-bahing, it was time to go out in the street to see the other 30 light shows and maybe play a little tennis.

When you employ spaghetti arm off of the Rory McIlroy backswing should you throw from the shoulder or from the scapula just behind the shoulder or both just before you stop that elbow?

Mah-ah-ah-ah. Quack. Pre-verbally, figure it out.

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Improved Cue for Cut the Wire Short Angle Slice Backhands

Establish two points for feeling tension build: Opposite hand (probably left) on racket throat and back of upper arm around from hitting hand.

Keep bend in arm throughout the build. Make forward hips turn synonymous with the build.

In the past I suggested circular tension between the two hands and in fact that will happen.

As cue however this instruction isn't good enough.

The bent elbow is taut and full of tension.

The tension is felt in diagonal thumb on pointy ridge 7.5 .

Radial deviation of the wrist is resistant and tension-filled as well (in slight flat wrist movement toward the radius bone of the forearm).

Learn but then ignore all this information other than to think perhaps that you (I) am stretching racket butt to keep it pointing across the net.

Focus on left hand and upper back of hitting arm and the tension build between them.

Tension at the elbow joint should help it suddenly to relax.

There is a minimum of roll in this slice. Save big double roll for special other slices. Get pitch right at outset and next keep it perfect.

Follow through normally-- up and to right-- after arm shoots straight.

One might think that control is related to accelerative spin right on the ball and the greatest acceleration here occurred too far before contact.

Straightening/straightened arm however extends a lever. If the world could just put on some weight it could spring Archimedes pretty far and fast.

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Effective One Handers Easily Topped

1) Hips straighten arm.

2) Hips build circular tension between the hands with arm already straight. (Sit and hit.)

3) Hips build circular tension between the hands with arm kept bent. Don't use triceps then but rather shoot the motion dependent suddenly relaxed arm straight. (Sit and hit.)

2) and 3) are "cut the wire" backhands. 1) is smooth and beautiful and is not. All three require diagonal thumb on back of the handle in my view. The 20 years when I didn't do that were a waste.

In 2) and 3) feel the tension not just between the hands but in back of the upper arm.

Right now I could use all three in a given match. 2) and 3) need further examination in self-feed however to see if one should edit out the other.

Also, flat shots should be closer to slice than most people think. Read the section of Don Budge's autobiography that deals with this point. He describes an unconscious lapse toward slice in the middle of his run to the trophy at Wimbledon before he finds the solution in watching a woman player hitting topspun one handers on an outlying court.

Regardless of grip then, reader, a flat shot is close to being slice. Perhaps you should make it even closer.

Some choices here: Mild slice, more speed, mild topspin.

In a recent match I won a point with a short-angled knuckleball but found the experience disconcerting and unwanted.

A shot that doesn't spin? No thanks.

Fast with mild topspin please.

To this purpose, I wish now to try something that has started to be effective in flattening out strokes on the forehand side.

Feel as if you are swinging over the top of the ball.

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Finishing Shots

Some of the school coaches in Grosse Pointe are getting interested in my experiments.

Eight high school teams were playing this morning (Saturday) on the newly re-surfaced town courts.

I watched a fabulously interesting match between a totally consistent player and a tall skinny lad who at first I thought was the North # 2 whom I had worked with in a first session.

No, this lad played for South and had a full arsenal of shots, power and touch both.

His slice stayed low enough to extract points all by itself but most of the time set up a final forehand.

Of what did the winner consist? Semi-western grip from high loop hit right through the ball-- a lot like Jack-son although Jack-son hasn't learned to flatten out that much yet.

Jack-son wants me to work with him again-- we can try some groundies where you-I-he-we think we're swinging flat over the top of the ball.

Then we can continue introduction of slice, the first step of which is seeing Rosewallian slice at YouTube "1953 Davis Cup."

Next step after that is seeing Trey Waltke's article on his slice at Tennis Player-- off-shoot of the Rosewall but without the skunk tail.

Third step: Films of Rosewall also without skunk tail.

Fourth: Self-feed on court.

Fifth: Motion dependent straightening of elbow off of cut wire leading to short angle clearing the court.

General principle: Forward hips turn always corresponds to something significant armwise. A few options each very different from the others: Straightening of arm, building of circular tension between the two hands, building similar tension but from the upper arm this time with motion dependent straightening of elbow then for acute angle hit to intersection of singles sideline and service line (short angle).

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Rory McIlroy Backswing: A Big Deal

I'm going to use it on every serve and many forehands. On a wide forehand if I think I get a faster break employing some version of traditional gravity step involving early hips turn I'll still go that way.

(Am not convinced yet however that same thing the always taught UT-- Unit Turn-- is more effectively fast.)

The McIlroy backswing entails moving shoulders first before letting hips rotation chime in.

This A) completes full stretch of stomach transverse muscles early and gets that out of the way B) puts backward and forward hips rotations closer together C) lends stability through initial flat footedness D) combines shoulders turn and independent arm movement to start racket backward on a straight path rather than pulling it inside. In service this leads more to a favorite model of mine, Queen Beatrix Bielik, who once was the best college player in the land.

There may be better first-rate serves somewhere in the world but this is the one I studied over time when Bea and I were both in Winston-Salem. Because of the straighter backswing, now, a more crosswise arm action behind one's back gets enabled sort of like Bea's.

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Rory McIlroy Backswing for a Serve

Reducing stroke production to design phase all the time, as I do, runs in the face of Malcolm Gladwell and Matthew Syed, but I would be willing to play singles against Gladwell at any time.

As for Syed, former ping-pong champion of Great Britain, I would be more wary, knowing from my newspaper experience that Tom Wiswell, former world champion of checkers, once took a game or two of chess from Bobby Fischer.

Syed is an expert on how new design won't stand up to 10,000 hours of having ingrained something as exemplified by his hapless attempt to return serve with a new design from table tennis in tennis against Michael Stich.

Yah-yah-yah.

But any new design is probably a return to an old design, maybe one that one spent 10,000 hours on, the old design again but with a new twist.

So to build on posts #ed 2292 and 2294-5 I now keep feet flat after the roll-out of strings. The front heel only comes up as part of the slow stuff and body settle at top of the second wall of my gorge.

This puts backward hips turn and forward hips turn closer together as in a Ted Williams baseball swing.

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How Slow Can You Go?

Up together down together but halfway down the hands separate and continue down. During this continuation the racket can roll open somewhat or a lot. The server should experiment with different amounts, e.g., 10 degrees, 12 degrees, 31 degrees, etc.

Now the racket starts a fast traverse around opposite wall of a steep gorge.

Why fast?

To make time at top of the gorge to see how slow one can go.

I speak of bending the arm very slowly but with no further use of muscle. A bit of muscle does get used immediately after the racket has opened down low.

And then the arm will start to bend. How much or little and when and for what duration? And can one coordinate slowness of one's breath with motion dependent torque?

Why shouldn't one oxygenate at address?

One could match each bob up of the on-edge racket with a short intake of breath.

And each bob downward with a quick exhalation.

Followed by a longer intake for the final bob up.

And a very long exhalation until the racket arm begins to relax bent, coordinated with intake as long as the previous outtake.

I used to mess with breathing in connection with the parts of any serve. Later I decided that breathing should remain unconscious.

The grunters and shriekers of the game are pretty conscious about breath, but being loud is certainly no necessity for someone like Federer.

Try some coordination and forget it and then try it again. Feel around always in a sport like tennis or golf.

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Revision

In the Brian Gordon article linked to post # 2293, Brian says, "You can't train a motion dependent torque in the same way you can train a muscle driven joint torque."

Non-muscular torques: elbow and wrist extension. Muscular torques: Elbow throw (adduction), trunk rotation, legs.

In the light of this intelligence, I feel I should revise the order of contribution suggested in # 2293 .

Also, I'm pretty sure I don't want anything muscular going on in the arm compression-extension complex but should just let the bending and extending be relaxed and loose, i.e., "spaghetti arm."

That leaves as central reverse of shoulder traverse (muscular).

Everything else in the present experiment should stay the same.

Nerve locking agent rendering triceps (elbow extensor) useless showed little negative effect on a serve, according to Brian.

So stop the elbow, say I. That plus totally relaxed arm is how arm extends FAST.

Trial

As usual, nothing expected came true. But a few good serves happened. Throughout most of the self-feed session they lurked somewhere in the dark waiting to come out.

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Playing the Numbers

We combine three arrows simultaneously changing direction and color: external-internal twist, compression-extension, elbow draw back-elbow fly forward.

These three builds combine as one into a powerful release.

I may be right, I may be wrong, But I've got the right to sing this song.-- Pete Seeger

The subject here is not exacerbation of hatred for Americans but rather the classic conundrum of all courtdom whether in tennis or law: Is this physical action or sentence to be served concurrently or in sequence?

We may have identified some key contributors to racket head speed but are we sure they should fire at once?

We are not. We hope, rather optimistically, that some may overpower others to create the greatest possible result.

We turn now to charts one, two and three in an article by Brian Gordon: "contributors to racket head speed at low point"..."at halfway point"..."before contact:"

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/biomechanics/brian_gordon/serve_tennis_science%20_brian_gordon/serve_tennis_science%20_brian_gordon.html

Can we work backwards to take these numbers into imperative act? Can we even do that?

Remember, reader, I'm just following some quirky progression per usual-- roll-up in crew applied to another sport.

A loose throw despite the conflicting forces within it is what we want.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XryKA3z_uWk

To try: Simultaneity of conflicted arm folding and conflicted elbow's change of direction-- two different pressure builds.

Delayed: Backward twist of arm, at least for a rotorded server. This can happen now with actual throw of elbow.

Worst case: Won't work.

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Rory McIlroy's Backswing

We may like Caroline Wozniacki. I certainly do except for some of her dresses and the way she grimaces as she looks up with open mouth at her tossed ball as if she is a baby bird hoping to be fed.

But we shouldn't dismiss her former fiance Rory McIlroy, particularly his forehand backswing. (Oh, sorry for confusing two different sports.)

The golfer Ricky Fowler advised keeping hips still to activate the rubber bands in the gut.

The golfer Rory McIlroy rejects that notion asserting that shoulders won't rotate backward far enough.

So he advises holding hips in place first but then letting them go to complete the full shoulders turn.

I tried this with my new forehands and was not displeased.

I conclude that the concept of unit turn in tennis where it applies to hips and shoulders moving together is a crock of ka-ka.

Note: You can tell here that I went to the dentist yesterday before going to the court. Dr. Sweeney's wife came up to the dental chair and announced that he was a bit hung up pulling teeth in another room. "Would you like a magazine?" she asked. "Yes." "What kind of magazine?" "Golf magazines." She brought two.

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Cue Talk in Billiards, Theater and Tennis Serve

In theater, join a group. In billiards, go to this website:

https://www.youtube.com/user/DrDaveBilliards

In serving, decide whether one's motion will include a conscious hitting pause, the suspicion of such a conscious pause, or no pause at all.

Here generality ends as we (I) become personal.

Building on two "feels" discovered in the recent posts just before this one, I opt for even more continuity of motion to generate a third such "feel."

Feel 1) uses feather from rowing as the two hands separate in their gravity-determined fall. If your rowboat had pins through the oarlocks so that you never could learn how to row properly, roll the racket open now from halfway down to bottom of its first fall.

Feel 2) uses newfound energy from this transformation for a mountain-climber's traverse.

Operative image is still a gorge, but your racket no longer follows the fall line on its way up.

It does fall down the fall line (first side of the gorge) but traverses around the opposite wall to take itself to the top, i.e., to that point where elbow, shoulder and elbow line up.

But in so doing, in no way does it hesitate. That change of direction, if you want to call it a bit of a pause, is so fast that nobody can see it. I draw on my experience in rowing again, namely at the catch. (And I did race a couple weeks ago at the 175th Anniversary of the Detroit Boat Club, America's oldest.)

With no hesitation one's racket head enters and leaves the forest of the conflict of arrows.

Already the arm has begun its transformation from straight to fully pressed together as it prematurely tries to transform from fully pressed together to fully straight.

Already the arm has begun its conflict between external and internal rotations.

To this we now add a third conflicted feel: Arm trying to fly forward against momentum generated from the circular mountain-climber's traverse. Elbow tries here to fly forward in the horrid because sterile Latinate term known as "adduction."

We combine three arrows simultaneously changing direction and color: external-internal twist, compression-extension, elbow draw back-elbow fly forward.

These three builds combine as one into a powerful release.

The paradox of all this: No pause and yet there is a pause. The three motions slowed and changed direction-- did they not?

Very nice will be if rising ground force adds to this pressure.

Moral: Few people-- three or four-- could explain best serves in the world to the general tennis playing public with clarity enough that anyone could use this precious knowledge.

While Tennis Player including its forearm has immeasurably added to this knowledge (I try to draw on that here), the most successful teachers come down to Goran Ivanisevic and his student-protegee Ivan Ljubicic accounting between them for Marin Cilic and Milos Raonic. Whoever helped John Isner develop his serve should be equally well known.

Such brains behind the scene-- perhaps wisely-- don't share.

Ivanisevic is a big concealer when he says, "Throw the ball up and hit it."

The ordinary tennis player, if sufficiently passionate, is therefore left to work things out on his own.

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Me, I think I'll try a quickly smooth yet not snapped feather from rowing as the two hands separate going down. Will this be significantly different from anything tried in the past?

Indeed.

After that I shall enjoy the unencumbered rise of the hands to best throwing position.

Opening racket in this manner leads one to immediately want to raise the racket on a wider and more roundabout path than that formed by the gravity which took it down. I went with this "feel" and was not displeased.

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Fabulous Furniture as Seen through the Eyes of an Artist

Scientists and artists are not as far apart as is commonly supposed.

The artist wishes to be more subjective, doesn’t consider his insertion of opinion to be tragic, necessarily.

His subjectivity, if nothing else, offers some focus though focus of a different sort.

In the following article by Brian Gordon, note the spinning barrel. It used to be brown. Now it is red.

To identify it, let’s use the old publisher’s term from a time when publishers had credibility. The publishers would refer to “furniture,” which would mean photographs, charts, drawings, objects or anything else inserted into a text.

The furniture here is # 12 if one counts down from the top. It is called “Tilting the Torso Increase Rotation.”

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/biomechanics/brian_gordon/upward_swing_part_1/upward_swing_part_1.html

In another article here, also by Brian Gordon, please note furniture # 3, where two arrow points keep coming together.

Note also where in the serve this happens. Adduction (independent throw of elbow) just occurred.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/biomechanics/brian_gordon/upward_swing_part_1/upward_swing_part_1.html

In this next Brian Gordon article, please note furniture # 11, an animation which is alternately called “Muscle Pull Direction: External Rotation” and “Muscle Pull Direction: Internal Rotation.” In fact, the yellow word “external” is replaced by the red word “internal" even as one watches, with the change of color corresponding to the change of arrow direction occurring at the same time.

If this isn’t going to help somebody’s serve, I don’t know what will.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/biomechanics/brian_gordon/serve_back_swing_upper_body/serve_back_swing_upper_body.html

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Upper Register McEnrueful, Slap-Shot and Federfore

Learn or practice slap-shot, which isn't really a slap-shot, first. One cannot distort the racket through contact with high and nonexistent ice, but the term "slap-shot" does convey the notion of a 45-degree hitting drop before level section of the swing begins.

To prepare, raise both hands combined with "natural turn of the shoulders," Chrissie's words.

Second, learn or practice the McEnrueful, for which, if you ever hit it, you may have tried down and up backswing.

From racket's new high position one can roll the strings square during the hitting drop-- that early.

Alternate the two grips with same backswing and contact point. What is the difference in how and where the ball goes?

Third, learn or practice the Federfore. Although both hands start up together the hitting arm travels only half as far as in the other two shots. Dog pat starting so soon puts emphasis where it belongs-- on flip and pull and roll.

Beware: Thoroughly know the three grips required and how most easily to adjust to the desired one.

Personal note: Original crossing move of opposite hand is now the same for all of these shots whether upper or lower register.

General note: Suppose you don't like this or any other equally bizarre scheme in the game? Strive mightily then to imitate everybody else. Next, if you get jaded, become a tennis commentato.