A New Year's Serve

[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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[lobndropshot]

Nope he has a lacoste hat

[bottle]

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

[bottle]

John Isner Could Change Word ANATABLOC To Refer To His Serve?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/08/11/rock-creek-suspends-sales/13926391/

[bottle]

No Miracles

One should never underestimate the power of DNA in tennis strokes. Yes, DNA does exist in tennis strokes. I can testify to this from having coached many sets of identical twins over the many years I have been coaching. Twins often (not always) have remarkably similar looking strokes and swing paths to each other. The slight differences they do have is likely due to environment...but DNA clearly is the more influential.

I'm not quite sure what all this means in the context of Federer's forehand...or McEnroe's come to that, but I guess it must mean both players possess something we simply cannot have because it is theirs and theirs only.

I can accept that-- have to in fact since I cut my acting teeth as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in TWELFTH NIGHT, which is all about twins and how I mistake the one for the other and get in a sword fight with a robust guy who I thought was a feeble girl.

At the same time I can continue thinking that a Federfore, "a John McEnroe forehand," "a Chris Evert forehand," or "a Ziegenfuss" has certain specific characteristics that any player can identify.

Next he can try developing these characteristics in self-fed strokes then rallied strokes and finally in match play.

So the names are really a form of classification, conventions like a sonnet, a limerick, a villanelle.

My proposal is to bring along a cohesive bunch of these name forms just to see where the larger sea voyage will land.

There will be surprises. The shot one thought would work best will prove the worst, etc., but one will end up with a game unlike anyone else's. Which has to be good in a sport where everybody is trying to impose his/her will on everybody else.

The originality may not be vastly effective in itself. Perhaps one would play at a higher level by using the most ordinary shot possible and certainly not a John McEnroe forehand.

On the other hand one's opponents will have to deal with balls they are not used to.

Example of a personal surprise: My talk over the years of hitting a "Ziegenfuss" has led me to the conviction that there is more Ziegenfuss in the Evert/Connors/McEnroe forehand than I thought. And the reverse is just as true. More Evert/Connors/McEnroe in a Ziegenfuss.

Valerie Ziegenfuss (goat's foot) of course was a top tour player before she went into Real Estate.

One time she walked through the double doors of a Texas bar. A stranger there convinced her to swing her arm first and body second to extend her followthrough.

Well, I've now decided-- especially in Evert/Connors imitation-- ,that, thinking of scythe-like arm swing as an entity separate from body swing is not going to harm me or anyone.

Try it right now. With one's best version of eastern grip which is probably the most old-fashioned one (2/3), mime a few arm strokes with racket but no ball or body core.

Then add a subtle burst of kinetic chain somewhere near the middle of the scythe-like stroke.

The form of this shot is different from the Dry Bones template-- where foot bone's connected to the shin bone, etc.

Energy can still rise up through the body "like fast-moving sap" as John Updike put it, but this happens in a concentrated burst in the middle of the smooth swing of the scythe. You simply put some body into the shot. If you have to analyze this, the body weight you apply is both linear and circular.

Kinetic chain has transformed from the foolish, Cartesian and overly conceptual kinetic chain infecting tennis to the true and reliable and very quick kinetic chain of a Muhammad Ali jab from foot to fist. I argue here that kinetic chain should never be protracted, that it is a concentrate set in the middle of a sweep.

But don't think! Thought alert! We all know that too much theory sucks since we're tennis players!

(We also are rather superstitious, being tennis players.)

I still don't know, despite all the Brian Gordon I've studied, whether a Federfore should consist of body first or arm first, whether arm melds into body thrust or the opposite, whether there is arm, then arm and body, then more arm through acceleration-deceleration, etc.

One probably is better off not knowing and just trying some combination while remaining hopeful.

When one starts realizing the similarity between McEnroe and Connors however (thanks again Jimmy Arias for pointing that out), one may gravitate like me toward the body stroke embedded in scythe swing concept.

Federfore may or may not follow this pattern, probably not.

But one can hit practically anything from a Jimmy Connors backswing.

Consider again but all at once: Jimmy Connors, Chris Evert, Tracy Austin and John McEnroe. They all won the U.S. Open-- easily-- without the sucky and too teacherly rule that you must keep opposite hand on the racket to turn the shoulders.

The teacher who came up with that forehand rule was a grade school shop teacher and a very bad one at that.

[stotty]

Dna

One should never underestimate the power of DNA in tennis strokes. Yes, DNA does exist in tennis strokes. I can testify to this from having coached many sets of identical twins over the many years I have been coaching. Twins often (not always) have remarkably similar looking strokes and swing paths to each other. The slight differences they do have is likely down to environment...but DNA clearly is the more influential.

I'm not quite sure what all this means in the context of Federer's forehand...or McEnroe's come to to that, but I guess it must mean both players possess something we simply cannot have because it is theirs and theirs only.

[bottle]

Take Your Hat Off At The U.S. Open, John Isner!

The hat on your head is worse than your ankle sprain, John.

Your continued support of ANATABLOC violates a clause whether worded or implied in your agreement with Jonnie Williams, the CEO of "Star Scientific."

That clause states that you have a relationship of good faith with Star Scientific, with immediate cancellation of the agreement the possibility if either party violates this basic trust.

Jonnie Williams agreed not to embarrass either you or Fred Couples if the two of you became pitchmen for his insufficiently tested dietary supplement.

Jonnie is a sleazebag, John, and I am extremely sorry that you got mixed up with him, but are YOU sorry? I can't see any evidence.

Jonnie trades cars, trips, clothes and other perks for governormental favors. The trial of the McDonnells of Virginia so far has proven at least this much.

("But EVERYBODY does it," whine the braindead conservatives of Michigan. Does that make it right?)

Your name is on the product, John, so take it off.

[bottle]

Fabulous. I'm glad I asked.

[lobndropshot]

The lob and the dropshot are by far my two favorite shots. The combo is called the Yo Yo because its like having the other guy on a string.

Yes I have lobbed and drop-shotted my way through a number of matches. Making my opponents mutter, curse, and throw their rackets. I once had a player scream at me during a point to "hit the fucking ball you fucking pussy!"

He got that mouth full out before the ball bounced.

Those were the high school days. The team coach couldn't believe I was beating all the top players and had me play them six times before he let me have top spot. In all fairness I wouldn't have let me have the spot either, it is embarrassing to have a pusher in the top spot.

The funny thing is, a few years later I was home for the summer. Feeling cocky, after playing college tennis, I was out at the park and my coach brings this guy out to play practice sets. The guy's name was Bob but everyone called him Polish Bob. This guy was the best pusher I have ever seen. That day Bob humbled me 6-0, 6-0, 6-0. After each set he would change his tube socks and hang them on the fence. It took me the whole summer to figure out how to beat Polish Bob. Talk about a person that could sling a yoyo.

Have you ever played with a yoyo?

[bottle]

Should have pulled or dug those weeds out by the roots. (I speak as the gardener I currently am. My partner and I and one assistant take care of a number of gardens for loot.)

But no, those perfect moonballs don't sound boring at all. I tried to hook my son on tennis that way. We both hit moonballs until he got good at it. Seemed like a natural transition to lower hit balls loaded with topspin. I tried this with some of my beginning tennis students (again for loot) and was more successful than with my son.

All my son knew was that both of his parents played a lot of tennis and he was going to rebel.

Tell me, lobndropshot, what is your actual experience with lob and dropshot? Did you do it? Did you witness it being done to you as if you were an impartial observer hovering above the court in an out-of-body experience even as you were the actual player being victimized?

In all the singles I've played, strict lob and dropshot (in unvarying sequence) only happened to me twice. The first time was an MIT professor on the public courts in Milford, Massachusetts. The bespectacled guy was so brilliant that he didn't want to waste time or energy ever. So I don't think in all of his tennis history he ever bothered to learn any tennis strokes other than a lob, a dropshot, and maybe a serve. I can't remember his serve but he must have had one. I lost in the third, thoroughly worn down and resolving never to be surprised by this solid strategy again.

Good overhead practice though.

[lobndropshot]

My coach and I used to spend hours practicing the moon ball. We loved it.

The goal was to either pin the other guy against the back fence or hit the perfect moon ball. A ball that would bounce on the baseline and then bounce over the back fence. We would keep score and first to hit 5 perfect moon balls won. Does that sound boring to you?

Looking back, most of the drills my coach had me do would have seamed boring to an outsider. But, my coach spent little time on practicing hitting the ball hard. He thought hitting hard was easy and hitting the ball in 2,000 times in a row was hard. Which in retrospect is the reason a hard hitting player is my biggest weakness.

Bottle its funny you mention the sickle. I found one in my mother closet. It was from Finland and belonged to my great grandfather. It was one of the things he brought to Bismark North Dakota when he immigrated in the late 1800s.

Being young and not aware of the value of this item to my mother I preceded to take into the back yard to hack away at the enormous weeds we had. Bottle, it was the best forehand practice I had ever had even if my mother wasn't to happy to find out I used an antique to clean up the back yard.