A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Good Tennis, Fully Clothed

http://vimeo.com/62124101

[bottle]

Poor John Isner

Poor John, all mixed up with with the slickie Jonnie R. Williams, who has a condo at the Bollettieri Academy and is the key figure in the Bob and Maureen McDonnell corruption trial.

Jonnie is so slick, according to the New York Times, that he was able to hire both Isner and golfer Fred Couples as "paid pitchmen" for Williams' product Anatabloc.

I have no stake in the destruction of Bob McDonnell, the Virginia governor who had to quit. I don't even live in Virginia any more. But I do have arthritis. And I was interested in such drugs ("supplements" they sometimes are called) as Celebrex and Anatabloc.

When I went on line, I found some expert saying the side effects for Celebrex and Anatabloc are about the same. Anatabloc, according to the Times, is made from a synthetic version of a chemical found in tobacco. Williams' company that produces it is called "Star Scientific."

Williams is such a charming extrovert that you just want to believe anything he says, the Times reports.

Well, I see the name Anatabloc on Isner's hat or is it his shirt.

My family physician prescribed Celebrex for me once the price came down and it may have reduced my inflammation somewhat. In selling me on it, however, she told me that it had totally transformed her mother's life.

Then her mother had a stroke.

[stotty]

Thank you, Stotty, for your help in the invention of this shot.

My pleasure...

[bottle]

I'm Buying. Here's a New Forehand. It's on Me.

Using the similarity between the John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors forehands, take the racket back in a slow skunk's tail.

And no, reader, you did not arrive at this perception of similarity by yourself. It came from Jimmy Arias broadcasting a Special Olympics match between McEnroe and Connors as parcel of the Plowshares Old Fart Series.

Because Connors was playing with two hip replacements, McEnroe kept hitting deep to the center of the court, a strategy which whether worked out by telephone in advance enabled him, McEnroe, to win very easily without making Connors look bad.

The similarity in forehands extends to Connors' former girlfriends Tracycakes and Chris Evert. I don't know for a fact whether Jimmy ever went out with Tracycakes but just look at their forehands and you will see what I mean. Check out the forehand of Giraldo Rivera as well.

I have not studied these forehands enough to state how long each of these persons keeps opposite hand pulling the racket around, but I am suggesting to you, reader, that maybe you need not worry about this.

We have learned from our study of Federflora that the two most accepted ways of getting the racket back are 1) keep left hand on racket and 2) point across at right fence with left hand.

Roger Federer like most players hitting the ATP3 forehand does both in the indicated sequence. Variety occurs not in sequence but in amount of item.

Again, I ask, why bother? Both methods work, do they not? So why use both? Just choose the one you like better.

To start out for my proposed new shot I recommend the 2/3 eastern grip of ED FAULKNER'S TENNIS over the 3/3 eastern grip of Roger Federer. Keep 3/3 for Federfore.

The 2/3 is an exceedingly comfortable grip in that it encloses the entire racket handle like a glove or, well, never mind.

The heel of the hand is on right bevel. The base knuckle of the index finger is on right vertical panel. The thumb is wrapped around the left vertical panel. The fingertips are wrapped around everything else, i.e., lower right bevel, bottom, lower left bevel and again left vertical panel.

This writer, reader, advises that you learn both the words and the numbers for all reference points on a tennis racket. Contrary to popular belief, this information will not harm you and may in fact come in handy. Above all, keep the grip loose.

A choice to use Connors' skunk tail could well be determined by waiting position with racket tip at level of left shoulder, cheated over there for a one-hand backhand.

Me, I like a simple pointing across with left hand from there. The racket tip can keep its height and slowly circle around yourself as if you are Tracycakes with pigtails waving an ice cream cone.

From ice cream cone or skunk tail behind you, the racket head can then fall to parallel with court and drive straight through the ball.

Thank you, Stotty, for your help in the invention of this shot.

[bottle]

Sit-And-Hit Backhand Excellence Further Surmised

It has now been 37 years since VIC BRADEN'S TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE came out-- time then for further I mean futuristic thought on his great backhand.

Having witnessed it, I call Vic Braden's backhand a great shot. Granted, he was only hitting it from self-feed. But he did so for FIVE-AND-ONE-HALF HOURS. That's right. He hit very economical topspin backhands that bounced in turbo-drive to the top of a huge tent . On outlying courts that also were under the circus tent, teaching pros from all over Virginia gave free lessons. On Vic's court, Vic carried forth in monologue, dialogue and quadrupalogue while dropping balls in order to hit backhands beneath the pelting rain.

Cut to Harry Constant in a Michigan restaurant telling me about playing Vic when both were in college. Harry was at Hillsboro, Vic at Kalamazoo. Harry was on the varsity squad but just had slipped off the bottom of the team ladder. So was not scheduled to play although he went along with the team to Kalamazoo. But the Kalamazoo coach saw him and asked him if he wanted to play. Vic Braden already had his topspin backhand and his topspin everything, Harry said, but he (Harry) like Harry's team-mates barely even knew what topspin was. (Yes Harry did not fare well in his match that day but may have gotten to play doubles later as Vic Braden's partner, I forget.)

Cut to Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith smiling indulgently but wryly at Vic Braden's sit-and-hit forehand in the VCR TENNIS OUR WAY. Was there a similar scene involving the Braden backhand? Certainly not.

Cut to the paragraph of Vic Seixas' autobiography where the one Vic tells us-- in disdain-- that in singles he crushed the other Vic. But Vic Seixas praises Vic Braden's backhand.

Cut to the paragraph of TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE where Vic Braden describes himself as a youth studying Don Budge's backhand through the knothole in a wood fence.

Cut to Front Royal, Virginia, where I am playing Harry Sartelle, a six-foot-six dentist telling me that he modeled his backhand on Braden's in TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE.

Only Harry Sartelle's backhand, while good, is certainly not sit-and-hit and probably resembles Braden's in not a single point except for maybe the thumb-on-a-diagonal Don Budge grip.

Cut to the paragraph in TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE where Vic Braden describes himself hitting backhands from hips only with the aid of a leather holster specially fashioned for him by an Argentine leather craftsman.

To me, this "swinging from the hips" contains the mystery or missing ingredient that Braden and his co-author Bill Bruns never quite sufficiently explained-- at least not in a way that would have made my many experiments with this shot consistently work.

The key, I think now, has finally been provided to me by WBTC, a contributor to the TennisPlayer forearm during two widely separated periods.

In repeated posts, WBTC spoke of "a backhand punch" comparing it to the murderous backhand punch outlawed in boxing. WBTC advised students of tennis to develop this backhand punch through self-experiment with boxing's body bag.

"Punch" can very effectively function in a one hand backhand, I now think, and can best be described in the expression "cut the wire," which reached me fourth or ninth hand allegedly from Roger Federer. (Roger certainly wasn't trying to reach my person, but a Michigan teaching pro supposedly picked up on what Roger said.)

But I am not at all certain that the backhand punch I desire need be murderous.

However a cut the wire punch is effective in a sit-and-hit backhand.

Racket settles down on both hands to thigh above the knee just as front foot also settles down. Racket should be several inches out from knee in my personal case.

This early straightening of the hitting arm, provided that one has stepped out on a 45-degree angle to the net, leaves hips free to drive the shoulder into the shot while doing little else.

But the hips rotation's other function, as far as I am concerned, is to load the two hands for dramatic if subtle punch.

The hips driving under the maximum-wound shoulders move the hitting shoulder as if both hips and shoulders are gears of different size.

The hips want to bring both shoulder and racket tip powerfully around (shoulder to where upper body is parallel with sideline).

Guide hand, however, keeps the racket straight. Baseball sluggers call this "pulling the knob straight toward the ball."

In tennis, springiness can thus develop between the two hands.

As rear hand then releases, an extra bit of acceleration is imparted to the racket and ball.

Put another way, the hitting hand stubs out of the guide hand.

The extra bit of acceleration is what makes this minimalist topspun shot work.
No huge loop is needed and in fact is a nuisance to discard.

[bottle]

Perpendicular Norm in Backhands and Serves

If you keep thinking about a single subject long enough, you may go pazzo or your thoughts crystallize ("gel" is perhaps the better verb in sports) or both. Conceivably, you become a tennis player better than most at your age.

1) Edge-down backhands. By keeping backhand edges square throughout the entire cycle per ED FAULKNER'S TENNIS you may develop unexpected consistency. In a recent seniors carousel-determined round-robin while I was spraying forehands all over the place I never missed a single backhand.

Ed Faulkner said, "Opening racket face makes height and spin control uncertain. Have player understand importance of keeping racket face perpendicular throughout swing to ensure control. Right thumb should sense this, and fingers of left hand during backswing."

Elsewhere in the book he suggests that backhands with extreme amount of roll in them (flat or topspin-- less of a problem in slice) may produce sporadic great result but are difficult FOR MOST PEOPLE to replicate.

2) Edge-on serves. Paul Metzler of Australia in my view is one of a few tennis writers who has ever succeeded in becoming sufficiently subjective about technique. To serve with more power, he asserted, he turned the strings out a little during his backswing; to serve with more control, he kept the strings turned in a little during his backswing. It was all a single thought.

Ed Faulkner advocates keeping hitting side of strings vertical and faced toward left fence to begin. Then, after basic down and up motion, the hitting side should face the right fence.

This seems to me the interesting norm. A player should learn it and then explore in either direction but form all variations through amount of opening out of the strings during the basic down-and-up rhythm.

Mechanical alternative to this scheme is exotic address such as used by Isner and Raonic before the serve even begins.

Those used to edge-on ("perpendicular racket") however can next explore the differing degrees of opening out without reinventing the wheel.

[bottle]

Chi Troppo Pensa, Passo Diventa...

bottle, I am reminded to an old Italian adage, which also applies to me btw:

quote: Chi troppo pensa, pazzo diventa...

which literally means: "he who thinks too much goes crazy"....

But, I can't stop doing it either...

My new motto. Whoever thinks too much goes nuts. But whoever doesn't think enough already is nuts. So I am determined to think the right amount.

Should we remove all chess from tennis and play like Fabio Fognini? Remember, Fabio doesn't teach geometry like John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors or Novak Djokovic.

Ironically, an Italian professor of women's studies married to the editor of the Wake Forest (University) Press is the best authority on American anti-intellectualism I know.

And he who serves like Dementieva is dimenta.

Phil Picuri: "I noticed my grip occurs automatically... (only thing I don't think about...)"

No, hook thumb joint on 7.5 when hitting a Federfore. And don't wrap first thumb digit on left vertical panel. Just let it ride, barely in the air. The thumb joint is enough connection. This helps carry out the instruction delivered to me by the Winston-Salem Russian dentist now living west of Chicago, Ksenia. That name means otherness or individual or alienated one. She told me to hold the racket like a bird's nest even though I was her tennis instructor. I like the image. It makes me think of, besides grip...Oh, never mind.

In Ziegenfusses-- forehands in which the arm feels forward before the body core chimes in, I discovered in self-feed yesterday that I can do this with the McEnrueful, or if not that then with McEnrueful grip (1.5/2.5).

Ziegenfusses are shots that incorporate one's common sense contempt for the often too logical "kinetic chain."

I love shots that technically speaking follow ground force up and out but I love Ziegenfusses too.

If doing Ziegenfuss with 2/3 one can replace arm roll with arm scissor. If doing Ziegenfussisch McEnrueful one can replace arm scissor with arm roll.

How about that, Phil? You may be convinced that I am presenting too much information here and am trying overly hard to think too much, but isn't the way teaching pros sometimes talk about arm scissor and arm roll in the same breath outrageous, leaving some unsuspecting student to try to do both at the same time?

Outrageous, that's what.

[bottle]

Yeah, but I had a beautiful interlocking grip in golf like that of my father, an almost scratch golfer, and then a teaching pro in Lakeville, Connecticut changed it to Hogan's overlap and within five minutes I was hitting 6-irons 50 feet farther.

[gzhpcu]

I noticed my grip occurs automatically... (only thing I don't think about...)

[bottle]

Middle Joint of Thumb on 7.5 Pointy Ridge for a Federfore

A good grip feels good, but if it doesn't, maybe some part of it will.

Or maybe some part of the grip can cue the rest, thereby increasing confidence in some important shot.

My recent attempt at placing thumb on left bevel, i.e., panel eight, like most experiments was negative. It didn't do anything particularly positive for me so I abandoned it. The experiment came from reading ED FAULKNER'S TENNIS on semiwestern grip.

Still, my curiosity to try that experiment tells me that I must have been a little uneasy with thumb on left vertical panel. There it rode for more than a decade.

Was this just me? Probably. The size of my hand? The size of my handle?

Progressions often lead to subtle change though not the one you had in mind.

[bottle]

So, just accept it. You maybe don't find what you're looking for but it makes you better. (I hate people who aren't crazy enough. "Tied to the apron strings of civilization." From MARITIME ODE by Alvaro de Campos, a heteronym of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, translation by Edwin Honig.)

[gzhpcu]

bottle, I am reminded to an old Italian adage, which also applies to me btw:

Chi troppo pensa, pazzo diventa...

which literally means: "he who thinks too much goes crazy"....

But, I can't stop doing it either...

[bottle]

Power of a New Video

Upon embedding a video in one of my progressional posts, I often then re-view it in light of the new context just created.

Here, in re-viewing the 2014 Euro exhibition between Michael Stich and John McEnroe generously provided by Steve, I see that Stich's racket is slightly closed at top of his "up."

Still, the racket tip is very far back-- let's say almost perpendicular to the rear fence.

To me, this position is determined by amount of opening out of the racket face-- just not quite as much as would cause a perfectly on edge racket.

The opening out still exists, however, and is crucial to getting off a good delayed throw forward of the upper arm. (Such throw of the elbow, while involving whole body, has also to come independently from the relaxed shoulder.)

Will slightly closed racket aid Stich's tight curlicue? Probably.

[bottle]

Open Out Or Close In?

I would add: keep a very loose grip, on the take back make sure that the face of the racket is facing your head (making a halo...). That which friend Ed refers to is pronation...

I am once again amazed at how some seemingly simple thing is not, how different persons can interpret-- legitimately-- in diametrically opposed not to mention slantwise difference.

Palm-down lectures would include Vic Braden, and yes, in this kind of serving one CAN twist racket counter-clockwise on the up-down-and-up so that now hitting side faces right fence.

I'll try it in one serve or for the rest of my life without waiting weeks or years for disenchantment with my present turning out of the strings to set in.

Predominant emphasis right now however is with opening out the strings as they pass the right ankle (John M. Barnaby) or somewhere but gradually in up-down-up repeatable apparatus (Ed Faulkner).

Barnaby's book came out when TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE did. Without naming Braden, the perhaps too civilized Barnaby clearly thought "Braden" when he objected to the extra curliques in a Braden-type serve.

I see as identical Faulkner's bias for turning out though without specification as to where. Not wanting to do it while falling hands are linked, I think it ought to start at separation and finish precisely at the second "up."

Then there are initial addresses where palm faces upward such as Milos Raonic or at least one serve taught long ago in video by Oscar Wegner.

I see Faulkner's recommendation as square strings faced neither down or up at least at the crucial point of second up.

Arm can then bend and go into a Stich-like curlicue (a tight curlicue for sure!) in rapid sequence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwCkC0CaORE

Ed Faulkner makes the big point that a serve ought to build momentum, and this process is aided by holding elbow back toward rear fence during beginning of the throw.

To criticize some of my own previous efforts, I've spent too many years hung up on just the twisting aspect of getting racket tip low.

I want to be pitching elbow forward ("adduction"?) during the racket lowering. Racket tip will quite naturally fly out low and to the right.

[gzhpcu]

I would add: keep a very loose grip, on the take back make sure that the face of the racket is facing your head (making a halo...). That which friend Ed refers to is pronation...