A New Year's Serve

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Injury as Excuse for Creation or Foolishness

Recurrence of calf strain or tear was portended by continued knottedness in muscle for the past year.

The new injury however is coincident with a trip we're about to take. I'm hoping for 1) healing in the next 10 days, 2) Recurrence of brainstorms that are positive, not foolish like the backhand I invented in Mexico.

In any case I found a good substitute for tomorrow's doubles.

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The Rafter Spin Cycle

Anyone can figure out what Patrick Rafter told Will Hamilton without joining Fuzzy Yellow Balls and becoming one of 47 million persons paying money. The trick is to go to discussion boards.

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Overheard

A tot walking past, to his mother:

"He's playing good tennis."

The mother interrupts to tell me.

"Oh good. Thank him! Maybe I'm getting somewhere after all! It just took 74 years."

I resume my session.

The tot cries, "Bang! Bang! Bang-Bang-Bang!"

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Racket Head Speed

The form one desires may depend on more racket head speed. The "cut the wire" cue or "pull the sword out of its thousand-year-old rusted scabbard" or "Extract Excalibur from the boulder" could do the trick.

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Cut the Wire BH, Influenced by D. Thiem, Continued and Developed

Other influences: Dive bombers of World War II.

Rusty scabbards of 300 years before that.

Two beer-bellied champions from Detroit Golf Club.

Working principle: Wrong or partially right.

The ingredients: Flat wrist only comfortably cocked.

Flying grip change to full spread of first two fingers opposing extended thumb.

Up and down dive bomb motion commencing from end of straight-arming grip change through bending at elbow followed by

Tug-o-war between the two hands

and

Cutting of the wire.

Text: The beer-bellied champions (golfers) won the doubles crown of the huge Detroit Golf Club. Who knows whether the competition was straight or best ball. The pair had respective handicaps of five and zero. Zero was having a Saturday night party to celebrate the mowing of his lawn and impress his new fiancee, Shelley.

The guys are about 50 years old. I asked them separately, "Do you ever mess with your swing?" The answer in both cases was a resounding "No."

But neither of them was Jack Nicklaus changing his strokes every day. Or Tom Watson inventing some new cue for himself on the twelfth hole of a major.

So, in pursuit of my latest 1htsbh, I return to my own iteration bearing a LOOSE resemblance to Dominic Thiem-- the shot I've been working up in two-bounce strikes against a bangboard.

In DT himself one sees early turnover of the racket permitting a straight lift with no twisting in it and not unrelated to a hinged up right hand.

One owes it to oneself-- in order to fully open oneself to desired influence-- to imitate at first Dominic Thiem in every fine detail including the late flattening of his wrist.

Then and only then may one return to present iteration with wrist initially flattened before any recognition that one will hit a backhand stroke.

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"Cut the Wire" Backhands

My son-in-law says that Roger Federer said that one ought to "cut the wire" when hitting a 1htsbh.

Technically, neither of these persons is my son-in-law much less brother-in-law, so maybe Roger didn't say that but try it, reader, anyway.

In my present configuration-- the one I used against a bangboard yesterday-- flying grip change melds into arm twisting while lifting, which melds into arm bending, with all of this likened to a building wave.

I'm not going to worry about much else, viz., did a forward or backward stride occur or not occur.

There I am with arm in a nice medium high position comfortably bent-- could have gotten there through a less straight-wristed and therefore more exotic route the way Dominic Thiem does, and who ever really knows what the stupid little thing is that might make a big difference until one has variety in one's experience.

But, if I am going to "cut the wire," the time has come to build tension so that the phrase will mean something when hitting hand releases from guide hand.

One may or may not know an ideal pattern for racket tip to lower-- better to have one's clear ideal firmly in mind.

You have two hands on the racket, reader, so build up tension between them through the development of opposite forces.

For me this will be 1) backward force, which will come from straightening the arm and keying (i.e., twisting the racket tip down) while holding the hand back, and 2) forward force, which will come exclusively from rotating the hips forward. If stepping out I will do so with a closed foot which then pivots slightly on its heel. This means somewhat still divided weight concentrated immediately (though somewhat) on front heel as part of the foot rearrangement.

Next week I may try something else.

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The re-thinks are dominoeing. The slight arm bend takes racket both farther back toward the rear fence and sideways. The flattening wrist (remember that a wrist can do its tricks in more than one dimension!) is still part of the top of the backswing and starts racket tip down a bit before any body force is applied.

I don't think this guy is much like Wawrinka or Federer. All three are roughly similar since they are hitting 1htsbh's, but the items discussed seem big differences to me.

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Well, after hitting the bangboard and again clicking on

http://www.tennisplayer.net/bulletin/showthread.php?t=2626

I'm tempted to stick with my statement that there is an imaginary eyeball in one's front shoulder, but I note that Dominic's real eyeballs are very close to where the imaginary eyeball would be.

And there is definite delay of the strings also possibly improving one's aiming chances as the handle butt arcs under them.

I now see the identified strange racket tilt happening sooner than originally thought.

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Smart Bomb: The Backhand of Dominic Thiem

If I had any sense, I'd go to Austria immediately and gather up biographical information on Dominic Thiem so sketchy right now and consisting of a video or two on the internet of Dominic having a hit with Roger Federer before Dominic reached full growth.

Yup, I'd show up at the Rathaus (rat house, City Hall) in Wiener Neustadt (Vienna New City about an hour from the old city) to begin my research.

My Hungarian girlfriend and her former husband surfaced in a refugee camp in Wiener Neustadt after they switched trains while part of an international choral group in the days of goulasch Communism.

They were in the camp for a year before a mid-Atlantic Methodist group brought them to the states where they were closely allied with the church until they introduced the parishioners' kids to pot and were invited to leave.

Yup, Wiener New City with its new backhand is a helluvaplace.

But its favored son Dominic having just upset the Australian Open Champion Stanislas Wawrinka had to withdraw from The Madrid Open due to food poisoning or an upset stomach or worse.

Just remember this, reader: One can have the worst trots and the best backhand on the planet at one and the same time.

Was Dominic's stomach bug the worst or something more serious? Is his backhand the best?

I don't know the answer to either question. The biographical information as I said is sketchy-- a state of affairs that will not last.

More germane to human existence: Is the 20-year-old Dominic's smart bomb attainable by a 74-year-old tennis player? Is there such a thing as a "smart bomb" in the first place?

Of course not and whoever coined the term should be called Henry Hudson and set adrift in an open boat in Hudson's Bay or rocketed to the Andromeda Galaxy.

"Smart" though does have its connotations. As we observe Dominic's four backhands from 6:42 of the following video, we can note the strange tilt to his racket behind his back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDydrdDju2w

Or maybe see it better in this link since the first link just was removed by the user whoever that user or usurer may be, someone in the Latin country of the Latinate language of the Thiem-Wawrinka video perhaps? Things can happen fast on the internet.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/bulletin/showthread.php?t=2626

That unique tilt may be unlike anything to be pilfered from separate analysis of Federer or Wawrinka.

But is the rakish tilt this important? Is it personal mannerism or a basic tenet adaptable by any 74-year-old? Yes basic yes yes yes. Well, could be.

So then one abandons forever any notion that Dominic Thiem lines up the ball by delaying his strings in front of him. The more clever and older way to line up the ball is to imagine an eyeball embedded in one's turned front shoulder.

In the four backhands most of Dominic's time is spent with his racket up and behind him, the crucial, slow top of a golfer's back swing.

So, here's this since most of the writing in this thread tries to be cook book or how-to: A flying grip change starting at instant of recognition in an almost level direction.

Almost straight arm (or elbow as cue point) slightly rising and turning, then it slightly bends.

The best analogy for this is a rising wave.

Swing from there.

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The Thing that Will or Won't Destroy it

A slight splaying of lead foot as I stride. This will automatically open the hips, a Detroit Tigers baseball announcer announced last night.

He obviously wasn't a student of Charley Law Sr., late batting coach and stupendous catcher for the Tigers, or a student of Charley Law Jr., who corrupted his father's ideas or developed them depending on whom you're talking with.

Junior wants the stride foot kept sideways. In tennis that would be roughly parallel to the net.

Well, if my effort to become a splay-foot fails, I will return, painfully no doubt, to my naturally pigeon-toed delight.

In any case the new backhand can be hit with a backward stride or no stride at all, alternate solutions to the challenge.

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First Trial (Self-Feed)

So what do you do, reader, when you find some stroke design you really like? Modify it to destroy it as soon as possible, naturally.

I joke. I don't think I'll be doing that. But indulge me, reader, by permitting me to tell you some of the features I like so much about my new shot:

1) I can hit it easy, real easy.

2) I get big clearance when I want it.

3) I get to do all the things I've been working on but in smaller measure, especially hip turn. If one starts with Ellsworth Vines' premise that one can hit a backhand drive with or without forward hips rotation, it follows that one can use just a little of it if one wants.

4) I think that ulna to radius deviation overlapping contact prolongs dwell. I also think that when you say "radial deviation" or "ulnar deviation," most people don't know what you're talking about. Just as when someone uses the term "wrist extension" in tennis. No one can possibly understand that unless they have a code sheet in front of them.

5) I was lucky when I chose "extended thumb in line with edge of forearm" as default position after my flying grip change. This permits the moderate amount of ulna to radius deviation that I seek. But it also permits the moderate amount of radius to ulna deviation I can use for a short sharp-angled backhand to the end of my opponent's service line since I prefer that means to a goal over its alternative of forward arm roll. The philosophy here: "Rules are made to be broken by those who know them."

6) Like most Americans, I love blanket generalities and oversimplification since they connect to any secret wellspring of unreasonable frustration or anger deep in my being. In this case I wish to personify all tennis instruction and say that that single person has never definitively made up his mind whether he wants give or no give with wrist firming up or forward motion from the wrist during contact.

Of course, if Tenny Teach or Teach Tennant is open to each of these possibilities, that is a great person.

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Modification Before First Trial

Better to conceive one's change before trying, practicing or even drilling some incomplete scheme.

Most structural improvement probably occurs this latter and more painful way, but if one can absorb the lighter content of a book like DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY by Erik Larson, one can come to better appreciate the difference between architects and the engineers and fiddlers who must depart from some original blueprint.

The self-sufficient tennis player of course is self-coach, architect, engineer, athlete and improv actor combined in one.

I'm thinking diagonal rather than hammer grip in my new 1htsbh. That would be a grip such as Roy Emerson advises in a recent video with first two fingers also spread out to match thumb on the opposite side of the handle.

Why this change? Among other reasons because I've had unnecessary trouble throughout my tennis career getting around on the ball especially when I try to keep my backhand drive swing close in to my body as I do whenever I think that a bit of bowling or golfing would be good to try.

For a grip cue I'm thinking "extended thumb lined up with left edge of forearm." The total grip thus created allows for moderate ulna to radius deviation which I wish to occur right on the ball. With radius to ulna deviation occurring after contact during followthrough. And a slightly golfed swing following slight bending of arm to inside that follows the grip change and initial straightening of the arm.

In this swing there will be milder turns than I ever imagined.

Each of these milder turns will go around a single fulcrum.

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Dwell on Dwell?

Returning back to a neutral position from an extended and radially deviated position would occur in the forward swing after contact. --Doug Eng

The better the player, the less she knows what she does. --Billie Jean King

Billie Jean said that of men, too.

Me, I know what I’m doing (or so some persons have alleged). Which makes me a lesser player.

Fine. But if I knew less I would play worse.

Reader, let us examine together the Doug Eng sentence. Due to my personal nature, I then will probably elaborate or “embroider” as one editor said. Since he was a USPTA coach, he wanted me to take some idea at face value and keep things simple.

But the first thing to notice here is the concept used by Doug of “radial deviation.” This relates to two branches of human knowledge, 1) anatomy and 2) the accepted language of serving in tennis.

Radial or ulnar deviation as thought refers to cross-bone motion toward the radius or ulna, the two long bones set next to each other in the forearm.

Discussion of such motion in one hand backhand slice, as Doug and I engaged in, might apply to a 1htsbh as well. In either case I see some “predication” or acceptance of a karate-like idea. (See attached illustration from the books of John M. Barnaby where the player uses the edge, not the side, i.e., back of his hand to hit an effective shot.)

Enough for definition and fine points. This post becomes about what I now want to try building on my previous one hand backhand iterations.

I’m thinking, use a flying grip change that slides thumb along back slat parallel with strings. But not with a spread of first two fingers so that fungus can’t grow on them as Roy Emerson says. Rather, a hammer grip even though thumb goes along back slat with plenty of fungus.

I’m designing a 1htsbh from scratch here, a habit I have for better or worse.

Next question: Where does radius to ulna motion or its reverse begin and how much of it should there be and which ought to happen first?

It’s cold rain outside, so no self-feed or bangboard today. In 43 games of doubles last night however, I got around on ball enough for the crosscourt backhand drives I desire despite the fact that Barnaby’s karate edge structure puts racket very much behind the hand.

I believe I’m at a point in my backhand thinking where I really need to believe—strictly—that double fulcrums of any kind in any swing lengthen arc and even form a straight line rather than make some arc sharp.

One makes the mistake of adding turns to the stroke to get around. But the more simultaneous turns there are, the less one gets around. Is that counter-intuitive? I think so.

We want to get around when we want to get around. And we would prefer not to get around when we are right on the ball and probably afterward too since any followthrough conditions what came before.

There is more than one way to increase both sharpness of swing and then “dwell.”

I’m proposing grip change to straight arm then slight bending of arm like Dominic Thiem then straightening of arm to inside in response to forward hips rotation, then braking of that rotation to make the arm fly.

Within this scheme, I want to try ulnar deviation of the hand and thumb and base knuckle of the pinkie first as part of the flying grip change. I then want to hold this ulnar deviation through the loop. I want to hold the hitting shoulder in for a longer time than ever before. I want not to “cast” whether with arm or shoulder or kinetic extension at elbow or through forward roll of the arm or through ulnar deviation.

In fact, I want radial deviation while on the ball to achieve more dwell, at least today I do.

Note: Turn the image by right-clicking on it then left-click on "rotate clockwise."

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In answer to Stroke, I have a pretty heavy racket. But I cavil when anyone says that John McEnroe has a continental grip. He studied with an Australian coach and has an Australian grip. An Australian grip is halfway between continental and eastern forehand grip according to the American Ellsworth Vines, one of the greatest and most intelligent tennis players who ever lived. He later was a great professional golfer too. John McEnroe himself said in his autobiography that he has his big knuckle, his forefinger base knuckle, on a pointy ridge for all of his shots. So on which pointy ridge? For a right-hander, 2.5, using the TennisPlayer grip system. Steve Navarro, a left-hander who has done extensive on court research on McEnroeful forehands, recently pointed out that this grip is not much different from eastern forehand grip. Just a smidge to the left of it, I would say (speaking again as the right-hander I am).

I thank Stotty so much for his support and agree with him that McEnroe and Mecir are peerless, but don't think their peerlessness should intimidate anyone from attempting this shot. It is great fun to hit forehands that either go into the rafters or go for clean winners that everybody discusses over coffee afterwards. The higher the percentage of one's clean winners, the more one may come to prefer this forehand over all of one's others.

[stroke]

Interesting... Great post...absolutely wonderful.

For me the most fascinating thing in all this is McEnroe's incredibly subtle and sometimes imperceptible use of his hands. People often get confused between wrists and hands. With McEnroe we get no wrist and just use of the hand, making us realise just how subtle that element can be. The slighter the hand, the more deceptive the trickery. McEnroe and Mecir were utterly gifted in this regard, perhaps even peerless.

McEnroe is the best 55 year old tennis player ever. Courier has mentioned this also. He takes the ball so early on both sides with his masterful continental grip. He can even hit topspin(non excessive) off both sides with that grip. He is definately to me the blueprint for playing tennis as one ages. That forehand or backhand, you can't tell wthether he is going to hit it deep or a touch drop shot until it is too late. I go along with LC, peerless. And Arias is definately spot on about the energy expended thing. Volleys, half volleys, and groundstrokes, service returns, are all on the same foundation for Mac.

And one more thing to me. I think to play like, or attempt to play like Mac, one needs to use a heavy racquet and let the racquet do the work. Mac plays with a 370 or so gram racquet.