A New Year's Serve

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Staying on Task

Why interrupt your amorous slavering to find a bathroom?

This is what the cialis and viagra ads tell us. And the same advice applies to develop one's see see.

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Easily Produced BH Lob with Mild Topspin

Wouldn't you like to hit a series of these shots today, reader? Me too. Our level of play: Middling to good geezer dubs.

I figure that when the other geezers see all my see sees from the deuce court they will start serving to my backhand.

First choice then will be an easy lob deep in right alley. Can hardly wait through the next 20 minutes before I arrive at Eastside (Detroit).

But how is this marvelous shot-- if marvelous it will be-- supposed to have evolved?

Through a spell of time trying to imitate John McEnroe's composite grip topspin backhand without the hump in his wrist.

I never got the TSBH I wanted that way but now have the lob I'm talking about in hand (I'm quite sure) but will let you know. Time to get in my car.

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Oops, forgot a belt. The shorts I chose wanted to fall down. But how I did is less interesting-- as I tried to suggest-- than evolution of the shot, and the shorts didn't fall down and I did okay.

Reader, I must admit the lobs I won points with all were sliced or sidespun or both, and the one time I tried the new lob it got smashed, but that won't stop me. The shot is there. It just needs reps.

It evolved this way. First I put into development a middle low backswung flying grip changed thumb supported topspun backhand in which consciously strengthened arm that fights toward net even while racket continues back is a main feature. This arm resistance starts immediately after the flying grip change and slows head down as in a good top of the backswing in golf. The strings loop in toward the body and then work out as part of the overall swing.

It's a good shot, very consistent, can easily go deep with control but crosses the net a bit high. Perfect for transformation into a lob. Just change to composite grip and you (I) got it.

The challenge then will be to develop a higher backswing looped one-hander like the cage figure at the beginning of this TP issue. Because of the arm resistance or strengthening of arm to decrease motion of racket going up, there is no reason to pause and then start up again the way the wire figure does. When I used this high but edited backswing today the net people weren't able to pick anything off.

[lobndropshot]

When I am hitting my one handed backhand for a topspin lob it feels as if I am peeling a tomato. I start a the bottom and I peel to the center back making sure I don't bruise the flesh underneath. The ball doesn't make a sound only and the only thing you should hear is the is the strings sliding back into place.

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Like it and will try it. Your name is lob&dropshot after all.

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Cochleate rather than Chocolate See See

Take time to hit the shot. You skip forward but let the ball come to you a little. When skipping, you can travel or not. Bip bip bip and step across. Oh, now I face the target.

The first bip got left foot in front of right. This has to be. If you start with left foot in front of right already you will get burnt on the backhand side, I guarantee it. Happened.

Through all three bips however the racket cocks slightly around staying pretty square on level forearm with elbow tucked in since that is most fun.

Remember though I am an early separation guy. If you cling to racket with your left hand you are on your own-- nothing wrong with that. You just have to be inventive on your own while we go our separate ways.

Now comes the pivot step. As adjustment foot turns your whole body you do a little ulnar deviation from your wrist (you drop your hand) and call it "lowering the racket tip a little" if you want.

Now the snail-like spiral begun by the hips continues. Forearm stays level and bats around as arm stays right-angled. The levelness gets the racket tip far enough around to where both strings and upper body face the target.

Obviously things are happening fast and the thinking behind it all has to have been very correct and precise. A blend of radial deviation and scissoring of the arm I'd say today.

But what about this radial deviation? Did I do it before exactly this way? Never. The radial deviation will re-align the racket with the forearm.

If one starts with racket and forearm in alignment and deviates from there one may turn the racket closed too much which could broaden the angle of the outgoing shot rather than sharpen it.

We had the target in our sites already and don't want to screw up good aim through unwanted broadening. Notably, the spiral we started has become ever more tight.

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Si Si

For purposes of argument let's say we've got some good footwork going-- a left-right-left skip into a right cross.

Time then to move on to the infinity of ways to combine best topspin with the direction we want.

Reader, you heard me correctly. The ways are "infinite."

I've obviously worked on the see see challenge for a long time-- long enough so that I can slightly miss the shot and still win the point.

The reason for this is that the constant error-- not enough angle-- aims the shot more into the court.

But we should have higher aspiration than that.

Which will it be and with what grip-- late farm gate combined with maximum radial deviation combined with a scintilla of forearm roll and a bit of biceptic scissoring?

Arrogantly, I think I've covered the waterfront. But an extremely articulate physical therapist just got up from his tennis mixer chair to demonstrate how he hits his huge topspin nothing like that.

Grip: semiwestern to western. Load on right (outside) foot. He's all Alexander ragtime after that striking almost straight upward but like my favorite fox snake who strikes in a slightly more outward direction. As the force of extension rises through his body his entire chest puffs out. That's all he showed. Having just played tennis against him I either know or don't know the rest.

Heavy topspin coming from scapular adduction-- could that be it? There was no discussion of body or arm rotations whatsoever. Things that come later?

Well, I'll fool with this but am not diverging from my established see see path and shall be careful to step on the top of each fallen tree since copperheads, timber rattlesnakes, cobras and mambas lurk on the far side.

Radial deviation in this or that degree and here or there or never?

"This is very much a brush up and don't hit shot."

Does that sage advice from John M. Barnaby apply to body? Yes. To arm? Yes. To late farm gate? No.

How about some late farm gate followed by purposeful temporizing by suddenly pushing the elbow out from body which not only keeps contact point more to right but creates dwell spot for one to perform one's chosen other stuff?

Hardly Stotty's sage advice to keep to a minimum of moving parts.

Somebody however should explore all possibilities. Why not I if I'm the one who most wants this shot?

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Elbow Suddenly Out

Great players know how to deaden any oncoming ball. Even a not great player can develop the knowledge to do it.

In the case of a see see however the challenge is very tough.

We are wedded to the farm gate idea, but the gate can be opened slightly farther than previously imagined.

Closing of the gate then will still be purposefully late but quickly merge into something else: sudden pushing of elbow out in equally purposeful temporization as one does ulnar deviation and radial deviation both and arm extension and arm contraction both with perhaps a bit of forearm roll in both directions thrown in, all with light fingers and hand.

This seems an awful amount to do at once. I'm tending toward some farm gate closing followed then by the rest, but if the load is too great items will have to be subtracted or placed earlier in the stroke.

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Ceci, Senor, She is a Beautiful Girl

Elbow in tight, arm right-angled, forearm parallel to the court and batting slowly back to draw a bead as bip-bip-bip leads into the cross. This is the feel and finesse part of the stroke. Just precise mechanics are the requirement from then on:

The brush has to be quick, a single move. Still, if you analyze (your funeral most times but may be necessary now for you to be reborn), there is a several part sequence to the single move.

1) A sidearm curve throw in which two things simultaneously happen, (a) ulnar deviation and (b) forearm rolls down.

2) Forearm stays rolled down but quick radial deviation occurs as tucked elbow temporizes by jumping a number of inches outward to close racket head without closing it so much as to destroy stability.

3) The arm slightly straightens from ball at beginning of the followthrough.

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Two Options for One's Famous CC ("The Topspin Angle&quot

1) Hit the ball starting from square stance as in # 2738 . Slight arm straightening after contact can lead to traditional wrap over the shoulder. But the elbow temporizing during contact could easily turn the shot into a reverse forehand or buggy whip or whatever you want to call it. Which will prove more consistent? I bet on over the opposite shoulder.

2) Use carefully developed fondness for semi-open stance, but how should one arrive at it? I would draw a picture but know that four people would click on it since the rest are fearful of anything that might be a virus sent by the joint council of the Taliban, al Qaeda and Isis. I would draw two lines both on 45 degrees to the net, a cockeyed tramline. Right foot would stick to the right line, left foot to left line. Bip-bip-bip only this time right foot goes first. In the second instance of right foot settling down it drives almost straight up to puff up the chest while making one's back become concave. One probably generates more pace and controlling topspin this way but a bit less delicacy. I use more grip for 1) than 2) .

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She's a Girl

Ceci the CC see see is not Stella Artois but is a beautiful and defiant thing. Presumably, if you have played tennis for a long time, you have very masculine strokes which climax then fizzle.

Nothing to be ashamed of but you had to learn not to hit a forehand decel that pushed the ball stupidly after which you accelerated up and over the opposite shoulder and either bruised your back or hit it so hard you had to go to the hospital.

The Ceci is all about 1) getting weight transfer done and divergent before contact and 2) arm work that decels the racket so that "radial deviation" becomes a term that means something, an accelerative finally permitted to come into her own followed by lengthening arm acceleration over the shoulder but which started out slow enough not to bruise the back or back of the shoulder.

In fact I think that you (I) should make a conscious effort to smoothly brush the back to show that you brushed the ball.

To look at the whole stroke in pantomime, its early separation allows body turn and racket takeback to be simultaneous additives which applied to all of one's forehands could take the schoolmarm (left hand clinging to the right-hander's racket throat) out of the tennis equation once and for all.

Reader, here's a Bottle caution: Ben Ford, a tour technician who knowingly spells the word "technition" once observed Bungalo Bill and I go at it here and in another forum and accused both of us of knowing enough tennis technique to be positively dangerous.

Well dangerous is what I want to be but at the same time I don't want to inflict my mind games on the wrong person.

The early separation players-- Evert, Connors, McEnroe and Austin-- do things very differently from the bulk of worldwide tennis players in my view.

One can swing racket backward as one turns one's body same as a shortstop in baseball. Listen, the shortstop does not have time to turn his shoulders first, then take his arm back second, and neither will you if tennis gets any more quick. It does quicken as you age, I assure you.

But one forehand, The Ceci, is the subject here, a buggywhip with conventional rather than same side followthrough.

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Two-Shot Orchestration of Deuce Court Service Return in Doubles

One hits one's see see with a straight wrist. So what would happen if one hit the same shot but with a laid back wrist? A light spinny shot that lands at the service line can be surprisingly effective, likewise if it lands deep near the baseline.

Would such shots get clobbered? Maybe and maybe not. If so, time to alternate the see see with heavy forehands.

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"Alexander Technique": Too Dry And Sterile For Anyone's Tennis Lexicon

"Alexander Ragtime" with its jazzy connotation is better as is "The Alexandria Quartet" after four novels by Lawrence Durrell with their very good lovers Justine (sorry, Justine), Balthazar and Clea.

I only remember one specific and very cruel line from this literary opus which I last read more than 50 years ago: "A woman without breasts is like a ship without sails."

But the word "quartet" could bring us back to classical music or jazz or the four legs of a stable stabled horse.

The thing being described in tennis whether one belongs to Alexander's Ragtime Band or not is not exactly a child's toy but is something for a visiting child to sleep upon, a rubber, plastic or reinforced cloth mat which inflates either from an electric motor or a human adult blowing through a tube.

In tennis one uses drive from one's outside leg to inflate one's chest while making one's back become concave: Perhaps this is all one needs to know in order to hit heavy topspin.

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Which Makes a Better See See: Square Stance Inchworm or Semiopen Cockeyed Tramlines?

Nothing wrong if an older player counts his steps. But he only has 85 per cent of his former power so needs to value deception.

A lot in geezer doubles depends on the nature of the right-hander's deep forehands from the deuce court.

Is he hitting a lot of square stance shots? Then square stance see see is best choice.

Is he hitting a lot of semiopen shots deep into his opponents' deuce court? Then he needs to puff up his chest for a slightly heavier see see.

Remember though: square stance see see requires four steps, semiopen see see only three steps.

On the other hand the opponents may be more confused by the extra step; and, the perpetrator may find more perfect position with that extra step.

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A Small But Potent Forehand

Here's a good look at some Don Budge forehands starting at 2:05 and 2:18 and 3:10 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_jT...ature=youtu.be).

If one hits every possible kind of forehand from self-feed, and one would be nuts not to, one will eventually learn that straight back forehands, though easy to hit, are not as fast and hard hit crosscourt as those hit with a big elbow lead that springs the racket back for a long radius whirl. Such shock and awe forehands are huge but economical because 1) they stay solid for so much of the tract and 2) they include a time saving mondo.

A small loop forehand also probably doesn't get around as fast same as the straight back one.

But Don Brosseau was interested when I discussed forehands that throughout one's backswing take wrist back a little at a time.

For a Don Budge type forehand I choose to start bending hand back on wrist roughly at the point where racket points on a perpendicular at right fence.

Backswing is level, and if the player is an early separator like Don Budge, Chris Evert, Tracy Austin, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe with racket hand departing from opposite hand right away one will have time to burn.

The very minimal loop can consist of nothing other than a two-inch hand drop combined with backward forearm roll.

P.S. Nobody can come up with a new shot without the new shot affecting the potential of other shots for better or worse, e.g., if one still hits any straight back forehands, one can now try smooth wrist layback as described above rather than as something sequential and separate then simply drop the hand two inches and hit the ball. Should one save all one's forehand variations in one's tennis computer to bring them up as needed or always just hit the same old boring shot?

P.P.S. I now see that Don Budge's backswing starts with racket parallel to court, goes back level but then rises a little to start a loop. And that the drop part of the loop (4:14) sometimes blends into a more forward low point.

P.P.P.S. Here are some other good ones. Make sure to watch all three (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...DBFHFront1.mov). Older Don raises racket sooner.

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Out to Right

Now for a new see see that places contact where one makes it for ordinary forehands.

No one will be confused if they understand that my see sees are trial balloons.

To start, one keeps elbow in close. Arm, right-angled, farm gates racket to right but not far this time. Slowly continuing the momentum of this little move, two things happen SIM as part of the continued and cohesive backswing: 1) elbow moves slightly out on a path perpendicular to the right fence. This closes the racket face more. 2) arm slightly extends.

Elbow movement away from body seems pretty dramatic but actually happens every time someone hits a reverse forehand. Instead of finishing over right shoulder I want to finish over left but with some first half structure of a reverse forehand.

I think of this elbow movement as "temporization," a subtraction of power from the shot which now I want to perform early.

To start forward stroke one clenches arm to return it to its right angle. The clench activates ulnar deviation which is mondo since it is reactive.

One immediately uses radial deviation to brush the ball. After that the elbow lifts as the arm extends for a second time for conventional followthrough over the left shoulder.

The hope in this is sharper angle because contact point was normal or farther right than previous attempts. One thinks of successful angled volleys enabled through contact more to outside than directly in front.

One assumes perfect footwork first.