A New Year's Serve

[stotty]

Good challenge

The inference I draw is that just where one takes opposite hand off of the racket may not be so important as previously thought--

A good challenge. I have seen it done where the opposite hand is never connected to the racket at all.

A similar challenge would be where players are expected to connect up the opposite hand to the racket at the start of the serve. Roger Taylor never did; Borg neither.

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

Makes you wonder whether perhaps it's better not to...

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Down with Decels

To where should one accelerate and when should one begin to decelerate? It's not an academic question but rather an effort toward best spin-pace ratio in a given stroke.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz6ficAqi9Q

Note cottonmouth's defensive prowess at 15:29 .

Twenty-five minutes of keeping one's head faced toward the sky with mouth wide open could disconcert one's opponent.

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I Am a Snake (More Fun than I Am a Kinetic Chain)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz6ficAqi9Q

Note cottonmouth's defensive prowess at 15:29 .

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Backhands: Hammer Grip for Slice, Wrap a Straight Pipe for Drive

And keep left palm perpendicular to the court as further simplification.

Ought I say that these two one hand backhands involve a linked double roll as part of their late forward hitting dynamic?

Probably, since so many persons hit a one hand backhand some other way.

I'm thinking that Helen Wills and Bill Tilden hit their drives with left hand totally off of the racket. That virtuoso extremism is far from necessary, but in studying the following silent movie, one sees Lew Hoad as teacher hit one such tour-de-force.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au6dg52_jZ8

The inference I draw is that just where one takes opposite hand off of the racket may not be so important as previously thought-- not at least if I have just wrapped a straight pipe, something completely new for me.

My ready position has racket head held fairly high to the backhand side, but the same initial wrist straightening scheme might apply to a more turtle-backed loop-- I can't worry about it.

The combination of gravity and wrist straightening from the high position works nicely in establishing continuity of stroke.

Wrist straightens to start the racket head in a slow swing. Then left hand continues to draw the racket back and down as right hand squashes the handle a little to keep this downward idea going while putting a wrap around three sides of the handle.

All that gets racket length approximately parallel to court but the downward motion does not stop there. What's different is that the one-piece motion is taking racket forward by now with strings rolling toward the body before they roll away to hit the ball.

Best, wrist both in static position and as hand straightens does a good job of assessing the oncoming ball.

[bottle]

Pleasurable Backhands

These two double-roll backhands are to be hit first in self-feed, next against a bangboard, third in doubles which offers twice as much time to think as singles. If you're good however you may see one ball to your partner's four. Time then to think not only about your backhand (a lifetime project) but about more poaches by you or higher levels of competition where you will be the weak sister.

The first backhand since we're speaking doubles is Rosewallian slice. A while back I got to skunk tail (vertical racket position) and advised bisecting a 90-degree backward roll into passive and active parts. This worked fine. To mush the same idea closer to Ken Rosewall's no skunk tail slice when playing Rod Laver, we simply need to do a division problem. If taking racket directly to 50-degree slant, make first 25 degrees of backward roll passive and second 25 degrees active.

The other backhand to be assessed in self-feed today has been a source of recent excitement. If there weren't excitement, i.e., a good backhand here or there in one's life, there wouldn't be the lifetime incentive to work continuously on this stroke.

Big breakthrough in backhand drive has been the decision to straighten wrist before grip change, thus creating the impression that one is a stoker like either William or Ed Faulkner in an old coal-fired industry.

Now comes hand and fingers change to approximate (verb) second grip backhand of Pancho Gonzalez. One should, I feel, repeatedly mime the change in mid-air without a racket.

Go to this wonderful photo-post:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/bulletin/showthread.php?p=26021#post26021

If all has gone well, your racket butt will now be aimed at a ghost ball slightly in front of you and slightly to the left. This predicts the racket strings set 180 degrees away from the ghost ball or projected contact point. But you don't plan to hit the ball with front of the racket tip, rather with strings perpendicular like a radar bowl to one's target. And yet you'd like to swish the full 180 degrees to the ball.

The answer again is simple. As you strike out at the ball you roll racket to the inside almost into your body (one half of a double roll). Forward roll then catches outside of the ball in a remarkable occurrence involving a ball which suddenly became real.

Happily, you will have preserved the 180-degree turn and lashed the ball without flipping it.

Note on ball machines. Ball machines are good except that people spend too much time and energy fixing and adjusting them. And paying for them and reading the directions.

[bottle]

Straighten Wrist Before Changing Grip

All depends on what level strings are as they wait in ready position, I suppose. Mine are up a bit and cheated to backhand side.

I wait there with 3.5 or 2.5 grip. The number denotes where big knuckle is. If 3.5, there most likely is going to be a change to thumb along fingers spread full slant backhand grip, anti-hammer division.

This choice does not mean that there will be no hammering but rather that mild hammering will be accomplished with a slantwise grip the better to bring the strings around to the outside of the ball.

As change begins, left hand at racket throat, which is determined to keep its palm perpendicular to court throughout the cycle, pulls hitting wrist down straight.

Left hand next holds steady to permit hitting hand to adopt the full backhand grip and spread fingers arrangement while pressing down a little, which makes sure that the hitting wrist holds its adjustment.

The two movements-- straightening wrist and changing grip are certainly linked in that they both in succession bring racket down to parallel with the court.

This wrist and grip alteration rebels against my previous entrancement with flying grip change where the whatever actions are done at once.

It rebels against also normal sequence of grip change first and wrist straightening second which produces a more complicated and therefore harder to maintain feel.

It rebels against the Bollettieri Academy where everybody is told to get the racket back lightning fast.

It doesn't get the racket back slow but does get it back in a smoothly downward and economical and controlled parade.

As foot strides-- if there is a stride-- arm straightens to a mild bend. And shoulders continue to rotate backward. And the arms corset simultaneously rotates backward around the rotating shoulders.

How does this happen? Well, the left shoulderblade stretches in toward body median as the right shoulderblade stretches outward away from the body median.

So where does racket point now? At contact spot slightly to front but slightly to the left as well. The strings are 180 degrees away from this spot, no more and no less.

Time to strike, and a strike is fast. The slower the backswing the quicker the strike.

But the strike is not so fast that there can't be some craft in it. The strings will load to the inside close to the body before they spring to the outside; i.e., one employs a double roll.

So, are strings square at contact or more than square (slightly beveled)? Slightly beveled for topspin according to J. Donald Budge in an early instructional video.

Do strings stop rolling at contact or does one go with Justine Henin when she says, "De racket rolls over de ball like dis."

Most serious tennis players work on their backhand for life. This is a much healthier view than thinking you've got your backhand after a year or two.

Note: A short player with stubby arms might get away with crowding the ball more than here. Me, I have long arms, in fact my right arm is a bit longer than my left. So, although racket butt spears close past my body, if I want to get to outside of ball without a horrible flip, I need to take the ball slightly to the side.

[bottle]

Best No-Hand Topspin Backhand

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

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Self-Feed of the Foregoing

I've wanted to combine wrist straightening with grip change but perhaps that isn't necessary. Found myself straightening wrist on slightly bent arm only as foot went out and shoulders kept turning backward combined with a very weird motion that may or may not be too fancy.

That is, to help bring racket head around and in close like Hoad's, stretch left shoulderblade inward as right shoulderblade stretches the opposite way, i.e., outward.

Then keep front shoulder super-closed in this fashion until you have hit the ball.

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Friday Rejections and Acceptances

Rejected: The backhands of Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka as models because they have too much transition in them.

Accepted: The backhands of Lew Hoad and Ken Rosewall because the arm straightening in them is a part of their forward dynamic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au6dg52_jZ8

Rejected: The eastern grip backhand slice of Roy Emerson because the Australian grip of Ken Rosewall-- halfway between continental and eastern forehand-- is good enough (understatement).

Accepted: The thumb along eastern backhand grip of Roy Emerson or Pancho Gonzalez for backhand drives.

Rejected: Totally cocked wrist as in Rosewallian slice for my backhand drives. The wrist from grip change will be "comfortably cocked" in the phrase of John M. Barnaby, i.e., partially straight.

Rejected: Hoad's Australian grip for my drive. I just want Hoad's rhythm.

Accepted: The post-match reply of John Boris to my request yesterday that I play ad court in doubles with him simply because I'm working on my backhand. John, director of tennis at the Indian Village Detroit tennis and drinking facility and a Henley-on-Thames Great Britain Championship oarsman from Westside Rowing Club, Buffalo, pointed out that just about all serious tennis players work on their backhand for all of their life.

Accepted: The idea of straightening wrist as part of backhand grip change to thumb along and spread of first two fingers along the racket handle.

Rejected: The idea of rolling and straightening wrist during actual contact.

Accepted: A slower backswing with former functions of the subsequent transition now integrated in forward, liquid swing, viz., straightening of arm and lowering of racket tip to inside before it rolls to outside with this latter roll seen as part of the slingshot.

Accepted: That forward roll to reach karate edge position (see attachment) has become part of the mudpie sling.

Accepted: The idea that double-roll and mudpie sling and spearing with racket handle are the exact same thing. The spearing, as I envision it, sets up the strings to lash as part of a one-piece but elastic swing.

In Bonking a Net Post.pdf first left click on it then right click on it then left click on rotate clockwise.

[bottle]

Report

Played okay but not great in Thursday doubles-- thanks to operating with too much information, a bit like Hana Mandlikova.

That however is clearly the price of the new information, all of which seems promising. Net game, which I was thinking least about, was the best part of my game.

Taking racket back to assumed contact height seems the most essential feature of learning the Emerson prescribed backhand slice.

[stotty]

Love those illustrations....

[bottle]

Drawings

Here are the promised illustrations for # 2048 . Instructions: Right click on picture. Click on rotate clockwise.

[bottle]

Bye-Bye Skunk Tail

Haven't had time yet to go to the library for scanning purposes. When I do, I'll put up the three Janes drawings in a separate post.

Going to the court with the hand-written little outline of # 2048 proved very interesting however.

Shot A worked well. Hit some with roll relegated to straightened arm part which also worked well. And hit some with last bit of arm straightening delayed and made passive and activated by clenching shoulderblades, which also worked well.

Shot B worked well so long as I didn't try to add mudpie sling to it.

Shot C seemed to have everything I want so long as I remember every single desired detail along with this one: Straighten wrist gradually through the forward swing including contact and forward followthrough. If there is any backward followthrough start returning the wrist to its originally concave (when seen from above) configuration.

Shot D worked well but if I like my little dip and rise so much on my Australian gripped John McEnroe forehand, why not bring that little dip and rise over to 3.5 (Federer) grip just before a small loop.

Shot E, my double roll slice, now abandons its skunk tail. When Ken Rosewall played against Rod Laver, he abandoned his skunk tail. Like him I now abandon it, but against anybody.

Shot F shall not be changed in any way.

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Wednesday Self-Feed Ground Stroke System (Play on Tuesday and Thursday)

I. Thumb Along and Fingers Spread Backhands
A. Back, Forward Roll (simultaneous with straightening arm), Slice
B. Lower Straightening Everything and Lift (illustration appended)
C. Double Roll Drive
D. Federfore (ATP3FH)

II. Thumb Wrapped Single Grip Hammer System
E. Double Roll Slice
F. Pendulum (Straight Wrist) Forehand

Notes: For A. try some Back, Straighten Forward, Roll Slice as variation.

For C. finish straightening Arm and roll racket open behind one in conjunction with beginning of forward hips turn per Geoffrey Williams (simultaneous). Setting racket open first will also work but isn’t what I’ve practiced. Mudpie sling, I believe, will work with either a slant or hammer grip.

On first illustration: James Blake went to Harvard University for a year. Is that where he learned this shot? (The illustration is from GROUND STROKES IN MATCH PLAY, by Jack Barnaby, the Harvard coach for 50 years. Please disregard my outdated handwriting and printed scrawl.)

B. Topspin Service Return
No Frills Slider
Bonking a Net Post

Will go to library and scan these three line drawings by George Janes after the self-feed session.