A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Cornering the Turn

We've come to believe that a one-hander appreciating sharpness of turn can employ it while controlling pitch through a combination of full arm roll and opening of the wrist.

But should there be sequence between these two acts? I would argue yes-- sequence with overlap, i.e., arm roll starts first and wrist opening chimes in to get you to contact.

My argument is that opening wrist brings the racket tip around a little, but rolling the arm, i.e., keeping the elbow in, brings tip around a lot. The same act most apt to destroy a forehand-- early roll of the elbow-- creates new excellence in a backhand.

So, with heel of hand glued on 7.5, we use bent-arm preparation. And wrist appears concave if your eyes are higher than your hand.

Working from obscure instruction in Talbert and Old, THE GAME OF SINGLES IN TENNIS, we know we want to straighten the wrist, make it flat, somehow integrate this transition in a positive way into the overall stroke. Some may differ-- it is their right-- but to me the question is not whether but when.

Elbow is stable. I don't want it to roll yet. Forearm can roll, however, as part of straightening of the wrist. The grip is light. Everything is about feel.

For that reason one wouldn't want to roll the wrist straight either too early or too late. If too early the focus will shift entirely to straightening the arm. If too late, the wrist closing and then opening again may all be too jammed together.

I want to be happy with the non-specificity of this. I'm not saying to roll halfway through the arm extension or at its beginning or end or to spread roll throughout but rather to find your own way through best feel. I do want full arm to roll between the two alterations of wrist.

It may be advisable here to watch a film of McEnroe again, exotic grip and all. About nine frames for slow part of stroke, two frames for fast, cornered turn, seven frames for rest of the stroke which is mostly rabbit punch.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHShortRear.mov

Two frames for cornered turn is convenient. First frame: Start rolling the elbow. Second frame: Keep rolling but add your opening of wrist. Continue the stroke then with an absence of such minor actions which now are out of the way.

The exception might be an acute short angle. You might want to keep rolling then.

[bottle]

1HBH: Where this is Going

It's going toward a smooth, confident move that I can mime while I'm lying on my back in bed or walking down the street. Although I spent time trying to figure out exactly where John McEnroe rolls his wrist, I couldn't-- sometimes he seemed to do it earlier, sometimes later. Which is fine. I have decided to roll mine in unison with my extending arm and then continue the roll with full arm. Just then my wrist will re-open to concave.

Is there sequence in this final, sharp corner? A little. The full arm starts its roll, providing most of the desired turn. But almost immediately the wrist brings the racket tip around a bit more to outside of the oncoming ball.

So, what's the timing of this? Well, one has a choice: Place the whole arm roll with opening wrist for two fleeting movie frames, as I suggested before, or place the arm turn with the simultaneous slow forearm roll, wrist straightening and arm extension that preceded it.

One can cue the action either way and eventually end up through repetition with something good that is both and neither. If all the rolling feels like one linked move, you then can use wrist snap as trigger of the vigorous swing.

Somebody will want to know: Why does Bot talk like this? Well, I saw a chance to become more specific.

But I continue to believe like other critics that all discussion of tennis technique is either too detailed or not detailed enough, including mine.
All one can do is try to get things right.

[bottle]

More about the Guys of Post # 270

Ron's good at explaining what he isn't doing. One thing he is doing, but doesn't mention, is use ground force. How far does it go down-- to the earth's soft molten core? More likely just to the tensile strength of the hard court. But you can see him step early. No, his damaged knee doesn't bend much; but, is there a double-barreled jolt? Yes, and cleverly, it sends quick force up to his elbow and wrist. If your dead ball isn't going higher than the cross-bar like Ron's, perhaps you haven't glommed in on ground force like him yet. In my case, my main serves come in five counts. Well, this serve takes three counts, like one I had for years, and I can keep the back foot step as short as Stan Smith, so that the shrewdest of my opponents will never even realize I've temporarily abandoned platform stance. The real difference from that old minimalist serve is sufficient toss and grip. ("Oh now you tell us." That is the collective, ghostly voice of doubles partners long past.) But when Ron shows you how to obtain more grip by holding your strings above your head but parallel to the court and then grab the handle, what do you get? I'm not going to quibble over whether this is full eastern or more because the demonstration is tremendously useful. I'm just wondering if anyone has ever watched the film and yet not tried this? If not, do it right now. Puts the heel of my hand on 6.5, something easy to remember forever.

Compare grip then with Kyril's description, tremendously useful once again. Kyril shifts back and forth from continental to more extreme again and again. Why don't teaching pros do this everywhere and all the time? And why don't they remember to use cross-bar like Ron to give the student a convenient reference point in determining how high her kick serves ought to bounce. Could save YEARS OF TRIBULATION.

Now we come to Bob, who tosses like Ron but farther forward. Does he have some secret flexibility he hasn't been telling us about? And Roger. I tried full flight off of front leg followed by retraction of landing gear. My post-operated knee said, "Forget it, fella." But this didn't kill my new interest in wheel within wheel-- the way Roger pivots hip with back leg while leaving front foot point where it was.

I'm trying this on the ground before I make my small flight with so far interesting result.

[bottle]

Change of Grip for Kick is Change of Menu

That may seem obvious, but drop-down screens haven't existed for long. The service language for continental grip is better developed than that for heel of hand on 6.5, where the drop-down screen is less familiar-- especially since it's a series of specs rather than choices. This doesn't matter if, keeping self-respect, you've performed your apprenticeship with a wonderful master. A second way you might acquire the knowledge could be to turn yourself into a rat in a behaviorist's experiment-- you've got the extreme grip, finally, and it will cause you to do new things. You don't need to know them. This is true but I would prefer to know them:

over-pronation is all
no extension of wrist till way after contact
little finger can ride off racket but doesn't have to
arm straightening is mostly centrifugated from upper arm
call upper arm twist pronation or don't but use it
elbow higher than shoulder
racket circles around from left, never goes straight up at ball (I might change my mind about this later)
the upper arm twist does get edge of racket in a plane perpendicular to target before your forearm takes over
the finish is farther to the right because of the over-pronation, before return of racket to left side
a slow steady upper body rotation combined with slow pressure from cartwheel works better than more abrupt body motion
there isn't the same squeezing of loose fingers as in a continental or eastern forehand serve
the more rotary motion of all the exaggerated pronation allows the strings to ride farther back from hand than other serves, providing a better upward hitting angle
the idea of wrist extension, just the opposite for continental grip, is destructive. Contact is made with a concave (cocked) wrist.
in other serves, pronation is an unconscious, protective device often occurring in response to wrist extension. In this one, pronation is extreme, conscious and nevertheless effective
in this serve, again, relaxed arm gets most of its extension through centrifugal force from the twisting of upper limb

MOO (method of operation): I write this stuff as instruction to myself. Then I go out to the court and try it. Then I either destroy it or edit it and post it.

Takeaway: Order yourself to reproduce the conditions that caused dead ball to jump well above the cross-bar on rear fence. I don't remember them, I only remember the result, but hope to work backward from that.

Admission: There are other factors I didn't mention here, especially where they seem personal rather than applicable to others.

Grip in Practice: Heel of hand on panel 7 felt better than on 6.5 .

[bottle]

Craft vs. Strength in Cornering a 1HBH

There are hundreds, thousands or millions of ways of hitting a one-hand backhand-- which is it? I know a few too many myself. Finally, however, I rejected Ivan Lendl and Roger Federer as models and settled on John McEnroe, mentally converting from his grip to mine (mine is heel of hand on 7.5).

This means a mid-level take-back with a bent arm conveniently similar to my preparation for a slice backhand although I hit that with continental grip. Despite all the simplicity, the smooth take-back should be slow enough to allow for a comfortable step-out.

Racket head then screws down to inside as human head comes back. In other words, after you've stepped out leading with your shoulders, you straighten your body. The racket roll to inside comes from forearm. The elbow remains stable and pointed at the ground.

As racket tip reaches its low point, you start to roll your forearm the opposite way. Over-thinking, you may anticipate a rough spot between first rolling one way and then rolling the other; in reality nothing of the sort happens but only a smooth wave which continues in tandem with concave wrist easing flat and
arm slowly straightening toward left fence if you are right-handed. And you can just keep rolling only with full arm now. Still in same motion you re-open your wrist to concave which brings the racket tip around even more...at which point you rip.

Trying this, I was surprised to find that trajectory of departing ball was lower than when I classified wrist opening with vigorous part of the swing as its trigger.

[bottle]

Stories in the Acquisition of KICK

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1) Developed two interesting slice serves, complementary, both of which, like it or not, stay low. They are complementary in that when one doesn't work, the other does. In both, toss is toward the net post and initial swing is along the baseline.

2) MOO (method of operation): Bring toss back along same line with net post. Keep the constants constant, which frees you up to change grip if you eventually choose to. Keep same fully closed stance.

3) The thinking is that there's really no difference between slice and spin other than toss and perhaps grip. Toss is the biggest difference. Initial swing along the baseline combined with toss farther back along same line formed with net post would be a departure from anything ever tried by me (before).

4) No matter where the toss is, it must be on net post line. No matter how high or rearward the elbow is, it must be positioned to unfold along the baseline. These serves have worked well for you (me). They're not going to stop now.

5) If ball is directly over head will one hit a different part of it? Establishing imaginary lines on the ball was a big part of developing the two slices. In one the wrist straightens in tandem with extension from the elbow. The pronation then goes up and hits the ball (illustration A). In the other, pronation (forearm) occurs in tandem with extension from elbow followed by wrist snap (illustration B). We're only looking for a cue; it's doubtful that racket is still going up. Such an invertedly prepared wrist snap, however, is healthy and produces an interesting result.

6) Simulate these contacts on ball held up with left hand and with racket in right hand. Now bring ball back and forward in various toss positions along the line to and from the net post. Always keep elbow pointed so that its internal action will go along the baseline. How do these various positions change part of ball that will be hit? One wants to study and memorize the different ball parts once one has glommed on to what works.

7) Hit serves using same continental grip as for the two good slices. With toss directly overhead, use new contact lines-- illustration C for delayed wrist extension serve and illustration B for delayed pronation serve (!). This time pronation really will take the strings upward while right on the ball.

8) A general observation: As you draw toss farther and farther back along the line to net post, the initial swing is STRAIGHT UP. This narrative therefore dictates extremely high contact point. All the low toss talk one hears is for somebody and something else. You won't generate enough racket head speed unless contact is very high-- since most of the same racket gyrations must now go in a single plane rising straight up. And there is a paradox involved in this serve, viz., your elbow unbends toward right fence, so you think you're losing upwardness of motion. In fact however, pronation of the forearm now effectively takes racket farther left than ever before.

9) Conclusion: There is more than one way (poor kitty!). The service instruction I've received has been to knife racket edge toward ball and then
veer off to right. This didn't always work well enough for me. And I know of good serves from Mirnyi, Stich and Ashe that start from left to right.

10) A major factor in all serves is abrupt stoppage of the arm so that either kind of subsequent motion, pronation or wrist closing, can proceed in a pure way. But what would the poor lady on the web think-- the one who is convinced that every serve, spun or not, is hit right on the nose like a centerball shot in billiards? The above illustrations, I hope, demonstrate the truth of off-center serves. Off-center? Why? To generate spiralspin along with topspin and sidespin.

That's just one line of inquiry. Another is serves with more extreme grip (heel of hand on panel 7 for me), high elbow, and centrifugation of racket upward and to left from upper arm twist. I then want (need) to fire triceps back the other way! i.e., UAT right to left, triceptic ext. left to right and then stop arm abruptly for either

A. more pronation
B. wrist extension and pronation combined
C. wrist extension then pronation.

Following these strict instructions, one may then wish to perform a "Heil Hitler"
at the top to stop the arm. I remember being shocked by the first tennis book I ever read because it used that phrase "Heil Hitler!" in describing a kick serve-- shocking, yes, but equally effective in athletic instruction as the "high five" everybody now likes, I conclude fifty years later.

Reality check: Just played a match. There's a lot of theory in all the stuff above. Perhaps a better route-- particularly when using extreme grip, is just
to say, "I'm going to pronate much more than ever-- before, during and after
contact." The idea comes from UTube videos of Coach Kyril, a guy who's not afraid to be simple. For me this may mean getting away from my usual concern over whether arm extension should be passive or driven by triceps muscle or both. More uncertainty could be the way to go.

In my other "line of inquiry," the first, the experiments I'd done in different tosses along the imaginary line to right net post helped me a great deal, especially at match point. I just hit one of my usual slices, neither over my
head nor way out toward the netpost. This new toss leant it some topspin and my opponent hit a home run. Why did I try that? Because he'd been beating up on some of my other experiments.

[bottle]

Re-surfacing Route 1, the Old Net-Post Highway

Deciding not to go to Morder's Dump, where they crush both cars and the adhesions in your shoulder, I resolved simply to rebuild the Old Net-Post Highway.

Because of the lay of the land, we'd have to ensure the presence on our construction site of all the latest surveyor's equipment: a graphite dumpy level, a zylon laser level, more performance little giant ladder system, magnesium pro theodolite paint spectra, morph beam stonex striper and titanium astrolabe.

If I wanted a reliable kick by 12/21/09, my seventieth birthday, repeatable all day every day and hit with a mild chopper grip, the goal must be to preserve the full, effective motions even when somewhat upside down of Weird Slice 1 and 2 . First, I could see, one must loosen the rule that beginning of every serve must go along the baseline. This was literally true for the slices, but for spin, would same orientation hold? How could it when shoulder was farther back and more turned around? The solution came after thorough consultation with the entire work crew.

Send arm, were it brought down, on a line PARALLEL to the baseline. Of course the energy does nothing of the sort but goes straight up into the sky. Correct orientation of elbow, however, remains as crucial as ever.

Bringing the majority of assembled tools into play, we can now ask, If we start with toss farthest toward net-post, which is placement for the successful slices, and then toss at six-inch intervals in a progression toward head and perhaps behind, how much higher should each contact be than the one before? And do we really want to, can we even, go behind the head after which the contact heights will start to diminish? This is the subject of our exhaustive research which we shall publish in a blue spiral notebook with titanium covers.

[Bungalow Bill]

It's going toward a smooth, confident move that I can mime while I'm lying on my back in bed or walking down the street. Although I spent time trying to figure out exactly where John McEnroe rolls his wrist, I couldn't-- sometimes he seemed to do it earlier, sometimes later. Which is fine. I have decided to roll mine in unison with my extending arm and then continue the roll with full arm. Just then my wrist will re-open to concave.

Is there sequence in this final, sharp corner? A little. The full arm starts its roll, providing most of the desired turn. But almost immediately the wrist brings the racket tip around a bit more to outside of the oncoming ball.

So, what's the timing of this? Well, one has a choice: Place the whole arm roll with opening wrist for two fleeting movie frames, as I suggested before, or place the arm turn with the simultaneous slow forearm roll, wrist straightening and arm extension that preceded it.

One can cue the action either way and eventually end up through repetition with something good that is both and neither. If all the rolling feels like one linked move, you then can use wrist snap as trigger of the vigorous swing.

Somebody will want to know: Why does Bot talk like this? Well, I saw a chance to become more specific.

But I continue to believe like other critics that all discussion of tennis technique is either too detailed or not detailed enough, including mine.
All one can do is try to get things right.

lol Bottle, you never cease to amaze me. Seems you are talking to yourself now?

[bottle]

"Kick Until They're Sick"

Hah! Nice post. Getting around on a 1HBH is largely what that shot is all about, as Bungalow Bill, A.J. Chabria and Ed Faulkner have always told us.

My personal news is that I've got my kick serve down (I mean up) four days short of my seventieth birthday. Just took one year from the time of declaration. It's an extremely annoying mortar hit from behind the head, somewhat like Ron Waite's (post # 270), the video called "Kick Until They're Sick."

The grip is milder than his, however, the stance much more extreme, the genre platform rather than pinpoint (with less to go wrong), but exactly like Ron's, it consistently bounces higher than the crossbar on the opposite fence if I only can remember a few simple things-- even when I'm using old balls (whoops!).

It's far from the best of the four kick serves presented in post #270, but who cares? Nobody ever said I had to be able to bounce a ball up into the seats at Joel Coliseum like Andy Roddick, the only player among the combined American and French Davis Cup teams in Winston-Salem who could.

So what, if anything is there to be learned from my excessively difficult thirty-year-long experience, again in learning? First, ANYONE can hit a kick serve if he or she will just get their orientation right. It's to hell with all well known cues about how to toss, for me, other than my own, which is to toss in a line through head and the net-post even if the ball is behind. That gives me a road sign to keep me from getting lost in the vast city-scape above my skull.

Second, don't hit the ball hard. Use the sky instead. Lob the ball twice--on the toss and the hit both. Watch Brent Abel hit topspin serves-- a perfect model for sound and trajectory of the actual hit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gWAww8FSes

But when tossing get high point directly over the head-- higher, higher, and even higher than that. Then let it come down and crowd you a little as Tony Roche always said to do.

I realize there is high, soft, annoying kick, and a lower, faster variety. When I'm trying for that I'll use my more extreme grip. But I have plenty of fast serves-- they just tend to stay low. Their lowness will no longer bother me if I have soft, high kick that will work not only as an option but as my staple serve for many matches.

[ochi]

Greetings!

Yo, Bot, since you are now into your new phase of severe slice serving, here's something to try, if you have not been doing it routinely -- have someone hit you a high lob, and when it is bouncing high, arch backward and take a lonnnng swiping swing across the back of it, using a backhand grip and plenty of shoulder turn while facing about five degrees toward the baseline, and see what happens. Surely, you have seen Federer and others do it. The arcing of the ball back across the net can be astounding. I once hit an especially good one that seemed headed to the left of the guy at net, and then it veered way to his right, landing in the deuce box, and he exclaimed, "Jesus!"

My point is, this might be an overlooked key to the serve you are developing. It is one that I imagine the great Bobby Riggs used. (BTW, have you read his autobiography? What a story, what pix -- Riggs playing suckers for five grand while wearing hipboots, holding an umbrella, running around benches, leading a baby elephant on a leash! Our kind of guy! If only we were anywhere near that good.)

I wish you a very happy 70th, and a steady flow of new ideas.

[bottle]

A Septuagenarian's Response to a Tip from "Dr. Jack"

Thank you, Ochi. Season's greetings. Since my ideas appear to me in the most undisciplined way, much like Joan's voices, I must tell you that I've been suddenly influenced by the part of the filmstrip several posts ago where Brent Abel was showing us lousy slice as opposed to great kick. I thought it was tremendous slice! And then I remembered that Dennis Ralston doesn't get racket tip very low when hitting slice, and Abel doesn't either, so I tried it. Everything goes in a wide circle-- knees back and forth like a golfer,
upper body whirling for a short bit but you stop it and let arm continue, then blend in knee extension and a step toward the net. And you can just toss
out anywhere to the rim of this big circle. I tried a toss along the baseline! Worked fine. Pretty close to your 5 per cent. We'll see. I want one of those overheads. Yes, Riggs, cleverness, deviousness, showmanship-- one reason I like Ron Waite, who wrote that he broke his thumb and had to devise a special serve during the healing, chose Eastern forehand grip and semi-open stance, big step forward in the middle, low toss and downward swipe of the strings for something skidding and unorthodox that people hate. Ron Waite wrote that he now uses this as 80 per cent of his first serves even though his thumb is healed. The idea of having step-forward serves along with leftward-leap-and-kick-back is a return to younger days and appeals to me very much. Also, a return to Eastern forehand grip is so unfashionable that it has to be good. Charlie Pasarell pointed out in MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES that a few serves hit with Eastern forehand quickly restore zing to serves hit with hand more turned over on the handle.

The tip: When trying to spin the second serve, let your wrist snap. Don't try to pronate excessively. Your elbow and shoulder rely on the pronating action as a follow-through mechanism to decelerate after impact. If you try to force the pronation, there is no follow-through and tendinitis could result. (Page 171, HIGH TECH TENNIS by Jack L. Groppel, PhD)

The response: "Pronation" is independent twist from the forearm. And shoulder twist is from the shoulder. Make shoulder twist and wrist flexion into one move* which you can call your "snap" if you want. And relegate pronation-- or most of it-- to after the contact since, besides Groppel's WMD warning about it, pronation is virtually useless in generating racket head speed according to the most recent update to his research by Brian Gordon (a PhD or will be).

* Simultaneity of shoulder twist and wrist flexion is illustrated by three photographs on page 87 in THINK TO WIN by Allen Fox, PhD.

[bottle]

Increasing Service Tract behind you

Jim Kacian, haiku book editor and former tour player, described how a bunch of pros would be practising on adjacent courts when somebody tried something new. Immediately, the experiment would ripple through the group. Everyone would try the new thing before returning to his accustomed stroke.

This suggests that top players are thespians with their eyes all over the place, experts at mime like Novak Djokovich.

So when a lesser player sees a film of Jeff Greenwald serving as in the TP December issue, and notices arm work different from his own, should he imitate it? "OH NO, YOU MIGHT HURT YOURSELF!" True, but you might hurt yourself if you don't try it, too.

"Squeeze the two halves of your arm together," Ivan Lendl suggested in HITTING HOT. But look at where Greenwald does that. Down low in his power position rather than up top as body pressure lifts the elbow and loads the arm. By then Greenwald is already firing his triceps.

So, in my kick serves I can hurry the upward components of my arm action and belly (verb) more swing farther behind the body, something I'm eager to try as soon as the present rain stops.

[bottle]

Second Observation about Filmed Serve

To reach Jeff Greenwald's low, 90-degree arm position, you've got to open out the racket tip. Because racket is close to body this opening out can't happen by itself. But the way Greenwald does open out seems notably natural. He takes racket tip around toward back fence while he squeezes the two halves of his arm into the right angle, a bit more snake-like motion than conventional servers need. Then the two halves of the arm passively meld their last bit together to initiate his triceptic throw back toward the rear fence at beginning of the racket head's rise.

Points to note: Racket gets close to body. Then it gets even closer to body before flying out toward back fence, thus creating a far superior route up to the ball than any motion which travels in a straight line. Admittedly, I don't have much "scope" available to myself and perhaps Greenwald's technique is
for elite servers only.

I'll know within a minute or two of arriving at the court whether I'm on the beam or not.

[bottle]

Year-end Wrap-up

How often does one know if emulation of some filmed model will lead to:
A.) something one can do?
B.) personal invention within the new form?
C.) a stroke better than or equal to one's others?

Beyond a skimpy article or two, there is no convincing literature on this subject. When people report at all, they report their biases or if we're lucky their personal experiences.

I remember a period of ten years when the corner of Virginia in which I played was full of elbow-led back-swing forehands sprayed in all directions by strapping youths imitating Ivan Lendl in all but accuracy. It is said that the example of Fred Perry's ping-pong-type ground strokes sterilized British tennis for three fourths of a century. Borgian clones other than Vilas didn't fare well until Rafa: Imitators of Chris Evert did better.

John McEnroe's serve didn't help me but his backhand did. Can one draw a clear moral from all such inconsistencies? I'll take each case individually, thank you, finding little in common from which to generalize. The serves of Maria Sharapova and Venus Williams proved especially useless to me.

The conservative forehands of Roger Federer, however, are another story, the way to learn them extraordinarily easy. That is to buy a copy of TECHNICAL TENNIS: RACQUETS, STRINGS, BALLS, COURTS, SPIN, AND BOUNCE, by Rod Cross and Crawford Lindsey, Racquet Tech Publishing and turn to page 135 before or after watching all available videos. One convenience is that more videos of Federer exist than of any other player.

The TECHNICAL TENNIS drawing on page 135 is full of racket trajectory information and acceleration indicators, along with such various figures as incoming ball, 29 mph, departing ball, 96 mph, racket tilt forward 8 degrees with racket head rising at 31 degrees at impact. This last figure should definitely be compared with the old 65 degrees that Vic Braden used to advocate. His book was called TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE and this is the future.

I haven't wanted to master the 29 varieties one can see in Roger's forehand, but have found three useful categories of my own Federfore. First is the page 135 species in which wrist is going backward and forearm rolling down (mondo) as strings impact ball to catch it a little. Second is a shot where mondo is a bit earlier allowing counter-mondo to unfurl racket way out wide toward right fence-- with an occupational hazard that wrist and forearm may send racket toward net instead, spraying the ball. Third is like first with a comfortable set-up neither too close or too far away, only with early mondo and counter-mondo straight toward the target, inspired by consistent wrist action observed in the videos of Juan Martin Del Potro-- speedy but high risk and possibly unhealthy* forehands.

In serves, after 30 years of trying (due mostly but not entirely to inflexibility in shoulder), I developed a constant lob kick that clears cross-bar on opposite fence pretty much every time, something I can finally live with. I plan to serve with more variety than most players, something that will prove both good and bad (and fun). Right now I'm working on a Jeff Greenwald imitation from the continuous filmstrip that opens the December issue of TennisPlayer.

You can see that Greenwald's passive melding together of two halves of the arm looks like anybody else's, just is much lower. This creates opportunity for very pro-active throw up to ball by a more back door route. The triceps can start this action before the elbow even moves another inch. Then the elbow, muscularly thrown up, passively straightens arm until you're ready for snap which is primarily a combination of wrist flexion and shoulder twist. I'm saving most of pronation, i.e., forearm twist, for followthrough after impact. The thing perhaps to note is that although there are passive elements in this serve, you are always using some muscle group or another big-time and can therefore feel like a real athlete.

Near end of one of three practices on these new serves, I shifted from my continental to a more extreme grip with heel of hand on panel seven. I find this latest bunch of experiments interesting and conducive to serving hard.

* The word "unhealthy" usually requires translation. Sometimes it reflects concern for the human race; much more often the speaker hates you and thinks you will remain unhappier if you don't learn the particular "unhealthy" shot.

[bottle]

Lob Kick

is no good if it doesn't land deep in the service court. So it pays to practice with targets and send some of your mortars too far, on purpose. A beginner mastering this shot has to realize that its apogee as well as its spin determines height from the bounce. And ask, Why does apogee turn into perigee, too close to the center of the earth? Why does ball land deep or in the middle of the service court? The higher trajectory shot BOTH lands deep and bounces higher. These shots flirt with disaster. An inch or two difference can determine whether the easy serve is a forcing shot or a sitting duck. And they could work better on one day than another. Fast kick or fast anything interspersed with them might work through surprise. But for getting closest to the net on a serve and volley, how can one ever improve on a deep, high lob kick?