A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Mutiny Hearing On One's Last Forehand

"Did you pet the dog?"

"Yes."

"Did you tap the dog?"

"Possibly."

"Did you knock the dog out?"

"Absolutely not."

[bottle]

Same Day Discoveries

1) Kick looks like it never will be first-rate but hops higher when I keep elbow in front but pointed at side fence, not helicoptered toward net and opposite fence. What does this mean? Higher bounds. The upper arm is quite horizontal to start. The wrist is reversed. One feels like one is winding racket straight up at bottom of the ball.

2) More power on three first serves-- flat, slice and reverse wrist when you go through black hole (the point where the two halves of the arm press together) and start throwing at rear fence as rapid combo of braked hip-- shoulders flying over the top tugs the other way.

3) Continental grip twiddled to hit a flat backhand is beginning to work.

Thought: Why not add more body to the minimal arm work of 1). Use extreme stance. Use hips braked-shoulders over the top sequence to create a more conventional stance (on the run, i.e., mid-serve). First get bound to its highest and gradually add these body elements so long as bound doesn't begin to decline.

[bottle]

If No Design Then No Modified Design Hence No Progress

To quote myself in # 1877: "So you wind up upper arm all over again only this time with a pre-load."

I can hardly believe that I wrote such a thing. On the other hand, I still see a solid idea beneath this for a rotorded kick serve.

Having a shorter runway to work with, the rotorded server is always out ahead of himself. A real double-clutch could be the answer.

Note: Have not tried this yet.

But, using # 1879, the twiddle is taken care of. The forearm is taken care of. The easy swing forward is bent-armed and abbreviated, but if one is willing to go that far, why not just lift the racket to somewhere in the vicinity of the front of one's head?

Now the racket twists back and the two halves of one's arm press together and the hips load on rear foot as front heel comes up.

The hips spin round and front leg brakes to speed shoulders up and over in classic baseball pitcher's sequence, which now is more unified with upper arm rotation which starts racket up but whirls it in and out all as one motion.

The hitting part of the stroke is more compressed.

Within the exotically humped and about to unfurl wrist category, this is a new design.

[bottle]

Sculpted Kick Serves

Twice in my life I have watched "successful" sculptors (i.e., the ones who get the grants) shape a three-dimensional head.

Although the two women were very different in temperament, they had one basic in common-- they never got bogged down in a single detail.

They never completed an eye, a nose or a wart all at once but kept working all of the clay in wave after wave until they decided the whole piece was finished.

A good barber or hairdresser often does the same thing, it seems to me. And I don't see why designing a tennis stroke should be any different, i.e., you proceed by keeping everything soft and pliable with no idea however good permitted to take over. You'll be re-handling the whole serve soon, so if you want to change something, change it then.

This going over and over could happen in the mind maybe during a walk or a shower or a walk in a rain-shower or out on the court.

In # 1877 there are a lot of right-handed ideas about twisting the racket far to the right during the serve. I now propose at least as an exercise to do all the twisting including the finger twiddle before the serve even starts. This puts the strings roughly horizontal in front of one as if the hitting side of one's racket is now ready to carry a glass of champagne. The arm will be bent, probably too much just at that moment for one's liking, but all twisting out to the right will have been accomplished so that one can concentrate on other stuff.

If the exercise becomes one's eventual kick serve, fine. If not, one can then figure out all over again just where best to re-introduce each of these things that turn racket to the right.

[bottle]

New One Hand Backhands All Over The Place

What's the difference between an eastern backhand and one hit with continental grip and finger adjustment? Any advantage to one over the other?

Eastern is simple. But continental with fingers offers more feel. The player is less robotic and more alive.

How about fingers adjustment from a full eastern grip to hit more topspin? Works though not particularly solid. Useful especially for short angles. I advocate a full flying grip change combining immediate pull back of the arm for this one. More topspin requires more time. Should be an axiom.

I'm off to the court for self-feed to explore these thoughts. One aspect: Desired discovery of individual limits when it comes to double roll, e.g., does one want to hit flat from the continental (plus fingers twiddled in opposite direction than for slice?). Or eastern grip with fingers as for slice but with the big Budgian forward roll? A different grip now includes three options: no adjustment, adjustment this way, adjustment that way. Since fingers are delicate, there are apt to be gradations in between, too.

The final Serbian Davis Cup finalist-- Dusan Lajovic-- has a beautiful one hand backhand if the beholder of it thinks, as I do, that machines can be beautiful. Beautiful, yes, but too mechanical by half.

[bottle]

An Easy Double Toss that Transforms into a Quite Powerful Throw (cont'd)

The arm work I propose is designed for rotorded servers like me who haven't yet embarked on the following yoga course:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppToA1N0CgE

The kick or at least topspin serve I have in mind gets arm to slant out toward the net quite early in the total cycle.

What does that mean? A lot. Arm has gradually bent and gone through totally squeezed together black hole and proceeded out the other side where it starts to straighten again.

Okay, that's the form of the smooth forward slant, but any forward slant has to have been caused by something. If the cause is upper arm rotation, what is left for you, poor rotord? You need your upper arm rotation for power, right?

Right.

So you wind up upper arm all over again only this time with a pre-load.

Sequence: 1) Finger twiddle combined with wrist "hump" thus avoiding such pseudo-intellectual and encoded terms as flexion and extension which always mean the opposite of what they should;

2) Axle-like backward twist of the upper arm which the pseudo-intellectuals would like to call "external rotation" and which I would too if I thought that would help my serve. Note: Backward twist can happen a) when upper arm is parallel to court or b) when it is slanted up at the sky-- it can happen any ole time but we choose b) here and start the muscles the other way while racket still is winding out to right (I am right-handed);

3) Upper arm twist-- forward-- to bring racket head around like a helicopter blade first to left and slightly down and then to right and slightly up.

All of this will mean little or nothing if not coordinated with way turned around stance and extremely late body work, i.e., hips driving front heel down to brake them and send upper body over the top.

Note: I was really looking forward to trying this serve but when I arrived at Eastside Tennis Facility, Detroit early this morning for doubles I encountered a sign: "Power out. Club closed."

[bottle]

Finger-Feather and Reverse Wrist for Kick by Rotorded Server

One wants to get racket handle snuggled deep in cleft between forefinger and thumb.

I propose doing this rather late in the serving cycle.

I am the coyote trying to squash the road-runner with a helium-filled boulder. But no one will laugh if it works. Think of King Henry V or Novak Djokovic in their transition from funnyman to number one who is a slight bore.

Listing all elements crucial to this plot would be tedious.

Features include a pitching forward of the racket to tilt over the ball since sport physicists tell us that is one of the factors generating upward/forward turbo-spin. Not the only one for sure, but those sport physicists are right. I plan to do this with arm more than upper body this time.

That will leave upper body to provide a small amount of lift to the spin mix.

The finger-feather or twiddle I'm talking about will be achieved by holding a thin-handled racket with thumb and second down joint of the middle finger. This notion comes from watching a film on pitching a curve in baseball although that grip is farther out nearer both fingertips.

Weight will stay on rear foot for a long time. The rear leg will bend to load late.

The arm wind-up by contrast will be quicker than in most serves, but that doesn't mean that arm speed won't be gravity-determined as the hands first fall.

Serve or rather arm starts accelerating from point when racket is down by the ground, a flowing and liquid time appropriate to collecting energy and well-being and wit.

Arm starts bending early simultaneous with the toss. Twiddle-- if one believes in twiddle-- can happen as late as when two halves of arm have finished squeezing together and begin to open. One can simultaneously hump the wrist to prepare for its reverse action. It then will unfurl.

This serve won't resemble any other including my own others what with its arm before body action and its reverse wrist.

Reverse wrist? Didn't you mean "reverse twist," bottle? No, I meant reverse wrist. What else can you expect, reader, from someone who believes in helium-filled boulders?

Gravity takes the racket down. Smooth and early arm throw including the squeezing together of both halves of the arm takes it up.

Because this server-- so what if it's I-- can't get his racket tip as low as he would like on any serve, he has decided to delay the three main power packages available to him.

These are first, upper arm rotation, second and third hip rotation braked to fly upper body up and over-- up on contact, over on follow-through.

Part of the plot is to cock the upper arm and forearm against one's arm extension. And racket tip already started working to outside with the twiddle. Twiddle doesn't provide muscle but every racket head in motion carries momentum which will flow in this case into pre-load of the whole arm which by now is also twisting to the outside against increasing resistance, i.e., build-up.

As arm finally reverses its twist, racket snuggles down in the yoke. Then wrist and arm whirl strings around and up and arm carries racket way out toward side fence before returning to conventional follow-through.

Just another design.

[bottle]

Finger-Feather in Rosewallian Slice

Who is following my proposal with enough interest to actually try it? Not that I need to know. But I am excited by a small self-discovery made on behalf of my own comfort.

As one twiddles the racket to create more openness of racket face than one would ordinarily achieve, one can use both thumbs and middle finger of the hitting hand.

The hitting hand mechanics for this are straightforward-- you twiddle backward between middle finger and thumb. Left thumb mechanics however present a choice.

The left thumb can at the same time turn with the racket (uncomfortable) or turn against it (comfortable and more interesting). The two thumbs turning inward toward each other is a single brain impulse. The bottom fingers of the left hand can at the same time fall away or even invert enough to become a launching platform.

I am well aware of the paradox of becoming creative to imitate.

Note: A right-hander doing this should stop playing tennis with a watch sunnyside up on his left wrist.

[bottle]

That's a good idea. As the unnamed narrator proffers as his final comment on the 1954 Australians, "It's well worth studying." That is, Ken Rosewall's backhand slice is well worth any and all study we can give to it, and I'll now include a rolling the whole way to perpendicular as one personal experiment-- I hadn't thought of that!

So far I've noticed an increase in racket head speed when I have opened the strings the extra amount and balls that hardly come up from the court.

Which increase in openness could be achieved in several ways, e.g., one could simply start by raising one's elbow higher. Not the most comfortable option in my view but it ought to be effective.

Even in the steep chops of Federer and Nadal I see a use of double roll.

Postscript: Not a good idea. A great idea, bringing a whole lot of disparate if not desperate thought together.

[stotty]

Open to closed...

As I watch Rosewall's backhand over and over in the clip, I wonder about the implications of his racket face being so open as the forward swing commences. At its most open point you could probably balance a cup of tea on the strings and it wouldn't slide off. I wonder if this is the reason why the stroke stands alone in the world of sliced backhands? In closing the face so significantly in the run up to contact, doesn't this ensure the shot can be flattened out on request? I really don't know. I'm just thinking out loud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR7kvBGntW8

[bottle]

Lengthening Both Halves of a Double Roll

Okay, so why is racket tilt so important in the best available example of Rosewallian slice? Remember that the flowing strings reach a non-freeze position close behind rear shoulder and are tilted so that something perched on them would fall off toward the net.

"Non-freeze" means that the racket doesn't stop but we nevertheless would benefit from a mental image easier to understand if freezing did occur. So make freezing happen. Freeze a racket in desired position with strings tilted in such a way that a smurf ball would roll forward and off.

Thus one generates a power roll. Long length of roll matters (time in which gradual acceleration can occur). The elbow stays in. The racket tip goes smoothly farther and faster than anything else. The racket closes to a contact pitch that still is quite open. Pitch from contact can stay the same although it doesn't have to.

The earlier finger-feather occurred during backward not forward part of the double roll that characterizes this stroke.

If creating mild topspin in a quick shot by swinging level at the ball but with a beveled racket-- probably on the forehand-- is called "pop-top," I don't know why this backhand shouldn't be called "pop-bottom."

[bottle]

Applications

Okay, in the context of the almost universal finger feather I've been discussing so much, I'll start by applying it to the single shot which in the view of this year's opponents and partners of mine is my very best stroke (backhand slice).

I'll run around my forehand sometimes to hit it if I think I'll get a winner that way in seniors doubles.

But I must confess, in the past week the stream of compliments and lesson requests has dried up and I haven't been hitting this shot as well although it's still staying low.

What happened? I tried to streamline the backswing by attaining skunk tail position with a flying grip change straight off-- which has meant that in most cases there is a pause or waiting period-- at skunk tail-- which I have decided to reject.

When hit with more timed and continuous loop, the ball skidded with venomous hiss. That happened the more I followed Rosewallian sequence in every detail. In the case of most videos, I believe that imitating EVERY DETAIL would be a grave mistake but this is the exception:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR7kvBGntW8

The elements of my personal imitation are first a flying grip change but one that only places the racket parallel to the baseline.

The arm then takes racket to skunk tail as a separate timing unit.

Hey, it's a good shot.

But in spite of my efforts, there is a difference between Muscles Rosewall and me and not only in coordination, mobility and height-- a basic technical difference which I shall describe first as I see it and after I've applied my corrective.

Before: Opposite hand starts skunk-tailed racket down to inside. At its lowest point canapes would slide off toward rear fence.

After: Opposite hand starts skunk-tailed racket down to inside. Simultaneously, three fingers go to work. They are the thumbs of left and right hand and middle finger of the hitting hand. At low point behind one's back canapes will slide off toward front fence.

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Expect Silence if the Subject is Not Trivial but Very Big

No one speaks-- in contrast with my own conviction that this finger thing is the biggest discovery in tennis that I've made or ever will make.

I only wish I'd made it when I was eight years old and not 73 (and I'll be 73 only for one more month).

I fully expect that while I'm making the almost across the board adjustment necessary for adherence to my vision, my playing level will go down one whole number from whatever it was-- and there are wildly varying opinions within the known tennis world on that-- and then will go up one whole number also from what this level actually was.

[bottle]

Just Call Me Rollie Fingers

Not much wedge between expectation and reality, as the script-writing guru Robert McKee would say (Johnny Tango gets the dog but not the girl), but that is the way I want it.

The forehand didn't care if I put an inch-worm in the middle of it. Neither did the one hand slice, flat and topspun backhands. Nor the flat serve. Nor the slice serve, the topspin serve and the kick serve.

On forehand, my eastern grip was amazed to find itself impersonating a semi-western or even a Ginger Rogers continental.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Ginger+Rogers+sings+The+Continental&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=828D08E104327879124A828D08E104327879124A

http://www.reelclassics.com/Teams/Fred&Ginger/lyrics/continental-lyrics.htm

http://www.mp3ye.eu/ginger-rogers-the-continental-live-mp3-download_1315555.html

On flat serves, for the rest of my life, I'll be inching a bit, probably on the uptake, but it could happen somewhere else too.

If I retract the middle finger, the handle falls nicely into the crotch (ahem!) of thumb and forefinger.

If I push the middle finger, the same.

If I do neither, the racket gets hung up on pad at base of index finger as it has done for my entire life, so I shan't do that anymore.

[bottle]

Fine Adjustment

The fingers are much better suited for fine adjustment than the elbow. The wrist is anatomically and philosophically in between.

In a baseball pitcher's type of tennis serve, I do best with a modified curve ball grip.

That would be with thumb and middle finger holding the ball.

Then if one twiddles the racket handle in either direction, good for a 45-degree change in pitch or "angle" depending on racket tip highness, a nice thing happens: As pinkie, ring and middle pry out, the handle settles into cleft instead of getting hung up on pad at the base of index.

This creates more racket tip lowness for a rotorded server.

One can now direct serves in different directions from the same elbow setting. One can strike the ball at different angles from the best strength in one's most natural serve or throw.

Note: The 45-degree change I'm talking about is from the relaxed median position one has developed over months, years or decades. And one can twiddle in either direction. The range of possibilities therefore-- once one has authorized one's middle finger to become a complete inch-worm-- is 90 degrees.