A New Year's Serve

[don_budge]

I'd say flat...not slice...definitely not topspin. Our very own don_budge would likely know better then anyone else alive today.

P.S. The url for the video in this post calls the particular backhand a slice. Is this true or not-- could be slice or drive, right? In his autobiography, Don Budge tells of getting confused right in the middle of Wimbledon as to which he was hitting day by day. This, though unbelievable, seems less so when one observes this clip.

Actually Gardnar Mulloy would know better than I. Lee Tyler told me that he and Tom Brown would hit when Don was in town and have dinner as well. Gardnar, still clear as a bell as he nears the century mark, surely played with Don a great deal.

But as I remember it as a teenager who was prone to partying a good deal even as we were training some six hours a day at the camp the stroke was pretty flat. Whether he spun it under or over it was what you would call a heavy ball...it knocked the racquet out of your hands if you didn't square it in the middle of the strings.

Keep in mind that in those days...it was wood and gut. His racquet was particularly heavy with a 5" grip. No leather...just the wood with some rather small grooves longitudinally up the handle for better gripping. Exaggerated spin was not yet the technique and it would have been impossible with that kind of equipment.

The best way to put it is in his own words...it was the most natural stroke imaginable...the racquet just seemed to roll through the ball. But the whole game was like that. His whole game was like that. Natural. Just like the wood and the gut. It's interesting...many call his backhand the best shot in tennis ever...not just the best backhand. Just as many say the Pancho Segura two handed forehand was the best shot in tennis ever. But you always have to remind yourself that it was done with a wood racquet...that changes the whole conceptual frame of reference. You simply cannot compare it to the shots of today.

I remember one day musing to myself here in Sweden after some practice...feeling pretty good about my self. I was the same age as Mr. Budge as when I knew him...58 or so. I was wondering to myself...could I have competed with the old boy with the way that I was playing. But then I had a reality check...and I realized that I was playing with 100 square inches of graphite.

Once I asked him if he would hit a few balls with me and he said, "Why sure Steve...go and fetch my racquet in the ball room." I will never forget that there were four frames lying there on the bench and I grabbed one of them and held it in my hand and just gazed at it and taking in the immense beauty of his blunderbuss...his trusty wood tree of a racquet.

It may of been slice. It may have been flat. Whatever it was...over or under...it was a modicum. Just enough and not too much. It was perfect. Mr. Budge's backhand.

I hope that I didn't disappoint.

[stotty]

P.S. The url for the video in this post calls the particular backhand a slice. Is this true or not-- could be slice or drive, right? In his autobiography, Don Budge tells of getting confused right in the middle of Wimbledon as to which he was hitting day to day. This, though unbelievable, seems less so when one observes this clip.

I'd say flat...not slice...definitely not topspin. Our very own don_budge would likely know better then anyone else alive today.

[bottle]

A Reconsideration of all Five Clips of the Don Budge Backhand

The clips are at Tennis Player. There really is, out in the wider world, not much else. "The greatest backhand ever" in the words of countless players-- and only five good videos survive. "Not the greatest but maybe the most natural" was Don Budge's view of his own backhand.

Well, who other than dullards cares whether something is the greatest or not. But anybody in tennis SHOULD CARE about whether something in our game is "most natural" or not.

"Most natural" could, though not necessarily, signal some individual to A) imitate or B) learn and create.

The following clip is far from most dramatic of the five but probably is appropriate for the greatest number of aspirant players.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/donbudge/donbudge_sa.html?DBBHSliceFront1.mov

Note: If as I speculate there is a flying grip change in this video, it gets racket pointing to left fence. The arm, like a tranquil dog, settled, then is carried backward and slightly upward mostly but not completely by body turn.

Racket at side rather than rear fence seems a crucial point since even a 45-degree step-out will turn the racket back a lot, and we never want to turn the racket too little or too far.

In all five videos the racket after flying grip change goes another 90 degrees away from the target. "Perpendicular to rear fence" as tennis imperative is too imprecise.

The open racket face at farthermost back part of the stroke means that arm roll is forthcoming to make the strings go faster than the hand.

P.S. The url for the video in this post calls the particular backhand a slice. Is this true or not-- could be slice or drive, right? In his autobiography, Don Budge tells of getting confused right in the middle of Wimbledon as to which he was hitting day by day. This, though unbelievable, seems less so when one observes this clip.

[bottle]

A Reconsideration of all Five Clips of the Don Budge Backhand

The clips are at Tennis Player. There really is, out in the wider world, not much else. "The greatest backhand ever" in the words of countless players-- and only five good videos survive. "Not the greatest but maybe the most natural" was Don Budge's view of his own backhand.

Well, who other than dullards cares whether something is the greatest or not. But anybody in tennis SHOULD CARE about whether something in our game is "most natural" or not.

"Most natural" could, though not necessarily, signal some individual to A) imitate or B) learn and create.

The following clip is far from most dramatic of the five but probably is appropriate for the greatest number of aspirant players.

bbbbb

Note: If as I speculate there is a flying grip change in this video, it gets racket pointing to left fence. The arm, like a tranquil dog, settled, then is carried backward and slightly upward mostly but not completely by body turn.

Racket at side fence rather than rear fence seems a crucial point since even a 45-degree step-out will turn the racket back a lot, and we never want to turn the racket too little or too far.

In all five videos the racket after flying grip change goes another 90 degrees away from the target. "Perpendicular to rear fence" as tennis imperative is too rough, i.e., imprecise.

The open racket face at farthermost back part of the stroke means that arm roll is forthcoming to make the strings go faster than the hand.

[bottle]

Lloyd Budge Stories

Big brother syndrome has to be important in tennis, and here maybe is the greatest example.

But history screwed up. There aren't enough stories about Lloyd Budge, the man who goaded his much younger brother into giving up basketball, football and baseball for tennis. Fate had it that Don was supposed to outshine Lloyd but not overwhelm him.

Lloyd's 1945 book TENNIS MADE EASY is still considered one of the best classic tennis books ever. Lloyd himself had a distinguished career in both singles and doubles.

In an early round of the 1940 Southeastern Pro Championships, Flamingo Park, Miami, Lloyd Budge defeated Vincent Richards, who had first grown fat and then lost weight, according to Ray Bowers in FORGOTTEN VICTORIES: A HISTORY OF PRO TENNIS 1926-1945 .

Lloyd Budge must have served like this (see picture link):

[bottle]

Compressed Time

To what compression can we take basic components of a good serve where "compression" means "compression in time."

Stan Wawrinka's serve is powerful and effective yet mostly seems to occur all in the last instant before, during and after contact.

So why couldn't a rotorded server, no Wawrinka, do something similar in order to fool the ball into thinking that it had been scraped in one of the hard to achieve ways that lead to powerful upward overdrive.

Because the server is rotorded, we know he can't get his racket tip as low as a conventional instructor would like, so we have to use special means to create a long runway to the ball.

Most obvious is extreme stance and rotation that present back almost but not completely to opponent and the net.

Once attaining this pose, with front heel up in the air, can the server maintain it while the arm does most of its work?

This allows the revised power design discovered in hitting slice serves still to exist in the greater upwardness of kick (or even topspin slice).

This design is a part of cueball philosophy in billiards and stage cues in theater, where some act produces true result or desired actuality that is quite different from the cue.

In the kind of serve I'm now pursuing-- more classical, less Jordonair and more "rotarian"-- the hips fire driving front foot flat to form a brace that accelerates top of the body, arm and everything else all at once-- more simple and down to earth and direct than anybody's theory of kinetic chain which probably holds water but nevertheless is intellectual and lawyerly, i.e. overly logical as if everything in life is arranged according to the same stride length.

There still is sequence, yes, but with just two steps: hips and the rest just like a baseball pitch.

So what to do with the arm?

The arm can slowly coil starting in the "up" of one's down and up gravity assisted and rhythmic lift combined with dramatic twist back of the body.

The slowness of this proposed arm coil may come as a shock but is the lynchpin of the new serve.

Rather than checkpoints along the way, e.g., "arm right-angled NOW!" one assigns an end position which gives body a nice bite-sized amount of arm and shoulder pre-loading coil left for body and arm-- bigtime negotiators-- to work out between themselves.

A useful thing that body could be doing during this prolonged coil of the arm is lean toward side fence while knees countervail toward opposite side fence.

Now when hips rotate hard to abruptly stop, they can send energy on a more upward vector with chest open to sky.

The challenge will be to combine last bit of backward arm coil and release of all energy in a short space.

[bottle]

From Pierre-Hugues Herbert's Serving Display Against Novak Djokovic

Nobody ever tried harder than Vic Braden to steal pitching mechanics from baseball for the serving masses in tennis, sort of like Prometheus' gift to mankind of fire.

Vic Braden developed one Luis Tiant pitch where the server turns all the way back to a friend standing by the rear fence and says, "Hi, how are you" before continuing with his serve.

The rear leg driven and rotorded me accepts the Luis Tiant model (think John McEnroe and the Paris Open's young Frenchman, Pierre-Hugues Herbert) but wants nothing lazy at looking-at-back-fence moment other than the arm.

As for the hips, they're already firing at that point. The hips are firing as the arm just finishes its assumption of a right angle or whatever angle works best (please note that I did not use the expression "trophy position" and therefore deserve a Nobel, Pulitzer, MacArthur or Booker Prize).

Why such late assumption of throwing bend?

Because, right after hips fire comes the biggest gross body surge of power possible and I live in Grosse Pointe.

This design pits maximum body surge against further cocking of the arm, shoulder, scapula, wrist and maybe even fingers.

And the racket tip doesn't stay down, to put things mildly. Some used to say that racket tip was a paint brush dipping for an infinitesimally brief moment into a paint can, but then along came more recent instruction about turning racket tip out to the right, which forever spoiled traditional simplicity and unifying image including "backscratch."

The service engineers are right of course. (They are always right. Just ask them.) So turn the racket tip out toward side fence as part of the on-the-fly cock and immediately fire the tomahawk.

P.S. An area for added kick serve exploration is finger movement right on the ball, keeping in mind that science dismisses new possibility as much as it creates it and usually more often. Feathering technique from crew however must be applied-- as experiment-- in view of Steve Navarro's having his serving students make their strings follow the contour of the ball.

I've always wondered: Does modern emphasis on internal arm rotation put too much trailing rim on the ball in the case of all but the most skillful of servers?

Note: Standard objection in tennis to all talk about hand manipulation at contact always identifies the brevity of actual contact (say three or four thousandths of a second) without explaining that the manipulation could start before and continue afterward.

[bottle]

Wow, don_budge-- you don't disappoint, do you? For more about Hungarian bodies and proverbs ("You go to the doctor when you're dead"), read THE PURSE MAKER'S CLASP, novel, by John Escher.

[don_budge]

The Moment...in spite of itself.

I'd like to hear what Steve has to say on this serve, too.

To try to answer my own last question, I'd say that in hammering a nail, triceptic extension probably dominates upper arm rotation, but upper arm rotation dominates in Totka's Hammer, at least in her demonstration of it at 3.16 in the video.

It's one's best throw (Tilden saying to throw a racket in a field). But is the arm still bent when racket contacts the ball? I guess so if we are seriously to take Pat Dougherty's description of total Totka hammer as "compact."

I simply love this video, which I've always thought the best of the zillion on kick serve I've ever seen (though any day I may change my mind through a great suggestion from somebody else).

Someone might ask why, Bot, are you repeatedly watching a video of this 15-year-old? Because I want to steal her serve, and each time I watch I see something different.

I'm especially intrigued by Dougherty's miming with the elbow at the point in the video where he says, "She's trying to come over the ball like this." With the clear implication that this is not what actually happens.

In fact one can see the whirligig start in one direction-- almost on a perpendicular at rear fence-- and then shift halfway through to a path more slantwise toward side fence.

Loose wrist humping up as arm goes up and front foot turned more than toward net post at the address are other notable features.

And all the body rotation that Stotty emphasizes. Totka's front leg may go from bent to straight to bent again but I sure can't see it. It is the rotational elements that predominate.

Me, I want to start the hips fast and then quickly brake them so that everything else goes fast as in my best slicers.

I believe Pat Dougherty when he says that like Naomi, if I put in the time, I'll get it.

I choose to believe him over the persons-- quite a few actually-- who say or think I'll never get it.

Was down love forty in good doubles last night when I started hitting kick serves both first and second and won the game.

My version of Totkan kick is not perfect but coming along.

Yes...be great if don_budge checks in to review the girl's serve. Is she rotating a little too much? Most girls can't pull this off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds6CZ4qCXD4

For reasons of my own...I found it very difficult to watch this video. But there is one moment that made the thing palpable or even palatable...it occurs at 3.16 in the video. This is a nice way of illustrating a point.

But regards to analysis of the girl's serve or Pat Daugherty's demonstration the video left a lot to be desired. I guess that I am spoiled by the way we work things out here on the forum.

With regards to the girl's motion...once I got over the part that she was nearly naked I decided that I still was unimpressed with the state of her motion which is not to say that she doesn't have potential. It is only that Pat thinks he is doing a much better job than he is. I am somewhat unimpressed with his work here as much as he likes to hear himself talk. He is a typical tennis coach these days...part snake oil salesman and part pimp. He's pimping the serve. More window dressing than substance.

There is something decidedly out of synch with the young lady's motion but with the camera moving all over the freaking place from this angle and that and most of the angles not showing her whole body and structure it is impossible to pick up on just exactly what it is that doesn't suit my eye. All I feel is that this motion is very off key compared to what it could be potentially, considering the considerably naked body we have to work with. It appears to be a good specimen too. From all appearances. Nice legs, firm buttocks and tight breasts. Come on...am I the only one that notices these things.

I had a girl in my program last year who came dressed to play tennis like this and it was a distraction to say the least. It is poor taste and immodest...but in lock step with modern times. Madonna playing tennis. Don't mistake me for a prude or anything like that as I am a great admirer of the female form...hell I am sort of an honorary Doctorate in Gynecology (I have translated 30-something Phd midwife research papers here in Sweden plus there is my "private practice experience"). But there is a time and place for things and the time and place for her attire is probably a strip bar or at least the beach or something of that sort of venue.

From what I can gather from the video...the girl has a great body and loads of potential but too much is being made of one and not enough of the other. The one redeeming moment of Pat Daugherty's work comes at 3.16 of the video. Thor's hammer throw...bottle managed to pick up on that while pretending not to ogle the little sweet things finer assets.

I don't buy into Daugherty's discussion about disguising a kick serve either. The disguise is not about whether or not it is going to be a kick or a slice or a cannonball...the disguise is decidedly in the placement. I never gave a second thought about disguising the spin but always kept my placement intentions a secret. In fact...I will go so far to say that by tossing the ball up with the intention of disguising the kick serve from any other serve he is doing his little Hungarian tennis_student a disservice. It is impossible to disguise the motion of one from the other by manipulating the toss placement while maintaining a fundamentally correct service motion. I don't think that I ever see little Miss Hungarian Hard Body ever finish out to the left of her nubile figure...which is where a true kick serve does finish.

licensedcoach is right on the money about the physical attributes of the little princess too. She has a great physique to work with purely in regards to her service motion but there is something a bit askew with the picture. Something about the position of her arm, her backswing, her footwork and her rotation. The picture as it is now is less impressive than her potential. I just wish that the stupid camera would stay still long enough in a good position to communicate what a camera communicates best. This seemed more like a panoramic perspective of Stacey's butt.

But maybe that was the point all along. The motion isn't all that good to advertise so why not give the viewers an eyeful of some eye candy and maybe they just walk away saying to themselves, "isn't that Pat Daugherty something". I would really love to see Jiminy Glick interview him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rK_1xGp7cg

On a slightly separate tact...bottle, one of the hallmarks of a great server is to be down love-40 on their service game and still have the wherewithal to pull it out. Nice going. Why not kick the first one in from time to time in the first place...the disguise is in the tactics not in the motion itself.

[stotty]

Yes...be great if don_budge checks in to review the girl's serve. Is she rotating a little too much? Most girls can't pull this off.

I'm watching Djokovic v Herbert at the moment in the Paris Open. Djokovic doesn't rotate that much...Herbert certainly does. That boy can really serve...rotates like Sampras...Wow! Shame about his forehand. He'll be consigned to the bin if cannot improve that shot. Djokovic is swarming all over Herbert's forehand as I write.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds6CZ4qCXD4

I'd like to hear what Steve has to say on this serve, too.

To try to answer my own last question, I'd say that in hammering a nail, triceptic extension probably dominates upper arm rotation, but upper arm rotation dominates in Totka's Hammer, at least in her demonstration of it at 3.16 in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds6CZ4qCXD4

And all the body rotation that Stotty emphasizes. Totka's front leg may go from bent to straight to bent again but I sure can't see it. It is the rotational elements that predominate.

[bottle]

Three Balls in the Sky

Why have one ghost ball when you can have two? For a kick serve I am thinking Hamnet for the first ball (real), Horatio for the second (ghost), Gertrude for the third (ghost).

This design is all about wrist and the classic exercise of using a racket to roll a ball up the opposite palm-- then snap sharply off of it toward side fence to give the ball some forward roll as it skitters on the court.

How is this going to work in my present construction? Well, the wrist is to hump as arm first goes up and unhump as part of The Totkan Hammer. This last movement, though faster, corresponds to rolling the ball up the palm and gives one a better chance of JUST MISSING with leading rim.

This whole interaction will be with real ball Hamnet, named for the real son of William Shakespeare conceived with the real Anne Hathaway and who died at the age of 11 methinks from bubonic plague.

Snapping off the ball will take the strings up and slightly forward to Horatio while straightening the wrist not to mention the ulnar deviation involved.

We're talking macro-motion however or at one swat three flies, the second of which is obviously higher than the first and third.

If wrist gets straight for Horatio it has humped again by Gertrude.

[bottle]

Naomian Kick

Synthesis...(in Hegelian philosophy) the final stage in the process of dialectical reasoning, in which a new idea resolves the conflict between thesis and antithesis. --don_budge

I try to make this my method. Also, I write first, second go to the court with a basket of balls. I'm not about to change now. Will the following serve work? I expect subsequent alterations.

Get the elbow out from the shoulders as a prime goal in this particular version of a kick serve. (ATA, i.e., "Air The Armpits" -- Vic Braden.)

The arm has become compressed, ready to throw.

Throw the racket at the rear fence.

Know that opening arm will only get straight some time after contact, and that there will be a maximum of easy wrist movement throughout as in the fey serve of Bill Tilden.

Reader, you've probably been advised in two contradictory ways to let immediate followthrough be characterized by:

1) a straight wrist. 2) a humped wrist.

Go with 2) in this particular version, but with the further understanding that the powerful "internal rotation of the upper arm" that everybody talks about was mostly used up as you threw at the back fence.

Exercise: Face the rear fence while throwing the racket as if to let it go-- from still partially bent arm-- in order to crash it into that fence. Imagine a vertical slot in the fence where a tomahawk went through.

The Body

is coordinated with this arm throw. Hips rotate violently but are immediately braked by a right-hander's left foot.

This changes the racket head path away from perpendicular to rear fence to slantwise at side fence.

The fingers additive-- optional for some slice serves-- has been largely subdued. The pinky finger is back on the racket.

The arm only completes its straightening after scraping a ghost ball up and to the right of the real ball.

[bottle]

I'd like to hear what Steve has to say on this serve, too.

To try to answer my own last question, I'd say that in hammering a nail, triceptic extension probably dominates upper arm rotation, but upper arm rotation dominates in Totka's Hammer, at least in her demonstration of it at 3.16 in the video.

It's one's best throw (Tilden saying to throw a racket in a field). But is the arm still bent when racket contacts the ball? I guess so if we are seriously to take Pat Dougherty's description of total Totka hammer as "compact."

I simply love this video, which I've always thought the best of the zillion on kick serve I've ever seen (though any day I may change my mind through a great suggestion from somebody else).

Someone might ask why, Bot, are you repeatedly watching a video of this 15-year-old? Because I want to steal her serve, and each time I watch I see something different.

I'm especially intrigued by Dougherty's miming with the elbow at the point in the video where he says, "She's trying to come over the ball like this." With the clear implication that this is not what actually happens.

In fact one can see the whirligig start in one direction-- almost on a perpendicular at rear fence-- and then shift halfway through to a path more slantwise toward side fence.

Loose wrist humping up as arm goes up and front foot turned more than toward net post at the address are other notable features.

And all the body rotation that Stotty emphasizes. Totka's front leg may go from bent to straight to bent again but I sure can't see it. It is the rotational elements that predominate.

Me, I want to start the hips fast and then quickly brake them so that everything else goes fast as in my best slicers.

I believe Pat Dougherty when he says that like Naomi, if I put in the time, I'll get it.

I choose to believe him over the persons-- quite a few actually-- who say or think I'll never get it.

Was down love forty in good doubles last night when I started hitting kick serves both first and second and won the game.

My version of Totkan kick is not perfect but coming along.

[stotty]

Here is the element in question: Totka's Hammer as seen at 3.16 in the following video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds6CZ4qCXD4

And here is a germane question about it: If Totka's Hammer consists of extension from the elbow and upper arm rotation, which is primary and which subservient to the other.

I hope to derive the answer at a tennis social tonight.

Would love don_budge's thoughts on the girls serve. There is a lot of rotation here...kind of like McEnroe but without the stance.

[bottle]

A Tremendous Difference In Kick Serve Concept

Here is the element in question: Totka's Hammer as seen at 3.16 in the following video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds6CZ4qCXD4

And here is a germane question about it: If Totka's Hammer consists of extension from the elbow and upper arm rotation, which is primary and which subservient to the other.

I hope to derive the answer at a tennis social tonight.