A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Great Similarity

The Dan Gazaway and Dennis Ralston videos do correspond with one another and here they are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEq5xZvqGXc

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/famouscoach/denn_ralston/developing_the_slice_serve/developing_the_slice_serve.html

Together they provide almost too much content but nobody ever said that tennis (or baseball) should be easy.

The distinction Gazaway makes between novice and advanced curveballs can be applied to anyone's serve. You can get palm to face your head early or you can do it late during the forward horizontal body rotation the way Ralston does.

Gazaway's understated use of the word "garbage" could be useful for saving one's arm or keeping one's head still. In fact, he says a lot about saving the arm.

As for the "coming over the top of the ball" part, I must admit that some upper arm axle-like twist, counterclockwise for a right-handed server looking toward the opposite service box, will get into the act.

I find Gazaway's demonstration of three different followthroughs especially interesting. Is there any good reason why people serving tennis balls should not apply this information? What?

[tennis_chiro]

If like me you are in sporadic pursuit of this difficult serve (which gets clobbered if you do it wrong) you might consider a little baseball.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEq5xZvqGXc

I'm specifically interested in the beginner's curve ball shown here where palm faces head for most of the pitch (or serve).

This corresponds with the Dennis Ralston slice serve lesson.

[bottle]

Short, Wide and Effective from Deuce Court

If like me you are in sporadic pursuit of this difficult serve (which gets clobbered if you do it wrong) you might consider a little baseball.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEq5xZvqGXc

I'm specifically interested in the beginner's curve ball shown here where palm faces head for most of the pitch (or serve).

[bottle]

Progress Report: One 73-Year-Old's Tennis Game

Could be, that, given my affection for excruciating detail, I've already bitten off more than I can chew.

The title here however does reflect the egotism or rather self-interestedness I try to encourage in every tennis player I meet.

The forehand-- ah, my forehand-- falls into two divisions excluding chips and chops.

First, FEDERERIAN FOREVER with big knuckle on 3.5 despite Roger's apparent decline in fortunes if not fortune. And the same shot is Gordonian (as in "Gordonian Knot"), also Maccian and Yandellian. Despite these influences it's MY FEDERFORE conceived a couple of decades back. MY FEDERFORE is all mine and nobody else's and contains the unique characteristic of purposefully unstable teeter-totter melding into "tapping the dog."

Has evolution occurred? Of course. I plan to be tweaker city until my last breath. So the racket tip rolls up during unit turn as left hand stays on racket almost catching up to right hand. The rolling up starts sooner than in the case of Roger. And my pointing across starts later than it used to. Teeter-totter (unstable) starts the strings down, closing them. Unlike an ordinary see-saw, there's much simultaneous weirdness and moving about of various fulcrums. The elbow goes back and up, the racket head goes forward and down. If that's too complex, then think of a university student elevator in Bonn, Germany in which a parade of wooden platforms rises up as next to it a parade of wooden platforms plunges down. This teaches any surviving student a certain bit of dexterity to avoid being squashed. There are no doors of any kind, just attempts to board or leave as the wooden platform ephemerally coincides with the wooden floor where one's next or last class is alleged to have occurred.

FOREHAND TWO is a bowled version after John McEnroe but without his leg drive since MY FEDERFORE already has enough of that. MY FOREHAND TWO is a stay down shot with big knuckle on 2.5 and perfectly straight wrist and the backward pendulum motion of a grandfather clock. A plethora of experiments eliminated as ineffective all manner of arm rolls except for three:

1) Don't roll at all on backswing, start rolling as arm passes body to close strings on ball out front. 2) Slightly roll in both directions as you go back and forward to keep racket perfectly vertical and capable of balancing a coin on frame until after contact. 3) Close racket on backswing, then open and close it on down-swing and hit-through, which feels a bit like a slapshot in hockey or skipping a stone across the surface of a fetid pond.

BACKHANDS, VOLLEYS, LOBS, DROPSHOTS and OVERHEADS: All okay. MOVEMENT: Painful but still there.

[bottle]

That's what I've done for decades, and some of my geezer group have thought I had a good forehand ("Lots of racket head speed!") but yesterday I went to bangboard first and basket second to let the shoulders pull the hips a bit before the outside leg drove.

The arm loaded in that split-second. Also I was implementing Brian Gordon's advice to the New York Times reporter of five years tennis experience to maintain his pointing across until the hips cleared.

I agree that the hips clear. I just wanted to see if I could start the shoulders to pull hips while still pointing across.

Maybe the feel and refined accuracy and spin all were a yesterday thing and a function of self-feed which often does but sometimes does not speak to actual play. And it's true that my murder indictment was simply the result of momentary exhilaration. An experiment is an experiment, though, and you know I'll end up doing what works best and staying with it at least for a while.

("Nay, by my troth, I know not. But I know to be up late is to be up late.")

I didn't answer the point you brought up about certain springy things being over before hips get parallel to net. Good point. And on this and some others I may not know exactly what I'm doing (sometimes better that way). But, per usual, am fooling around and having fun.

I've always been amazed by Tom Okker's written distinction between his "flat" forehand and his "topspin" forehand where he says (and shows photographically with little superimposed lines drawn across the frames) how the shoulders are more open-- and early-- for the topspin.

I've only met one other tennis player in my life as taken with this as I, the son of a mad and probably drunken psychiatrist who died young. His son the lad was very good and hit a lot of topspin and did very well later in the Florida leagues, I was told through his mother, but I imagine his tennis hit a plateau eventually because of the limits of his continental grip.

[tennis_chiro]

Beg to disagree

The F.B.I., confusing Dick Chainey with Dick Cheney the 46th Vice President, took no action.

Their reason given was that the Bureau never met an international war crime or criminal it didn't like.

But Dick Chainey, a different kettle of fish, didn't kill innocents, he merely killed their tennis games.

By convincing young kids to turn their hips before they turned their shoulders he instilled them with a slowness they would never overcome in a lifetime of playing tennis.

Worse, the premature hips destroyed each kid's ability properly to load his or her arm on every ground stroke.

Take the following forehand, thought to be pretty good.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Arm_Action&stroke=RFFHInsideInArmActionRear1_500fps.mp4

Or the following backhand, also thought to be good.

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

In either case can you tell from watching the video which turns first, shoulders or hips? For obtaining the correct answer, watching may not be enough. You simply need to know. Shoulders turn first.

Tom Okker knew it and said so in those sections of MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES (1976) that dealt with his early shoulders topspin forehand.

His close friend Ivan Lendl knew it and said so in his joint book with Eugene Scott: IVAN LENDL'S POWER TENNIS (1983). To quote him: "Note that my hips only move as a product of my entire upper body movement. In a sense, the hips only follow the action of my arms, legs, and upper body. Unlike golf, the hips do not play a major part in producing power-- the idea being that if every part of your body explodes forward like the swing in baseball or golf, power may be gained but control is forever lost."

I've never heard the last word in any subject, and the passage above is no exception.

That dream murderer Dick Chainey, however, would have you believe that hips firing marginally ahead of transverse stomach muscles is the way to go.

Perhaps the jab of Muhammad Ali, which as his palookas would attest came all the way from his foot and ankle to paralyze even the most muscled part of one's arm is the perfect example.

Kinetic chain, however, is a description of rapid energy flow rather than a series of prescriptive steps.

Should not any player serious about his tennis at least try the wisdom of Okker and Lendl a single time?

So you are telling me you do not see the arm descending in a vertical plane towards the bottom of the backswing while the hips start to rotate forward!? It's not all the way to front-facing before the shoulders start to move. The initial movement of the shoulders that you see as the racket is dropping in that vertical plane is due to the movement of the hips.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...ar1_500fps.mp4

don

[bottle]

Wanted for Murder in All 50 Tennis-Playing States: Dick "Kinetic" Chainey

The F.B.I., confusing Dick Chainey with Dick Cheney the 46th Vice President, took no action.

Their reason given was that the Bureau never met an international war crime or criminal it didn't like.

But Dick Chainey, a different kettle of fish, didn't kill innocents, he merely killed their tennis games.

By convincing young kids to turn their hips before they turned their shoulders he instilled them with a slowness they would never overcome in a lifetime of playing tennis.

Worse, the premature hips destroyed each kid's ability properly to load his or her arm on every ground stroke.

Take the following forehand, thought to be pretty good.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Arm_Action&stroke=RFFHInsideInArmActionRear1_500fps.mp4

Or the following backhand, also thought to be good.

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

In either case can you tell from watching the video which turns first, shoulders or hips? For obtaining the correct answer, watching may not be enough. You simply need to know. Shoulders turn first.

Tom Okker knew it and said so in those sections of MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES (1976) that dealt with his early shoulders topspin forehand.

His close friend Ivan Lendl knew it and said so in his joint book with Eugene Scott: IVAN LENDL'S POWER TENNIS (1983). To quote him: "Note that my hips only move as a product of my entire upper body movement. In a sense, the hips only follow the action of my arms, legs, and upper body. Unlike golf, the hips do not play a major part in producing power-- the idea being that if every part of your body explodes forward like the swing in baseball or golf, power may be gained but control is forever lost."

I've never heard the last word in any subject, and the passage above is no exception.

That dream murderer Dick Chainey, however, would have you believe that hips firing marginally ahead of transverse stomach muscles is the way to go.

Perhaps the jab of Muhammad Ali, which as his palookas would attest came all the way from his foot and ankle to paralyze even the most muscled part of one's arm is the perfect example.

Kinetic chain, however, is a description of rapid energy flow rather than a series of prescriptive steps.

Should not any player serious about his tennis at least try the wisdom of Okker and Lendl a single time?

[bottle]

Pneumatic Tent

This stroke certainly is interesting, especially 45 clicks in, where Cocaine Lips has inflated his tent.

The term "Cocaine Lips" needs no further elucidation. You not only coined it but did a terrific job of actualizing the incident behind it from the barroom story told by Richard Gasquet himself.

"Inflation of a tent" though-- what's that? Well, I see it in the Budge, the Gasquet and probably the Carla Suarez-Navarro.

Sooner or later we who aspire to a devastating one-hander to complement our best sliced backhand encounter the idea of "removing slack from the arm." But I am not even sure the persons who foist this term upon us really mean "the arm." They are using the arm as a metonym for the whole body. Thus we come to the building block-- very firm-- of "removing all slack from the body."

Think of the balloon in some old breathalyzer test. The tennis player drunk on boilermakers and stoned on cocaine is able to make the cop's balloon unprecedentedly firm thanks to the PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs) that he also has transfused.

We clean persons don't want to partake in any of this beyond one boilermaker. We think instead of J. Donald Budge at some big band dance-- some Dorsey, some Goodman, Glenn Miller but not Lester Lanin or Peter Duchin who may be too late. As for drinks-- not many but some-- gin, maybe, vodka, some old F. Scotch Fitzgerald.

If it's your late mentor J. Donald Budge at the dance, he probably plans to take the girl he brung home to her family's porch.

The big thing though is his left arm around her waist. It makes a nice curve, and in fact this whole couple is perfectly balanced because of this left arm taken from the fellow's backhand.

What Richard Gasquet, Don Budge and probably Carla Suarez-Navarro have in common, conversely, is the barred hitting arm-- I mean "dynamically stretched" body all loaded with imminent release.

The arm is moving!

We wonks all come to think it is loaded but still or just changing direction or something.

As this point I have to abandon Richard, Carla and even former NCAA singles champion Bea Bielik although she is 100 per cent Hungarian transplanted in Long Island's sandy soil. (I met her in Leon's in Winston-Salem and when I told the bartender who she was-- the number one college player-- he made everybody applaud.)

These three players take their arm too high, and even Don Budge does something similar in a few of the representations I've seen, but not in the Tennis Player videos which I've decided on as my touchstone because of their extreme economy.

I like the easy palm down bonk increasing the load, with all preparation preceding that occurring in the area of the waist. Inadvertently, I discovered how this distant radio station might come in while slugging a bangboard from second bounce.

Shoulders rather than hips turn forward first yet contact occurs with shoulders still a bit closed and not yet parallel to sideline. The bonking palm-down fist is merely part of the inflating tent.

It's beneficial, I find, to think of bonk and roll as a single brain impulse rather than bonk as corresponding to some body action and roll as corresponding to some other body action.

In fact the bonk-and-roll both loads and then releases the body. Some of the bonk is left over just before the sudden roll that "turns the corner" and gets racket head an extra foot in front outside of the ball.

[don_budge]

Attention John Escher aka "bottle"....re: Richard Gasquet's backhand

Due to your unparalleled attention to detail and nuance...I thought that I might bring Richard "Cocaine Lips" Gasquet's backhand to your attention.

Here's a nice one to begin with...it is a beauty technically and aesthetically speaking:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/richard_gasquet/rg_backhand/rg_bh_center/rg_bh_center.html?RGBHCenterClosedStanceFront1_Tennisplayer440.mov

This guy doesn't look to be so imposingly athletic or anything but when it comes to his backhand...he can really bring it.

I am watching him play Tursunov at this very moment and in one game he pummeled a reverse cross court winner into the forehand corner of Tursunov that was almost immediately followed up with a down the line backhand winner in the same exact spot.

A couple of points later he landed a sweet and delicate drop shot to the forehand side of Tursunov's net. It is a distinctive shot...but it may be of interest to you. I read your reviews ranging from that of the Stanislov Wawrinka backhand all the way back to the great J. Donald Budge backhand...with great interest. You just might have some fun with "Cocaine Lips" backhand...and give us something good to read if we cannot sleep at night. It happens you know.

[bottle]

It Was Coming?

Build off of easy topspin serve preparation. The unique characteristics can remain the same except for:

A carve instead of the inside out upper arm twist.

Twist outside in, instead, but place the strings flat on ball before you start to carve.

Result: A short, wide serve bouncing HIGH?

[bottle]

Airborne and Ground-Bound Versions

Re # 1764, so instructive on many topics including the importance of staying closed in a dozen swinging sports:

don_budge points to feet getting lined up with shoulders at contact in this airborne version of Don Budge's famous backhand:

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

But where are the shoulders in relation to sideline? Parallel to it? No, less than parallel to it. Closed in a word.

But that is in an airborne version. Where are the shoulders in the ground-bound version, which is about 20 times easier to teach or learn?

Closed in a word.

Okay, bottle, if you say so. We may believe you. But where can we see one of these full ground-bound Don Budge backhands just to make sure?

Drawing # 6 on page 140 of THE GAME OF SINGLES IN TENNIS, Talbert and Old, Lippincott, Philadelphia and New York, 1962 .

And no, I don't have a scanner convenient or I would reproduce drawing # 6 . Staying closed at contact is nevertheless a more than good idea even though you-I-they will have already been slowly swinging our shoulders which get to go farther and open up somewhat immediately afterward.

[bottle]

To Steve

You are absolutely right. I couldn't sleep.

Thank you very much for such a nice fleshing out of my schemes.

[bottle]

Carve Your Serve

Do, don't, do, don't. Think I'll do both today-- hit with racket head turning out and turning in, i.e., a carve. Preparation for both will be exactly the same.

The carve is a much older way of serving, thoroughly discredited in today's world, no?

The question is-- who has done the discreditation? Geniuses or knaves?

I still haven't developed a consistently devastating short, soft slice wide from the deuce court but should carve several aces today-- yes, hard wide from deuce to deuce court or down the middle from ad court. Of course the guy I usually ace is my friend Wally, 88 years old.

Still, it is amazing to me how modern tennis instruction can talk a given player out of his best shot.

Of course, back leg driven serves are a rarity, a paradigm shift with who knows what implications, if any, for persons other than myself. Elbow gets a little farther forward for the internal rotation shots, stays back in line with both shoulder balls for the out wide carved ace number.

[don_budge]

The Don Budge Backhand...seen through the eyes of don_budge

Couldn't sleep bottle? Thanks John for this bringing this work of art to our attention.

Talbert and Old: "The backhand must be a fluid and continuous motion, not a series of separate acts performed one after the other. Properly executed, the steps are simple and related, creating a natural sequence without hesitation or acceleration."

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

What a beautiful description and a wonderful illustration of perhaps the greatest shot in tennis of all time. You can say that sort of thing if you understand that all things are relative to the era you are referring to.

At click number 16, Don Budge on the dead run has planted his front foot and at the same time rotated his torso and shoulders into perfect position with his racquet poised to go forwards. From the point of view of his opponent most of Budge's back is visible from the other side of the net. The balance of a ballet dancer.

On click number 22 he makes contact with the ball and his back foot is nearly perfectly aligned with his shoulders. All of this with the simplest and most fluid of motion on the stretch. Contact with the ball is well out in front of the body indication of a solid drive that is intended to inflict damage...played aggressively considering the apparently defensive position he was in when the shot was played at him.

Just two more clicks to number 24 and you witness the same kind of balance that Roger Federer treats us to in John Yandell's music video of his forehand. Seemingly poised in mid air he has collected his momentum to a momentary stationary position.

The beauty of it all is for the next 10 clicks...Mr. Budge is floating through the air until his left rear foot finally finds the earth again and he has fully rotated his entire structure through the path of the ball until he is virtually facing the net at the end of his follow through. Almost a full 180 degree rotation of his being. Truly an amazing feat of balance, control and power.

The elegance of the motion enhance by the wardrobe. The long trousers with the shirt tucked neatly in without a wrinkle. I can still remember his easy chuckle, his soft spoken voice and his modest manners. Truly a gentleman in every sense of the word. I remember him telling me about his epic five set match with the Baron Von Cramm for the 1937 Davis Cup...never a hint of bragging or any such attitude. He spoke as if it was an honor to have been involved in such a titanic struggle. He told me that he never saw the last ball hit the ground as he apparently ended up on the ground fully extended.

The conversation took place in a Maryland restaurant over dinner that he was hosting for all of his employees at the camp. Champagne and lobster for all! They broke the mold after him...Don Budge. I think it was 1973. He was about my age then...I was just a kid from Dearborn, Michigan. Nineteen years old.

[bottle]

Backhand

Talbert and Old: "The backhand must be a fluid and continuous motion, not a series of separate acts performed one after the other. Properly executed, the steps are simple and related, creating a natural sequence without hesitation or acceleration."

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