A New Year's Serve

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How A Tennis Stroke Inventor Supports Himself

Hope and I are conducting an estate sale. Down in the basement of the estate I discovered an old pool table buried under dust and slabs of concrete and other rubble. I vacuumed it, got one of the overhead lights to work, found cues and a boxed set of discs that now are sliding on wires. Then I wrote up the rules for Cowboy Pool as it has been played at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire ever since the poet Edwin Arlington Robinson established them. Reader, you remember him, right? He wrote "Richard Corey" and a lot of other great stuff. Anyway, if I can sell the table we'll get a commission.

Miniver Cheevy
By Edwin Arlington Robinson

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam’s neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the mediæval grace
Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.

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Hold the Pickle (conscious breathing) but add Eine kleine Nachtmusik

Here's the old fashioned serve on which to build (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...DB1stSRear.mov). You might want to do this because you are getting old or maybe you realize you're an actual recreational player (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb_jQBgzU-I).

Notice: the narrowness of stance to begin, unlike Justine Henin or Roger Federer.

You wouldn't want to leave yourself with an overly long step as the service motion pulls your outside leg into the court, would you (?), would like to get easily to net, don't want to waste the step in just getting foot past your bod.

We love the easy mechanics of the new serve but would like to add some feel, a bit of rock and roll, to the beginning of it.

We abandon strenuous and elaborate waggles now along with the overly conscious breathing we were working on.

As we rock forward, in our narrowed stance, we slightly-- ever so slightly-- lift both hands, maybe one inch up.

As we rock backward, in our narrowed stance, we lower and lift the hands again, maybe an inch down an inch up so that racket is now is in the same place as Don Budge's as he begins the actual serve.

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New Thoughts on an Old-Fashioned Serve

Draw back.

View it again.

Be subjective.

Be more right brain.

Get the feel of it.

What do you see?

The left shoulder gets wound back and up as weight concludes on front foot (95 per cent?).

Shoulder is still going back, in other words, as the hips beneath whirl forward and flatten the foot.

How far apart are the feet? Seven or nine inches! That's NOTHING.

A new way to think of it: The shoulders turning back are on their way to their upward tilted frontward position in which the tossed ball will start to come down.

So they never stop their wind-back. It's just that this motion is a very slow stretch as of thick elastic.

The hips have time to turn both backward and forward in the middle of the action of tossing shoulder winding back and up.

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Half an inch down, half an inch up, let the shortened backward weight shift (with such a narrow stance) adjust to what the two hands are doing rather than vice-versa. Now you've got rhythm and are ready to start the serve.

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Or just get the racket up where you want it, sway back, pause a little, and start the mechanism. That's like dead stick in pool or billiards (cowboy pool) and is rhythmic enough.

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Report (Forehand): Swingpush Shot

In four sets you (I) hit the ball long once. That was not enough on a night when you (I) were hitting huge forehands that plunged short. Needed a few more mistakes of too much length to find the range.

The means for this adjustment is counter-intuitive. Swing elbow more horizontally before pushing it vertically.

The strings then will rise more steeply, the ball will fly higher, land deeper.

You-I could go to opposite extreme by shortening the horizontal swing. Why other than curiosity even think about this, however, when you have a better flat alternative, The McEnrueful, a shot that is all body and no arm.

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Nasty, Griping Tennis Observation

I'm tired of BIG WIPE. I saw it in 10-year-old Cate when we went to England. I've struggled with it for decades, developed my Federfore, made it work, won some matches.

But, in my case, it's a willowy shot that only crackles once in a while.

So I work on my swingpush shot instead-- get the grip and swing pattern that allows me to push the hand out and back to left ear with everything I've got, body, soul and bent arm all together.

The Federfore is a long arm shot. I'll bring it up to snuff later.

Just got an enhancement idea for the swingpush. Swing for right fence before whooshing knuckles out and up to left ear. "Blood out to fingertips." Remember that one?

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Simplicity Test

(http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...DB1stSRear.mov)

Turn hips into left leg. That cocks the shoulders, right? The shoulders then add on to what the arm is doing. And the force of the serve throws you off balance. So you bring outside leg forward to catch yourself.

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Complexification Test

You can never have two simplification tests in a row, reader, right? Simpler, more complex, simpler, more complex-- almost sounds like a healthy recipe but won't be that if all your efforts just add to the snarl of some fish line.

I was on the simplification road with my evolving serve, had just figured out a sensible address.

That gave me confidence and hope and one clean ace out wide on Friday night.

But I wasn't finished, was still snarled up in questions of sequence. Shoulders turn back first, then hips catch up, then hips turn the other way while shoulders stay back-- really? That scheme belongs in another reality that isn't mine.

No, I'm thinking I want to do more with hips-- make them prime. And to hell with winding everything back at once so that you look like a pretzel or Tony Roche about to release forward. So I lag the shoulders.

The front foot goes on its toes. That's from backward hips turn. The shoulders, as I already said, lag behind. Now the hips turn forward, flattening the front foot while raising the rear foot on its toes-- a syncopated reversal of heel positions while the shoulders turn backward to stretch the transverse muscles in one's gut and put 90 per cent of weight on front foot.

This is a good place to freeze and go to sleep.

Perhaps one can dream one's way toward intelligence.

When one raised the front heel one was standing tall, right? Well, when one flattens that foot one gets short, no? And can add to that effect by bending one's knee.

Of course on the right side of one's bod just the opposite is taking place. The right heel is going up. That takes the right hip up too. And the right shoulder.

Not bad, i.e., should be good. I won't say "stay tuned" since I think you should do your own experiment. But there ought to be some commonality in all of this, a connection between the old, the infirm, the recreational player, the person who will do better not to jump.

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Simplification Test

Turn left knee into right foot. Turn right knee into left foot.

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Arm Work in a Don Budge Imitation Serve

(http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...DB1stSRear.mov)

I've examined this material before. Cycles of experimentation may be what the most difficult evolutions in tennis are all about. You come back to the same subject albeit with some small difference you're maybe not even aware of and fail better.

Tossing forearm (though from whole arm movement) is vertical for high release of the ball. Racket points straight down by right toes for release. There is symmetry in this. Something points straight up. Something points straight down.

The hitting arm then bowls in long form on a perpendicular to rear fence. It then right angles to point racket horizontally on a perpendicular to rear fence.

How different this is from trophy position in a modern serve. The arm is similarly right-angled but pointing at rear fence rather than at the sky. Rotorded servers take note. You're going to get a long runway to the ball after all, no matter what anyone says, but a curved one.

Hand then performs its big quick circle, I would say pointing racket tip on a perpendicular at net as left side of body stiffens all the way up to yes, form the semblance of an archer's bow. But the hips now pop backward as the shoulders pop forward. The shoulders are turning the hips by now rather than vice-versa if that ever happened.

Through whatever my decades of tennis have been, I've always admired the Australian tennis writer Paul Metzler, who advocates turning palm down for clever, spinny serves and opening it out for flatter serves. Opening out doesn't work for me in this particular configuration, but two out of the three possibilities Metzler suggests seems pretty good.

His three choices applied here would be turn down palm as hand escapes away from body, turn palm slightly outward in the same section of tract, or leave palm exactly where it was. I go with option one for spinnier and option three for speed.

The setting of the elbow in these two chosen possibilities greatly determines effect. If turning the palm down you won't point on a perpendicular to rear fence but more toward the right fence which is the direction where the racket head is about to fly.

Didn't Chris Lewit advocate 45 degrees off the baseline for a topspin serve, 60 degrees for kick, 30 for slice? Stanley Plagenhoef advocates 15 degrees for a first serve.

I see a big difference in body work but not arm work between "modern" serves and pre-rule-change serves which in some but not all ways seem the very best.

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A Clever Assignment of Arm Roll

John Boros, director of tennis at the Indian Village Tennis Club, Detroit, just laughs if you tell him you have been working on your backhand.

Most players, he points out, work on their backhand throughout their lifetime.

The truth in this statement indicates two things: 1) satisfaction in hitting a backhand, 2) dissatisfaction in doing the same.

One could go from two-hand to one-hand to two-hand-one-hand, I suppose, then repeat all three categories every five years.

Or one could simply choose two-hand at five years old and live one's life there-- a wee bit boring. Not what John Boros would do.

Reader if you want to improve your one hander you should listen up right now.

That is how arrogant I am about what I am going to say.

Reader, you have two choices if you agree with me that the Stanley Plagenhoef backhand will offer significant improvement over the backhand you currently have.

Reader, I know whereof I speak. Because I have spent an inordinate amount of time fiddling with my backhand. And Plagenhoef's version is better than anything I could come up with.

So you should do exactly what I did: Order through Amazon a used copy of FUNDAMENTALS OF TENNIS by Stanley Plagenhoef for one penny.

Or, you can go back in this thread to the attachment on post # 3031 and join the seven persons who have already clicked there.

You'll see, I think, that Plagenhoef, whether he realizes it or not, can give you an easy swing as natural as that of Don Budge only with a strategized arm roll for magnificent abbreviation.

Stan Wawrinka and Domenic Thiem need not apply for this offer. I don't believe they read me as it is.

Everybody else though should do exactly as I say.

And after this band of brothers, these happy few have mastered the basic Plagenhoef with racket opening out to replace weight on rear foot they can go to page 30 to see how to hit the same shot very hard.

The example Plagenhoef uses is Manuel Santana, Fig. 2-17 or "backhand ace." Out of respect I will not reproduce Plagenhoef's last three drawings of the Santana follow-through but simply identify them as 1) racket tip almost pointing at net, 2) racket arm yard-armed with strings at 45 degrees open, 3) arm and racket almost straight up pointing at sky.

Of 3) Plagenhoef says, "This high position is an indication of the smoothness of the stopping motion of a vigorous swing."

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Slithery Bod Forehand

handbodhandbod, the formula, doesn't make a good enough name. What should the name of this new shot be then, The Ichabod Crane? We seek immer besser cues, cues that are always better. To move hand first we move elbow first, right? So let's cue on elbow not hand to make hand slither better. The elbow twists out but then retreats from right fence as the shoulders coil. This turns hand into the head of an aiming snake, healthy as a cue.

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Snaky Elbow

The elbow twists away from opposite hand, guides the shoulders around, glides toward right fence, strikes forward and upward as body chimes in.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XryKA3z_uWk)

Just another way of saying "handbodhandbod."

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How Many Cinnamon Rolls?

Suppose, reader, you are in a part of Europe where there are no chickens running around and nobody ever heard of eggs.

You order one cinnamon roll to go with your coffee-- breakfast-- but now it's time to play tennis, and you have a serve like this (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...DB1stSRear.mov).

How many cinnamon rolls should you order, starting with the part of the serve where your tossing arm points straight up and your racket points straight down?

Five should be enough: 1) racket opens out with arm first straight then bent to point at rear fence, 2) racket closes to miss your head and keep going down as if you have just won an arm wrestle, 3) racket opens out through pro drop position and keeps going that way through half of arm extension, 4) racket closes through ISR (internal shoulder rotation), 5) wrist bends to start opening action that continues racket to end of its follow-through.