A New Year's Serve

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Or Bring Toes up No More than One Inch

I might get Becker's timing that way without anyone ever noticing the wind-up difference between this and the three other serves. However, I can't drive to the court to try anything out since someone broke into my car and disabled it (Detroit can be a pretty tough place). The guy is on film. Four cars were broken into. Happened between five and seven a.m.

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It's Pouring Outside

Still, I need to get to a court to pit bending arm Becker type serves against bent arm Becker serves like Becker. I think I should try pigeon toes, too. How exactly are one's legs naturally constructed?

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But, How Important is the Becker Toes-up to his Serve?

Pretty important, to judge from this video (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...euceFront6.mov).

That messes with my orchestration. I wouldn't want to do something entirely different with the front foot in one of my four serves.

Possible solution. Keep feet flat through the turning back. No one would ever notice that. And the challenge is not whether to raise the front heel on its toes but when. Both heels to rise together. Legs fairly close for a double leg explosion (as in crew), or, if doing as Welby Van Horn would prefer, letting the serve pull both legs straight.

And off of the ground.

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Another Useful Expression Besides "aeronautical banking" Might be "orchestration"

Why teaching pros find such terms too high-fallutin' to bring into their vocabulary I don't understand.

Would they prefer to say, "First this shoulder is higher and then this shoulder is higher?" I doubt it. Too much about shoulders. The bad instructor would be all too apt to turn to another subject altogether and leave banking in the serve unaddressed.

Or maybe say, "Stand here then here then here. Hit slice that stays low then topspin that bounces high then a fast one then go out wide then down the center then straight at the returner."

A lot of words, right? To be brief, one could call all of this "orchestration," thus covering the subject but making time for another exciting subject such as the psychology of a feeble returner.

For best orchestration, I now ask, should one present a 90-piece orchestra or a chamber quartet?

It all depends on how many serves one has truly mastered and which are in trim, what is the common factor that unifies a group of them and thus forestalls meltdown on big points?

Me, I'm feeling especially good right now about my Kramer, my Ralston, my off-the-ground Becker and my tall slow Newcombe.

Tired of naming strokes, I now just cite their derivation. And note that what unites these alternating serves whether connected to the court or not is seminal movement of the right leg.

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How to Develop the Kramer Skate-Step

Start first with the plan of moving weight forward during the toss. A good way of doing this is not lifting toes like Sampras, Federer or Becker but rather lift the front heel.

The idea is then to lift the rear heel as front heel goes down part or all of the way.

This alteration of heel rise accomplishes the desired forward move all by itself.

Next, replace the rear heel lift with a lift of rear foot.

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Why Don't Other Teaching Pros Use the Welby Van Horn Expression "aeronautical banking" in their Tennis Instruction?

Because they are extremely slow and stupid in picking up on something good.

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Idea for Old-Fashioned Walk-Through Court-Connected Serve

Go with Kramer although the walk-through alternatives of other tennis minds are beautifully expressed and seem highly intelligent.

Think only Kramer here. His step is simplicity itself. His right hip lifts his right foot which then skates. The weight is where the foot is.

Halfway through this skating motion the airborne foot pivots, actually just as it gets to the baseline.

Why? Rotation (horizontal twist) of Kramer's hips. But don't let this distract from vertical body roll of every smooth type and the banking alteration simultaneously going on.

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...veBHVFront.mov)

Later note: I no longer think the right hip lifts the right foot. The foot goes up first then the right hip lifts part way through the serve.

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But

Edward Weiss and Welby Van Horn in SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER speak of three unusual servers-- without judgment other than to classify them as great serve and volleyers-- John Newcombe, Boris Becker and Michael Stich. These three get off the ground like all the more recent top pros. Unlike them, they kick the back leg forward toward the front fence rather than backward toward the rear fence. This style of serving, it seems to me, could theoretically apply to a recreational player with a knee replacement in a leg he didn't want to land on. He could land on his other leg if he thought that was wise. But only if he still wanted to become airborne.

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...1stSAdSide.mov)

There still is a kick back but it is from the other leg. That wouldn't hurt a knee replacement in that leg.

Moral: You don't have to boil the whole artichoke, just the bottom of it.

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Speaking to my Fondness for Trying Different Things when I Work on my Serve

I understand that tennis thought moves on, and that Vic Braden was among the first to admit that some of his ideas became outdated.

Frequently however he engaged in an argument about leg drive early and leg drive late.

If you are an imitator of the Federer jetplane there can't be much of a discussion. Something has to put Roger up in the sky and it is clearly early legs.

If however you serve for any reason in the old-fashioned way of the other half of the tennis world, it still would make sense to check out the two options.

Percy Boomer, David Ledbetter and Tom Okker all felt at some time that hips turn is most effective when knees are neither too bent or too straight.

Reader, if you are interested, you will have to carry the experiment forward from here since I haven't done it and my back says, "Not today."

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First Tennis Social of the Indoor Season

One of my doubles partners last night had been an elected member of the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Board of Education. "It was the unhappiest four years of my life."

Clifton also had been a baseball pitcher, something I guessed without ever seeing his serve (just the ball he served) and which he corroborated.

A substitute teacher in the public schools of Harrisburg makes twice as much money as I do in the charter schools of Detroit.

As a team, out on the court, we did well.

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The Same Decrepitude that Slows down the Quest for Kick of Many Average Players by Keeping Them on the Ground Should Become a Prime Ingredient in their Development of Slice.

The gold standard of grounded slice serving in the age of TennisPlayer membership should be this article, which though not perfect is perfectly great (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...ice_serve.html).

The terrific slice of Dennis Ralston at any age (and now he plays with a prosthesis) is characterized by its toss way out front and consequent extreme lean toward the net.

As far as I can see, Dennis Ralston never in his wonderful playing and teaching career got the racket particularly low behind his back. This indicates the reversing mathematical formula derived from articles and book by Chris Lewit: Less runway to the ball = less spin.

Well, Ralston's runway is truncated in one direction but extended in the other.

The pen drawings of Ralston's serve on page 83 of FUNDAMENTALS OF TENNIS by Stanley Plagenhoef show Ralston's leg action as well as that of his upper bod. Frame one shows his left leg connected with the court with his right leg way up in the air. Frame two shows extreme lean and straight arm long before his strings arrive at the ball. Frame three shows contact about eight inches in front of his forehead but with his forehead way forward of the baseline. Frame four: Huge ISR after contact and even more lean.

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Many thanks to Dr. Brian Gordon for the following two attempted serves that won't be attempted until after school.

The first is Jack Kramer. The second is J. Donald Budge. A premise is that the names of those two great players may be assigned to different species within the same phylum of grounded decrepit guy serve.

In both species the hips will sling the upper body toward the net before the upper body turns on its new diagonal axis.

In the Kramer the right foot will lift and skate a small distance as a result of the spiraling hips.

In the Budge the right foot will lift and turn in place 90 degrees as a result of the same spiraling hips.

In both instances the upper body, finely firing from the transverse stomach muscles, will help the racket fly up and then down.

At worst this method of serving won't work. At best, it will.

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Idea

Once elbows and shoulders are lined up, bend those elbows without moving them to preserve the alignment for a moment longer.

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The Arco Riffle-Book

How can I steal my boyhood friend Steve's serve when he's dead and I can't ask him about it? Was it really patterned on Jack Kramer? I think so. I remember a low takeback. It was so much better than my serve patterned on John Newcomb from the Arco riffle-book, which I still have and just riffled.

The Wesleyan University tennis courts were up a ridge in Steve's back yard, and Stanley Plagenhoef was the Wesleyan coach. Steve's father was the Wesleyan physician. Did Steve learn his serve from Stanley Plagenhoef?

First doubts crept in from my own assertion that Steve hit lots of topspin. Did Jack Kramer hit lots of topspin? I have heard he hit slice or flat and wished to keep the ball low so his opponents would have to hit up.

But do I have to know everything? Can't I, for my own purposes, combine the elements of Kramer and Newcomb that I like?

Yes Bottle you can do whatever you want. People won't care or even be curious. They'll be impressed however by Bottle-success, in which case those other side returners of serve will weep.

A lack of shoulders tilt is what I notice now as I riffle my Arco book. Newcomb's shoulders are practically level for most of the slow motion Arco serve. There is leftward lean. There is a huge vertical rotation. But where is all the stuff about stringing an archer's bow that creates upward tilt in the shoulders? Gone!

Given the imperative of my trick shoulder, the fact that I must get elbow high early or never get it high at all, along with the wish now to make my shoulders riffle level like those of John Newcomb, the way seems clear.

Don't film. The elbow will still be low which will only lead to discouragement. Instead, go down together and up together to place both upper arms close to head. Close but not touching the ears! An even distance from both sides of the head.

This sculptural pose will produce its own imperatives-- no opening out of the racket as in Kramer's serve which creates such comfortable distance behind the back.

Imperative one: Palm down lift of racket. Imperative two: A realization (riffle-riffle) that racket lifts to one's right side. It does not lift behind one's back as with Kramer.

Racket coming up both toward and away from side fence will create a continuation of direction when arm finally starts to bend.

As for footwork I choose Kramer's although his and Newcomb's are somewhat similar.

Only one of the tennis writers I have read has ever advocated palm in and palm out serves for the same player. In for more control, Paul Metzler wrote, out for more power. Whether or not I accept this and want to try it (which I have done before), I have always found this an interesting thought.

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How to Cut a Tennis Ball

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+...hrome&ie=UTF-8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjdD6nXekhI