A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Progress Report

Yes, thumb up the back panel on a diagonal was the Budgian idea, which Vic Braden brought across to his minimum arm swing backhands in TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE. Braden even used a brush pen to draw a black X on the flat of the thumb which one could then use for directional purposes by keeping it faced toward the target for a prolonged time. In the wrapped method preferred by most one handers including me you have to find another part of the hand for reference-- front of the knuckles say or pinky finger (this latter Al Secunda's "tip").

But I wonder about any "balance a penny on frame of racket" method for a free-wheeling ground stroke of any kind. Give me open racket face coming toward the ball and then closing to square, or, usually better, closed racket face coming toward the ball and then opening to square. These swings are less hyper-controlled. They are loose, uninhibited, and paradoxically translate into better control through more racket head speed.

Last night I played doubles for the first time in over a month on the eve of doubles day in Davis Cup. I didn't want to play since the night before my left knee and leg stiffened during a waltz lesson. It was the late rise up on both sets of toes during the third beat that did it. But my physical therapist at Cottage Hospital, Jennifer Ostrowski, thought I should play to see if my left quad felt stronger and to help detect just where we are in our joint (pun) effort toward strength and limberness.

Think how boring we contributors here in this forum could be if we announced every victory and gave the score. Well, I guess the first victory was that the leg didn't stiffen until the third set. And the second victory was that my revised Ziegenfuss was extremely accurate with moderate heavy topspin to bring it down. Left hand as a snowplow running down the road was a helpful image. That first snowplow can set a relaxed pace for the second snowplow as well which sure isn't going to try and pass it. Then and only then the body chimes in. For me, this is the most relaxed forehand ever, and a couple of aficionados at the club took note of it. Also, I discovered that there are degrees possible of baseballing the two hands together. To say one should have fingers on the strings or wrapped around the throat or pressed against the other hand sounds like an expansion of possibilities but is in fact too conceptual. Playing with varied amount of distance between the hands and seeing the whole subject as infinite spectrum is both instructive and fun.

The third victory was 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 .

[stotty]

I heard Don Budge didn't wrap the thumb round the handle to meet the fingers on his backhand like most players do. Instead his thumb lay horizontal along the back of the handle.

A bit like a "thumbs up" gesture. Then turn your hand over over 45 degrees to the left.

Whether this was true or not I don't know but an old friend of mine (who is old) watched him play a number of times - albeit form a distance - and said it looked that way to him. I also read it somewhere too.

Seems strange because the thumb is the major gripping tool of the hand, and rackets must have been real heavy back then. It would make sense to wrap the thumb round the handle and not have it stuck out horizontally along one of the back bevels.

I would love to have this verified. Perhaps our very own don_budge might know as I seem to remember reading in one of his posts that he either met or played with him once.

[bottle]

Baseballing the Hands

The idea is mine, no matter where it came from or how it recurred. But I thank Geoffrey Williams for writing about it now, in detail, and would like to hear more from him or anybody on this fascinating subject applied to one handers and two handers both-- and on both sides. Baseballing your hands on one side has implication for waiting position and ground stroke on the other side no matter your style or what you choose to do.

Budge and Ashe are some of the one handed players who have utilized this method though not all of the time or at every moment of a varied career. Early studies of Budge and Ashe-- which some readers found annoying (but why should that matter when all one is trying to be is a boy scientist)-- had me starting with guide hand on strings or on the racket throat or touching the other hand. I don't think I stuck with this last experiment for long enough.

Petr Korda, the admiration for whose backhand I wish to maintain, is at the opposite extreme, with fingers wedged well up on the strings as Peter Burwash used to teach and as Stotty pointed out, saying he didn't do that.

With regard to J. Donald Budge, the tennis writers Talbert and Old wrote about a grip change BEHIND his body which involved guide hand starting first in one place but then shucking down to the other-- an added complication with a rhythmic component but damaging, I think, to more conventional grip change already installed.

(The Tennis Player videos do not show Budge doing this dramatic trick, not at all, his hand like that of most players stays in one position on the throat until he leaves it in mid-air. The alleged drawing together then must have occurred at some other moment in his career.)

Pursue this avenue too much, reader, and you might end up with overly complicated tennis strokes.
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So, I go with hands glued together on all ground strokes for the time being. How often do I see a high ball anyway if I'm tall (I am but shrinking fast). If I get some high balls I'll improvise. Waiting position on volleys will not change.

The hand together baseline game will immediately affect whatever ground stroke style one already has. If your forehands are better with hand on the throat, then on the throat hand will be.

For me, hand can start pointing (with movement!) at side fence sooner since it has already pushed the racket tip back more. Experiments on Federfore and Ferrerfore are not complete, but neither stroke is appearing to suffer, and as for Ziegenfuss, it's wowie-- here's the biggest improvement in feel of all.

A Ziegenfuss, or rather my variation of it, is an intensely conservative, careful shot, indispensable to someone who to the least little bit is all over the place.

I want an extremely round, small, geometrically perfect circle of a loop (a coin on edge) for this particular shot. And the orchestration for all three forehands dictates no reverse action whatsoever for this one. I've even decided to abandon the point-at-the-side-fence maneuver on this one and revert to older, more classical way of getting the hips and shoulders and foot around. The perfect round loop now is much smoother and easier to achieve. The guide hand, as on the backhand side, gets racket far back soon.

On forward stroke the left hand goes first, smoothing the waters, followed by the right hand smoothing the waters again. Let's change the image, each hand a snowplow.

Finally, the body chimes in. One catches the racket up left.

[bottle]

But, if we're going to include more turn from the gut in our ultimate concoction, and then we're going to suck in our gut in an abrupt stopping maneuver, perhaps we should inhale (either that or stick out our gut and exhale, etc.) at the same time.

[bottle]

How Much Does Roger Turn His Hips in his 1HTSBH?

I'll ask it again. How much does Roger turn his hips? Some but not much. How much does Roger turn his shoulders? A bit more but not much. Is this information important? I happen to think so. Roger is best model for a one-hander in the view of many. Certainly, he has been filmed more than any player.

Taken together, these last two statements alone could qualify the info, but the final test is whether the proportion of hips and shoulders given here works for thyself.

Also, I notice that, characteristically, Roger steps out very far with a straight right leg (that means heel first landing like Guga) and then the knee bends but only a small bit and then straightens but again only a small bit.

A lot of people probably think that there is deeper compression and then longer extension of the front leg, maybe from reading Vic Braden four score and seven years ago. No, Roger gets low another way, almost by doing a split.

Me, I see the slight extension of the front leg as an element that is spread out through most of the forward stroke. (I may just have had some help in reaching that conclusion.)

Anyway, that's what I see this afternoon.

[bottle]

Two Things with the 1HTSBH Stomach

1) Turn with transverse muscles on top of hips as hips spiral up.

2) STOP the transverse muscles by freezing them just as you freeze the hips.

Stopping the stomach may sound difficult but is a matter of willpower or intention.

"Intention!" my Carlos Castaneda immersed Hungarian girlfriend used to shout. That was when I knew I was in trouble.

Just as you can tighten a cheek or left or right quad, you can isolate or tense or harden or concentrate any muscle in the body. If you are a woman, you can even do a kugel.

So you (I) can use Stotty's description in # 1004 and suck in the gut as in # 1005 where I was hitting high line-drive backhands that only plunged down at last second to hit the line. Perhaps there was a little movement from the gut beforehand that I didn't recognize.

As for stopping the hips, intention again plus legs plus left hand contribute.

But note how Roger's left hand doesn't really fly out until late, after contact.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/roger_federer_09/rf_backhand/rf_bh_center/rf_bh_center.html?RFBHCenterClosedStanceCourtLevelRear2.mov

Stopping the hips by extending the front leg can draw on the golfer's barrel of Boomer and Ledbetter.

The idea is that if the legs are bent just the right amount the knees and hips turn easily.

But if you bend the knees too much, they get stuck in the barrel.

But if you extend them too much, they get stuck in the imaginary barrel, too.

That's where the metaphor or image of getting stuck breaks down.

So you just have to take the idea on faith. Extended or partially extended leg doesn't rotate as easily as comfortably bent knee-- knowledge one can use to help stop.

[bottle]

Join the Anti-Mondo Club?

Casually divulged by me? 15 per cent more accuracy when I remove the mondo from my Federfore and bend my wrist back gradually. Doing the same on Ferrerfore doesn't make such a difference but isn't worse.

[bottle]

For More Pop Since Old Guys Do Need a Little Shock and Awe

Thanks. I got result today when I stiffened the stomach muscles (sucked it in, as it were) and hit some high line drives which only dove at the last moment to stay in the court.

I liked that. But now, as I go through the Federer 2009 one hander clips again, I'm seeing hips move the shoulders alright, but shoulders gaining on the hips at the same time to get parallel to the sideline a bit quicker.

It's the stripe down the side of his pants. It really tells what his hips are doing.
If you concentrate on that, you may see (or realize) all kinds of other stuff.

For better or worse, true experiments never hold still, do they?

[stotty]

Guts

Uncle Vic Braden was right. One should hit one-handers from the gut. In the present scenario, that means keeping a fantastically solid connection between upper and lower bodies while hips turn the shoulders just before everything stops and arm most goes. Is this the true meaning of "core values?"

Vic was right. If you hit a really good one hander, you can feel your gut is at the core of the shot. If you hit a powerful and perfect one hander, you can feel the energy go right up thru your legs up to your gut.

This is what I like about this thread...it pursues weird and wonderful details.

[bottle]

Uncle Vic Braden was right. One should hit one-handers from the gut. In the present scenario, that means keeping a fantastically solid connection between upper and lower bodies while hips turn the shoulders just before everything stops and arm most goes. Is this the true meaning of "core values?"

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So, if ALL the analysis in the last 10 posts is 100 per cent correct, and even if it isn't, which player rolls the elbow more between flashlight and contact-- Roger Federer or John McEnroe? I just ask.

[bottle]

The wrist often gets straight. That certainly helps Roger get the racket length angled down in the 30-60 degree range at LP (low point).

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/roger_federer_09/rf_backhand/rf_bh_center/rf_bh_center.html?RFBHCenterClosedStanceFront2.mov

The racket tip is still cocked past perpendicular to the rear fence when he finally lets it go.

The wrist then appears to curl a little in many videos as the strings come off of the ball. This is the same phenomenon as in a John McEnroe backhand, in my view (advise me, reader, if I'm wrong).

John's wrist starts straight and then curls, which helps close the racket face.
Roger's wrist starts concave or locked up and then straightens, which helps close the racket face. Some further curling is then apparent in some of the videos as Roger comes off of the ball.

The two players use different grips, but wrist movement (thinking of the wrist itself and nothing else!) is in the same direction, i.e., is the same idea, methinks.

To me the most crucial challenge in a 1hbh right now is getting racket tip to a proper low point. Ivan Lendl did it through his ability to guide with the very tips of extraordinarily long fingers on his left hand.

Roger rolls the racket closed while straightening his hitting arm while swinging his arm. (The whole arm is not going terribly fast but the elbow does move.) The action taken together in correct proportion achieves the illusion of a still flashlight and the reality of an ideal low point.

[bottle]

The hips rotate once and they get still, too (see stripe on pants). And don't rotate any more though they still push. Was it hips that turned the shoulders several clicks before contact? Seems that way. Is it shoulders that carry the racket away several clicks after contact? Seems that way, too. And is it all compatible with good dancing? A little different, but, generally, I think so.

[bottle]

I see it and I'm doing it. Meanwhile, down below...

[bottle]

Great grist for the mill. Thanks.