A New Year's Serve

[tennis_chiro]

Love this article

Here's a great, dispassionate discussion of slice from Sergio Cruz.

http://www.tenniscruz.com/content/view/27/27/

As I said, I think this is a great article. But I disagree if it seems to suggest that Rosewall is rolling his arm at contact. If you, reader, want to disagree with ME about that, allow, please, if you can, that the photos 4 through 5 sequence show that most of the racket closing has occurred right then before contact.

Also, photo sequences other than this one show a missing frame where Rosewall's strings knife downward before they rise up. Of course he doesn't knife downward as much as Federer, but to portray this swing as purely level does a disservice to anyone who has the healthy wish to imitate it.

My contention is that the backward roll of the arm opening the racket face-- a small but significant drop-- explains at least half of the firmness with which the racket tip gets round so well and smoothly and soon same as in the Emira Stafford, Pancho Gonzalez, John McEnroe topspin backhands discussed elsewhere.

I love this article. I'd seen it before, but I enjoyed going over it again.

As for the roll of Rosewall into his backhand from horizontal racket face to something between 45 and 85 degrees at contact, this is a natural motion of your forearm when reach back. (Albeit the only natural position is to lay down flat!) We use this natural turn of the forearm to slide the palm on top of the grip into an Eastern backhand grip as the opposite hand pulls the racket back and maintains the face in a relatively vertical position so the right hand can easily find the correct bevel of the grip to rest on before it must apply the force to swing foreward. Rosewall used the continental grip for his backhand and so as the palm rotated (pronated forearm), so did the racket face. It similarly wants to retrace that movement as it swings forward and I would argue that it is not that difficult to do what Muscles did coming forward (although none did it as well as he did). When you hit a topspin backhand with an Eastern backhand or stronger grip, your wrist and forearm are in a very different position structurally and also much more in front of the front hip (closer to the net). The one-handed topspin backhand player has to be aware that he can not turn the racket face over that way or he will dump the ball in the net. But the slice/continental grip player merely brings the face back to a comfortable position at the side of his body at impact.

don

[bottle]

Rosewall vs. Federer Slice

Here's a great, dispassionate discussion of slice from Sergio Cruz.

http://www.tenniscruz.com/content/view/27/27/

As I said, I think this is a great article. But I disagree if it seems to suggest that Rosewall is rolling his arm at contact. If you, reader, want to disagree with ME about that, allow, please, if you can, that the photos 4 through 5 sequence show that most of the racket closing has occurred right then before contact.

Also, photo sequences other than this one show a missing frame where Rosewall's strings knife downward before they rise up. Of course he doesn't knife downward as much as Federer, but to portray this swing as purely level does a disservice to anyone who has the healthy wish to imitate it.

My contention is that the backward roll of the arm opening the racket face-- a small but significant drop-- explains at least half of the firmness with which the racket tip gets round so well and smoothly and soon same as in the Emira Stafford, Pancho Gonzalez, John McEnroe topspin backhands discussed elsewhere.

[bottle]

~

"Devise improved loop for a Ziegenfuss." Ideas please. How about, in a long, low, elliptical loop with sweeping elbow movement in both directions, 1) extend arm internally as wrist lays slowly back. 2) have a small, long-levered drop. 3) compress arm (fold or scissor it to preferred open-the-stuck-cellar-door contact position as wrist slowly straightens and elbow slides forward). 4) have give in wrist as body takes over.

Note: Mondo is gone in this scheme. Good riddance. Just because one mondoes in other forehands doesn't mean one has to in this one.

[bottle]

Ziegenfuss Further Simplified

Simply devise a loop in which the wrist stays straight. Then when you spring don't swing at the ball, let the wrist push backward.

All the silliness about moving the wrist this way then that then this probably came from too much analysis of Novak Djokovic.

Oh, A NEW YEAR'S SERVE, the book, is for sale in The Kindle Store at Amazon.

[bottle]

Stop the Elbow

A personal conclusion that a basic, gravity-driven figure eight design leads to the most consistency in serving doesn't preclude a number of new options as to how one may hit the ball.

The options are new because, if you are a human computer, your figure eight decision dictates its own drop-down screen. One or more of the drop-down items may seem familiar but don't be fooled. Context is different so the drop-down items are different too.

So drop-down to keep up, or more simply, keep the elbow up (and stopped) once you have slung your scapular housing toward the ball.

This view makes conscious two different ways the arm, whether bent or straight, can fly around gross body from one's shoulder joint.

The first is simply the shoulder ball moving in a socket. Since there's no inherent strength in this rather mechanical movement, one does best to delay it until after the ball is gone.

The second way is powerful sling-shot, the result of scapular retraction followed by scapular adduction-- use this one some time before your racket gets to the ball.

Neither of these two basic maneuvers of the upper arm is to be confused with a third, i.e., twist in either direction but hopefully both.

Did I just shatter your innocence, dear reader? Did I tell you something you didn't know? Does your serve work better if you only use the logic of throw? If so, I apologize and sympathize.

[bottle]

~

Shouldn't give up on an idea just because first implementation wasn't feasible.

Working from # 825, I'll now keep racket closer to the head during the takeback, like the beginning of a Federfore.

This means racket tip will get higher. You'll (I'll) get more twist going earlier, backward, which will continue in bent arm going forward.

Come to think of it, this must have been what Valerie Ziegenfuss did in TENNIS FOR WOMEN.

(My ex got my copy in the aftermath of our divorce.)

[bottle]

~

Not as hot an idea as I thought. I stand with this type of backhand, but on the Ziegenfuss forehand, I did better extending the elbow travel in both directions, causing a longer slow swing toward the ball. Yes, racket head sweeps around to "grab" ball, but all of this is blended with elbow travel.

I was getting too schematic, in other words, was trying for too much strict sequence.

So better to get on with a more general approach to the ball, though still slow until the body takes over.

This at least was one day's court report.

[bottle]

Hand Still on Backhand, Elbow Still on Forehand

If today's experiment isn't positive, I'll say good, one less thing to think about.

But I'd like to embed some silence in all of my ground strokes. On a typical backhand by now, my hitting hand gets still. It twists but it's still. The hand is fixed in space, in other words, as the racket tip sweeps round parallel to the court prior to forward and upward lift of both ends of the racket.

I wish to take part of this design over to a Ziegenfuss on my right side. A Ziegenfuss is a forehand in which normal body-arm sequence is reversed-- the arm goes first, slowly. This shot has worked well for quite a few years but now I'd like to see if I can improve upon it.

Just as hand on straightened arm gets still on the backhand, elbow of bent arm will get still on this forehand, allowing two things to happen with increased purity and completeness: 1) The forearm will sweep around parallel to the court. 2) The wrist will gradually straighten in unison with 1).

Then, as delayed body finally springs through and up the back of the ball, the hand or rather right-angled arm will suddenly be in a very strong pushing position, so that an old cue comes to mind: Push open a stuck cellar door. But I'm going to allow the ball to push the hand backward again. The hand-- or wrist-- will be going backward for the second time in the stroke cycle.

First wrist retreat was the mondo achieved in response to arm movement. In most big forehands mondo is achieved in response to gross body movement. In this forehand one keeps relaxed wrist straight in top part of a small, elliptical loop as if you want to put your arm around the back of a small child. No attempt is made to point racket tip at rear fence but you can exaggerate the shoulders turn as much as you want.

The arm then changes direction, i.e., the elbow moves slightly forward, mondoeing the wrist.

Now, for what comes next, keep the elbow still. But I already said that.

Face it, we're requesting the tennis god to permit a huge number of events all to occur during the lower or forward part only of a slow, extended loop: Elbow traveling as wrist opens, elbow stopping, forearm sweeping as wrist closes, wrist opening again. Too tall an order? Not if we believe that any little sequence like this-- one move really-- can become a hundred times more assuredly liquid through myelinization over time.

In two of my three other full forehands, there may already be some built in silence. "Throw-to-first" is the name of one of them. Elbow is poised in a backward position as if hand just dug ball out of a glove. I don't find this shot effective against huge hitters in tennis but do find it interesting when there is slow pace.

In my personal version of a Ferrerfore, the arm doesn't get back as far as David Ferrer initially takes it but rather points at right fence-- the silent part. I want the easy power provided by treating my version as a forehand serve. As body whirls forward, the arm whips backward and forward to more than catch up.

In a Federfore, I don't see any silence at all beyond perhaps an initial measuring of the ball. It's a beautiful shot in which one's characteristically straight arm sweeps around at great separation.

If beauty frightens, however, one could compare this shot to taking the beltway rather than driving through the middle of the city.

[bottle]

In actual play however a previous construction worked better. That would be a kick serve in which the scapular sling-shot was delayed until contact, which seemed to add a joker if not Djokerish quality to the upward spin.

[bottle]

Hurling the Housing

"Housing" refers to the whole scapular conglomeration in the upper quadrant of your back near to and including the shoulder. You can maximize service contribution from this housing by retraction, delay and adduction, i.e., sling-shot the thing.

How much delay, though? And exactly when should you release this spring?

In experiments, I've played with delay, tending toward shrinkage of it. And today, after different times for the sling-shot, I want it to happen at the precise moment when, in answer to gross body, the elbow naturally inverts and winds the upper arm like an axle. Sling-shot may actually help pre-load upper arm by conflicting with it, in other words.

Since adduction goes not only upward but forward, this may predict adjusted stance to make sure racket still flies edge on toward the ball.

[bottle]

Steffi-Slice

Still making like Bobby Fischer in solitude, still following some logical path which revealed itself during unrelated experimentation, bubbled up all by itself, you might say, we re-format our big slice even though we love our small slice, we want them both, we want it all.

Two loops like Steffi Graf, I'm thinking, like a dolphin rising and falling as it flows through the ocean's surface, will first wind racket head down then up for a final plunge abetted by clenching shoulder-blades.

Sound good? You bet. I'll try it out on the court.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaS8we7KaQo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=KDUOxgZamVs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9g28DDm02g&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8RibH0lB3w&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhUBBvYBfr8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68xnAfwgoqY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTHduZci8ak&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Gefc1SNEg

[bottle]

More Application of New Idea

If high one hand backhand (# 820) is working marvelously well, it occurs to me that I ought to try it on a few medium height balls, too, and I will.

The form of this shot is nothing if not interesting (if detachment is possible in tennis discussion).

Any loop, minimal, can approximate total amount of roll one anticipates using in the stroke whether during first or second half of the forward structure or both.

But to explain this structure more (a good idea? Maybe. I'm not sure), the deliberate, muscular arm straightening gently uppercuts the racket head around.

The elbow then changes path once arm is straight. The elbow can rise straight up to a high finish. Upward plane in the whole stroke might change as much as from 30 to 60 degrees, with other variations available, of course.

I see an orchestration possible for finding the ball: twisting hand still for one kind of stroke, elbow still for the other.

[bottle]

High One Hand Backhand

Note on high backhand described by the way in Post # 818 : If racket tip is pointed down mildly, and with perfect accuracy, which means that elbow is pointed up, but only mildly, this shot can go from most difficult of the topspin backhands to easiest. The racket head, though not rising with uniform circularity, can nevertheless rise on a single upward plane, and natural acceleration can come from lever getting longer.

[bottle]

Note

On shots where arm-straightening contributes to forward force, the hand obviously moves a lot though not as much as racket head, if rh does roll some at the same time (but rh may not have to do this).

On those driven medium or low ball shots where arm straightens before racket starts forward, the hand then twisting forward can change its orientation in space hardly at all, which is good for hand-to-eye coordination.

For purposes of self-education, which is no different from any other kind of education, I'm saying, "Get the level pivot around to work for you on these low and medium height balls. Then, in the other situations where you can't or don't want do this (high ball, slices, chops) simply use arm straightening as a substitute."

[bottle]

More on Backhand Slice, Creative Division

Nobody can intelligently discuss slice without at least invoking that of Steffi Graf even if they have no chance of understanding it.

Who invented this curlecue-laden full catastrophe for her opponents, the German Tennis Federation, Steffi herself, some coach we don't know about, Steffi's mom, her radioactive dad? Our best opportunity for discovery is Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

But it's easy to imagine the inventor having been self-sequestered like Bobby Fischer and pushing chess pieces around for 14 hours every day.

An idea can come from anywhere, if one is set up for it like Bobby (though on a smaller scale), and mine today comes from Pancho Gonzales' instruction for coming over a high ball to create backhand pace and topspin.

He says, in TENNIS BY PANCHO GONZALES, page 47, "6. My backswing is finished, and I am about to hit up on the ball. If I hit downward while standing behind the baseline, my shot would inevitably be too short."

Okay, his arm is bent, the racket tip somewhat lowered, his elbow pointed somewhat up.

He continues, "7. The hit is finished, and my weight is on my front foot. As always on the backhand drive, the racket head points to the top of my opponent's fence."

To think now about all of the hardest hit one handers in tennis, whether flat, topspun or sliced, and whether hit by Donald Budge or Bertha Symantec, there are two sequential sections of forward swing: 1) where racket head comes around level or down or up but the hand, relatively speaking, doesn't and 2) where hand and racket head proceed together.

Although some teaching professionals have praised my own one-hander, it never even remotely approached my expectation until this year with the above description making all the difference. Now, I believe, I finally understand what John McEnroe meant when he criticized Gred Rusedski for not keeping his elbow in.

The basic form for low or medium height shots can be a simple drop that not only removes slack but rolls arm cocked. Cock and roll in other words (sorry but not very).

On a higher shot, whether drive or slice, you cock-roll in different ways. The loop-roll of Graf or Federer or Rosewall hitting slice is a power-producing device which gets the racket tip suddenly yet easily around to make nice slice-ice that will suffice.