A New Year's Serve

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One Stroke Informing Another

I like the idea of one stroke informing another. The minimalist Don Budge backhands, as learned from the Tennis Player archives, teach one to swing from the outside, and to get racket to the outside smoothly but quickly in order to do this.

A vigorous effort to master this shot may lead one around again to the under-discussed sit and hit strokes of Vic Braden.

Those strokes, introduced to tennis in 1977, were peculiar inventions entailing a three-point landing: Left hand would contact left leg just above the knee, right foot would contact the court, butt would contact a real or imaginary chair.

Here was this huge idea coming along in the seventies and eighties with nobody in the tennis industry willing to discuss it publicly except for its originator, Vic Braden.

Did you try this simultaneity back then, reader? I know I did and even received some compliments for elegant backhands between my losses.

But the idea for these shots came from Don Budge. Braden and Bruns made this very clear in their collaborative book TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE.

And now I'm saying after thinking about all of this for much too long, that there is a kind of sit and hit built into a Don Budge backhand albeit a sitting up with back that restores balance as knees compress. Don Budge keeps his shoulders level, i.e., parallel to the court throughout. He hunches, straightens, hunches again as he flies, but a line through both shoulders is always parallel to the court.

Supposition: That in the backhands of Gustavo Kuerten, John McEnroe and Stanislas Wawrinka, shoulders TILT provides equally intricate core body action but in a different direction. The tilting of shoulders and leveling of them that occurs drives racket to the outside in the most solid fashion possible, i.e., core body motion performs the task rather than arm motion or even arm and body motion.

Here's one case where sequence is superior to simultaneity. One wastes no time on removal of slack from one's hitting apparatus, having achieved that objective-- substantially-- during initial turn and step out. (If this paragraph contains a non-sequitur, I apologize. I am simply listing ingredients for a fine stew.)

While one steps out, winding shoulders back more, one can extend arm and wrist a last bit, which closes racket face. Opening or closing racket face at the last instant is a choice one always has in any backhand no matter what one calls it.

As to thumb up the back, the way Don Budge and Braden did, no, that's not imperative-- not any more than open or closed racket face, or getting racket arm straight early, or keeping it bent until close to contact with ball.

If keeping arm bent a little until beginning of the shoulders leveling ax chop to the outside is most comfortable and foolproof, then do it.

As an experiment, I'm for full body chopping today, arm firmly connected to core.

When racket is to the outside the shoulders swing then transforms itself from golf to baseball. Both ends of the racket lift at the same time.

Body swing-- baseball swing-- then puts strings on outer edge of ball, which is on your left side. Don't think that the arm does it. The arm is lifting both ends of the racket upward at same speed. It's body that brings the racket tip around.

If the conglomeration generates excess energy, roll the arm for absorption at end of the follow-through like WAW, and be glad for such a quick, short and easy return of racket to ready position.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/stanislas_wawrinka/sw_backhand/sw_bh_center/sw_bh_center.html?SWBHCenterNeutralStanceSide4.mov

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Manislas

Man up and learn to hit the Don Budge backhand. People have tried for 73 years but their information was atrocious and they always got something wrong.

After that, man up again and learn the Manislas backhand. Never mind if you don't hit it exactly like Stan Wawrinka.

To hell with taking the racket tip up high and then winding it back more later, which creates unnecessary downward component just then.

Do always turn back shoulders an extra amount if you're stepping out, but just start straightening the arm as if you were going to lay the racket out level in the slot for the Don Budge backhand.

But wind racket around body and tip up rear shoulder, an orchestrated difference maybe good for invoking your opponent's fear of skunks and king cobras.

Now swing the straightened unit. Start swinging from the shoulder about the time the shoulders swing goes level. (See above post, reader, if this isn't perfectly clear to you.)

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Article on WAW Backhand in "TENNIS": a Response

To go WAW (to hit a backhand like Stanislas the Manislas) one may have to revise the usual thinking about arm-from-the-shoulder swing.

The June Tennis Magazine article by Rick Macci begins with John McEnroe's quote that Stan Wawrinka's backhand is best in the world and uses that term "Stanislas the Manislas."

After that, Macci and the four sparse photos say too little just as I will say too much, but what the magazine does give us is good-- especially its contention that WAW getting his arm straight early means less to go wrong.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/stanislas_wawrinka/sw_backhand/sw_bh_center/sw_bh_center.html?SWBHCenterOpenStanceSide2.mov

Note WAW's shoulders in the above clip. I see them as spinning not level but like a golfer who takes the pin out of the eighteenth cup and threads it through his elbows behind his back.

The golfer then does a mock swing. Let's put the flag with the "18" on it in trailing position. The "18" then doesn't come around entirely level but slightly dips and then rises.

In WAW's case, the shoulders then level out one micro-second before contact. Now they're rotating in a new direction. But the hand keeps going in the original direction. Nadal and Federer do the same thing on their forehands.

Another interesting aspect of this video is the front foot rising up in the air to provide a classical definition of a lousy backhand.

Time to relax one's most persnickety standards.

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From a Letter to a Friend

Yes, Wawrinka opens so much, he can hit his backhands either open or closed. I used this model for a while with interesting results (for a while). I decided that a big turn of the shoulders was what it was all about with arm work embedded in it almost as something secondary and beginning and ending at the same time.

I guess I'd seen some pictures of Don Budge's finish where he was rather open and maybe therefore thought the two backhands were similar.

I went back to the Don Budge videos I have-- therefore-- and was pretty surprised. First, Budge doesn't take his racket up like Wawrinka...well, he does in the old Talbert and Olds book but not in the Tennis Player videos. No, he starts with racket pretty level with the court and out in the slot. That saves a lot of time. I've gone from thinking the Budge backhand one of the longest in the world to one of the most economical.

Anyway, such a start makes time to do some interesting other stuff. If one finishes straightening arm and wrist just as one steps out, and keeps that step-out sort of stiff-- a peg-leg affair, not all rolling heel like Guga but not a bent leg landing either-- one can then use the delayed leg bending in an interesting way.

You're swinging from the shoulder and perhaps rolling the racket a little or not while the whole level swing goes down a little. I am absolutely entranced by any ground strokes now, on either side, in which knees go down a bit late as part of the actual swing.

I've always wanted something that goes down before it comes up but I tried to do it too much with arm. One can swing the arm level to the outside-- that really gets it around and doesn't mess so much with pitch and aim-- while sinking into the shot and straightening back (Budge, Guga, McEnroe and others I haven't examined all do this).

Now balance is pretty good as one comes up, and I think Budge hunches forward again as he flies. So he was hunched to start, and he's hunched again to finish, but in between he was perfectly upright, balanced and elegant, and then both ends of the racket can rip upward together.

The thinking is opposite to what I thought about Wawrinka. Arm swing then lift predominates with body in the secondary role supporting it.

Anyway, I'm having fun with these new late-legged rises.

Best,

Bot

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Progression, Federfore/Nadalfore, Extra Low Ball

The loop on all of these Federfores/Nadalfores is a constant. You probably shaped it long ago. But you (I) need to continue the loop downward and forward for an extra low ball. That means stealing something once again from Grandaddy's Throw to First.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/donbudge/donbudge_sa.html?DBFHFront1.mov

There are three videos of the Don Budge forehand in Tennis Player's Stroke Archive. The first which I call "Grandaddy's Throw to First" however boils the other two down to their essential nub.

The way the stroke works is pure theater. You convince yourself, even if you're European, that you're a third baseman, shortstop or second baseman in American baseball. If you're in Japan or Formosa, there's no problem since the national consciousness there allows for this.

The batter sends a dribbler in your direction-- you charge the ball, barehand it, throw the runner out at first.

What are the mechanics of making this throw? I have no idea since I was always relegated to playing right field.

A baseball coach could tell you, but, from simple visual connection, I imagine the sidearm mechanics to be similar to the clip above.

The player's ready position has him leaning forward, knees slightly bent. The arm then goes quickly down to initiate the throw. Rest of the body stays still for that micro-second.

Knees now go down an extra amount. Turning to our shared sport, the racket reaches a low point forward of that usually obtained in somebody's conventional forehand. Shoulders should straighten backward somewhat. Knees extend next and arm comes back in a unified follow-through restoring perfect balance.

This is a bent arm shot, and the Federfore/Nadalfore is characteristically though not always a straight arm shot, but the idea is the same. For a low ball, sink into the shot a bit before hips come naturally up.

For a medium height or high ball, one needn't do this except perhaps when one has extra time for more topspin. Original leg position from when you planted outside foot, most likely, gives you enough knee bend to work with, and you can, economically, bring back shoulders as you straighten leg, i.e., straighten upper body at a different time.

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Arm Lift

Like everybody else, I'm wondering how Rafa will do in the French, if he can win now again.

Whether he does, however, my prime focus will remain on his hitting mechanics. To me, at times, Rafa's forehand and The Federfore have seemed identical strokes except for a slight difference of grip.

At other times, however, they've seemed markedly different-- could I have been on the wrong thought track?

Of course. When it comes to world class mechanics, the most simple relationship-- the one right in front of everybody's nose-- is apt to be the last thing anyone notices.

This, I submit, according to a set of perceptions apt to change tomorrow, is "body-arm connectedness" vs. "swing from the shoulder."

The new Grandaddy's Throw to First forehand I'm so excited about-- because of its startling accuracy (as the name does suggest although name is not the reason for the accuracy) is primarily from the shoulder with upper body rotation following behind for support and ending balance like delayed leg extension and straightening of the body.

A Nadalian forehand or Federfore, I think, is both phenomena in rapid succession. Body and arm are solid first and this gives the arm freedom to do what it wants, which in this case is to lift steeply up with "lift" being the key word.

Too many of us aspirants have been infected with the windshield wiper virus, which turns brain cells to pink mush and makes us twist the racket at the ball.

I'm for-- at least today-- putting emphasis on pure arm lift in second half of the forward dynamic. Any twist near contact is moderate with sole function of maintaining constancy of racket pitch. The much bigger item is sharp lift. Depending on how you define "wiper," most of wiper or all of wiper occurs after contact.

Finally, body can draw back a little to increase freedom of the arm lift.

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From a Friend

Bot, if you are casting about for a serving idea for your column, here's a good one an instructor gave to Tennis or World Tennis years ago. Perhaps you'll recall it. Perhaps you do it.


Make like you're throwing a dart at the ceiling... at about a 70 degree angle, I guess. That was it, in a full-page cartoon.

I'm adding, let the wrist lag back, good and relaxed, turned inward while you let the racquet down your right side, and stay loose on the way up to the strike. Think about this only in practice. Then think/feel only looseness during points. As you well know, thinking likely will louse up a serve. Your forearm will propel the wrist and racquet into the strike. Do not tighten up on the way up. Do not be muscular. Let the racquet do the work. Trust that it will. You might think you've gotten your wrist to be really loose, but you can probably improve on it. And it probably won't come close to being loose enough after only a half-dozen serves.

This will look like a nice easy motion, but there will be a lot more racquethead speed than you'd get if you grip the handle at all tightly. And no one will see it, it happens so fast.

If you grip the racquet too lightly, it will fly out of your hand and break when it hits the court. I used to have a rawhide thong tied to the handle and looped over my wrist to prevent this, after having cracked a brand new Pro Staff.

RH

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Apprenticeship Education (Note: This Approach is Less Boring)

Since Grandaddy's Throw to First Base forehand helped me understand reverse action in a Ferrerfore (both kinds of shot are basic swings from the shoulder rather than from THE SHOULDERS), I'm starting a new program in which any modern forehand may be evaluated in the light of Grandaddy's Throw to First.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/HD/Rafael_Nadal/Forehand_Backhand/Forehand_Backhand.html?nadal_fh_center_openstance_rear_1.mov

In the Nadal forehand, the forward shoulders turn starts off much more abruptly than in Grandaddy's forehand. Big whirl of course means twice as many degrees or more, so many that one can experiment within the motion, i.e., you don't need to be doing the exact same thing in each micro-second.

This shoulders turn, for Nadal, is at two different speeds, fast and slow.

Realizing this might be the first step toward generating one's own equivalent of his racket head speed.

What is the slower shoulders speed doing? The deceleration helps the arm to pick up speed, yes, but what is the slower speed's second function? To lend weight to the shot.

As arm extends, the outer knee bends, while racket tip stays cocked and higher than wrist.

Big whirl cannot have started if knee still is bending-- big whirl always starts with thrust from the outer leg.

So we now have discovered a new program (2) within our new program (1).
It is to go from bent arm, sidearm throw (1) to long arm underhand throw somewhat like a rising softball pitch (2).

But we know that Nadal always hits with big separation, and we'd like to do this, too, so again, we drive the elbow to the outside.

The shot is more underhanded-- that's true-- but it's not exactly bowling, either.

Call it a 3/4ths underhand throw.

Note: Any time number one knee bends, on Grandaddy's backhand, on his forehand, on anybody else's forehand, one can and should straighten one's body just then, too. One can resume one's tennis player hunch immediately after that.

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Don't Take This for Granted

A friend sent me a YouTube slo-mo of the Pancho Gonzalez serve while urging me to also click on all the other short serving videos running down in a thin column on the right edge of my screen.

Asserting that good serves are alike in seamless effortlessness, he pointed at Robin Soderling's as the exception, calling it "very pronounced, very muscular and contorted."

I loved receiving this communication, but, as so often happens during informal, unfettered tennis talk, found something entirely different to think about.

In the Rod Laver video, elbow stayed basically solid with shoulders line.

In the Pancho Gonzalez video, by contrast, elbow went down an inch or two as it bent ("double-clutched," as Chiro might say although this phenomenon was far less pronounced than in an Andy Roddick serve).

What fascinates me is Pancho's loose throw of his elbow upward just then. His elbow goes faster than the slo-mo rise of his shoulder.

We've always been told that serving and throwing were the same. Perhaps the moral here is that if you want more zip, then load and throw the elbow more, but if you want more control, cut back on such loose elbow.

On the other hand, more zip may be the way to generate more control.

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Grandaddy's Ragout, Cont'd

On both forehand and backhand, the shoulders move more slowly than the swing.

And on the forehand, just as for the backhand, the level part of the swing is wide, that is to say, it goes out before it comes back in.

This is swinging level from the shoulder with no bowling or rope tricks of any kind.

"Rope trick" equals tennis terminology equals pulling an imaginary rope from behind you so hand greases past your stomach. Andre Agassi and others have been accused of doing it.

In a Ferrerfore, reverse body action whips arm and hand close into body, and in only two or three clicks on one's computer screen one is at contact.

We've heard plenty about wiper overlapping contact and now plenty about reverse body. But what happens in between?

Does hand really ride the big whirl as if a tick embedded in one's side? Or does it shoot ahead? Why, after all, did one go to all the trouble of accelerating it with the reverse body trick? To slow it down and start acceleration all over again?

Returning to Grandaddy now, note how, on his forehand, he drops his elbow to initiate a sidearm throw to first base.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/donbudge/donbudge_sa.html?DBFHFront1.mov

And here's David Ferrer: http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...ctionRear4.mov

Swinging from the shoulder rather than maintaining a solid body-arm connection is the subject of this inquiry.

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In What Form Will the Antidote for Rotorded Serving Suddenly Appear?

Will it be a pill? A draft? An exercise and stretching program? A malevolent masseur ready to snap the adhesions in your shoulder? A draft beer?

Contrariwise, a re-arranging of the elbow to inspire divine delay?

Face it, the best serves in the world, like the best golf swings, are constructed on judicious delay. But this delay is human. The rotorded server must develop superhuman delay.

For this, he will need a superior detection system with clear benchmarks in plain apprehension at every jot or tittle of the service path.

Today, during the toss, I'll try extremely high, soaring rise of hitting arm like John Newcombe, and combine subsequent bending of the arm with a controlled lowering of said arm so congenial with body bend at same time.

This is nothing new. I've been trying this among other service ideas for some time. The difference shall be that elbow continues to sink even as front leg drives upward.

Basic to this line of thought: We want some degree of heavy topspin built into every service that we shall henceforth deliver. And we now know without any modicum of doubt that body pressure as opposed to anything the arm does supplies a big percentage of such topspin.

The evidence for this existed for decades whether one was ready to accept it. Serves from certain servers came flat off the racket. One detected a lack of spin. The balls would knuckle toward first collision with the court after which they would bound high with effective weight.

Were these servers good at stopping body rotation with their left arm so that their right arm snapped off the ball creating unpredictable spins? Probably not. Were these serves predictable though good? Absolutely.

The best course now would seem to be: 1) Rotate shoulders forcibly through the ball for heavy ball effect. 2) Start exploration of arm dynamics all over again until one restores one's spins that were combined with one's earlier serves flawed by their lightness.

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Ingredients for Grandaddy's Groundstroke Ragout (Forward Swing Only)

1) Level arm swings for first half of the forward action

2) Knees to go down before they come up

3) Two pinches of horizontal upper body rotation

4) Shoulders hunch twice with one straightening in between

5) Arm roll restricted to level arm swing

6) The two ends of the racket lift together in the second half of the forward action.

Pulling this Dish Together

1) Swing easy at the ball!

2) Sink into the shot by putting the level arm swings in a descending elevator!

3) Revolve the shoulders early, late or all spread out!

4) Finish over the shoulder for a forehand; finish with a clenching of shoulderblades together for a backhand!

5) Leave the ground but do it late!

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Stupendous Federer Feat

http://www.webtennis.com/players/roger-federer-is-this-for-real/

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Progression

This shot is working. So, if I become a bit more conscious about it, will the great, deceptive forehands I like so much go away? Perhaps. Then I'll back-peddle frantically to the previous design, hoping I haven't lost it.

The new idea is to take elbow a little more back in the slot as left arm finishes pointing across.

That leaves elbow out in the air, but it's moving backward, definitely, as outside leg fires.

The reverse body then brings elbow into side while wrist mondoes-- those two actions only.

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More About Reverse Action

Re # 620, how does the reverse action described by Chet Murphy apply to David Ferrer's forehand?

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/david_ferrer/df_forehand/df_fh_arm_action/df_fh_arm_action.html?DFFHWideArmActionFront2.mov

I must admit, what I'm doing is a little different, but wasn't that always the game-- never to slavishly imitate but to use the overall pattern as a springboard to develop something nice for oneself?

In the video, I see Ferrer turning and then pointing arm across for more turn, and this continues to take the racket back, but before racket gets to a normal place he's already spring-whirling forward.

Me, I'm experimenting with different placements of the right arm as signal for the jete/ (a term from ballet suggesting Baryshnikov and Nureyev, hopefully). Or I don't know: What I really want to do is use left arm finishing its point across as the signal.

One thing is for sure. If your shoulders are revolving more than twice as much as for a classic forehand, you can, if you want, leave your hitting arm in a different place.