A New Year's Serve

[don_budge]

Excuse me...

Hello there Mr. Bottle...I just clicked on to have the honor to be the 20,000th viewer on you thread. I am just curious. When does the book come out? Or is this the sequel to something. Amazing!

[bottle]

Progression: Take Mr. Williams' Advice but Don't be Enslaved by it

Williams said, at a business conference in The Netherlands (# 604), "Delay drop until after leg drive."

Mr. Foka said, in a tennis lesson at Eastside Tennis Facility, Detroit, "Get your elbow up high. Get it up there soon."

Mr. Brosseau, skyped at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, said, "Build your serve with a maximum amount of gravity in it."

Rick Macci, on Tennis Channel, said, "This is the tennis instruction of the future" and showed a girl so covered in electrodes that she looked like Saint Sebastian bristling with spears.

J.M. Peredo, in a letter at Tennis Player, said, "The weight of the racquet acts as an anchor forcing the arm to externally rotate."

To combine all this advice, I decided to be enslaved by none of it except for Mr. Peredo's.

First, unlike the girl in Macci's film, I would never permit myself to feel like a robot, not ever in my whole life.

And as for the Williams advice, I would say to myself, "You've tried this and it was pretty good, but now draw it down a bit. You don't have to abandon everything you've ever learned. Just modify slightly toward more delay of the drop. Play with the delay. Delay a little? Delay a lot? Make the delay as dramatic as possible?"

This lead to a renewed serve in which gravity taking the elbow down and up turned into a slow, muscular continuation of upness combined with slow bending of the arm to a right angle but with everything rising, which made me feel as organic as a big leaguer winding up to pitch.

[bottle]

Waw Backhand

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/stanislas_wawrinka/sw_backhand/sw_bh_armaction/sw_bh_armaction.html?SWBHCenterArmActionSide2.mov

How many inches is hand behind body when it reaches the point where it's closest to the rear fence?

One can take out slack from one's arm through movement at both ends of that arm at the same time. If one does this with both hands, one can even build tension within the racket length itself.

Additionally, one can swing very level for a waist high ball before racket starts upward at a 30 degree angle before contact.

The decision toward including levelness of swing is significant since one could instead bowl down and then up. Ironically, the level swing doesn't get the racket as low but keeps it low for longer.

The provocative nature of this stroke is that it doesn't shift main fulcrum from body center to front shoulder. It's all easy swing as Donald Budge recommended.

But, what's the best distance for hand to reside from body just as arm has completed its final straighten. What is the permissible range? A difference of only a few inches completely alters the shape of the overall swing.

My instruction to "swing parallel to rear fence" now becomes "swing as if to sweep the court."

So, as my friend told the waitress: "Men also can change their mind."

I tend to think that if they don't, their tennis is stunted and they're living a lie.

[bottle]

The Romulus and Remus Serve

Once upon a time there was a rotorded server who felt very lonely until he realized that most other servers in the world were rotorded, too.

"If they can deal with their rotordedness, so can I," he said, reflecting that his recent experiments in elbow waving had not been entirely successful.

A brief respite from tennis was what his doctor ordered, and so he gave himself up entirely to his late father's business, which was injection-molded dashboards in the Detroit auto industry.

"The new cars, whether photo-voltaic or hydrogen powered," he declared, "will still need dashboards, so there's no reason to feel glum, none at all, and I think I'll attend that conference in The Netherlands that everybody has been talking about."

Arriving in Amsterdam, he unpacked his laptop and proceeded to the convention hall, where David Bowie from Great Britain was sharing how his song about Major Tom, lost in outer space, could be taken to apply to many top business executives in modern times.

John Cleese of Great Britain then stood up, towering above the crowd, and projected onto a pale screen a large sow lying on her side.

"Yes, this slide is an outtake from our Monty Python films," he said, "but should that matter? If something is funny, does that mean it doesn't apply to business models? I think not. You see all those piglets suckling on their mom? Well, Romulus and Remus are not among them because they are suckling on a wolf. And this knowledge has great application not only to ancient Rome but to every business person alive."

Geoffrey Williams of the United States then stood up to speak about timing in business, comedy and tennis. "Delay drop until after leg drive," he said.

With a loud smack, the rotorded server clapped his forehead and rushed from the conference. On his plane, mid-Atlantic, he thought, "Hands up together but with hitting elbow exaggeratedly high. Elbow then independently descends a bit as body assumes its archer's bow but can start slow bending then, too. And elbow can then wave up again on leg drive as it completes its bend to right angle preparatory to racket drop."

[bottle]

Teaching Question

In last post, # 602, I saw racket but not racket arm curling around David Ferrer's left shoulder.

How could that be? Well, David Ferrer's body whirl is so extreme that right shoulder keeps going toward the net both while he is hitting the ball and afterward.

Whatever else happens, his right shoulder pushes some serious weight onto the ball.

After contact, that shoulder is so far toward the net that bent arm spinning back can only get the racket, not the racket arm itself, to his left shoulder.

Elbow, which you have kept purposefully back and tucked in, flies straight forward and up combined with precise amount of arm twist you require for the contact.

After racket flies up-- on right side of the body-- it comes down and around the left.

Body whirl is very complete. Racket whirl however is out and up into space and then down around front part of the body at left shoulder level.

[bottle]

One Spanish Forehand

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/david_ferrer/df_forehand/df_fh_center/df_fh_center.html?DFFHCenterOpenStanceCourtLevelFront.mov

David Ferrer's forehand is big whirl but simpler than Federer's or Nadal's. Like them, he leaves the ground. Like them, he mondoes, but his loop is low and elliptical, with racket never rising above his head during the takeback. Although his arm structure is double-bend all the way, his big whirl gets the hitting shoulder racing around earlier and farther than in a classical forehand and contact is with upper body facing the net same way that Federer and Nadal do.

If this shot were a Ziegenfuss, loop to the ball could be slow and all arm before the delayed body would finally spring. I tried this the other night, in doubles, but with last minute slow straightening of the arm, so that my alert opponent, playing net, immediately read this cue and poached.

It only happened once but I'll never hit that exact same shot again. Instead, I'll keep my Ziegenfusses double-bend just as I'll keep any attempt to hit like David Ferrer also double-bend.

Just what does it mean to hit with double-bend structure anyway? It means enhanced ability to make last minute adjustment to hit the ball clean. It means less leverage in the stroke but good control like choking up on a bat in baseball.

One very nice feature of David Ferrer's game is that his forehand and two-hand backhands are close to being mirror images. The only significant difference is that on forehand, racket (not racket arm) arcs up and then settles around opposite shoulder. On backhand, by contrast, racket arcs up above opposite shoulder often to no more than vertical position.

[bottle]

Progression

In a quest for satisfaction if not perfection, one might explore every possible avenue, having taught oneself a fair approximation of what satisfaction feels like.

A coach in a certain professional position said that one must have the grace and humility to recognize actual breakthrough in technique when it occurs.

Ironically, he fooled himself into thinking he had achieved it when he hadn't, and both the coach who preceded him and all the coaches who held his position afterward taught their people technique more effective than his.

The quest goes on in all sports where people are benign enough to know that, in true science, there will always be something new under the sun.

A radical way to use high-speed video is to count clicks:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/rafael_nadal/rafeal_nadal_high_speed.html?FHCenterFront-0515808-0001.mov

Thus, Nadal takes 55 clicks to get second head above his head, 15 to lower elbow with outside knee still bent, 7 to straighten arm, 7 to body-whirl straight arm, and 6 to get off ball, during which time leg is almost straight . Finally, he takes 25 clicks to finish around opposite shoulder during which time leg becomes completely straight.

Does not such analysis, for the open-minded observer, at least give up the rough proportion of a single stroke in time?

Additionally, the microscoping attention of such counting can help one make oblique discovery or ask some new question.

Is the way Nadal's racket turns over at contact, i.e., the way it closes, the result of a hit on the lower half of the strings or rather deliberate delicacy as in a drop-shot where the player tries to hit two sides of the ball?

[bottle]

Progression

A person who has been hitting Federfores, i.e., Roger Federer type forehands, and who now wants to get more Nadalian in generating straight up topspin should probably choose for a model that version of Nadal in which followthrough is around the opposite shoulder.

Nadal's whirligig (his reverse forehand) is a great novelty for someone who's never experimented much with twin curlecues as part of what happens after he's finished hitting the ball.

But one might be wiser to adapt to what one already has been doing. And
Roger, of course, has his own ways of changing the topspin to sidespin mix.
The trouble is, no one on the planet seems to generate more topspin than Nadal, and to see it is to want to imitate it, and not all of it is preternatural ability, ascription of which is a perennial cop-out in tennis.

In other words, if one can observe carefully enough (which one can, because of the high speed video sequences at this website and the other one like it), one can extract at least some of the cleverness which is built into any great tennis stroke. This sure beats reading a shop manual or sex manual or listening to some hack instructor who sounds like either. If one needs instruction in sex one should learn about suggestion by reading nineteenth century Russian fiction.

The magazine "Inside Tennis" recently listed the historical changes in the game that have occurred in the past 50 years but without mentioning the internet. Of course they didn't promote the internet because the internet is the overwhelming competition for any tennis magazine!

We have these videos we can stop anywhere. We can learn stuff impossible to attain before. It's all still new and too much information, but people are beginning to sort this information out.

Federer, he straightens the arm, then mondoes the wrist with forward body
rotation. Nadal, he uses the straightening to generate extra racket head speed just the way a server does.

[bottle]

Progression

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

Add one element to everything that has been said about arm extending below the ball and then rolling while lifting.

Between these two motions there is a transitioning micro-instant, to judge by this video, in which the racket handle spears toward the ball.

It does so from the shoulder, i.e., by independent arm.

No, sorry; it's a few days later, and I think arm and body are solid. Maybe I saw a different clip? Here it is.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/rafael_nadal/rafeal_nadal_high_speed.html?FHCenterFront-0515808-0001.mov

[bottle]

Progression

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

Rafa's backswing is very different from Roger's. Elbow falls while throwing arm straight close to body. The arm extension is part of the forward swing, since shoulders are already rotating forward, but the arm stays back at this point.

Note how this description has changed, inevitably, in the space of one day. That's what happens when you're not a PR agent for yourself.

Rafa: The racket is completely off the ball before the arm bends.

In the contact area the following simultaneity happens: 1) elbow lifts and 2) straight arm rolls.

The halo then is part of continuous motion returning racket to opposite hand in address (waiting) position.

There is a double loop after contact, in other words, an extended stirring of a pot.

Contact is exeedingly much out to side, i.e., the separation is great.

I don't think one gets the true feel of this shot until one brings the two hands together again at the conclusion of a continuous, forward path.

This most characteristic version of a Nadal type forehand contains twin curlicues after the contact.

Does elbow go down before it goes up?

If, like me, you think it does, you may similarly conclude that lifting racket one racket head length higher than human head makes sense during the preparation.

The higher elbow this predicts can then add acceleration to the shot by falling or throwing down before it soars up (which it does more smoothly because of the added play you have given it).

One way of thinking about this shot is that you are extending its continuousness at both ends.

But how natural is this? For if things are natural we won't have to think so much during the learning process, no?

Answer: Not very natural at all. We'd like more symmetry and logic but don't get it.

If elbow goes down while arm is extending we'd naturally like the arm to bend again as elbow goes up.

In fact, this is one way, useful, to hit the ball.

But the great Nadal is doing something else here. Arm does extend while elbow falls or throws down, but straightened arm, with laid back wrist, rolls a bit while elbow lifts up.

Then and only then does arm bend and wrist curl inward as part of the recovery.

I don't see why any person of any age can't hit this young man's shot and at least have some fun with it sort of like imitating the total conniptions of an Andy Roddick serve.

He or she needs to wind up with elbow high enough so that throwing racket down will mean something.

Take elbow down while extending (from elbow) followed by lift while rolling
followed by bending and more rolling all the way through the two curlicues to a balanced end in ready position.

Note: This shot is nothing if not quick. Perhaps the way to learn it is to mime desired pattern gently to a freeze point right after lift-roll. Then add the double-curlicue finish. Then add a ball. Then add a hitting partner. Then add an opponent.

[bottle]

Chinetic Kine

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/rafael_nadal/rafeal_nadal_high_speed.html?FHInsideInRear-0532429-0001.mov

Rafa's backswing is very different from Roger's. Bent elbow goes down in an arc close to body. Arm extension is part of the forward swing.


I like to write these posts marginally ahead of what I try on the court. That way I remove from any equation the question of how difficult or easy some idea is to implement, and ideas are valued for the sake of ideas.

I've been working with "big whirl" theory for a long time now. Whether the big whirl employs kinetic chain or chinetic kine doesn't really matter. You use the whirl that's compact yet generates the most racket head speed.

Today I wish to combine body breath with sideways arm in a reverse forehand modeled on Rafa. This step seems integral to better understanding of Rafa's sometime finish around opposite shoulder as well. The technique for the reverse forehand seems identical but higher.

Term: "Body Breath." Obviously the body breathes or one is dead. But to get the racket all at once from behind you to forward enough to fly NEXT with purity sideways suggests an exhalation or inhalation-- I don't care which. The wrist, which has been straightening now lays back. The upper spine, which has been natural, arches now with shoulders pulling back. The arm, which was ready to stay fixed with the body now pushes pro-actively ahead or doesn't-- one has this option to produce radically different outgoing ball directions, no? The arm, in addition, throws itself straight. That really produces some extra racket head speed, no? And it's all one breath.

All such actions including the finish are encrusted on big whirl which is the number one supplier of force.

And where is this force going? In more than one direction? Probably. But let's not worry about weight toward net and only concern ourselves with maximum racket head speed. Everything discussed here will lend itself only to racket head speed at least for this one day.

I'm thinking that rainbow imagery may be useful if one can envision acme of the arc, i.e., high point, or farthest point if the whole rainbow is tilted slightly on its side.

An arc with both ends forming a theoretical line parallel to the court will place the acme directly overhead but may generate too much sidespin if highness of hop is the goal. That could possibly predict a finish around waist or lower.

If acme were slightly to the right, finish might be by left shoulder. If acme were more right of that and lower, finish might be above the head.

This is Rafa's signature shot on clay. He concluded the Barcelona Open with four of them.

I see this shot as wiser and more powerful than the reverse forehand most of us taught ourselves. Abrupt change of direction takes Rafa to a sideways component, the momentum of which causes him to loop the racket in a halo just above his head.

A person with a long neck might knock himself out.

I don't care exactly what's done by Nadal or anyone else in tennis. My interest is personal, not scholarly. I wish to know what cleverness I can possibly steal to generate more racket head speed myself.

[bottle]

Re # 594 (Counts) and Still Head in New Design

How about three counts: 1) taking racket smoothly all the way around as one runs, 2) batter's drop, 3) rest of the stroke. I like the idea of playing with different counts. Dancers have a lot to teach tennis players. Fred Astaire was good at tennis, too. Item number 2), however, may require explanation. An extreme batter's drop would be Richard Gasquet or Bea Bielik. The new/old design I've outlined, inspired by Stanislas Wawrinka, winds back with low elbow. The drop that then occurs is from body, viz. shoulders leveling from hips going out. At same time arm straightens last bit and wrist flattens-- the combined feel of this is last instant reach corresponding to the "removing slack from the arm" of Arthur Ashe and others who liked the metaphor of a rope. If you see old films of Evonne Goolagong, reader, you'll notice shoulder moving forward to make the rope taut. But one can straighten a rope from either end.

KEEPING HEAD STILL. Perennial and essential advice that has special relevance to this new/old design for a one hand backhand. If we are really going to take a unified Ted-Williams-like swing at the ball as performed and advocated by 1938 Grand Slammer Donald Budge, keeping head still may be easier for those of us previously committed to a sequential backhand. That would be a backhand consisting of shoulders rotation first and (BAM!) arm lift second-- a shot whose fulcrum is hitting shoulder rather than the head. Brain will be closer to the center of the action, in other words.

[bottle]

Upper Congo Serve, Two Variations

Racket goes all the way up on right side of body until upper arm almost touches right ear. 1) Arm relaxes to a right angle as elbow simultanously descends to the best low position in tandem with compressing, bowing body. 2) Arm relaxes until both of its halves are squeezed together as elbow simultaneously descends to best low position in tandem with compressing, bowing body.

In either case, 1) or 2), one uses J.M. Peredo's advice to set the racket head in one place and take elbow up past it as body unwinds. Serving, as Kerry Mitchell, Bill Tilden and other knowledgeable people have always said, is all about throwing well-- nothing else.

So don't listen to the tennis pedants. Each has an opinion based probably on what he or she does. Be more influenced if you've seen this person's serve first-hand and it was great.

My fastest serve occurs when I raise upper arm to parallel to court, no more and no less. But, since this serve carries downward spin, good players feast on it. So I proceed past it for high or low early preparation throws.

[bottle]

Slowing Down the New Backhand

A two-count might be good, but how about a five-count? You could put four beats before the swing, which only would start from skunk tail position. But if, in actual play, the swing is getting ahead of itself once you tire, you might consider:

Turn to skunk tail (one) and prolong this count when running.

Extra body turn plus step out plus most straightening of the arm (two).

Change of body tilt plus last bit of arm extension plus straightening of the wrist (three).

Swing body and arm toward side fence and perhaps beyond (four).

Body and arm swing plus roll followed by shoulderblades clench (five!).

Counts are for improvement, specifically work on technique. No counts in play most of the time except as a trick once in a while to relax.

[bottle]

Tweak

Now add some rainbow to your Rambo.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/HD/Rafael_Nadal/Forehand_Backhand/Forehand_Backhand.html?nadal_fh_center_openstance_front_1.mov