A New Year's Serve

[gzhpcu]

Archer's Bow

You like the archer's bow... so here is a video for you bottle...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGRDVTb35KY

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Youzhny vs. Wawrinka

Everybody should be on the lookout for easy explanation that isn't too technical but still can help someone achieve a specific goal. I am the someone in this case, and I've been thinking a lot about Youzhny's backhand, which subject has spilled over into Wawrinka's backhand. The two are similar but Youzhny rolls the racket more. You can see this by examining the rackets when they are low. Youzhny's is more open, Wawrinka's more closed-- I think Wawrinka straightens his wrist as he straightens his arm.

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

Taking just Wawrinka now (but with much overlap between the two), he, Wawrinka, lifts racket with arm close to body. Teaching pros in nearly all cases will tell you to get your racket back fast, but I tell you, compared to what is about to happen, this is the slow part.

Now it's an easy rhythm to contact, so unified that it seems minimal and not the long swing generating racket head speed that it actually is.

Slow the action down or stop it with one's computer and one sees, from here to contact 1) upper register horizontal swing (a yard long), 2) loop down (a yard long), 3) lower register horizontal swing (about four feet long), 5) only about 10 degrees arm roll combined with 30 degrees upward path from arm LIFT.

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Opening a Can of Grips but not Worms

To laugh at, to sneer, is what tennis players of certain attainment do. I don't know for sure but suspect that the topmost players are above this (and maybe are topmost-- occasionally-- through being nice). And as far as technique is concerned, I've always thought that it comes from everybody, that anyone from any level of play has just as good a chance of understanding something exotic as anyone else, if not of personally putting it into effect.

Whether or not this view is cockamamie, I now continue my discussion of Mikhail Youzhny's backhand and combine it with Coach Kyril's advocacy of diagonal grip.

Heavily influenced as I am by the little known teachings of John M. Barnaby, I invoke here a central tenet of his, that body can go in one direction, racket work radically in another.

So, to further consider the Youzhny 1HTSBH, in which Mikhail straightens his arm earlier than Roger, there's therefore one less variable to control in coming into contact, so it's a good stroke to think about. Master its elements and then return to a more prolonged straightening of the arm, or not?

We've been tending, in recent posts, toward more delay of final roll of the arm, namely "turning the corner" while shot is still on left side of body as you just come into contact.

With the diagonal grips I've examined, this roll takes the racket tip more toward net for a crunched, flat shot which someone might call "slapped."

With grip at same setting, but in right-angled or hammer configuration, the racket head rises on a steep or nearly vertical path.

For best combination of spin and weight in that case, the spin of frame upward will have to be strong and confident yet controlled or "in hand" and probably slower than macho players (most male players) think.

At the exact same time body travel through the ball will have to be very good.

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1HTSBH: Racket Head Speed in the Movies

One old VHS had you cranking your shoulders until you abruptly stopped them, thereby accelerating the arm.

This new theory, untried, has you golfing your arm down and through and up until you abruptly stop your elbow, thereby enabling you to better concentrate on twisting it since you surely wanted to do something just then to put strings on outer edge of ball and didn't want your just restrained elbow to get bored.

Okay, you've just turned the corner and as sharply as possible. And yet the ball and your racket and the contact are still on the left side of your body.

From contact onward (to right side of your body) you clench your shoulder-blades while moving elbow out to yardarm extension or beyond.

Elbow, in summary in this theory which will be cockamamie only if it doesn't immediately produce great shots: Elbow goes, slows, goes again.

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Flying Grip Change: A Computer Worm Infecting Certain Backhands?

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. --Shakespeare

Mikhail Youzhny adjusts his fingers more on the handle than his handle within his fingers.

But Stanislas Wawrinka waits with a backhand grip. Or so it seems to me.

That other watch-maker, Roger Federer, might do a little of both. Sometimes he seems to be working his hand on the racket while in ready position, shifting grip back and forth. In the beginning of his forehands I see more finger movement than on most of his backhands. Am I wrong?

The numbers say people are reading my tennis comments, so, player, feel free to tell me if you've reached different conclusions about Youzhny's, Wawrinka's or Federer's grips. Let us agree that it's difficult for us amateurs to see such subtleties in the movies. It much easier to feel one's own racket in one's hand.

But Youzhny waits with his forehand grip, no? And, as I've now said three times, he adjusts his fingers on the handle more than adjusts the handle within his fingers.

Some of the old coaches who advocated flying grip change or said very little about grip change at all were some of the same old coaches who advocated, in words or by example, preparation in which a right-hander placed racket wide to the outside with arm pointing at the left fence.

Then, when they stepped either straight toward the net or on a 45-degree angle or more to the outside, their racket tip could automatically go farther back, affording them the chance to make a good if not great swipe-- since racket tip moved abruptly backward in the beginning as well, with all such movement adding up to something workable.

I'm just exploring as usual. I'm eager to see, next Wednesday, if a Youzhny type grip change will improve my backhand timing so that with a 360-degree swipe-- something I don't plan to use all the time-- I can still make contact on the outer edge of the ball.

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Alternate Methods of Grip Change

Upon further reflection, the grip change used by Mikhail Youzhny amounts to fingers adjusting more on the handle than handle adjusting within the fingers.

This removes the slight roughness in takeback present in the alternate method outlined above. It also changes just where the racket tip will point at different micro-moments in the whole cycle of backswing and strike.

"Cycle" may be the appropriate word for any 360-degree sequence where racket tip ends where it began.

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Of course one could do the relaxed fingers trick but do it a bit later so that body rotation alone could initiate the stroke.

I haven't tried that for a couple of centuries.

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So as Not to be too Yankee

http://wn.com/mikhail_youzhny__slow_motion

What's this, in every backhand, where Mikhail Youzhny rearranges his right hand on the racket? Is it his grip change, part of his grip change, a way to relax, a way to adjust, a checking that one's hand has purchase on the slats exactly the way one wants it?

The most sensible ever, i.e., most economical way to change grips, I think, is to relax right fingers and pull back with left hand, a motion that can blend seamlessly into whatever backhand one's cooking.

It's great, it's fast, it's easy, and it's nifty. Now I'm wondering though if it isn't too mechanical, too out of nineteenth century New England mill towns at least when one has time to spare (almost never).

Whatever Youzhny is doing, he's demonstrating which hand is bringing the racket back at that point of the stroke, but that this motion is far from being a violent YANK.

[bottle]

Should a Person Try to Imitate Fred Perry?

Not unless he is a passionate pursuer of uni-strokes that will enable him to capture the world championships of tennis and ping-pong.

Not unless he has the loot to start a new clothing line.

So, should a person try to imitate anyone? Of course, unless he plans to re-invent the wheel.

http://www.morethanthegames.co.uk/files/morethanthegames/perrydietrich2.jpg

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Should a Person Imitate Mikhail Youzhny's Backhand?

Internal voices speak.

"Yes, definitely. That backhand gives Robin Soderling fits."

"Too idiosyncratic. Could only work for him."

"It's beautiful."

"Why even bring up the question?"

Well, because of one moment on Tennis Channel during warmups in Rotterdam, Holland. Youzhny mimed his backhand once to put it in tune. Since he performed this action with racket in hand, one could maybe see something of what he does.

From a high point, far back, he slowly swings the racket down and when arm is straight gives it a twisting whirl upward precisely at imagined contact.

His wrist is concave throughout, with a lot of hand behind his handle.

A unique shot, Wikipedia says. One can see it in slow motion at YouTube.

But should one ever, ever imitate something just because a player mimed it once in warmups? Absolutely. Try anything!

I'm thinking, when I finally get to a court on Wednesday night, I'll try the shot first with constant racket head speed. The strings will swing down and around setting my speed limit. The arm then will twirl the head like one end of a baton as shoulderblades clench and elbow continues to go out.

Worth a try. Every idea deserves respect. Perhaps I'll adjust respective speeds after one stroke. Perhaps after three strokes I'll return to my continental grip.

Tennis is supposed to be a game, after all. If you're (I'm) playing croquet, which you don't do very often, don't you mess with different hand positions on the handle, etc.?

http://wn.com/mikhail_youzhny__slow_motion

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Small Ponds

And a next step thought. Keeping both ponds small, with back one outside of the other, and a diagonal rather than hammer grip, with fingers spread along the handle, pretend, reader, that, while keeping arm bent, you will twirl a baton first one way and then the other, not doing anything too fast so as to keep everything "in hand" or under control.

If you allow the two ponds to be very small, you will at the very least attain the sharpness of last instant turn that you so intensely want, in fact, should be able to direct the ball to any spot on the opposite court.

The next step is not anything I've seen in a film; but, the pattern of it works in backhand slice if the player glides barrel slowly toward net then suddenly clenches shoulder-blades together while keeping elbow relaxed. The result is fast slice either sidespun or backspun or both. The elbow straightens passively, increasing venom of spin and pace.

There may be videos that show this-- I'm not denying that. What I'm suggesting however is rare in my view: The same phenomenon applied to a drive.

The baton can set the strings anywhere on outer edge of the ball. That means total control if one over-aims a bit. Bent, passive elbow will direct ball slightly to left of point of over-aim-- if allowed to relax itself straight in response to muscular clench.

Theoretically, for an extremely short-angled crosscourt one could do everything exactly the same but keep the arm bent. Along with everything else, I'll have to check that out.

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Neanderthals

One person can backhand a Frisbee the length of a football field and another will never be able to do that no matter how extensive his studies of the topic.

Standard Neanderthal instruction for a one hand backhand is to form a figure eight which begins somewhere and ends somewhere-- no one knows exactly where in either case.

(I apologize right now to the Neanderthals among us since scientific research shows they were much nicer and smarter than we thought.)

Is there something to their figure eight idea? Perhaps. But free swish idea (# 548) somehow seems different. I can remember thinking how golfy Virginia Wade's backhand looked on an instructional video made by one of her students on Hilton Head island. Then she added some topspin, and I was horrified to see her racket head keying down behind her as if she were Evonne Goolagong.

And yet, and yet, doesn't a good golfer do that too? So, how to combine the Neanderthal's figure eight with the free-form swish-- especially since we're now sure how far out-- from body-- the low point of every 1htsbh ought to be (shake hands distance).

Think I'll go cross-country skiing. But when I return I'll address the topic some more.

Should the figure eight consist of eyelets, eyes, or great big beaver ponds? Should the two ponds whether large or small be same or different size? How about a rustic path between them? If so, how short or long? Better that they be contiguous?

And should one pond be set inside or outside of the other or directly behind?

Right now I'm lifting my racket from a bed which is safely distant from any tennis court.

And I'm ready for a return to Coach Kyril (last clip in # 549). Because of what he said and demonstrated about continental grip, I'm too angry with him to reproduce here his clip for a third or more time, but there it is at # 549 . Doesn't he know he hit the continental ball through the roof because he used HIS SWING?

Forget that in favor of his ball-less mime with racket tip twirling severely around at last instant to contact.

All good one handed drives have that in common. So what are us ordinary people supposed to do? How can we get around last instant like that with maximum feel to outer edge of the ball?

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Three Different Players Have Let this Shot Go Only to See it Drop in

These backhands, expressed in # 548, went enticingly high and therefore were good for theater. But, slow down all of the elbow travel before the ball. The pre-ball roll of the arm then can close the racket face more. "Swing the racket head," one might say. Won't this help to STOP the hand? I've heard some aficionados use that word "STOP" and more than once.

What did they mean? They weren't being literal. They were suggesting that ordinary players have trouble making a clean transition from one racket head trajectory to another, i.e., aren't good with abrupt change of direction.

What should the two rises of the racket be-- if there are two rises? Should racket come around level and then go up? I've seen that idea demonstrated by a teaching professional in another country (in an indoor bubble).

I stick for now with some numbers arrived at earlier in this thread. Thirty degrees from low point up to ball, seventy degrees from contact to end of follow-through on opposite side of the body.

In an ideal situation, of course.

Note: I don't see how any player comes up with an interesting, repeatable departure in his racket work without some concept that is very clear in his mind first. Doesn't often work but is total joy when it does.

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How Far from Body at Low Point?

Re post # 544, which stated, "The hand is not as close to the camera as I thought," the hand is not as close to the body as I have thought, at times, either.

Here's the clip being discussed in this thread by me and by other players elsewhere. (See "Federes backhand," stickman.) One will be able to retrieve this repeating clip in the future, but now is an especially good time to think about it while it is on header page display.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/new_issue/2011/january/new_issue_january_2011.html

If one wants to know how far hand is out-- at shake hands distance?-- one needs to look at other clips of Roger Federer's backhand from a different camera angle:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/Backhand/RF_BH_Center/RF_BH_Center.html?RF%20BH%20Center%20NeutralStance%20Rear1%20500fps.mov

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/Backhand/RF_BH_Center/RF_BH_Center.html?RF%20BH%20Center%20NeutralStance%20Rear2%20250fps.mov

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/Backhand/RF_BH_Center/RF_BH_Center.html?RF%20BH%20Center%20ClosedStance%20Front1%20250fps.mov

Corresponding distance in John McEnroe:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHCenterCourtLevelRear.mov

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHCenterFront.mov

Lastly, why is this question so important? BECAUSE IT IS!

When I was a beginning tennis student, a USPTA pro taught me a simple, straight back preparation and then left me alone to work out any fine detail. The best topspin backhands occurred when I used a step press hit formula with the racket starting three inches out from leg. But the pro later noticed that my simple, slow, elegant lift broke down against hard hitters. Clearly, I needed more backswing, and that's the limbo where I've dwelt ever since.

More backswing, yes, but less than Gustavo Kuerten, where racket gets up way high and back and then both ends come down parallel to begin. And less than Federer, where racket head alone seems to be what comes down most to begin. And not as extreme as Richard Gasquet or former NCAA singles champ Bea Bielik either.

Just golfing the ball from medium height a tad lower than the following big guy seems attractive to me once again.

http://www.coachkyriltennis.com/wordpress/how-roger-federer-hits-those-wicked-one-handed-backhands-and-how-you-can-do-it-too/

I'd keep elbow in more however during upward part of the "U" so as to make sure to brush outside edge of ball and kill the ball feeder every time.

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Backhand: One Swish

For backhand with J. McEnroe type brevity of backswing, use one swoop of hand down, through and up to end of followthrough on opposite side of the body.

To re-phrase: Mentally divide shot into backswing and foreswing and always be doing one or the other but not both.

This simple advice will help somebody, i.e., me.

But all discussion of racket path and body mechanics, wave imagery, etc., will prove equally crucial, in my view-- before one has mastered a masterful version of this shot.