A New Year's Serve

[stotty]

I have long since thought that Don Budge's racket is very slightly open at contact. I though that about Connors' backhand but a clip in the archive proved me wrong. The Budge archives are less clear.

Anyway, we had a guy a our club who had a very slightly open racket face yet managed to get a gentle roll of topspin. I could never work out how that happened.

I reckon Don Budge's drive backhand was dead flat.

[bottle]

Self-Authorize to Hit Both Hesitation and Continuous Motion Serves

Not a wise course, I'm willing to argue along with anybody else, to mess with one's ritual this much. Do you want to end up with both types of serve breaking down under pressure?

Oh sure. That will happen on a certain day. But on another it won't!

Continuous is older and more deeply seated with me. But Hesitation produces a better-- more prolonged-- use of toss arm.

Besides, why not introduce a bit of recklessness into my old age?

I always remember what the Irish mother of the captain of my varsity eight-oared crew at Skidmore College told her daughter Katie. "If you continue to row so much you will develop big muscles and no man will want you."

What a lie. Women's muscles don't bulk up, they get taut. And though I'm not in contact with Katie and have no idea where she is, she was wise and attractive in every way possible and I'm sure has led a tremendous life.

A woman on High Knob Mountain in Virginia used to call me "The Server." She would drive past Senator Laxalt's one court up there where I would be. And the habit has continued. I'm not a great server but have my days, am probably both hotter and colder than servers who work on their serves much less.

It's a way of life for me. But I repeatedly encountered on an adjacent court a woman in one era who worked on her serve more than she played and didn't respect her very much. "Why does she keep repeating the same mistakes?" I thought. Well, I could apply the same criticism to myself.

But won't. I like the enabling idea better. And the serve is pure aspiration, so I'm going to continue in my respect for it and try this new thing.

What I've noticed, however, is that other persons-- inadvertent witnesses-- have become increasingly interested when they see me out alone on a court. My self-feed has always elicited inane comments so maybe for some not wholly understood reason I'm oversensitive to them just at the moment.

But what does a person passing by think? Why do they feel they have the right to jump in with some platitudinous statement, usually very uninformed? Of course working on one's serve is difficult. But do I need to dwell on the difficulty of it right now? Before you spoke up, Mr. Stranger, I was just thinking about Hesitation vs. Continuous, and that was quite enough, more than enough to be the substance of my practice session.

The Buttinskis are out to interrupt one's concentration, that's what. They don't want anybody to have a great serve or great anything else. Would they go to a driving range and criticize some duffer's swing? I know I wouldn't do that. I guess I need to pick up my effort to find lonely courts.

[bottle]

On Learning of the Death of One of Katharine Hepburn's Nephews at the Age of 59 from Heart Failure

He was a regular chess opponent of mine. We were absolutely even. Our final record was 50 per cent for him, 50 per cent for me.

Then the author Cleveland Amory came to town and beat us both by sacrificing his bishop to take out the pawn right in front of the king-- at the very beginning of each game.

It's the one way I can sometime beat a player who is stronger than I even now, works well in airplane chess too.

Toby died eight years ago. A first cousin of his, a medic back in the Vietnam War, has his name engraved on the black wall in Washington.

The fame of Katharine Hepburn, my one day doubles partner, greatly affected everybody around her but especially her nephews and nieces.

In the obit materials that Toby left behind, in the various biographical categories, appears one word over and over: "private."

[bottle]

Don Budge Rows his Backhand

He's really an oarsman.

The sequence is legs and back.

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...l?DBBHRear.mov)

Now Bottle-- but who's Bottle?-- hammers his backhand.

He straighens arm at the elbow and rolls his wrist flat just before his arm got fully straight. Now why does he make that change to his wrist? Because he was once a beginner oarsman himself.

But if Bottle-- I-- can effectively roll my wrist straight that way while my stroke is "turning its corner" why can't I do the same thing earlier behind my back with arm still bent? While lifting my elbow a little so as next to hammer sideways? Or not lifting it. Or keeping it pointed down a little.

Try all three of these backhands, 1) The Don Budge, 2) The Bottle, 3) The Bottle Dreaming. The second already is ready to go.

Oh, here are some hammered backhands: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERBDJ9yvvKs).

[bottle]

Speculative Questions. Why Does Roger Federer Brake So High? Are There Other Examples of High Braking in Tennis?

The highest braking I know exists as a photograph in the "My Pictures" section of my computer.

I posted it before but very few people then clicked on it.

By and large, I speculate, the TennisPlayer members and guests are more apt to click on a video than a still photograph.

And would be more apt to value the cleverness of Don Budge than that of his older brother and first tennis teacher Lloyd Budge.

It's all in the left hand. Notice the height of Fed's hand when he uses it to brake a kick serve.

And the height of Lloyd Budge's left hand used by him for the same purpose.

The central idea here is that the heavy bod rotation of a serve suddenly transforms into light quick acceleration of the arm after which more lugubrious bod rotations take over again.

And if we can get basic in our thinking for a moment and thus view the most essential factor as a long stick rotating end over end through the air, we will do well to ask how best to slow or stop it.

Protrude something from the top (arm). Protrude something from the bottom (leg).

Note: Brian in a recent video places torso twist with abduction/adduction. That says to me that braking torso twist is an old bad idea. One wants torso twist to keep going to apply weight and position to all the super-speed generated by braking one's body length.

All very neat and nice. But why not just keep tossing arm (ta) straight and push it out front and delay the bending of it?

Note Two: Here is Roger braking high (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...2%20500fps.mp4). Here is Lloyd Budge braking high (NA). My new computer is not as successful at loading from "My Pictures" section as my old computer was. So I have gone to Amazon to look for the cover of TENNIS MADE EASY by Lloyd Budge.

Note Three: Who has patience for technology marching backward? And now, as opposed to a few years ago, all copies of TENNIS MADE EASY have a different cover than the one of Lloyd hitting his famous kick serve. Unless you find an old copy in a used book store. Here then is a verbal description. Lloyd whose kick serve was such that it got him and his partner to a U.S. Open Doubles Final is pictured hitting this shot with his bent left arm so high that it makes him look like a goalpost in football.

Note Four: My ex-wife, higher ranked than I, always would say after listening to one of my descriptions of some new tennis brainstorm, "Oh yes, I think that's what I've always done." Well, in viewing (for the first time) or re-viewing the above video of Federer, one can see him pushing his straight ta into the court before bending it and removing it to his side.

[bottle]

Lloyd Budge Appears Here in the Second Paragraph

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...Don_Budge.html

[bottle]

Well What Do You Know-- Here's the Picture of Lloyd Budge's High Left Hand in his Devastating Kick Serve

1-01-2013, 08:10 AM
Lloyd Budge Stories

Big brother syndrome has to be important in tennis, and here maybe is the greatest example.

But history screwed up. There aren't enough stories about Lloyd Budge, the man who goaded his much younger brother into giving up basketball, football and baseball for tennis. Fate had it that Don was supposed to outshine Lloyd but not overwhelm him.

Lloyd's 1945 book TENNIS MADE EASY is still considered one of the best classic tennis books ever. Lloyd himself had a distinguished career in both singles and doubles.

In an early round of the 1940 Southeastern Pro Championships, Flamingo Park, Miami, Lloyd Budge defeated Vincent Richards, who had first grown fat and then lost weight, according to Ray Bowers in FORGOTTEN VICTORIES: A HISTORY OF PRO TENNIS 1926-1945 .

Lloyd Budge must have served like this (see picture link):
Attached Files

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[bottle]

A Heavy Racket and External Hips Rotation to Emulate the Don Budge Backhand

Know thou that this final attempt like all the previous ones is doomed to fail. So sharpen up your hammered backhands at the same time-- you'll need them.

The odds are 600 to 1 against your acquisition of the usable Don Budge stroke.

But give yourself a chance. Was ist da zu verloren? All the greedy goofballs in history who've tried like you for the same thing most likely were hung up on the internal hips question.

They wanted too much to twist their hips, knowing that that works in other types of one hander.

No, the hips twist all right but you never "swing from the hips."

It is the heavy racket that twists the hips, not the opposite.

The shot is the weirdest dance step ever seen on Bald Mountain.

A bit of figure eight per Tomaz Mencinger: Racket following the perimeter of another racket laid down on the court.

But none of that is driven by the hips. It's done with the arm. At the same time you bound to the ball and leap. The heavy, swinging long-levered racket, once you are free of the ground, will pivot you and your hips around.

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...l?DBBHRear.mov).

[bottle]

Different Ways of Saying the Same Thing

A right-hander's basic forehand ending slightly closed to the left fence before proceeding to more follow through or not.

Strokes that follow the contour of the ball.

Strokes that don't swing too much before the ball but rather sneak up on it and give it a big push while rolling it forward.

Simulated forehand in which a right-handed boy presses his palm down on a ball on a table and rolls it forward and then leaves it with a slight flourish of his fingers.

These are flat forehands with mild top except for the "contour" numbers which could include slice, chop and drop-shots.

Wipered forehands are a separate class of shot neither better or worse but for different purpose.

[bottle]

Senior Moments Can Save You

Under the pressure of play, it is easy to forget the most recent experiment you have in mind. In this way, you are able to escape it.

[bottle]

Come One's Personal Ravolution, Everything will Flow Fast and be Expressed as a Sexual Peep

I refer of course to the fast part of one's serve up to the ball, not to the bending that came before.

I keep in mind George Plimpton's dictum in view of his careful cultivation of a literary sensibility that he couldn't follow tennis instruction because he took its words and terms too literally.

Thus we could easily confuse George even if we didn't intend to just with the expression "upward rotations to the ball."

The rotations are rotations, but do they all go upward? Hardly.

The sexual peep of sudden exhalation combined with a bit of vocal chord begins with racket tip moving through skunk tail if one is emulating Federer, begins with arm bent and frozen and trophied or atrophied for most other serves.

The journey from these two start points, as from Chicago and Port Huron in the Mackinac Island sailboat race, must be one of pure economy. Thus, there can be only ONE instance of ESR (external shoulder rotation) and it must happen synonymous with leg drive and beginning of the peep.

Then comes external rotation of the forearm.

And extension of the wrist.

These first three happen with racket working its way DOWN. The biggie In cleanup position is abduction/adduction which travels outward and upward and inward.

Everything from there is on the up and up.

[bottle]

Very Simple Poach for an Old Big Guy

You're old but you're big so you should be able to reach most of the likely possibilities in a single step.

The precise footwork for this one of many moves should be worked out while you are waiting for a bus.

1) Set feet on a slant toward middle of the court where you would like to hit the ball.

2) Gently rock back and forth.

3) If going for the poach turn front foot out on its heel and step across.

4) If protecting the alley, time your move to splay rear foot while replacing it while rocking backward. Step all the way across with leading foot but again toward the net.

5) If ball comes directly at you, improvise a backhand volley.

One wants to vary all such maneuvers so as to keep opponents from developing a groove.

But one likely goal ought to be shading one's original position toward the middle. That is why using two steps to reach the alley makes good sense-- you will skip farther. But one large step for a big guy like you to reach way out into the middle of the court seems like an even more terrific idea.

A good variation could be to replace inside foot as you splay it to go even farther into middle of the court.

I think I prefer these carefully choreographed one and two step moves to a wild, undisciplined run although I know at least two guys who can do that very well.

[bottle]

New Serve's Use of Opposite Hand Probably Easier than Anything you have Done before

I never could figure out exactly what my left arm was supposed to do-- bend and clutch my middle for comfort and along the way magically retard torso rotation so that arm would accelerate?

I'm really happy to relegate such a vague, unproven idea to the past.

Now that serve is vertical in form, drawing stored energy from the long twirling stick of the human body, the means of braking that end-over-end bod twirl can be entirely different.

From either continuous or petrified forest serves, the front arm can not only stay up so as to win the love of Kirsten Dunce in the movie called WIMBLEDON, but can actually push forward into the court while maintaining its straightness before bending and retreating out to one's side.

As Roger Federer does.

I see it as braking a twirling object just as a figure skater does when thrusting both arms outward. The spin diminishes.

But now, in one's serve, the spin is vertical. Sticking out two limbs should have the same effect-- arm forward and either leg backward.

Recently, I authorized myself to alternate palm down with palm square any time I choose. Which has led at least for a while to more holds. I'm trying for the high brake in either case, but have a better chance with square palm to achieve something great.

For my palm down serves have the built in bad habit of lowering the left arm too soon.

One shouldn't try to be too perfect-- at least not all the time-- and this palm-down-to-start serve more or less is my serve.

The new one however gets ta up early and fast. And ta gets to hold its high position with everything frozen and tilting left. But one more tool remains in the box to "keep ta up." That is, give ta something to do. So ta won't get self-conscious and descend. ta got up through a long, circuitous but quick smooth path to right and then left. Then it holds. Then, staying high and straight it next can press forward, pretending it is Roger Federer. Which amuses it. And thus keeps it up one fraction of a second longer.

[bottle]

Wolfe

Page 192, LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL, by Thomas Wolfe: "He would read wolfishly..."

The first big man to come out of North Carolina: Thomas Wolfe. The second: John Isner.

[bottle]

Re 4528

I like the leftward lean with everything frozen for one reason: It feels good. An implicit suggestion, as least for me: The left arm, one's ta, swirls right then left then holds while tilting next thrusts a small amount into the court before it bends.

And this should be practiced as a single gesture.

With start of explosive serve occurring between the frozen lean and the slight thrust of tall arm into the court.