A New Year's Serve

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Yups

Yuppety-yup-yup-yup, as the old guys say in Eastport, Maine. Sometimes they'll string eleven yups all blended together by a single intake of breath. You can ask Tom MacDougald about it if you ever drive down the coast from your mother's to Eastport. Tom is a Vietnam vet and very expert on all matters pertaining to intake of breath, built his house with old rusted nails and other wreckage down at the south end of Moose Island, has a wonderful wife and, I've been led to believe by a poet friend, fine kids too. Last I heard one of Tom's sons was about to build my poet friend a house on a Canadian islet right next to The Old Sow whirlpool. Well, Tom would be happy to demonstrate for you the proper yup-yup-yups.

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Is it true that Pancho Segura twists his stick the other way from everybody else on the backswing of his serve?

If so, did Michael Stich do the same thing? I seem to recall the Stich stick being way around Stich's back and pointing to the left netpost, but I don't have the visual resources in his case to be properly led or misled.

This question re Segura comes from looking at 12 nice pen and ink drawings. But the drawings were probably made from 12 photos.

My approach is the same in all such cases of uncertainty (ex., Saltzensteins's dirty diaper drill shows ESR rather than ISR putting spin on the ball-- what gives)? Ignore one's non-responsive or nonexistent readers and get to a court and decide for yourself. See if you can give the idea a whirl without breaking your arm off. You may have some kind of an answer after a single serve.

This way you may never know if what you saw with your own eyes is true. And may always be in the dark about what the little guy Pancho Segura actually did to keep up with his tall and extremely formidable and famous opponents.

But you will know whether you want to do what you saw or go with something else.

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Identity

Am I an actual researcher in the field of tennis stroke technique or not? If not, am I then a dilettante (https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C...71.vYsAXl5GhtA), a guy who copies the motions of different servers because he can but never with much result?

Well, if my research is serious, then Brent Abel's advice to apprentice oneself to Johannes Vermeer and paint exactly the way he shows you does not apply.

If an old guy is lucky enough to find a Vermeer of tennis who knows how to paint every square inch of a court with magnificence, then perhaps he should give up on the research idea.

The claimants of Vermeerness I've met however were more like narcissists, hardly people to whom you should want to entrust your soul.

But I do believe there are great men out there. How often do you encounter one and at an age and impressionability when their greatness will matter to you?

At other times you might be better off with a good teacher rather than a great one who probably would just irritate you despite your admiration for him.

When I was 19 I rowed in an eight-oared crew that beat all the little crews in the country.

Only 15 remained, big ones, and 13 of them lined up at the city end of Lake Onondaga, Syracuse, for a three-mile race.

Our coach, Gordon Whitey Helander, was a tough Marine who gave our crew a rough cut quality. But he had some Military duty to perform. So Charlie Butt Sr. of McLean, Virginia, one of the great crew coaches ever, picked us up.

We passed 12 of the 13 crews and coming up to the finish line were about to pass the University of Washington of Seattle when their number-three man fainted.

This should have made it easier for us to pass them, but their coxswain, instead of letting us by, veered in front of us.

That was for the college championship of The United States. To all intents and purposes we won it. So I do know something about great mentors-- both Whitey and Charlie qualified.

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What Other People Say Can Be Very Important

One of all the lifetime tennis players at the Superb Owl party I just attended accused me of hitting the ball much harder lately.

It's true, and I believe he was referring mostly to my forehand, but I'm quite sure there hasn't been some transformation of the animal in me.

It's just that I'm finally realizing in my old age that I'm playing doubles and therefore should flatten more of my forehands out.

Not all of them but many of them. Be less cautious and take more of a chance with them.

The finish line after all is coming up fast.

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Yes or No. Bend the Stick the Other Way?

This post is dedicated to the rotorded server wherever he or she is.

Oh no, I now see the hand is turned the wrong way in frame five. My theory is bogus. Bogus. Bogus!

But, Pancho Segura still opens out the racket until it points at left rear fence post just as I thought. Which is wait position for a probation serve if one has decided to go Seguran.

Things to watch: the right knuckles. They stay on rear fence side from brandishment through arm bend through low point through pro drop through A/A and arm extension. They only turn in for contact.

The unique hand movement in this serve is from out to in to out and up to tall contact.

What makes the hand move in toward bod? Elbow squeeze only.

Why isn't downward arm movement compromised? Because the forearm remains perpendicular to the court the same as in the usual form of probation serve. The difference is in racket head as halo over the human head.

Ignore it.

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Wednesday 4 p.m. with the Doctors: Plan

Toss twice as high with more rainbow to the left. Hit probation serves starting with 20 degrees of extra ESR before the significant racket drop. Hit probation serves in Seguran mold also. Hit conventional full windup serves with ordinary down and up to paused brandishment. Hit Seguran serve with its full staggered windup which is really different.

Much too much. Am sure to be embarrassed. Remember what Carrie's mother in Stephen King told her: "They're all going to laugh at you!"

Stan Smith: "Use the shot you practiced."

But I practiced them all. So make just one inspired choice. Stick with it and ask the former Harvard varsity player if John M. Barnaby was his coach.

And, when serving against that big guy, so enthusiastic about the world having just come back from The Australian Open and a tour of New Zealand, make sure to come in on your (my) serve every time.

Because if you (I) don't do this, he will put the ball deep in your (my) nearest alley every time and come into net behind it.

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Report

Despite what I planned, I hit all of these new serves except for probation in Seguran mold-- forgot to try that one.

The full windup serves all felt very good, especially the Seguran when I closed arm to the right angle in the same timing slot used for early ESR in the other serves.

"My serves felt very good," I just said. Unfortunately however I only held once. I shouldn't blame my doctor partners although some of them are very old and therefore have trouble coping with the volleys they are asked to perform off of faster returns because of faster serves.

Can I deny this: I got caught deep when I didn't come in on my serve.

But nearly the whole time when I was playing the three other stations I won. As Brent Abel would say, I "wanted to be the man."

The Harvard varsity player I was telling you about, reader, was 6' 7" in college. He didn't play on the varsity, it turned out, but on a backup team his freshman year.

But he was coached by the half century Harvard head coach John M. Barnaby, the tennis writer I am so curious about, and described him as looking frail and wiry.

Barnaby, I know, was great friends with Gardnar Mulloy, who recently died at well past a hundred.

We'll see in the morning against tough competition and with a strong partner how the new serves will fare including a very appropriate one in a video attached to an email from Stotty.

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New Dance Cue (Fred Astaire) for a Staggered Segura-like Toss

I love this because it's so different from the usual down together up together. Maybe one can get bored even with something that is good.

Here is the cue. Lean way forward like Pancho Segura with both hands gliding out like insect feelers. They are not linked on the racket. I have already been doing this.

But what you (I) want is right hand slightly higher than left. But let's assume both hands wouldn't mind going out level. To get desired configuration then, slightly lift right arm as you slightly lower left arm.

This combined motion is very small yet prefigures in reverse the larger staggered toss motion immediately afterward in which left hand (ta) goes up as right hand (ha) goes down.

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Service Report 2/7/19

Put self on probation right away (served from brandishment-- look, ma, I'm waving a sword). Used a few Seguran full windups too. Result: lost serve three times, including once at love.

Then went with the simplest rock-a-lot serve possible, the one Stotty sent me a video of, attached to an email. I adjusted toss to go with it. Higher and more to left. Held twice at love.

How often is this true? That everything is about the toss, not a hundred other concerns. Very often.

But does this mean I will abandon the variations that made me lose today? I won't because I am intrigued by them. And when you are intrigued by something you should look into it.

But how did I get the toss farther to the left? It's one thing to talk about it, another to do it. In my case I get there by not taking such a deep downstroke with ta. If I go low with ta I get a toss to the right and as straight up as a telephone pole.

If I start with hands fairly high and do have a downstroke of the ta but not much of one, I get a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end of it whether that's corny or not.

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More Reflection on the Becker-Edberg One Hand Backhand

I adopted it simply because it is more streamlined and economical than all the other one handers starting with J. Donald Budge and even the one I love so much of Petr Korda.

There is not a big waggle of the racket head down to the left-- and then right on a level path that surely does take the racket tip around in a hurry.

That's great but takes time. The Becker-Edberg straightens and rolls straight toward contact. I guess someone could argue that there still are waggles but little ones.

Having hit these elegant backhands now for more than half a year, I believe the time has come for a report.

I'm not Stefan Edberg. I do not hit the ball as cleanly as he. Still, this shot justifies its use through the speed with which I get it off.

Lately, when I have extra time, I notice myself almost naturally returning to the older more classical pattern in which player's path to the ball takes the form of a figure eight.

Or to go with Tomaz Mencinger's useful image for ground strokes on both sides, it follows the shape of a racket laid on the court with its handle pointed toward the target. Follows the perimeter of the racket head and then goes along the stalk.

We're constantly urged to stick with the shots we know and work on strategy. Yes to strategy but I rebel against the notion I have to limit myself to the strokes I have-- what fun is that?

Why can't I have both kinds of one hander? And hit with the Don Budge type of bigger waggle when I have extra time?

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Here are Two New Mantras of Service Development Whether They Apply to You Personally or Not

1) No opening out by right shin.

2) One less moving part.

Achievement of 1) achieves 2). The total of improvements here is therefore one.

And is predicated on an excellent toss continually practiced all by itself since toss is where recidivism is most likely to lurk.

Toss while you're cooking eggs. Toss between the time you cut halfway through a bagel lying on its side and finish the cut with bagel on edge through downward pressure of your big knife.

Practice toss while avoiding a trip to the emergency room.

Is the toss an arc to the left? Is the toss high enough? See how easily the toss can regress to the straightness of a telephone pole. When if ever have you given the toss this much juggler's attention?

The subtraction of opening out by the shin gives a new succinctness to the down together up together form of this old serve. (Old in the sense that it follows the form you have used most often in your tennis life.)

The difference from more recent history though is a matter of perfect self-assurance about what will happen once elbow is at desired level.

ESR will happen, that's what, to key the racket 30 degrees to vertical or "skunk tail," as I like to say.

There will in this be no supination of the forearm assuming that "supination" means "anti-pronation."

There will be a simple keying of the humerus as if the humerus is the shaft in your house lock.

And while the key slowly turns the tumblers within you shall finish all last instant rearrangement of your bod.

Think about this! You used to bend core parts while you bent your arm. Now, once again, you bend your arm earlier, your ha, on the second rise of it instead.

You could have just kept it bent since it started out bent but don't tempt fate by mimicking Novak Djokovic.

He gets to do impersonations, you do not.

The serves you've hit most often in life have involved first straightening the arm then bending it so do that now but once it is bent, key it.

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I would of course love to be more of a central participant of the great discussion going on over in the Probation! thread, but...

I am very sure I am doing my best to put these notions into effect, which is different.

Each decision must be as crisp and willful as a tennis shot. There is a reason that Katharine Hepburn was a good tennis player.

That is not the same as open discussion.

When one is unsure of something one uses algebra.

One plunges ahead in the expectation of later solution.

But as the public discussion continues the number of unknowns shrinks.

I think Seano's questions are especially good, but not to be judgmental about any of this material seems the best course.

The ideas are fine enough just to do them.

Still, I can ask whether 10 20 30 40 50 degrees of pre-brandishment ESR is best idea.

Influenced by Brian's saying that if he had to choose between ESR going down and ESR during the sweep right he would choose the sweep.

And I certainly believe the palm will face down if probation/hesitation point happens before skunk tail which now becomes ephemeral anyway and not the brandishment itself.

The frozen sword wave will occur at a chosen amount of degrees before top dead center taken from the above range.

Very interesting the point about the shortcoming of pointing racket tip forward.

To the side then? A little backward? A lot backward?

I don't mind having to decide. Whatever gets you the best diagonal, right?

Heady stuff. You'll agree (if you already didn't) when you suddenly hold serve where you didn't before.

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Six Month Tweak to Backhand Orchestration

Thought over a binary choice for several days before making my crisp decision. Crispness is a good idea. Right thinking could make the crispness even better.

Aside from slice, chop and sidespin of which I hit a lot, my default backhand is Becker-Edberg. They are the two players who most often hit their one handers in the certain way that allows no bellying out of the racket behind one.

The shot looks like a tall vertical monstrosity of a swing of a pre-weed whacker golf club cutter.

It defies the convention of figure eight shape in a one hand topspin backhand.

It contains a kinetic straightening of the arm and roll of the wrist in fast sequence as the racket golfs directly down and up to the ball.

I think of the roll as then coming to a stop so that both ends of the racket travel at the same speed through contact and up to a natural finish.

An exception to this can be a short topspin angle service return in which the double-ending is replaced by continued arm roll-- a tremendous weapon from the ad court for those who can pull it off.

The choice I made today takes me halfway toward the classical Don Budge figure eight to put a bit more tricky delay into an alternative when I have extra time to spend-- rare occurrence but it happens.

My commitment to this back-bellied alternative is not total however since I think keeping the same high linear backswing is more important.

The shot with compromise is good enough.

Racket does belly a bit behind the back, but no part of the backswing ever travels toward left fence despite the big body turn in that direction.

A flying grip change triggers all elements of the full high one-piece backswing in both of these shots.

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AT SWIM-- TWO-BIRDS: Novel by Flann O'Brien

At swim, spaghetti arm: best possible serve by a rotorded player

At swim, spaghetti arm in fold but not twist

At twist, spaghetti arm just before it folds

At twist, spaghetti arm just after it folds

The plan: arm twist just before the fold controls speed of the fold, slowing it down for coordination with legs driving the other way.

Plaintive note: A more sentient serve is promised by full motion with hesitation.

Afterthought: The hesitation = bent arm brandishment of one's sword at circa 20 degrees before TDC (top dead center or skunk tail).

Rhythm of the serve: Down together but not up together. The ha accelerates faster than that to make time for its hesitation.

Worth a try.

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Doctors with Weed Whaquets

I know. I should invest in one, too. After I pay for my next crown (the kind in my teeth not on my head).

When these doctors get perfectly lined up for their forehand they sure do hit it hard.

The secret is to make them run a long way before they swing.