A New Year's Serve

[stotty]

Stotty's Teaching Choice on a Loop Forehand

My interpretation of what Stotty says is that he is apt to teach a student to lead with the elbow rather than lift racket tip like Federer because he worries that if the student goes the Federer route he will end with elbow too close to bod and thus lose leverage.

Not quite the right interpretation. A player can have the racket tip pointing up but not directly vertical. A directly vertical racket tip will by default shove the elbows down into the body. Try it at home. If we tilt the racket tip slightly forwards, the elbows will be inclined to move away from the body when the stroke commences, which is better, I think. A coach can also encourage a player to raise the elbows a little when starting the stroke, sometimes with good results.

[bottle]

Stotty's Teaching Choice on a Loop Forehand

My interpretation of what Stotty says is that he is apt to teach a student to lead with the elbow rather than lift racket tip like Federer because he worries that if the student goes the Federer route he will end with elbow too close to bod and thus lose leverage.

And spacing. And may have a pitch problem too.

One solution might be a wait position with elbow farther out in front although that could change the alignment and dynamic of too many other things.

Less disruptive could be the addition of a small sideways move of the elbow as racket tip goes up.

That in turn suggests a range in the length of this small sideways move.

And possible variety in how much arm bend one uses as the racket tip goes up.

[bottle]

Deja Vu without Redundancy. No "all over again." That has to be the most ignorant expression ever penned.

Am trying to remember a very simple serve I used to have but my remembrance so far is slightly off.

The two elbows separate. The body loads and winds under the floating ball.

Sometimes the score would be love 40 before I tried it. Sometimes then I would run the game. That happened enough times to become significant experience.

It was a topspin serve but not very powerful. A good opponent, in a while, would catch on to it and begin to clobber it along with my other serves.

I don't care.

I want it back again. I know things now I didn't know then.

Would like to see if I can make it work.

[bottle]

Did you miss me?

Absolutely. I'm not that different from the other side, the Trumpenoids. They love to be attacked. Somehow in their twisted psyches the attacks seem to them to justify their very existence, and the more the attacks are well reasoned, well supported and devastating, the happier they are. They love the attention and will never change, can't, don't have that in them.

To further explore their point of view, I haven't been squashed yet on a Detroit highway. There are two schools of thought on Detroit highways.

The first is that they are dangerous, especially in an area such as where I recently lived (no mail delivery and rats climbing up in the walls to avoid the stinky flooding in the basement where the mailboxes were located, just to give a rough idea). And nobody can afford car insurance. Maybe they buy it once then let it lapse.

The second school of thought is that the roads were built in the hayday of Ford, Chrysler and GM.

Then half the people moved away so there was half the traffic so the roads weren't half bad.

Also, I've noticed that when people don't have any car insurance they make a real effort not to crash into other vehicles. There are exceptions of course and one needs a certain amount of blind luck. My shifter cable snapped behind my dentist's office rather than in a more dangerous place. Still it was a very expensive day since I was getting a crown and moving into a new apartment at the same time.

[10splayer]

Did you miss me?

[bottle]

Re-Orchestrate According to Yesterday's Admission of Limited Athleticism

I told what happened on the top of a mountain in Garrison, New York that overlooked the battlements of West Point on the opposite side of the Hudson River.

Dougie Anderson, who was the Lou Gehrig of my childhood (and later the greatest slugger in the history of the Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut baseball team with a batting average of over 500) came up to bat.

I forget or never knew what happened with his contract with the New York Yankees-- a tragic story, I think.

For some reason I was situated in deep right field.

The assertive players on my team waved me way way back almost to the edge of the forest.

With a crack of Dougie's bat the ball that Dougie hit kept rising and rising with a clear intent to come all the way to the exact spot where I was standing.

And then it peaked and came down and down against the part of me where my two arms crossed.

My teammates were screaming at me.

Despite my pain, I threw the hardball high in their general direction.

They performed the rest of a triple play.

Showed character, luck, fate or something, right? Let's call it athletic ineptitude despite the tennis assessment I sometimes receive that I have good hands.

So I'm one year shy of octogenarian, which would put Dougie's fly ball at 71 years ago.

Last night, in tennis, my best shot by far was a towering moonball although I barely missed the sideline with it a couple of times after my caffeination wore off.

This shot is the sole survivor of my several decades long attempt to hit a Federfore.

But it works. So should I abandon it? Never, although I turned it into an orphan for a while.

I'll orchestrate outward from it even though "orchestrate" is a word you never hear from other tennis players, the more fool they.

Federfore for a tall howitzer, McEnrueful for low, flat, deep, Waterwheel for something in between loaded with buzz and penetration both.

The new Waterwheel however will not be hit like the old Waterwheel, which hired and employed a set length of right arm.

Racket tip will rise immediately as in the Federfore-- the backswing I have practiced most and therefore am most comfortable with.

But arm will scissor instead of remaining straight. And there shall be no windshield wipe-- a brush, yes, as elbow finally takes off.

This elbow causes the racket to scythe, you can say, but only if it sighs at the same time.

I was watching Federer's shot of the day as he defeated Quadzilla on Australian TV.

I saw lots of arm, then bod, then more arm as the ball zipped down the line.

[bottle]

My Flippant Reason for not Liking the Term "Flip" in Tennis

Flip is a simple word. It therefore should apply to a simple act. Hand flip should be a simple thing but is not. Flip in a serve or forehand is at least two things: layback of the wrist and clockwise turn of the forearm. So I prefer "mondo." But the same person taught me both terms.

Recent forehand experiments in which one turns one's strings to face the side fence may create a technical and linguistic problem both. I ended by calling that situation a "half-mondo" and began to think I was on a diving board.

Forget that. I'd rather keep my wrist straight and moosh it much later into its hitting pose-- on both serve and forehand.

To do so, I am afraid I'll have to learn how to throw a curveball in baseball, something I never mastered in a lifetime. Perhaps some other reference would work. Reflect on all the great forehands that come from nations where there isn't any baseball.

Well, hardball has been in my blood ever since I caught a long fly ball on my forearms which led to a triple play. So I go with baseball.

On a serve, one will get the racket tip a slight degree less low by keeping wrist straight at teardrop. This could prove fatal but I've got to take the chance.

On a forehand I similarly will threaten the loss of all beneficial structure by trying to do much late but again I choose to take the chance.

Forehand: strings approach the ball from inside then catch the ball on backside then fling it from outside.

Serve: strings approach the ball under backside then catch it on outside and fling it from inside.

Life is pretty complicated if you ask me unless you can get all 28 persons in your kindergarten class to squeak like a mouse at once.

[bottle]

Imaginary Conversation

I'm pretty sure that if Pam Shriver and I were speaking one-on-one, we would have a political argument.

But if the topic were tennis, the conversation might be more interesting.

I have decided that the simple point Pam has been emphasizing on TV for years might be more important than almost anything most of us might ever hear.

Her big subject, it seems to me, is whether a serve or a forehand (and other shots too I guess) accelerated or did not accelerate at contact.

Simple ideas sometimes are the best.

[bottle]

Put What with What?

Of course I ask that question too much. Unless you think, as I do, that if you fool around long enough you may find something. Or should I say "stumble" on something? Or did the happy stumble happen because you were determinedly on the lookout for technical inspiration rather than scheduling your next cardio tennis session or playing the game, great as it is, called "What's the Best Shot?"

The idea today: Using the bizarre Tom Okker model of early shoulders, just assign those early shoulders to lowering of racket. The racket, which first was made to face the right fence now starts a loop on one's arm.

But partway through the loop the shoulders take over and rotate down. More specifically the hit shoulder rotates down as much as around while hips get out of the way.

What have I said? Is it bad? Bad if it's got anybody swinging too fast too soon.

The shot is continuous. Its significant energy however begins from low point or maybe partway down.

Now you can crank hips, using the classic idea (Beasley, Budge, Vines) of your hips finishing off the shot so racket POINTS at target-- only a fleeting moment of course if your follow through then continues over yoke or around shoulder.

Okay but what about shoulders as sequential post-hips step in the kinetic chain?

Let it happen. Construct from ground up. But remain open to the unique knees of Okker, too, where lower body stays level or even goes down, and front knee in neutral construction ends by forming a right angle.

It is other elements that come up-- stretching trunk, lifting, twisting arm, aeronautical banking.

Both knees have a different function. Instead of coming up, they press toward the net thus giving your shot effortless pace and weight.

Hey, I've had a knee replacement. There are many elements I want to rise but not my legs. And I certainly don't want merry flight for myself ending in a harsh jolt (or two) .

Note: TennisPlayer says I need to resize the photo I planned to put here. I refer to another time when I was successful in making it appear. It's called "Tom Okker's knees." I'll go looking for it now. Couldn't find it. Too bad. Lower leg ends perpendicular to upper leg. Am describing shape of lead leg.

[bottle]

Improbable that Two Great Novelists could be So Much the Same, Especially when One is an Expert on Dostoyevsky

I refer to Robertson Davies and John Cowper Powys. For starters, they both are intrigued with Arthurian Legend in a very non-Camelot way.

[bottle]

Judgment of Character as Seen by Another Character in a Robertson Davies Novel

He would be "low-clink."

[bottle]

Masturbatory (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/masturbatory), Steve, a Real Onion and Onanista, Gratuitously and Routinely Attacking a Post such as the Present one, Calling it Self-Indulgent when he is the Essence of Self-Indulgence himself. I am Talking about the Writing of Steve Navarro.

In addition, this post is the opposite of self-massage. It is entirely altruistic, designed for other tennis players who hopefully are women although there are very few female readers to be found at Tennis Player.

Girls, to get your groove on you need to become more furtive, and in case you are even one hundredth unsure of what "furtive" means we choose the word "sneaky" instead.

Am talking about return of serve and more specifically return of your serve.

Whoever is doing it needs to be thrown off of his or her rhythm.

Once you have absorbed the core idea of 180-degree separation of the elbows on all serves you can apply this principle to long action and short action serves both.

In fact you must do this in order to gain the level of sneakiness that ever voracious tennis requires.

Think Hsieh Su-wei while eschewing her serve. But use Hsieh Su-wei in your own serve (https://www.google.com/search?q=su+w...hrome&ie=UTF-8).

Now a long one, now a short one. Not in where it lands! No, keep em well-placed and deep. But long in tract like Pierre-Hugues Herbert, short in tract like Roscoe Tanner.

For such short action as his Roscoe had to abbreviate somewhere along the line and you can see this as his racket arm goes up bending then and not later.

Pretty good. But he wasn't clever enough and went to prison.

Let us learn from his example. Never do anything halfway. If one can only become wholehearted in one's desire for abbreviation one shall never get caught.

And when they come with their badges and guns what then?

Throw in a long tract serve.

Do now: A) Think about long tract tomorrow. B) Today, Sloane, don't lower your arms. Just keep them level or however you normally hold them at address.

1) Turn back with everything connected until your heel or toe goes up-- who cares which?

2) Separate bent elbows until they are 180 degrees opposite from one another and lined up with both shoulder balls. You pushed with rear leg before you tossed. The separation is the toss.

3) Serve.

[bottle]

Bottle, you have restored my faith in my quirky interest in tennis analysis and “I am not alone”. I love your handwritten notes in your Topspin Return of Seve pdf. My wife questions my sanity daily.

And she's right, of course. Thanks so much.

[doctorhl]

Bottle, you have restored my faith in my quirky interest in tennis analysis and “I am not alone”. I love your handwritten notes in your Topspin Return of Seve pdf. My wife questions my sanity daily.

[bottle]

mmmm Topspin Service Return.pdf