A New Year's Serve

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Higher Toss and...

Turn out forearm while keeping wrist straight.

Worth a try.

Worth a try if good semiwestern and western players are killing your serve with their forehands.

You have everything to gain.

Not to try new stuff would be insane.

(This is an all-age-inclusive observation.)

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When then to turn forearm out while keeping wrist straight?

Could I have the nominations?

They are: 1) At address; 2) At bottom of down together; 3) As racket goes past right shin; 4) As arm goes up; 5) As closed racket approaches head; 6) At bottom of second racket drop; 7) In middle of arm extension; 8) At top of arm extension.

Vote for one candidate only*

*Check John McEnroe serves for straight or depressed wrist at all eight checkpoints.

Remember from rowing that depressed to straight roll with hand set at 45 degrees to handle produces a perfect feather for the year or so before fingers get more in the act.

https://webtennisgear.com/blogs/wtrs/whats-the-right-shot-episode-151?utm_content=168130&utm_medium=Email&utm_name=Id&utm_source=Actionetics

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Once Upon a Time

Invention of a new tennis stroke (and any little tweak makes the whole thing "new" as far as I am concerned) is not as intrinsically awful as most tennis players think.

The worst aspect of it may be the high hope it engenders. One's grooved strokes, most often but not always, are better. Disappointment is easy to come by in this pursuit.

What one does next at such times of gloomy self-assessment is perhaps most revealing of who one is and where in the life cycle.

A simplicity check is good at any age. But so is invention. In my case I probably need to remember one tournament in Berryville, Virginia more than everything I know about technique.

I drew a very good professional tennis instructor in my first round match but nevertheless was able to take the opening set. Convincingly, too.

When he won the next two sets and the match was over, he carefully explained to me that my toss was higher in the first set and I therefore didn't "bend-arm" any of my serves.

Something to think about even now, forty years later.

Perhaps the main thing.

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Tennis Tips Everlasting

Old age tennis with a two-week layoff is tough, but as I say, good for one's cross-country skiing.

The big challenge once again: return of hot serves-- the place in the game where one ought to be most creative?

You know what I mean, reader, correct? I'm talking about serves so hot that NO ONE can touch them.

Time to be very creative. You have a hundred possibilities? Run through the whole list?

More efficient, though, may be good listening or overhearing of what some particularly generous player is saying to somebody else. Since anyone must solve the same problem, i.e., the same hot serve.

This overheard conversation could come between sessions if partners are changing within a large group.

But one has to know beforehand who is the most generous, easy and outgoing among the more capable players.

That's a player one ought to keep one's eye on and never get too far away from.

And here he is, showing a lesser partner exactly how he stays in place and barely shifts his weight from foot to foot so he can break in either direction.

The muscles in his legs flex and work but not much else happens.

But the shifts are a steady vibration.

He shows something else.

"If I bounce like this," he says, "the serve is already by me."

That gives me two options instead of a hundred for the rest of the evening.

1) Stay in place and vibrate like the generous player; 2) Get feet one in front of the other and do rock-steps like in swing dance, then fly forward, on the attack, and bounce just once.

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Talking to Carol about her Huge Flat Forehand

This is a conversation I haven't had yet.

"Carol, have you ever played on Laykold?"

"No-o-o."

"I learned on Laykold. It shaped my whole game. I was sick when the club resurfaced to the same stuff as here."

"What's so good about Laykold?"

"It's fast and smooth. Your forehand wouldn't slow down after the bounce. And you'd get a bigger reward for coming to net. I fell on it one time and just slid without even getting a bruise. Did the same thing here and spent months trying to heal my knee."

Carol will be curious.

i will end by advising her when playing outside to look for old courts that haven't been well kept.

Where the little nubs have worn down over the years until the surface is as slick as Laykold.

'You just have to remove the sticks and leaves before you play."

"I'll do that, John."

"Better than all the little bayonets in the surface here."

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Should You, Could You?-- I Just Ask

Working off of the lowering tip forehand backswing strong eastern grip pattern recently established/re-established, could one substitute something different for breaststroke to generate more pure topspin rather than topspin and pace?

The something different could be half a breaststroke just as one learned to master half a mondo. Not only was a half-mondo possible but improved overall stroke.

By "half a breaststroke" one could mean that one arm only moves insect feeler like while the other remains perfectly still.

The opponent will never notice. He's unobservant.

This leaves hitting arm (the still one) closer to bod right after the unit turn and therefore better able to create a narrow gorge of down and up racket path.

But ball must be fairly high if one wants to preserve the arm scissoring arm roll melded sequence one has so carefully worked out.

For a really low ball i would choose a McEnrueful any time or else cross the ball.

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How Late Can One Hit a McEnrueful (an imitation of a John McEnroe forehand only without any big vertical leg drive)?

Later than one has been hitting them, most likely. And that could be why the excellent versions of this shot have been sporadic. It's hit, after all, with a composite grip halfway between continental and eastern forehand.

But if one has hit eastern forehands for most of one's life, the contact point drilled into one's nerves is a bit forward.

Special effort, therefore, should go to hitting one's composite grip shots a bit later (or rather, farther back).

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"Longest Runway Possible"

The seminal phrase. Three words. No less and no more.

I thought of writing nothing today. Champagne social is scheduled for tomorrow-- the Friday night tennis mixer at Eastside Tennis and Fitness Club. Comely guests welcome. When in Detroit don't miss it.

But the dinner party has not occurred in two weeks. And the current cold snap hasn't helped. Except for the quarter-mile cross-country ski track alongside of this senior center for affordable housing-- a runway which is long enough.

Each time my long skis go swooshing in giant steps, the slick tract gets faster. Quarter-mile to the tenth power. Time then to go up to the great new apartment and take a nap.

No, do not sit down on the rowing machine. That is for loosening up BEFORE the speed trials.

The challenge now is a runway just as good behind the back.

But all the tennis ideas are backed up, damn 'em, they're dammed. Not much chance therefore for tennis success tomorrow but you never know.

Enjoy the process. Toss hand and racket tip go down together and stay down low together even after the elbow has twisted up.

"Longest runway possible." Apply exactly what that means.

[bottle]

Float the BS 2

Backswing 1 and Backswing 2 is distinction for training purpose only, one's training wheels. Take them off and you have a single movement albeit with floating feel at the end, a tossed spray.

What you end up with is big shoulders turn/sweep back; big shoulders turn/sweep forward; tossed spray in between.

Practice this on the floor on your back, rolling like an itchy horse.

The float is the variable moment when you wait and time, same as for a volley.

Mechanically speaking, wrist cocks and arm finds its desired length.

Count float to 7, to 5, to 2, to 1.

Regardless, what is the rhythm of this shot?

1-2 .

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Here is the Plot: to Stop Driving All Mystery out of One's Forehand

But does this mean that one should drive all logic out of one's forehand? I don't think so. You're going to have, if all goes well, mystery and logic working together side by side.

So where exactly in the sketch I have outlined does mystery reside? At the corner of Bend Street and Get Straight Alley. And in one's mondo or flip too.

But now logic, offended by this diagnosis, wishes more fully to participate and if truth be known to dominate.

Full mondo or half-mondo? logic inquires. As moderator, I think it wise to give logic full rein. Logic as has been demonstrated repeatedly will spend itself.

So we all will listen with many of us quite irritated, but then the bore will be finished, and somebody else can pick up the thread if not mystery herself.

"Answer the damn question, sir, mondo or half-mondo?"

"Half-mondo."

"That would be where wrist bends racket up-- early-- or up and back a bit later, right?"

"Do it early. Just face strings at side fence. That leaves roll-down of the forearm for later."

"What if each one of us decides for himself?"

Also, I silently think, if I've got racket tip lowering during big shoulders sweep backward, I can't ask wrist at same time to lift racket tip-- absurdity and conflict and impossibility that wouldn't feel good.

"The arm straightens," logic meantime continues like a marching army, "then it scissors. Then it rolls."

But how much does it originally straighten in the backswing? There is the mystery. How much whirl-straight will the new improved and very big shoulders sweep be permitted to effect?

Moral: Big smooth shoulders sweep backward. Big smooth shoulders sweep forward. (Fun to do this while lying on back on the floor.) With a couple of arm shenanigans relegated to solo status in between.

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Homework

Study the Doug King, Brent Abel and Tom Stow relationships.

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One of the Very Coolest Things about Tennis is that it Teaches People Humility

I refer to myself in returning hot serves. Hot serves are a challenge for anyone but in particular for aging tennis players.

One just isn't as quick, at 79, as one used to be. So one has to be smart. There is no other choice.

Recently I tried to go with the over-conceptualization of playing with four forehands only.

But none of the four worked in returning hot serves.

Don't hit flat forehands, I told myself. Wrong. Flat forehands, abbreviated, were what got the ball back.

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For the Tennis Player Who Refuses to Think

I'm right with you. In my needle nose forehand I have one part that is a complete crap-shoot and I'll probably leave it that way.

If it works it will be a miracle.

For orientation, just so we can perfectly locate said mystery, let us review our backswing sequence, glossing a bit as we go.

To start, one lowers racket tip like Ivan or Pete rather than raise it like Roger.

Going loosey-goosey in one's arm creates the needled elbow one wants. But is elbow itself traveling independent of the turning shoulders? I don't think so. Well maybe a little. What would the harm be in adding a bit of elbow speed to that provided by turning bod?

That way we could use the vicious image of gouging a person behind one with combined shoulders pivot and spear throw of the elbow adding up to major damage. A rabbit punch? The thing outlawed in boxing?

But remember, the arm is squeezing together at the same time as if to thread elbow through the eye of a needle. This squeeze has the potential to reduce momentum to manageability.

For orientation again, we refer to the NTA (national tennis association) guideline of Joe Cockersham. Joe's guideline bisects every forehand backswing into two parts although we would prefer one.

First part, bod. But in this special case at the same time spearing as one narrows and threads.

Second part, arm opens out as half of a breaststroke. Well, how much should it open out? As much as feels good.

I propose leaving some bend in the arm, don't you see, so that shoulders, about to rotate, can have the pleasure of whirl-straightening the last bit.

Just before arm scissors all over again. Before arm rolls. With all of this a single train.

There is plenty of crap-shoot at any phase of any tennis stroke, but the crap-shoot I wish to emphasize (I won't say "stress" since stress is the enemy) is exact degree to which arm opens out.

And whether, mechanically speaking, this ploy adds easy, unselfconscious power to the raspy wipe.

Snow outside. No self-feed. Too many people going to parties. Tennis social canceled. Will have to wait for any unveiling until the champagne mixer next week.

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A Ravolutionary Speaks: You're all chewing on a kinetic chain.

And that's why you're not better than you are.

It's bad for your teeth and bad for your tennis.

Me, I eschew the kinetic chain, threw it in the Hudson and Connecticut rivers at Constitution Island-- West Point and Middletown. (-- = 2 copper links inserted by mistake in the 3 chains that went across to stop the British.)

Okay, sorry, I made up the part about the copper links and Middletown, but comes the ravolution I beat you.

Am not there yet but on my way.

I and you too if you care to join us will start our forehands with our shoulders.

We'll call ourselves John Lendlists.

Like Ivan Lendl we'll use a unit turn-- that's starting backswing with the shoulders.

But will start the foreswing with the shoulders too.

Arbeit macht frei! Make America great again! Subordinate the hips!

Yes, use those babies but not first. Achtung! They flow mit den shoulders.

It's a New Year. Give peace a chance. That's all we're sayin.

See Ihnen on der courts.

(https://allthingsliberty.com/2014/09...t-point-chain/)

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Needle Nose Forehands

Daytime is the time for fanciful speculation when one will play at night. Unless one is convinced and determined not to indulge oneself in this way at all.

O Lawdy Lawdy how fanciful speculation can spoil one's game.

Am reading UNCLE TOM'S CABIN by Harriet Beecher Stowe, perhaps the most influential novel ever written though surely not the best. That is why I use the expression "O Lawdy Lawdy."

Could I not show up on one of these Friday nights, just once, with a mind clear of unseasoned ideas?

Amazing how snow can take away one's self-feed time. Especially if one goes cross-country skiing instead.

My chance of untried needle nose forehands working tonight is about the same as happily crossing from one bank of the Ohio River to the other by finding all the connected ice floes.

But I'm going to try some needle-nosery just the same. Think how lucky Ivan Lendl was to groove his while still a boy with all the king's horses and all the king's men of the future Czech trying unsuccessfully to convince him of the error of his ways and to return to the bosom of humanity.

The needle nosed elbow will put the racket way back by the rear curtain.

The eschewing of kinetic chain will put the ice floes in the Connecticut River where I used to live.

The starting of shoulders forward with no stupid pause while one tries to activate one's hips first can finish straightening one's arm automatically. While accelerating the racket into a new arm clench then wipe.

Ivan would finish nicely on balance with racket caught off to left. Not you (I). You will go from mechanical acceleration to more organic arm re-scissoring then wiping with finish over left shoulder or yoke.

If wildly spraying, failing to hit the ball cleanly or to hit it at all, you (I) will return to simple cue of facing strings at right fence.

That happens anyway, just a bit farther back.

Initial success, as with so many other new shots, depends, I believe, on precise understanding of every step along the way before one puts them all together.

Very similar to learning a new language.

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Re Brent Abel in Post # 3979: Do What He Says without Doing What He Says

Learn personal separation and how to wait ball into pocket.

But don't give up stroke modification while doing this.

Stroke modification is too much fun. So what if it causes you to lose a match or two.

More immediately, your willingness to modify better enables you to meet any stroking challenge.

If as Brent Abel says you're not letting the ball get into the pocket, you have the opportunity to turn your shoulders even more.

So viciously elbow someone behind you, keeping in mind that this has nothing to do with your Type III status since you still will be in the slot-- the slot turns back the same extra amount with you.

And needle the elbow (press the two halves of the arm together near the beginning of this).

And face the strings at right rear fence post instead of right fence.

And extend the arm back along the newly forming slot just as fast or faster than you did before.

And swing with the shoulders while subordinating the hips as your scissoring of your arm melds into your rolling of it with high follow through over yoke or left shoulder.