A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Lethal Bonk Debunked

1) Apology and Warning: I'm sorry for using the term "POSTCARD" in Post # 898. Microsoft, apparently, has declared that POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK, discovered within the past several days, is the worst virus in the history of computers. We all could lose the contents of our C-drive. So don't open anything new that has the word POSTCARD on it, at least until the anti-virus operators have come up with a solution.

Apology again (probably): Check out this website and others.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_postcard_virus.htm

2) Answer to a 31-year-old question. Why in doubles can't I terrorize a good net-man on a backhand poach in which I cross from the deuce side? Because a slight continental grip is good for all volleys except for a high backhand. For that, one needs to easternize.

3) In our continued study of Petr Korda's backhand, we find that Petr's bonk, though a bonk, isn't lethal at all.

Somewhere in the two books written by my favorite tennis writer John M. Barnaby we see the author, in a photograph, bonk a netpost. "The heel, or edge, of the hand takes the impact."

How hard is Barnaby bonking the netpost, though? Certainly not hard enough to hurt his hand. Similarly, Korda is taking his train slowly out of the train station. And if pressure on the butt rim then fans the racket head up, it's all part of a smooth and effortless (and non-violent) action.

http://vimeo.com/1968432

http://www.tennisserver.com/turbo/turbo_01_04.html

(See photo of Korda’s finish on a full backhand)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9DLyMp9acM

31, 1:02, 1:15 , 4:46, 6:25 (jumping split), 7:34 (Pete gets him)

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Never Play like the Pros?

Which grip change is better for a Korda-like backhand?

1) Barnaby: "There is one aspect of changing grips that is misunderstood by an extraordinary number of competent people. This is that the racket changes its position in the hand rather than that the hand changes its position on the racket. What's the difference? The difference is very great and crucial. It is awkward to change from a forehand to a backhand grip without moving the racket. It is unnatural and a strain. By contrast, if the racket is moved (by the left hand) ninety degrees from the forehand position, so it is parallel to the stomach instead of at right angles to it, the change can be much facilitated so it is easy, quick, and also includes a good bit of the backswing motion..."

2) Others through Bottle: "For the bonk drive I'll hold racket still with left hand and push palm over the top, and continue this push to open racket tip all in a single motion."

Maybe I'll combine the two answers (as Barnaby at least partially does in his complete treatment of the subject-- I just excerpted one passage), dunno but will investigate. In any case there will be one motion only. What generates the most feel? When there is one motion, the racket can get open early so that all the hips need do is rotate to straighten the arm (rather than be accomplice to any backward arm twist). That maybe edits certain pros. One less thing to do behind the back is an improvement no matter who subtracts.

[bottle]

A Day of Dramatic Reversals

If one sends force enough to the outside through lethal bonking (or perhaps just through swinging moderately with the butt rim), the hand is going to stop the racket unless you release it.

The hand will stop or slow the racket with momentum left over. Perhaps the racket then can-- effectively-- fan upward and forward.

An alternative would be to pull the rim inward to accelerate the fan.

Or combine both attempts.

We want A) workable racket head speed and B) an inside out swing coinciding momentarily with desired line of ball's outgoing flight (with slight hip nudge adding pace precisely along the line of that projected flight).

To consider the totality of hip movement in this stroke, one maybe needs to go back to TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE (Braden and Bruns) or simply decide that hips first rotate forward, then slow or stop, then nudge on a slant off toward the target to the right.

[bottle]

~

Keep head still.

[stotty]

I'm not that impressed with Korda's backhand. I find lefties tend not to have great backhands yet do tend to have great backhand volleys...strange that. I notice Korda supports the racket with his right hand virtually up on the strings. I always cradle the throat myself.

Steffi, on the other hand, always seemed to have a good topspin backhand but rarely used the shot during her career. I could never understand her complete lack of confidence in using her topspin backhand.

I always thought Nasty had a nice sliced backhand...even rarer, a nice sliced forehand too.

[bottle]

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Thanks, Stotty, especially for pointing me toward Nasty's backhand and forehand slice. I'll go there, at least look there.

Maybe the reason Korda's backhand drive doesn't impress more people is the sheer up and down rhythm of it, sort of like Lendl's backhand before he made it more conventional, with a middle step or transition added into the equation, I would argue, as appears in most of the backhands we ever see.

Korda's backhand is more abrupt and primitive than most, no doubt about it. But can't one hold this type of shot longer than the others? Since there's one step less to do? One really can wait for the bounce if one wants to.

Do away with the vagaries of weather and funny bounce by getting the shot off "late" this way, I tend to think, at least right now, and don't commit overly soon, the biggest mistake we all make according to -- yes, the dibble with the name that starts with "O." Funny that now there's a new dibble and in Spain and appropriately enough another "O", "O" Borras. It's the "O" that does it, I think, zero at the bone from the poem by Emily Dickinson.

(And "late" of course is the hallmark of all of Steffi Graf's groundstrokes which is maybe why she stayed at number one for longer than anyone else).

It's all opinion. I have no trouble with that. Unless there's more knowledge here than meets the prejudice. More on Korda's backhand coming in a few minutes.

[bottle]

Amar and Ayesha

Amar has decided to go public with Ayesha, or rather Ayesha has permitted Amar to move this YouTube video from private to public sector.

Thank you Amar! Thank you Ayesha!

A bit more body weight could be moving through these shots, but I hope dear reader that you like me take notice of Ayesha's variety and consistency and promise.

You can watch the video here or in Post # 899, where the link now works.

Whoops, the video there just went private again!

Here's the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efQdy...&feature=email

Maybe it will work for you as it did for me three minutes ago, or maybe by messing around a little you can get this video to work.

[bottle]

Upsey-Daisy Downsey-Daisy

"He has such extraordinary timing," the announcers used to say as they observed Petr Korda backhanding Pete Sampras.

This was the establishment's standard dismissive warning to club players never to try anything really cool in tennis at home.

But, as a certain jazz writer wrote, "I don' care what Momma don' 'low, gonna play that eighty-eight anyhow..."

We'll do it in this case by following "the rim theory," viz., we'll drive our fan with butt rim of the racket even if this creates a hitch in rising strings just after they contact the ball.

The hitch won't really slow the overall, ice cream cone like rise of the strings and will occur safely post-contact.

If all this theory doesn't pan out we can relax our own rule and shift from pulling rim to pushing on a long side of the handle to the Statue of Liberty finish.

Why "fan?" Why not the "wiper" beloved by moocows? Well, Jimmy Arias preaches no wiper of any kind for any tennis player before he passes the 4.5 mark, and Arias was a pretty good player so he must be right.
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What's the rhythm? One-two like Steffi Graf's slice. What's the grip change?
A combination of 90-degree flip back and palm coming over the handle. And what's the racket work during the last instant rise of rear shoulder? Nonexistent, i.e., solidly connected to body and produced by it alone.

Next, as everything reverses, how is bonk produced? From straightening of elbow, so don't hit anybody just then or you will kill your elbow.

Bonk is simultaneous with hips rotating forward. Which is simultaneous with shoulders leveling out. Which is simultaneous with racket head thrusting down parallel with rear fence.

I only have eyes for 13:02 here. No step-out as I'll be using, but a tremendously clear exhibit of desired rhythm and racket work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyGy62vWQgA

I only have eyes for 40 here, where three of Korda's big backhands occur in a row followed by his leaping, mythic split and a bullfight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn-WekdIbaA

[bottle]

Korda Backhand: A First Conclusion

Study how much shoulders do/don't turn back along with hips. Compare with Virginia Wade or some other player with whom this backswing amount is familiar and to one's own present habit. What's the combination that places racket PARALLEL TO REAR FENCE with butt rim slightly protruding out from body toward side fence like Korda's once the arm bonks straight? Similarly, how much does bent elbow first point downward to produce this visual position?

We have now re-configured both slice and topspin backhands through self-authorization as code-breaker. "To discern is divine," says Steve Navarro, i.e., stop labeling tennis players so much and draw more subtle distinctions among all fully developed tennis individuals. If nothing else, one's conclusions will be one's own.

The mid-ability player's imitation of professional stroke technique is an activity "fraught with" problems and danger in the words of John Yandell. The irony of this is terrific since he is the man who offers the best opportunity for one to do this. The tennis writer John M. Barnaby is another force who similarly stresses basics and series instruction like the rungs of a ladder that one must climb one at a time or else fall down to the bottom.

Bill Tilden's idea of identifying one's weak link and working just on that stroke losing matches every day as he did in 1920's Providence indoors winter is slightly different.

Pancho Gonzalez's process of wandering around the edge of tennis courts where the best players are at work and then stealing with discrimination in the best sense of that word is a slightly different course of action once again.

Basics are essential. A student needs to be turned on, however. Personally speaking, I find too much continued series learning once one has the rudiments the essence of boredom and stultification.

I find the slice backhand of Steffi Graf a far easier model to copy than that of Ken Rosewall or Trey Waltke. And I find the topspin backhand of Petr Korda or Steffi Graf (extremely similar!) a far easier model than Ivan Lendl, Roger Federer or J. Donald Budge.

[bottle]

Ready, One, Two, Three, SQUID!

"Let me be perfectly clear," say the politicians as they prepare to throw ink in the water. I only follow Petr Korda in the materials I have to a certain point and then let the speculations take over.

What did I decide? That I need more clear purpose in my grip change than mere grip change. I'm performing a physical stretch but hopefully not a mental one.

The bent elbow goes as far as it can around the body, compressing the human flesh machine until discomfort results. And the shoulders are pulling on the hips until discomfort results. Do these things often enough and they become comfortable. Clear?

So the bonk I've been talking so much about, becoming a bit lethal once again, is upper and lower arm both. Whatever else happens-- no matter how anyone interprets it-- I establish light pressure against the butt cap, which will come to point along the baseline parallel to net and rear fence (and far distant fence) as this body-and-arm-spring suddenly releases.

Butt cap through contact. Long part of the handle to top of the Statue of Liberty finish.

Looks like junior champion Jimmy Arias until he conventionalized his backhand and ruined it forever.

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Note: I've implicitly compared the Petr Korda and Steffi Graf topspin backhands or rather Don Brosseau did when he presented them to me here together. Steffi's high take back disguises her slice. Petr's take back is lower leading to less complication and announces itself although it does this rather late.

One dominant player in the northwestern corner of Virginia where I lived had a backhand like this: The first time I played doubles against him, and he took his racket back, my partner correctly diagnosed what Jason Robertson was about to hit and cried "Watch out!" and practically screamed.

Also, I go with John McEnroe's regard for this stroke which makes the whole enterprise more palatable. John with a great left-handed backhand himself makes no distinction between right-handed and left-handed, applying hyperbole to all effortless one hand topspin backhands wherever it is due and despising players like Greg Rusedski for not keeping their elbow in.

Korda's, Henin's and Wawrinka's backhands are nice as you will ever see, with each the best in the world.

[bottle]

More Korda Backhands

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3Z-MaFtHfs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypaqILo4rFo

(.20 -- just stay there and click repeatedly)

Racket length in windup at 45 degrees to court with elbow pointed down.

[bottle]

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Man, does he get low. That's a big part of it.

[bottle]

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This is a stroke in which racket should stay on edge. So make sure it does. More grip, in my case, brings the racket head around low and level and on edge-- then everything rips upward to the economical and characteristic finish.

What characteristic? Statue of Liberty? No that was wrong. Some of the Korda finishes, depending on camera angle, may look upright like a torch or ice cream cone, but are more apt to be raked back a bit-- which happens as a result of very pure lift untarnished by twist.

Why would you need to twist more when you just did twist-- to bring the racket tip around level?

For an emergency angle, I suppose. But upward spin wouldn't be as pure. This basic stroke to me is exceptionally promising and simple.

The big change in thought here is an adjustment of grip toward eastern or even more. Rather than use number system or be persnickety in some other way, put racket on edge and re-grip.

When a simple roll of the arm brings racket head around perfectly level while on edge and without closing (beveling), one may be ready to rumble.

[bottle]

Broad Design Idea

Engineers get into the detail. Architects take the long view. Is this backhand we've been working a Singapore Sling? It's some kind of a sling.

A few of my posts here have gotten complicated-- goes with the territory. Feel contact in butt rim? Compress forearm in some weird way? Don't think so.

Once you change the grip so that twisting arm can sling the racket head around on edge, you get a different kind of subsequent arm lift. Your palm wants to sail up.

I don't think hand on the racket throat like Stotty (and me) adversely affects one's ability to sling.

Korda's alternative way with hand up on strings is interesting, suggests another star of the past, Wendy Overton. That kind of backhand almost makes one feel like a stoker slinging lengths of old telephone pole into a wood furnace.

But the sling can work in other ways. Flying grip change can put palm way over top of racket and open the face.

Did I say that first half of the forward swing is with racket on edge? Not entirely true. Most of this part of the tract probably is on edge. But arm rolls. So to bring racket around strictly level without closing pitch is biomechanical impossibility.

But grip change gets racket open. So racket changes from open to square as it whips around. The key is to keep elbow in then lift elbow and palm together.

Butt rim does lead racket head around. Palm then lifts. It's all a single motion easily mimed without a racket.

[bottle]

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So, if racket tip slings around and then up, does it continue to come around as it lifts up? Yes, somewhat, to judge from the videos of Petr Korda I've posted here. Looking toward him from across the net, you can see his arm rise on one side of his shoulder and continue to rise on the other.