A New Year's Serve

[tennis_chiro]

Angle at the wrist maintained

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.

One of the things you should recognize is that from just before impact, through impact and probably a foot or two after impact, the angle in the horizontal plain between the forearm and the racket shaft is maintained; that is, the wrist isn't really moving...just trying to hold the ball on the strings. The arm may be externally rotating which adds more spin and lift as it moves the racket head up in the vertical plain, brushing the ball slightly (not turning over it). I'm not sure you can find it on youtube, but there may be some video from the Grand Slam Cup (I think 1994) where Korda played a lot of great matches and they had the overhead view of the players in the Olympic Basketball stadium in Munich (special for me because I played my only tour level matches there in the 1975 WCT event).

One of my favorite "tricks" for many years has been one I use in teaching the 1hbh. I ask the student to try to take the knuckles to the target on the follow through and finish seeing the ball under the extended racket as it travels out. I tell them to put a "halo" (the racket head) over my head (only way one will ever get there!). The best example of this was Vilas. For my money, that is a little too stiff, but it is a great exercise in a teaching progression.

The modern game wants to create more topspin and upward and across movement of the racket head. But if you can learn to hit solidly through that one-handed backhand like Korda, it is a wonderful feeling. You just "unwind" through the ball, but with a little discipline on the follow through to hold your control.

Try it out.

don

[stotty]

One of the things you should recognize is that from just before impact, through impact and probably a foot or two after impact, the angle in the horizontal plain between the forearm and the racket shaft is maintained; that is, the wrist isn't really moving...just trying to hold the ball on the strings.
don

Are you saying the one handed backhand should be wristless...no wrist pumping? I pump mine...especially on passing shots...or a least it "feels" like I'm pumping. I tend to hit right thru the ball in baseline to baseline rallies... using much less wrist in this type of scenario.

Nastase was a wrist pumper....Fed seems to roll his wrist...Vilas looks solid in the wrist like Korda. No wrist looks best...more reliable perhaps?

Really enjoying your thread and the Korda clips, bottle.

[tennis_chiro]

Passive Hinge; well, not quite...

Are you saying the one handed backhand should be wristless...no wrist pumping? I pump mine...especially on passing shots...or a least it "feels" like I'm pumping. I tend to hit right thru the ball in baseline to baseline rallies... using much less wrist in this type of scenario.

Nastase was a wrist pumper....Fed seems to roll his wrist...Vilas looks solid in the wrist like Korda. No wrist looks best...more reliable perhaps?

Really enjoying your thread and the Korda clips, bottle.

My thought is that the wrist works to control the ball, acting almost as a passive hinge trying to keep the racket head on the ball through the impact zone (so it is actually active, but not as a major source of power you might get by slapping the wrist). Vilas is a little too stiff, but a great model to get on the right track. Sometimes in golf, a trick is used with the left wrist to limit the usage of the wrist. They put a pencil under the watchband that extends from the back of the distal forearm (not the palmar side) past the wrist to the hand. Therefore, the golfer can't extend his left wrist. In the same way, you don't want to extend the wrist of the right hand in a 1hbh. That is, if you can imagine the surface on the back of the hand, you could place a pencil laying flat under a wristlet extending to the middle of the top of the right hand (right-hander). Place the sharp point of the pencil towards the hand. That pencil should be able to lay flat through the backhand stroke. It might be a little difficult with radial rotation in an extreme topspin backhand, but the point of that pencil will keep the face of the racket headed in the right direction just a little longer. Moving up to that point from flexed wrist to neutral prior to reaching the contact zone is a natural part of "unwinding" through the shot, but you don't want the wrist to go past that neutral position into extension. The big muscles of the upper and posterior shoulder need to do their work to keep the racket on that path. The wrist is "busy" just trying to stay on the ball.

At least that's the way I see it in a classic backhand like Korda. It would be nice if we could find a good overhead shot.

don

[bottle]

Golf on Wheels

In my tennis book, http://bottle-booksandstuffbyjohnescher.blogspot.com/, Chapter Fifteen is called "Using Injuries." I don't want to discuss my present injuries simply because first topic in Detroit is the failed economy and second directly connected is the human body falling apart and health talk gets boring after a short while. Anything else? Something...Christmas? Please.

Last night I competed for the first time in a month. Trips to an outside court to work on all new one hand backhand ideas and keep the injuries fresh certainly had taken place, but the usual chain of dropping balls, backboard, hitting with a partner, competition last was severely broken.

So what did I or rather the person standing next to me immediately discern as we started the warm-up? "A bit late on that one."

During the actual play I hit one Steffi-slice so fabulous that no one, especially me-- could believe it. But the Korda-drive never hove into view. It will I'm pretty sure if I stick to a master plan involving my three proposed backhands and multiple hitting partners.

First, I'll hit my myelinated, level-shouldered slice. It's a two part rhythm-- therefore I'll keep it: 1) a backswing and 2) send the barrel toward the net then clench the shoulderblades.

Second, racket back to same place but then the rear shoulder rises: the Steffi-slice.

Third, racket back lower and then the rear shoulder rises: the Korda-drive hit solid-wristed for now. Later, may try more McEnroe-type wrist action such as tennischiro describes up above, in which wrist pave-loads (gets convex) to begin with as if the player is getting ready to hurl a Frisbee from the backhand side. Looking down on a 1/8 grip, by contrast, one sees one's wrist as a canyon, and this canyon-likeness continues all through the stroke.

Going to be late? Yes but on purpose! Rise of the rear shoulder and hitting step and bounce of the ball equals SIMULTANEITY.

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

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

Korda and Graf hit their topspin backhands late. This I believe.

As I tried to suggest, for my skeptics, the grip can be extreme and locked, the feel of the stroke a firing down then roll in the middle and lift in the end. This stroke is going gangbusters in drop-the-ball stage. That's where one must start. Finally, in competition, it will if one climbs the progressive ladder from idea up to action with patience enough hove into view for use whenever one wants.

[bottle]

Leg Gave Out

No, I'm okay. Had another one of those shots in the back for sciatica same as Agassi did in his book. The first at the Ministry of Love and Spines in WINSTON-Salem did nothing. The second in Bloomfield, Michigan, Henry Ford Hospital, appears to have worked!

One difficulty however was that I injured the other leg first-- the one with no relation to sciatica playing with three other old coots.

I'm right handed, was playing backhand side, just came in and saw an extremely wide ball tailing away from me-- my partner decided there wasn't a chance in hell that I would get to it, so he stopped in the other half of our court.

The dingbat. If he'd shifted with me I would have been all right since he could have covered the return. But there was nothing behind me except for a hole.

I hit a good shot off of my outside leg in order to spring back. But there was no spring, just a sproing.

My chiropracter thinks I twisted stuff but I don't. I think there was simple overload. Everything up and down the whole leg was sprained. That sounds bad, I know, but the sprain was evenly spread out. Most important, the meniscus stayed reconstructed. Well, the chiro and I are on task with among other ideas pulsing electromagnetic fields to stimulate circulation in the areas of loosened adhesion.

Finally, I had to play tennis since my head was hurting, too. This wasn't the disaster that well-meaning people predicted.

The worst was when I went to the pain center for the sciatica. A screening nurse made sure that I only talked about the sciatica although the pain on the other side-- just then-- was far worse.

Steve-- reactions to MS, a new and improved kind of tennis journalism, will be coming via private email (I'm on page 90 out of the roughly 500).

[bottle]

Billiards on Wheels: Two Motions Pretend to be Three

Shorten the takeup. Think Richard Gasquet and do the opposite. Think slap-shot to dismiss that idea as well. Think of the finesse of a pocket billiards shot but not "dead stick." Lope for the ball through leaning your head in the direction you wish to go with racket winding slowly backward.

Now you're there. Take rear shoulder slightly upward (1) and stroke the ball (2). This rise of the shoulder is no more than a slight swell at 5 a.m. in the Bay of Fundy. Think of the day the ball went over the backboard and landed four courts away.

What happened? A player picked it up. He swung slowly up to the ball. Only then did he accelerate.

The ball flew over the first fence, then the second and third. And then it cleared the tall backboard and landed in my hand.

Swing like that. Go down, sweep the court. Finally, accelerate.

Let your intention as you raise the rear shoulder be only to sling the racket head straight up the back and outside of the ball.

A Petr Korda backhand, one of the most gorgeous tennis shots ever invented.

[10splayer]

Gotta say it. Even though I don't agree with some of your ideas, you are an interesting read, and a fantastic writer. Best of holidays to you Bottle.

[bottle]

Thanks so much. Same to you. (But being a writer these days is really strange. No one even wants to look at my books. I get read here but not at Amazon: http://bottle-booksandstuffbyjohnescher.blogspot.com/ .)

[bottle]

Idea: Korda

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

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

That shoulders are loose until rear one goes up. But that it goes around as it goes up. It ratchets up the tension.

You go from shoulders naturally turned to shoulders actively cocked (or stretched) under the chin.

One can see the shoulders uncock the other way if one is looking for that. Like so much in tennis, there is a combination of movements. Similar to gross body action in a serve, there is horizontal and vertical release as well.

[bottle]

Old Grand-dad and a Bottle of Merlot

Here's a very full description of the one hander-- what's wrong with it other than that it's too long?

http://www.optimumtennis.net/one-handed-backhand.htm

First, it doesn't draw essential distinction between Amelie Mauresmo and Roger Federer. It fails to remark on the totally different places of straightening arm.

Obviously, my recent model has been Petr Korda, whose arm straightens at a point directly between that of the other two players.

Also, Petr gets a huge result without the loop of either. Racket goes back lower and opens. A completely different and possibly more efficient form is the result.

Not that any one player among others is ever going to "get it right." But another birthday has gone by. Now I'm a 72-year-old man who has kept his backhand malleable enough to change it 30 more times.

But why would anyone want to do that? Must be nuts. The other answer is that I'm having fun building on unique principles offered by Don Brosseau and John M. Barnaby.

These are: Throw the racket out to the left side at the ball as if it (the racket) is a second ball on a string or rope or chain of a mace.

Make the swing go effectively inside out. (See post # 898 for three drawings on this subject.)

Bonk the ball with heel of the hand (Barnaby). How much should the racket have turned, i.e., pivoted or come around by contact? 180 degrees, I suggest.

I know I've stated before that racket should get parallel to back fence or net or far fence or baseline-- after arm drives straight. If you start 10 degrees from that you can finish, i.e., arrive at contact also 10 degrees beyond parallel to baseline and still keep all 180 degrees of a big blow. If not getting fully around start the straight-armed turn at 20 degrees past baseline and deliver a 170-degree smooth blow. Starting with slight bend in arm, one could be parallel to baseline. First part of the swing-- arm straightening along with body rotation then can cover the 20 degrees.

So, will we learn anything useful from the article? Among other things, we'll start a foot below the ball and finish a foot above it before the racket goes way up like Korda's-- not exactly what the author had in mind but so what. First pattern then is a slight uppercut rather than a level swing parallel to the court. The turn is accomplished by 1) arm straightening and 2) arm rolling (a sequence) and 3) body rotation which can be simultaneous with 1) alone to make sure that weight posts on front foot soon the better to sling the racket around quickly.

The arm roll employs a fourth principle with this one provided by John McEnroe: "Keep the elbow in."

Thus, the way this shot is cracking up, there are two separate rises-- a gradual one and an abrupt one as the strings leave the ball.

The zen of it is 170 to 180 degrees of racket turn from the time that arm gets straight to the time of contact.

Note: This post was helped by Old Grand-dad bourbon whiskey and merlot wine and laced coffee imbibed at The Dirty Dog Jazz Club in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

[bottle]

~

Korda's forearm slants down. It becomes parallel to court as the result of his rear shoulder's rise.

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

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

[bottle]

A Very Low Backswing

How low does Petr Korda take his racket back? The question is significant since no one-- myself especially-- ever sees what is right in front of their nose.

The rapidly interpreting brain in fact assembles a bunch of blurred light and most often sees what it wants to see.

Korda's forearm slants down. It becomes parallel to court as the result of his rear shoulder's rise.

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

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

One video obviously won't cover all possibilities but can provide some ballpark understanding. If nothing else, we can begin to differentiate between the more common big league topspin one hand backhands in which the racket rises higher than the level at which the ball will be hit and those like Korda's where racket starts back low as if sneaking up.

"You've got to have a big loop" says Elliott Teltscher, "if you want to have a big one hand topspin backhand."

He has big both. Korda nevertheless proves that his (Teltscher's) isn't the only way.

So we who don't play tennis all day every day can say to ourselves, "I have a choice. What would the advantage be of almost scraping the court with my racket butt as I take it back?"

A lower center of gravity. Better orientation since the court itself becomes part of one's hand to eye.

Okay, that discusses Korda's backhand. What about his forehand?

A low takeback once again. A loop but a small c-shaped one that doesn't rise very high. (Contrast that with the flying elbow and huge, elliptical loop of Ivan Lendl.)

[bottle]

Review

A review of my tennis book is currently featured at tpatennis.net . Tom Allsopp wrote it.

[stotty]

A review of my tennis book is currently featured at tpatennis.net . Tom Allsopp wrote it.

Nice review...you must be proud, bottle...gonna have to buy this book...another sale coming your way...now, where's the bloody Amazon link!

[bottle]

http://bottle-booksandstuffbyjohnescher.blogspot.com/

Click on the cover.