A New Year's Serve

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Grip for Kick and Maybe All Serves

I'm in a downtown Detroit school. My students are being tested for their reading ability in a computer lab. Because of humidity, the school will close at noon. We just had a "soft lockdown." I've already prepped for the one class I will teach this morning, which is scheduled to run for two hours. So much for the intellectual superiority in the world achieved by France when it shortened its class period to 40 minutes according to the poet and cut-shot artist in tennis Ezra Pound.

Time to write a tennis post.

Should a person of advanced age change his serving grip? Probably not, but i will anyway, just to see. Lifelong experiment is what I am about.

I work from the Tennis Player kick articles by Chris Lewit.

IIndex knuckle just to right of first pointy ridge. Base knuckle of same finger just to left of same pointy ridge. Bottom two fingers bunched. Top two fingers spread.

Report: Went to the court and tried it. And then reverted to my old grip, which is almost the same as what I use for volleys and backhand slice. Not that the Lewit grip wouldn't be better for many many players. Me, though, I'm not flexible enough in my inner shoulder (ski racing accident?) and feel that I need the extra racket tip lowness that happens when handle easily settles deep into cleft of hand.

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The Four Tennis Player Articles by Chris Lewit on Kick

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...ick_page1.html

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members/classiclessons/chris_lewit/constructing_the_kick/constructing_the_kick.html

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...ck_part_3.html

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members/classiclessons/chris_lewit/kick_serve_part_4/index.html

For whatever reason, I'm having trouble with two of these four links. The titles are correct but half of the links aren't. Simple solution: Go to "Classic Lessons" section of this website and get all four articles to come up that way.

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Another Idea to Throw at the Hardest Stroke Acquisition in Tennis

If Chris Lewit is as smart as I think, then tennis instruction as a whole is pretty dumb, or maybe it just missed a great opportunity to teach people better kick.

Here is what Google offers when one requests Hunch Wristed Serves in Tennis:
https://www.google.com/search?q=hunc...hrome&ie=UTF-8

These pictures might help a little, but one needs more information. Lewit's TENNIS TECHNIQUE BIBLE is the best source I can readily find, but even there I need more information specifically on precisely when best to tilt one's wrist.

So meanwhile I plunge ahead with my own experiments, placing the hunch during contact, shortly before contact, a little of both or behind the back.

Today: behind the back. If I can get to the court a second time. Otherwise, I'll have to wait.

From Pierre-Hugues Herbert type palm down extreme takeback with arm straightened and high, rotate bod Braden-like into folding arm. But add wrist tilt right then. Of all positive tilt additions, this might be the one that feels most natural, while allowing one to proceed with one's normally attempted kick.

I believe that one's stance will have to be turned quite far around, to allow hips rotation that would be a bad idea in higher profile modes of kick.

Addition of wrist tilt as part of formation of natural loop can press racket tip ahead of where most likely it has always been. This will ensure strings coming at left side of ball with no other basic alteration.

Can't wait to try this. Hope springs eternal for booming kick.

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Against WIMBLEDON the Movie

Haven't got it.

Am still working on it.

The biggest challenge in tennis.

Can't imitate-- not when every model one chooses possesses a different flexibility.

Must therefore create.

Can't look forward to the ease and complacency that one will feel stepping up to the line.

That's far in the future. Or close in the future. Or not in the future. Eliminate the third possibility unless you decide to accept it.

Intractable problem. What does one do? Throw ideas at it. You only need a single one to come through.

And remember your one singles opponent who had a palm-down Pierre-Hugues Herbert takeback way way back, who made it all the way to the club final on his first serve.

And then in another tournament after his first serve went sour played me.

I don't think I said anything, just emoted great respect for the speed of his missing first serves.

He quit tennis. So the rumor went. But I can't believe either that or that I was the cause.

But I did beat him.

Because he didn't have a second serve. Well, why not? He had the right takeback.

Maybe. But I'm going to ensure that mine has a bit of lift in it, a shallow swoop down and up as part of both hands winding around and passing bod turning back.

A post down together and up together baseball windup au Vic Braden.

And a curvy, funky palm on edge toss no matter what anyone says or thinks.

And immediate continuation of the curving toss into a clench back into one's gut. Toss and clench as single motion. With clench to stop the forward hips rotation shooting energy down one's front leg through the court surface into the magma at the earth's core.

Which implies that hips rotation did happen even though one would love to rid oneself of it for this one particular serve.

No, hips rotation by now is essential part of my serves, even attempted kick. Which means bod must start turned way way around thus cleansing this serve of all disguise.

Maybe one can normalize stance at last moment and hit a slice or flat serve instead.

So elbow gets high, as high as one wants it, and this attainment of the heights is immediate.

Next the arm has looped with elbow high to the outside. Famous tilting of the wrist is incorporated in a slight tomahawking from right to left as right leg prepares to kick high toward right fence.

But where oh where is contact? Not too far left.

Suppose none of it works? Well, one can take pleasure in having eliminated chain pull, the grasping onto the steel eye of a big eyebolt bolted to the sky, the super-glue of one's toss hand stuck on a high shelf.

Though one will not have won the men's championship and Kirsten Dunce as in the film called WIMBLEDON.

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The Hunchwrist of Notre Dame

A member of the men's team at Notre Dame, number four I think, after reading Chris Lewit's book THE TENNIS TECHNIQUE BIBLE, employed hunchwrist technology in his kick serve, which decision led him to defeating his corresponding opponent at Indiana University.

He found that he wanted to come at the ball with a straight wrist from right side of the ball.

His vigorous tilt of the wrist then sent energy in roundabout direction rather than downward as it would have if his wrist had been laid open to begin with.

A seamless transition from tilt to pronation and ISR (internal shoulder rotation) enabled his success.

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Rob his Brain or not?

One California player who is famous for his one hand backhand said this: "Regarding the wrist, I feel as though my wrist is flexed back as it approaches contact (at the bottom of the backswing and just before contact) and then rotates upward to a convex position at the top of the stroke...

"The racquet is actually used to create resistance and more tension in the shoulder...creating more speed once the larger muscle groups overpower the resistance..."

A dyslexic person might confuse convex with concave here unless he realized that concave upside down IS convex.

But if one accepts the above passage as wisdom and wants to apply it to a one hander in which arm extends gradually and late, he might accept the classical image of a swordsman about to draw his sticky implement from its sticky scabbard.

Arm could be straight then or it could be bent, right? I do bent because that works well with my slice and I seek constancy of method for both it and my topspin drive.

Another big design choice is among early and middling and late hips pivot.

I can see scapular retraction (think of clenching your shoulderblades together) as prime contributor to straightening of the arm during which wrist rolls to convex thus taking striings up quite steeply, and incorporate all of this in an arm from the shoulder lift along with extending legs up the same steep line to extremely high followthrough.

Finally, a big factor is body turning inside out during all this to take front shoulder from low to high.

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Pierre-Hughes, not Victor Herbert

Pierre-Hugues Herbert, the 2016 Wimbledon and 2015 U.S. Open doubles champion, takes his arm way back straight to begin his service motion. This is good method for any Braden-style palm-down serve.

One can bypass slow-down or stoppage in trophy position in favor of continuous motion but still need that original scope, i.e., considerable distance between hand and back of head for what happens next.

That would be a squeeze together of the two halves of the arm along with inversion of the elbow to create a 180-degree runway up to ball along right side of bod.

Every serve should use the full 180-degree range no matter one's flexibility. If this has to place elbow unhealthily close to one's head and bod sobeit. Maybe one can be lucky then and never hurt oneself.

I am for aiming knife-edge of racket close to right of ball for a flat serve with a little slice on it, knife-edge close to left side of ball for flat with a little kick on it; more to left for kick serve, more to right for slice serve.

If one hits a wimpy kick serve, it could be that knife edge was not close enough to left edge of ball when one finally humped wrist to tilt from left; maybe too the contact was too low.

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A Big New Lump of Information: So What are you Going to Do with it?

Wait until the off-season. He who thinks while playing tennis is dead.

On the other hand if you play tennis all the time the off-season will happen when you're dead.

So you're dead, it would appear. Get used to it.

The lump is a hump, a hump of your wrist also known as tilt or flex for use in development of the hardest stroke to master in tennis.

That is second, kick, or perhaps all-the-time serves in doubles.

So we're going to hump the wrist-- you and I reader-- or else you shouldn't be reading this.

When-- when should we hump it? On the ball? Just before the ball? Some before the ball and some on the ball? Behind one's back? All questions are good.

How about in Braden's palm down mechanics as a very first move? Simply stir the racket under bent elbow while winding back both loose arms around winding bod.

So wrist stays humped all through toss and clench into the gut. All through opening out of arm to a right angle. All through tomahawk slightly to your left accompanied by tightening of the fingers, which implies your having loosened them during the slight opening of the arm.

Where are we now in terms of ISR (internal shoulder rotation theory)? Remember: thinking equals death. So save those thoughts for the off-season when you are dead.

No, I'm going to run them now. And you (I) mentioned the verb "tomahawk." Which means reversal of the pronation to upper arm sequence in normal Vic Braden service mechanics.

And now I'm going to bend both legs pretty late (cue: a carefully chosen point in the tomahawk motion). And eliminate all pre-contact forward hips rotation from this unique serve. I'm going to tomahawk, as I said, while closing fingers.

And I'm going to pronate from 7 to 2 up the inside of the ball while firing all the extensors.

(The late Vic Braden: "Fire the extensors, baby.")

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Wrist Tilt Kick

One cannot be satisfied with a little improvement when it comes to one's kick serve.

Okay, so all attempts at good kick shall be made from palm side of the racket with racket already craned at wrist-- but just somewhat. Or somewhat straightened-- no one can know from where in total range beforehand embarkation occurs, only that some flexing shall continue while strings are on the ball. The wrist as I see it should project the racket from behind it to in front of it through a total range of straightening and flex both.

To obtain effective upwardness of racket brush the forearm will need to fire (pronate) simultaneous with internal shoulder rotation (ISR).

I want to add tightening of the fingers to the straightening to craning mix having loosened them behind my back to achieve more racket tip lowness than before.

I haven't been to court yet to try it all out and the tennis social is fast upon me. The term "tennis social" suggests tameness when opposite is the case. If last year was any indication, the weakest and strongest players I ever shall face are always there

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Perception

I realize now that all the Ziegenfusses I hit in the hayday of my youthful competition were overly crowded hence lacked the leverage to which they were entitled.

A Ziegenfuss, like an Ellie-bam or even a Beasley-bam, was a lot of arm swing before one's heinie chimes in.

On the other hand, the moderate pace generated by a shorter lever made me into a more consistent player-- for a while-- and so my results, though not what they could have been, were pretty good.

Now, when I want more consistency and less power, I start hitting McEnruefuls characterized by an easy pendulum backswing.

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Answer

In serving a basket of balls, I found sequencing the better choice-- another rare instance of that.

As with early baton twirl in a Federfore, a bit of sequence led to improved Zen while on the ball.

The sequencing here also leads to nice modification of a previous cue.

A cue for tilting (flexing) the wrist down is raising knuckles toward the sky.

But that movement creates a vertical wall of the upper fingers at the same time, almost makes a punching fist even though the wrist is humped and therefore would be weak for that.

Doesn't matter. The front of the fist now becomes the administrator of the pronation-ISR sequence, with very good purity of Zen Buddhism in that.

And maximum racket head speed with some upward component is the goal.

Second, I realized that wrist tilt can be abetted by a loosening and closing of the fingers.

A good time to loosen them is after discus-like inward coiling of the racket when arm starts to open up to take hand far behind you.

The finger loosening combined with total cocking of the wrist means that wrist gets to extend and flex both in the same move, not to mention that racket tip got lower than it did before.

But I have to say that the logic here is getting ahead of anything I did this morning on the court.

I could foresee eventual dealing of a card up left side of the ball. Well, that would be supination or whatever is the opposite direction of pronation.

Would that be any good? Weak and ineffectual? The tilting would have to be almost forceless, i.e., carry just enough force to pre-load the supination trying to twist the other way just before its release. And once the card was upwardly dealt the forearm would still want to turn over to the right.

One's famous ISR, a tsunami of power (just ask all the sport scientists) would be wasted in countering the forearm after contact to shape a down and across the bod followthrough . The transition from forearm to upper arm going the opposite way would be terrible, harsh, rash and a stupid idea.

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Spirit of Adventure in Adapting Wise Advice

Try some kickers in which you tilt wrist FIRST before the pronation-ISR instead of during same.

Why take anyone's advice-- not even Chris Lewit's-- when you can easily check out something for yourself? Besides, this discussion could turn on semantics, i.e., the precise way something was worded and hence interpreted.

Concentrating the actions into one snap or sequencing them will prove better-- one or the other.

But whoever you are, arrive at an answer, please!

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Connecting the Dots

klacr, that good man, has spoken of the "discovery" of tennis strokes as if this is something a sensitive individual tennis player can do.

Well, this recognition that a certain player will make discoveries if encouraged to do so while left a bit to his own devices immediately elevates the instructor from shop teacher to detective-facilitator, with the student now becoming a full-time tennis detective on his own behalf.

In my case I now move from Beasley-bam and its modification, the Ellie-bam, to understanding that Ellie-bam retains more of the original characteristics of the Beasley-bam than first thought.

The Beasley-bam in this learning progression was a type 1 monstrosity with preparation way around one's back.

The good thing about it was its inside out structure. The arm gradually straightened to the outside for long-levered intersection with the oncoming ball just as one's delayed hips pivot chimed in to further keep everything moving to the outside.

"Wow!" the baseball announcer would say (but only on Detroit radio), "He extended his arms and put a real good buggy-whip on that baby."

What Ellsworth Vines must have figured out was that he could set up his loop closer to the ball and yet achieve the same great leverage.

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I go back farther in my own time to a forehand which I called my Ziegenfuss, learned from San Diego realtor Valerie Goat-foot Cooper in her famous forehand article (or it should have been famous) in the collector's book TENNIS FOR WOMEN characterized by women pros wearing lace.

I am not a woman and therefore crowded the ball too much, which structure led to reduced power that made me a more consistent player so that I did well or won.

Now though the same type of delayed pivot shot makes arm reach a little to front but mostly to the side.

The loop itself is not a vertical loop but a vertical loop to start that then turns horizontal.

The racket, thus abbreviated, goes down but not much. It goes shallowly out to the side which creates leverage and catch more than a head-on collision.

Same thing on a Federfore, which also is struck way out to the side.

In that shot, however, hips turn early to rearrange the bod and launch a huge bod turn.

Embedded in the middle of this smooth stroke is an abrupt arm spring.

Pathway to the ball is same as in the Ellie-bam-- inside out but begun with a slight baton twirl.

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The Greatest Failure in Tennis Education

Let us extract the culprit, the real bastard, from somebody's personal stable of serves:

7 to 2 .
5 to 2 .
1 to 3 .
5 to 3 .
6 to 12 .
nose to forehead and maybe a left eye painted on the ball.

These numbers as in "I want to be in that number, as the saints go marching in" are:
kick.
kick slice.
low slice.
low slice.
topspin.
flat.

7 to 2 is the hardest shot to learn in tennis. Am I being overly dramatic in saying that? No, I'm just echoing Coach Chris Lewit, whose body is as flexible as Djokovic and whose mind is sharp as a tack.

When Chris Lewit came out with THE TENNIS TECHNIQUE BIBLE, I was one of the ones who questioned the title. I have since reversed my view.

We discussed the 7 to 2 with Chris here at Tennis Player. And he directed just three words to me: "Don't give up."

In BIBLE, he describes his own long-term frustration with 7 to 2, referring to the whole time he played number one for Cornell University.

Only when a circuit pro after college did he solve his 7 to 2, and it sounds to me like he worked out the ultimate solution by himself.

And he criticizes the coaches he experienced up until then.

So the shot is hardest of all tennis shots to master, yes, but why can't more coaches properly teach it, especially when one is young?

To form my own views on this subject, I use a base of 20 senior seniors, not one of whom owns a good kick serve. If I obtain my own by the end of this post I'll be first in the group to do so and certainly will clean up.

But when I lived in Winston-Salem I attended a closed tournament for 20 over 40's doubles players from all around North Carolina, not one of whom lacked a good kick serve.

So how to hit 7 to 2 is commonly known in pockets of players somewhere.

Lewit saves his section on 7 to 2 for the end of BIBLE, a natural place of emphasis in any Good Book.

Students who will master 7 to 2 so that it kicks high and out right from the ad court will already have the commonalities of all good serving firmly in place.

The kernel of this serve occurs in the versatility of wrist available to us all, in what Lewit calls "turning (tilting) the hand inward and closing the racquet face."

Could the missing piece in one's puzzle be as simple as that?

I like to try to incorporate new serving information in a natural throw.

In the Braden-like mechanics that I employ, palm stays down (faces the court) as arm goes up beginning to unbend.

The racket is closed but opening a bit. At which point one snaps. Forearm, actively and muscularly, leads the ISR (internal shoulder rotation). And the wrist flexes inward during application of this pronation and ISR.

To repeat, wrist flexes. it did not already flex. And the flexing changes path of the racket more to inside of the ball thus catching the number 2 in a clock face on the ball as it leaves the ball.

ISR then takes racket out to right.

The racket then goes down and across to one's left side.

The cue that works best is turning the knuckles up toward the sky to brush as part of the dynamic flexing combined with the pronation and ISR.

The flex did not already happen.

It happens as part of the snap that is pronation and ISR.

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Set up with Ball to Outside Equally Much for Ellie-bam and Federfore

A reason to do this on a Federfore is that one will mess less with one's string pitch if arm spring is more roundabout than vertical, i.e., forms a more baseball-like than golf-like pathway.

Similar set-up for an Ellie-bam will reduce scope of the ever-straightening arm, thus creating economy of motion while using all the leverage of an inside out swing.

One stroke seems more spring than swing, the other more swing than spring.

Even the spring shot however-- the Federfore-- incorporates its abruptness within a smooth swing of the total bod.