A New Year's Serve

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# 3710: How fast should right-angled forearm key back? How fast key forward?

Back: Slow almost as if aligning itself with oncoming ball and coaxing it into strike zone.

Forward: Smooth, i.e., not abrupt, and yet quick enough to deceive one's body weight and keep it back.

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Report

Although my little narratives may seem ludicrous to some, they have led to interesting shots and trials of shots...and matches.

My quest for a flat sockdologer of a put-away forehand is no joke.

The formula offered in # 3710 may be the answer although the error rate is still a bit high even in self-feed.

But I sought a high risk hit or miss shot to go along with my more consistent shots which are anything but-- I take responsibility for this.

One certainly needs to use erect posture if one is to key right-angled forearm around like a farm gate.

For more bent from the hips and golf-like posture (P. Gonzalez, E. Vines) I have decided on the Beasley-bam with its full circularity behind one's back rather than the Ellie-bam which stays out in the slot. The Beasley-bam also uses more squeeze together of the two halves of the arm and a subsequent more spread out straightening from elbow joint. All in all a more consistent but less spectacular shot. As I said, I want Ellie-bam for a specific purpose.

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Where are the Huge Hits this Stroke is Supposed to Bring?

Alter a bit. In some of the old Ellie-bams, Ellsworth Vines ends the stroke with racket pointing at target even though the arm has already re-bent.

You would think, since "Ellie-bam" is one of my names for an imitation, that I never would apply it to an original.

Wrong. All tennis players imitate themselves.

The bent-arm follow throughs still pointing at the target have to indicate more energy flowing to right.

On that premise, today's self-feed experiment will be to violate the Mercer Beasley principle of elbow straightening THE WHOLE WAY.

We go to other frames of experience, specifically the one in which right-angled arm keeps elbow in while keying forearm around.

The keying has never worked if arm was extending from any joint at the same time, so this choice has its rationale.

We key to the compass setting where major power can go to the right.

From that setting everything can extend synonymous with the delayed weight-shifting pivot.

And if this won't work, return to elbow straightening the whole way.

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Is Self-Feed Necessary?

It is if you want to do what I do. (Resurrect old strokes and try to acquire certain more recent, effective examples. Note that I use the word "effective" rather than "famous.")

I realize that most of you people, readers, don't want to do what I do. So don't. And don't ever do self-feed-- always start with a hitting partner to drill deep those habits you already have.

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Question: Which is better to emphasize in an Ellie-bam-- swing of elbow or gradual extension of arm from elbow?

These two elements are a blend. But emphasis on slow elbow swing is the better answer.

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Enhanced Dropshot off of Ellie-bam Preparation

Don't ask me why. It just happened-- an unexpected benefit.

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Revision of Left Arm Straightening in the Ellie-bam

It straightens as racket reaches high point, not during the loop. This is significant and means the left arm can hold steady while the right arm starts to catch up. The left arm then bends as the body pivot chimes in.

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Are We Permitted to Have an Idea in Tennis?

No, no ideas. If you have an idea you are thinking too much.

I don't care if I am thinking too much. I am willing to pay the price. The idea I advance is that if you get your bent arm going then straighten it while it continues to go you will vastly multiply the speed of your racket.

It seems a good topic to bring up in connection with an Ellie-bam, which is my name for an imitation Ellsworth Vines forehand.

Because this is a stroke where, from the backswing you have chosen, you gradually straighten your arm all the way through contact to arm pointing at target. And then bend the arm back a little from elbow to finish the stroke off.

I see two possible interpretations of this, second better than first.

1) The swing is grooved, arm first then body pivot chiming in. If you have a nice controlled swing you can add speed by pushing as you straighten. The shot works but tends toward mediocrity. Racket head speed is a bit slow. Contact is out front so that more of the push vector goes into the ball.

2) Contact is farther back, out to side with racket separated a long way from bod. The principle is different. The gradual straightening of the arm creates the same situation in physics in which a satellite goes faster the farther out it gets pushed from the earth.

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Left Hand in Federfore, Agi-scissor, Ellie-bam

Just because Jonas Bjorkman failed to crack the Federfore code does not mean that Holyhobo and Ayeesha in India will or Bottle in Detroit.

The Federfore is a beautiful shot. Not to want to own a toned down version of it is insane. Many people, not just the four I mentioned, have had a try at figuring it out. And why wouldn't they when they see it decade after decade more than any other forehand in the world?*

Owning a Federfore (an imitation Roger Federer forehand) is a higher pursuit than the endless drivel of tenniscelebdreck concerning who is better than whom. Why not wait until the big tournament to find out? Why waste precious energy trying to be a fortune-teller unless one is in the bookie business?

One would do much better to marshall everything that everyone has ever said about the Federfore and get out on a court and give it a try. Should we really atomize the part of Roger's backswing that happens right after his unit turn? Let's simply call it a breaststroke that calms the waters around the front of him and leave it at that.

But, let's notice where he separates his hands-- in front of his eyes-- and how this affects his forward stroke thus putting energy forward and to the right side.

Let's realize that unit turn followed by breaststroke is tennis convention not limited to Roger Federer, so when Agi Radwanska or anyone else does it, it is interesting then too.

And see the difference in where she performs the separation-- about 14 inches farther around her head.

This puts belly of the stroke more behind her than forward out to side. It is a wonder that she gets her strings to a place where she can direct the ball at all.

Well, she does that by gyrating her hips while scissoring her arm. And sinks down low thus consolidating weight in perfect balance at end of the stroke. She has added stroke behind her and subtracted stroke from in front of her-- that's all. The breaststroke she uses is exactly the same as that of Roger and thousands of other players. The only difference is where she puts it.

And then there is the Ellie-bam, a shot which uses entirely different structure of the left arm to go along with its extreme delay of the pivot-- a piston stroke in two parallel directions without any calming of the waters whatsoever.

The most fanciful part of my interpretation of the Ellie-bam is Ellsworth Vines' forehand grip. Everybody else who has ever considered the topic thinks it is eastern forehand. Not I. From reading Ellsworth Vines the author I think it is composite or Australian halfway between eastern forehand and continental.

In addition, the old clips of Ellsworth Vines don't show much wrist layback. So I go with straight wrist like John McEnroe in my own Ellie-bams.

*There is one exception to my intimation here that imitation of the Roger Federer forehand is high moral pursuit. That would be Grigor Dimitrov, a man who clearly lives in the world of tenniscelebdreck.

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BLOCKO

I have, per JY suggestion, decided to block the person who thinks I am "a cancerous troll up his butt." Readers who read us for blood sport will have to go elsewhere.

I don't mind the cancer part or the allusion to Ibsenian characters under Norwegian bridges. It is the other part to which I say, UGHHH!

So, henceforth, don_budge is blocked on my computer and I won't be reading any of his posts. (Didn't like two thirds of them anyway.) If from now on there is any overlap of material between his posts and mine it is coincidence.

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Self-feeding the Way Dennis Ralston Teaches it

Your hitting partner hits from opposite side of the net. You catch the ball, then drop and hit. In this way you probably hit the ball as well as you will ever hit it.

You keep doing this. Gradually, you stop catching the ball, just hit it.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqXjzTxrKME

There is very little in this interview that does not relate to tennis and everything else. But the part about Bottom the cat just relates to me.

[bottle]

Are Marnee Morris and Mark Morris the same Morris?

They look a lot alike to me, but on the other hand the man dancing with Suzanne Farrell in Concerto Barocco-- 1966 appears farther on than 10-years-old, especially when he throws her above his head.

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Does Bottle Think too Much about Strokes and not Enough about Footwork?

Probably. Sorry, but that's where my interest is.

If you go to post # 3692, however, and click on the video, you will see the footwork and other work of Suzanne Farrell. If you then hold on and watch the next video that comes up, it will probably be of a young Suzanne Farrell dancing with the young Mark Morris, a dancer whom Tim Mayotte specifically discusses in his current series on tennis footwork.

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"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

No one knows anything about the Ellie-bam other than that it was flat and that at its very best it ended the point every time that Ellsworth Vines hit it.

So there is the belief that fuels this present quest to fuse great accuracy, consistency and speed.

Proposal: Continue in today's self-feed to work with a pencil-thin loop.

But alter the loop away from verticality more toward platter-like horizontality ignoring the red line appearing under these words in one's computer.

Platter-like horizontality was the significant factor in the brief success of my Beasley-bam, a shot that never really failed other than that I no longer hit it.

The Ellie-bam, shorter, employs the same principles. Make sure that one of those principles has you setting up a bit farther from the ball, today.

Aim for inside of ball. Finish on outside of ball. Make clean contact on back of ball.

This all sounds like a strong catch or "pinch" to the outside, doesn't it?

And this is just one experiment. So don't get too excited or despondent over the result.

Note to self: Compare in video the separation points of Federer and Radwanska. By "separation point" I mean the point where the two hands diverge, the "smoothing of the waters" at the beginning of their topspin forehands.

Another note on Ellie-bam: The proposed alteration to pencil-thin loop puts emphasis on keeping racket tip above wrist. Also, at time this re-configured loop takes place, the bent left arm, which helped in body turn, is straightening and doing so faster than the hitting arm is straightening. In a sense then the right hand is starting an end run around the left hand while both are shifting in the same rough direction. One thinks, or at least I do, of a single wing formation play around the end in American football. I was, briefly, a defensive end against the single wing and survived-- that's why I think of this.