A New Year's Serve

[stotty]

The drop shot

Like any tennis player, I thought I knew everything about everything, but then I read Chris Lewit's exposition on the drop-shot in his book THE TENNIS TECHNIQUE BIBLE: VOLUME ONE.

This is not information in requirement of three-year matriculation into one's nerves, but rather is something one can take to a match just an hour after the read. I did this and hit far more drop-shot winners than usual.

"Hit the back of the ball and then the bottom of the ball." This is the principle I learned and then almost suffered with for the rest of my life.

"Keep the racquet face angle on backswing, forward swing, contact, and finish very similar," Lewit writes of both forehand and backhand drop-shots, "to avoid excessive wrist movement."

He adds, "I remember Agassi's drop shot: very funky and wristy technique. But he almost always hit it effectively, especially off the backhand side. Does that mean we should copy his style? Of course not. Should we then conclude that technique doesn't matter at all? Of course not. Less gifted players need the advantage of having good, clean fundamentals."

If constant pitch drop-shots are superior for me, as I now have demonstrated to myself, how about constant pitch full backhand slice?

I spent a lot of time studying the backhand slice of Ken Rosewall and Steffi Graf, deciding that there is a lot of tumbling roll in Steffi and some arm roll in Ken despite the vast difference in overall structure.

Eventually, I chose the Steffi model as easier for me. The most difficult part is remembering to drop the front shoulder on the backswing.

This shot can really sizzle and therefore is extremely seductive. The new drop-shot information however could be a wake-up call to try full backhand slice with constant pitch the same way-- at least to check it out.

Not keen on Lewit's method for a drop shot...too mechanical and ugly for me. It's the way the talentless do it. I prefer those players with the ability to feel and caress the ball, those who "get maximum connection by prolonged contact".

So few players have a beautiful forehand drop shot...Nastase and McEnroe spring to mind who did it exceptionally well. It's much harder to weight the ball with underspin off the forehand side...far easier on the backhand.

[bottle]

Okay. But I like the fallback method that Lewit offers. It seems generous to the vast number of tennis players in the world. Me, I'll do the one that works best, which might be different on different days. And as for beauty, I'll seek it in women. (Just kidding. Lewit as a matter of fact considers himself an artist and is the constant champion of the most beautiful shot being the most effective one.)

I do remember from my rowing days however that the most beautiful crew wasn't always the fastest one, as on the day we beat Cornell.

[bottle]

Sampras and "Christine" in PHANTOM in Grosse Pointe, Michigan

Millions of tennis fans cannot forget the following incident and another out on the court both of which demonstrated Pete Sampras' courage, humanness, sensitivity, toughness and resilience.

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

Something similar and equally amazing occurred last night during the extravagant final performance of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in Grosse Pointe, a community which pooled its resources to build one great theater for two big high schools.

South High School's PHANTOM created a huge buzz with people in the lobby stating afterwards that what they'd just seen was five times better than the professional productions they also had seen.

Sometimes a deeper theater speaks through us all. Christine, the opera singer at the center of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, was down in the Stygian mists beneath the opera house singing her penultimate duet with the phantom when she threw up.

Hope, my partner, immediately whispered that the throwing up was real. She had to tell me because the incident was so appropriate to the action that I couldn't tell the difference between theater and life as we know it.

Christine was conflicted between love for her vapid fiance and love for the autocratic "angel of music." Why not puke? It was the perfect response. And the actress, I won't name her, missed three or four notes but then sang her way-- beautifully which was no small feat-- right to the end and the bows and final acclaim.

[bottle]

The Budapest Open: And You Think American Tennis Has Problems

The most boring match of the year was between E. Vesnina of Russia and M. Erakovic of New Zealand.

This occurred in the semifinals of The Budapest Open, which was held in the Romai Tennis Academy on the Pest bank of the Danube River.

How do I know questions of location without having lived in Budapest very often? Well, the Domai Academy is near Temesvari and Kossuth Streets, and that means Pest.

Temesvari was a good tennis player. Kossuth was a great politician, diplomat and speech-maker. The word "Romai" can distantly allude to the time that Hungary was the eastern end of the Roman Empire-- the reason there are Roman artifacts out in the hills.

The courts throughout Hungary are most often locally dug red clay, which after preparation is extremely abrasive as was demonstrated when Vesnina fell on her left knee.

"Fortune favors the brave, and we've certainly seen that today," the lone Tennis Channel announcer intoned, but all the excitement was manufactured by him, as the two women traded deep groundies and seldom if ever came to net. The bigger problem was that The Academy seats were almost empty, so there was little applause for anything.

So strange-- this phenomenon of tennis "interest" and how it varies from country to country. In the road to the French Open tournaments, attendance in Estoril, Portugal and other places not automatically thought of as tennis strongholds has been very good.

Poor Budapest. It's a huge and extremely beautiful city offering thousands of things to do. Unfortunately, going to a tennis match does not now seem to be one of them.

When I lived there 14 years ago, I wandered out to the red clay courts on Margaret Island and was fascinated by them. Here was the place where Budapest held its international competition and yet there was one groundskeeper only and the clay almost looked as if weeds (or maybe flowers) were about to grow in it or maybe already had.

The whole island is a garden spot, so it's too bad the tournament had to move to The Tennis Academy. Perhaps tennis interest is cyclical everywhere and after a while returns.

[bottle]

Rooting Out an Unproductive Idea

Somewhere along the line-- quite early actually-- I formed a mental image that divided toss into two parts: 1) arm up to release and 2) arm up from release. I then hung all kinds of body load on the 2) phase of arm up from release. I allowed the major build-up of double-wind body tension to occur right then.

Better to unify and forget this division. Release of ball then becomes a minor event along the way to the top. Toss can amount to early and smooth establishment of a strong pole of arm pointed up at the sky.

An image jump now from left arm as pole to left hand as pivot point for a WHAM-O sling-shot could help. This is not much of a mental leap since firmness of the pole already was important-- we knew that.

It's time to freeze this action, however, not only for the purpose of keeping left arm up for longer to improve the serve, but to sharpen our discussion of internal rotation vs. external rotation of the body-- confusing since so many people apply the same terminology to motions of the ARM. No, we're talking GROSS BODY MOTION here. And the term "external rotation" applies to a right-hander's clockwise rotation of his hips and shoulders, i.e., to alteration of the frame of the shot. This being the case, why not make most of the backward wind-up a given at set-up before the serve even begins, dialing the hips and shoulders, i.e., the frame, to pretty much where you want them early. There may still be a little external torque required for comfort of throw but why not minimize it especially on a kick serve where we want maximum cocking of a WHAM-O sling-shot (as useful notion) to become paramount.

We're talking rubber band here, not the kind of centrifugating sling-shot that David used on Goliath. But there is still some circular element at work. Does this topic have to be confusing? I don't think so.

One has the suspicion that the more one whirls the frame, the less of a good internal rotation will tend to happen-- remediable through the application of willpower on heavy flat and slice serves maybe.

On Tennis Channel last night, I noted a lot of such internal rotation or scapular retraction slowly taking place in the serve of Juan Del Potro as he played our Florian Mayer, participant in this forum.

The Bollettieri people, to express the idea of such scapular retraction, give us the easy expression, "spread your wings" in their Sonic Serve video. But they neglect to say that the left wingtip is caught in a carnivorous plant on top of a tepui in Guyana or Brazil. Seriously, how is a person supposed to know what to do before this complex idea ever gets expressed to him? Rotation is backward from the pole of the left arm-- that's my point. Then firing legs chime in a last bit of spread to complete the dynamic loading of the sling-shot. The theory of kinetic chain, which refers only to rotations around the body median, becomes increasingly irrelevant at least to a second serve. To tell the novice to keep a firm left arm and a firm left side is good advice but simply doesn't explain enough.

On first serves the frame rotates clockwise and counter-clockwise, too, most often, but on a kicker I can't-- right now-- see a good reason to do this.

[bottle]

Mensch Maier-- Myer or Maier or Mayer, etc.

Sorry if I confused the Florian Maier in the forum here with the Florian Mayer playing Del Potro. From the following ad, the cat on the book cover does not appear to be the same guy:

http://www.onlinetennisinstruction.com/

[bottle]

A New Forehand!

How exciting! And just when I thought I'd done it all. Here from THE TENNIS TECHNIQUE BIBLE: VOLUME ONE by Chris Lewit are the words on forehand that lured me.

"Having the elbow in (double bend structure-- the note and parentheses here are mine) will make the swing more compact and moderately reduce racquet speed potential. This style is often appropriate for very physically strong, explosive players who can generate a lot of racquet speed with a modest backswing. Less naturally powerful players will benefit more from our style: the straight arm."

The straight arm! After all the debate we've heard here at Tennis Player! And didn't the double-benders win the majority of skirmishes not only since they were more numerous but because they were nastier except for the one straight-arming Carrera Kent (Carrera and not Clark Kent). I hope that everybody will catch my allusion to a broken field halfback in American football.

When a debate is that spirited, there is only one thing to do: Start dropping and hitting balls oneself, then contrast and compare.

This is a good time in life for me to conduct such experiment, a time when I have a probably permanent gimp for a left leg and no wish to replace the knee, and no major tournaments scheduled whether for 72-year-olds or not.

In tennis evolution, a process different from natural anabolism and catabolism, I am probably near the end of my career yet simultaneously am moving toward quicker and more complete unit turns on both sides. One thinks of Vic Braden's old admonition to have the racket back before the oncoming ball crosses the net. Braden put a subsequent pre-loop hold position there. So did Oscar Wegner. So does Chris Lewit. Where the hands are will vary from player to player and isn't worth quibbling about since one must decide for oneself anyway. But I'm tired of unit turn and then a further pointing of left arm toward right fence—that did create big shoulders pivot and smooth sequence but turned out to eat the micro-seconds. It's time to recombine unit turn and pointing with left arm into one all-embracing act that includes tucking left shoulder under one's chin. Wherever hands are, the racket still will connect them. Wherever they are, they're quiet and measuring the oncoming ball and establishing close hand-to-eye during crablike motion of the feet.

This will affect all three of my emergency forehands, not just the proposed addition. These three forehands all are double-bend with elbow staying low and pivoting at one fixed point in the air to form a loop: 1) forward action consisting of body first and then arm, 2) arm first and then body and 3) a reverse action in which forearm never points to more than a perpendicular to the right fence on the backswing, but then whips back and forth to catch up with the forward whirling body somewhat as in a throw or serve.

Here are some of the Lewit-schooled forehands stored here at Tennis Player:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/classiclessons/chris_lewit/building_the_spanish_forehand_exercises/index.html

I’d like particularly to draw attention to Parabola Exercise in which Lia Kiam starts with a high straight arm per the basic forehand model espoused in Lewit’s book. Why am I so interested in this peculiar video over the others shown in the four Tennis Player articles on Lewit forehand? Not just because it’s the main course in Lewit’s book but because in previous experiments in Federfore or imitation Roger Federer forehand I may have developed the neuronal pathway and slightly different musculature needed for a straight arm shot. (A tour technician, Ben Ford, emailed that the musculature was slightly different and I take his word for it.)

So I’m eager to try this, primarily a very quick unit turn combined with a straightening of both arms and dramatic lifting of both elbows. Initial turn takes both elbows way out and tucks shoulder under the chin.

What’s going to happen next, say after you’ve made additional steps toward the ball maintaining your hold position? One possibility is that the elbow could rise higher than the shoulder and then go down in a half moon loop with bottom roughly parallel to court for a flat, driving shot. Another is that the same loop once started could devolve into a big waterfall bringing racket way in toward body so that the tip points down at the court—for heavy topspin drive or moonball or topspin lob or Tom Okker look alike shot only without his continental grip. Inside out swing is the way to go in Lewit’s book. The racket goes way out to right past hitting the ball before returning to the player’s left shoulder, left upper arm or left hip. Lastly, one has the option of scissoring the arm to create added topspin on the left to right upward rise which taken as a whole could amount to as much as 80 degrees.

In any case, looping with a straight arm has to be a huge departure even from what Federer does. The idea is brevity and simplicity, e.g., there won’t be any backward shoulders turn in your delayed loop since you accomplished that already. And there won’t be any change in the arm length—not yet. And the big fall on a topspin forehand definitely adds racket speed the easy way. It’s fun, it’s experiment, it’s the reason some of us play tennis.

Here are the other three TP articles on Lewit or “Spanish” forehand:

http://www.onlinetennisinstruction.com/

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/classiclessons/chris_lewit/building_the_spanish_forehand_racket_speed/index.html

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/classiclessons/chris_lewit/the_spanish_forehand/index.html

[bottle]

Forearm Hinge

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/classiclessons/chris_lewit/building_the_spanish_forehand_exercises/index.html

The straight arm hinges first before the elbow rises. The two actions are not simultaneous. A little elbow rise does occur early but to minimal degree. The statement of sequence therefore is essentially true. Lia Kiam is also shown, in some of these videos, hitting extreme topspin shots straight arm WITHOUT this forearm hinge.

An adventurous person also might try lifting in every possible way without concern for sequence of any kind, which then might or might not occur in a purely natural way. All this experimentation might lead to intelligible conclusion. That's possible!

Note how far forward actual low point is in the arm-stays-straight variation. That means, from straight arm preparation, that the racket head lifts a little and starts falling down behind the player and then keeps on falling down to her right-- a very long tumble, no?

[bottle]

Spanish Forehand: A Gravity Drop Version

A person creating a tall waterfall should not care how the water gets to the lip. The water can perhaps come from the side before it goes over.

So, in the present forehand under construction, one starts with the two arms straight and roughly parallel to each other and the court-- way out to the side in other words and with the left shoulder tucked all the way under the chin. An extremely quick and unified movement got me there.

I run in this contorted hold position with hips partially turned so that I look like a big crab. I could run like that all day. Which might be a good idea just to get used to the novelty of the thing.

One might think of Andre Agassi. He ran like this. Of course what he did next (fold his racket and arm down and in toward himself) was different from my proposal but so what? Andre is the precedent for relaxation with arms way out.

Since backward body rotation is accomplished, all one really has to deal with are the arms and legs, the right arm in particular. That will be the waterfall, not as absolutely tall as possible but tall nevertheless.

Could the lip of the waterfall be the first established hand position? Probably. But we want more fall combined with straightness in the waterfall of this most special of special shots. And we want subsequent inside out travel of the racket head up to the ball. The choice is outside in or inside out or straight behind, same as in golf.

So, we're now ready to start a purposefully delayed loop. Which we can, if we want to, do with no forward body rotation at all at first.

To construct inside-out pattern however we need to bring racket behind us (good also for concealment of purpose). Chris Lewit, the explainer, writes that the racket will morph to five or six o'clock.

Desired pattern can surely be achieved in a number of ways (see the old golf book CURE YOUR SLICE FOREVER by John Huggan). If however like me you want maximum gravity assist, you may choose to bring the straight arm up some more as you bring it sideways to six o'clock, i.e., perpendicular to the rear fence.

[bottle]

Palm Down, Smaller Loop, Flashlight for as Long as Possible

I've proved to myself that people can write about tennis in new ways and maybe even get read.

My method is to project something new I want to try but haven't tried yet. That way I don't do public relations for myself, and yes that is a criticism of most tennis writing.

If you're genuine in your wish for discovery-- for any kind of discovery-- you won't self-promote, simple as that.

So, following the context of recent posts, I can report on a hitting experience I had so long as it isn't the main topic.

At the tennis socials I attend, I can show up half an hour early and find people with which to hit, even 23-year-olds of Asian background who know how to generate huge topspin.

My waterfall version of Spanish forehand, never tried on another human being, sort of sputtered at first, then worked very well for about 10 minutes, then probably faded from excellence in the last five minutes.

What exactly produced these changes I don't know, but today I want to try something a bit different, to turn down palm as part of first lift, to keep a perpendicular from palm pointed down as racket then rises above shoulder, to press palm down as racket tip comes in slightly closer to the body to form a more modest loop.

In addition, the butt of racket per recent spot on Tennis Channel will spear toward net for a long time, or, as Nick Bollettieri preaches in the spot, "Keep the flashlight going toward the opponent for as long as possible."

Isn't this advice similar to maintaining racket frame cleave right up to the ball on any serve? Flashlight, saber's edge-- I sometimes think that idea/images of delay like these are more important than all the other stuff we think about.

[bottle]

Default Deception

Am I about to pendulate here on one point? Probably, you (esteemed reader) could indicate, while adding that there's no such word in Webster's Collegiate. Well, you can find "pendulate" elsewhere. And there should be such a word in our existence since it happens all the time, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. To pendulate is better than to waver.

I said, "Turn down palm as part of first lift." Default shot: Topspin. For flatter drive variation add a little sidearm opening action to wrist and forearm before contact.

Or, set up at end of parallelism-in-straight-arm unit turn with racket on edge, instead, and close it on the way toward the ball for the topspin variation-- I wouldn't care.

One or the other setup may work better for some individual.

[bottle]

Hate

I hate the added rise of the arm after I've done some running so I'm going to just think fall from well-chosen initial height.

Racket on edge and pointed at right rear fence post appeals right now.

Concealment won't occur in the high position but will occur after drop since racket head will have slanted behind me as a function of fall.

For flat shot I want racket giving away at the wrist very late, even during contact. That certainly will "keep flashlight going toward the opponent for as long as possible."

For topspin, the plan of the minute is to employ mondo a bit earlier, creating a real lag in closing strings (they're not swinging around yet but they are beveling) in transition from waterfall to forward and up. I start spearing from bottom of the waterfall. I spear or flashlight right up to the ball.

Then, contrary to popular expectation, I don't twist my arm like the nub of a windshield wiper but-- sharply!-- deflect the hand to left to sling the strings on their already established low to high and inside-out path.

Windshield wiper or return of racket to left shoulder, left upper arm or left hip occurs only after that, i.e., after full extension of strings which again was on the inside-out path.

I can't be sure yet, but running around the living room with both arms extended is leading toward another possibly terminal conclusion.

For the deeper starting position described here, with arms pointing roughly at rear right fence post rather than remaining parallel to the net, one achieves comfort by allowing hands to separate a small bit.

Will it work to run a long way like this? Yes, possibly, since hand is under the racket with both impersonating the stability of an ice cream cone.

[bottle]

Inside Out

In either tennis or golf, the ones who understand "inside out" can use it, but the others frequently suffer from the mistaken notion that the racket head/club head proceeds to outside of ball once ball is hit.

In fact, in a good inside out swing, the strings come from the inside of a large arc which will put them at a perpendicular to the target at the hit.

Two different arcs coincide briefly at contact in other words. If you hit from the outside you cross the ball and don't catch all of it. If you hit from the inside and then keep going to the outside you don't catch all of it either.

The following sequence illustrates this.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Center&stroke=RFFHCenterOpenStanceRear1_500fps.mp4

There's a lot of information to notice in the video-- probably too much-- but I also want to point to the mid-swing slight slowing of the shoulders (before they continue to completion) since that's one of the many creators of racket head speed. Another is hand suddenly changing direction to the left.

If one clicks repeatedly at mondo, i.e., precisely at point where the racket tip folds back, one sees hitting hand, right after that, take an abrupt left turn in front of body just before contact. (Throw your heart into this!)

The way that Roger creates the mondo through extension backwards from a beginning bent arm position is different from the straight arm "drop" method I've just bought into and advocated in these posts.

Also, there is a small amount of elbow lift starting before Roger's arm straightens. I've always thought the elbow was still just then, and have said so, and want to correct myself at least for this one video. The elbow goes back. That's what takes it up a bit.

No matter what precedes the mondo, this is a great model for topspin shots, for the actual hit.

[stotty]

Are you talking about the rear1 500fps clip?

You've lost me on this one...not seeing elbow lift...or other things you refer to. Am I looking at the correct clip?

[bottle]

Should I further examine the rear1 500 fps clip as a laundry list of items? I will whether I should or not. But I always remember an article by Pam Shriver in which she described a friend of hers who left the tour because of injury, then returned sometime later but without her trademark huge topspin. Pam didn’t feel the loss of the topspin was due to the injury or anything physical but was a simple mystery. Of course Pam herself never hit that much topspin, so maybe she wasn’t the best available expert on this specific subject.

Are there identifiable causes, other than brute strength, why some person can or can’t hit high quality topspin that pins the opponent on the baseline and bounces over his head? The prevailing non-wisdom is that senior players ought to hit more slice and flat, abandoning forever their dream of heavy, kicking topspin. Why am I so sure of myself here? Because I’ve played with and have observed a few old guys who could do it, none of whom appeared particularly strong or well muscled. Could brain power matter more in this case than some jocks think?

I had a friend, a former tour player who used a Prince Magnesium mid-size and hit deep, light high-bouncing spin with a flick of the wrist—more precisely with radial bone directed wrist action, exquisitely timed. He was just over 400th in the world but was still good enough to have twice won the USPTA doubles championship partnered with the Williams head coach, and to have been captain of his own college team, and to have won matches in Maine and Virginia partnered with McEnroe and Navratilova.

He used to teach a Zen-like lift described best by the word BAM! and which seemed to involve every joint in the arm. It’s a damned mystery, for me, is what I’m trying to say while knowing at the same time that there are other ways to do it than his (Jim Kacian’s).

Here’s the video again.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Center&stroke=RFFHCenterOpenStanceRear1_500fps.mp4

On elbow lift, no, there isn’t any compared to someone like Victoria Azarenka, who not only takes her bent arm up but then circles it back around her body. Or Ivan Lendl, who drew his needling elbow way up, way back. But Roger does start drawing his elbow toward rear fence and away from his body at the beginning of straightening his arm. He does this just a little, but I see it, I know it happens! And if elbow moves away from body it must rise, too. It doesn’t know how to do anything else unless it started from above the shoulder. It’s just something I want to try next time I have a few free minutes on a tennis court. Maybe it won’t make any significant difference to my game. It will certainly increase the radius of the shot by a couple inches.

Now I’m looking at # 1138, two before this post. You don’t see, Stotty, in the same video, the strings come from the inside of a large arc which will put them at a perpendicular to the target at the hit? You don’t see the rotation of the shoulders slowing in the middle of the shot and then resuming speed comparable to the beginning? You don’t see the hitting hand making an abrupt left turn to get out of the way and using muscles across the front of the chest to sling the racket straight ahead like the stone on the end of a string, for full extension, very fast?

I’m looking around for anything else that might irritate. An ice cream cone only in a mental video-- who other than I could see that! Reminds me of the hot dogs in Hungary. The vendors don’t slice the rolls but use a metal prong to make a lengthwise hole. You have to keep this hot dog upright or mustard, relish and other condiments spill on your shirt.

With tennis being so much about balance, it occurred to me that an upright racket on edge during running “hold” might not be such a bad idea. I think of Chris Evert, Jimmy Connors and Tracycakes. But they hit flat. Here's where Chris Lewit and The Spanish Forehand come in.