A New Year's Serve

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Ron Waite: Six-inch Forehand Backswing

So how do we interpret this? Or does it not need interpretation? I say it does, that any idea, no matter how simple, always leads to further thought to convert it into action.

I see two beginning choices, at least for me: 1) The racket, disengaged from other arm, sets where you want it as part of unit turn. It then goes back six inches and then forward the same six inches to find the ball.

2) (very different): The racket, disengaged from other arm, takes the extra six inches immediately as part of the unit turn. All Zen (concentration) can now go into slowness of forward six inches to find the ball.

Don't see this as either/or but rather what one wants to do on a given shot.

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Tennis Invention Back-up

Not back-up in the sense of an extra copy but rather back-up of unwanted water behind a dam.

This is the second day when play at the senior men's association as been canceled due to rain. I've put in some self-feed but that is just not the same.

So I'm all ready to unleash two killer forehand service returns thanks to new abbreviation at the wait position end.

But won't get the chance again today. So in the meantime I've been reading USPTR tennis wag Ron Waite, the Tom Waits of written tennis waggery.

Ron invokes Oscar Wegner's stalking of the ball and easy arm work before putting a big push on the ball. (Personally, I think that Doug King with his "chute" has expressed this better than anybody-- not to take anything away from Oscar, who has been unfairly beat up on more than enough. Oscar makes a huge contribution always.)

Ron Waite would have us all try a six-inch forehand backswing in contrast to whatever else we do.

Am with you, Ron. Will start on it if the weather permits self-feed today.

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Complete Seniors Tennis Service Return Plan for Player Whose Backhand Slice is Sufficient Enough that all other Players Avoid it

With slice that good the player ought to be able to improvise his slice (a package of countless variation after all) from racket wait position higher and farther to right than usual.

In the flat forehand known as the Beasley-bam, the player can wait with arm quite bent, the two halves of it in fact either pressed together or almost.

Two halves pressed together is what we see in the photographs of HOW TO PLAY TENNIS, by Mercer Beasley, 1936, the book that first introduced the Beasley-bam to the tennis paying public.

The two halves are pressed together with racket resting on shoulder. And Beasley shows his famous genius once again by giving no indication whatsoever of how it got there.

If we like this shot and want to use it, we'll invent the time it takes to put racket in this key bat position all by ourselves.

Or do as I'm suggesting now, adopt that key bat position straight off but modified just enough so that one can still chip a backhand return if asked to do so.

Arm can be very bent but not completely bent. Racket can still float a bit in front of one. Those two measures ought to achieve desired purpose.

We now apply same philosophy to a shot more familiar to the players of 2017, the imitation Roger Federer forehand, the Federfore.

That one doesn't bend arm together but does start with bent arm and a raise of racket tip while keeping elbow down below.

Is everything understood so far? Good. We're now ready for our choice of two killer forehand service returns, the Beasley-bam hit closer to bod and the Federfore taken farther out.

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Waterwheel and Federfore: A Two-Unit Complement of Topspin Forehands

1) Use Waterwheel for setting up close to ball. You need to be super-aware of pitch at contact when using this one, because loop and push on ball are basically part of the same vertically rotating device. And a vertical wheel changes pitch more rapidly. So I advise against this shot on a day when contact point seems to vary from shot to shot.

2) Use Federfore anytime. Federfores are especially good when interspersed with Beasley-bams. I would like to say that Federfores and Waterwheels are opposite sides of the same coin, but such a statement would only be partially true and too easily lead to confusion.

Some Federfores DO suggest horizontality contrasted to the verticality of a Waterwheel (spellcheck is going berserk). Think of Roger Federer forehands hit at great separation and looking almost like slaps.

In most of Roger's forehands however, arm extends both OUT and DOWN to varying degree.

Roger is Roger but we can do that too.

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Why I Love Me Beasley-bams

First, because they work and not just in self-feed. Second, they can, with a little luck, produce very clean hits.

My love for these circular strokes, which I am convinced Bud Collins had confused with Ellie-bams, prevents me from over-analyzing them to death but at the same time leads me to know them a bit more every day.

And it is not the sudden squeezing together of the two halves of the arm that lies close to the heart of their mystery, but rather the gradual extension of that arm, again at the elbow but accompanied by elbow moving out a few inches from the bod.

Explaining this concept is complicated enough in words but would be impossible in film. Suffice it to say, reader, that everything I have described so far happens as part of backswing.

And gradual extension of arm from elbow continues throughout the foreswing.

This seamless transition has to constitute the core of Mercer Beasley's genius.

All forehands contain arc, but this is a different arc. In using it one can discard the Craig Wilson Commandment to C-A-A-A-R-R-R-Y the ball since broadness of arc does that already.

And it is so instructive to learn that more than one of Beasley's many national champions of the 1930's rebelled against their mentor so good at self-promotion and, perhaps looking ahead to Fin-De-Siecle in-the-slot forehands, refused even in the 1930's to circle their racket behind their back.

I too have tried to rebel against Mercer Beasley, employing countless experiments in the quest.

But conclude, finally, that given the adjustablity of wait position and rhythmic quality of this stroke combined with other virtues, e.g., ease of production, Beasley was/is smarter than us all.

Finally again, I think one can hit just as hard with this forehand as with any other in my pantheon of experiment.

Power and control both have to do with dancer's smooth and delayed hips pivot that perfectly and entirely on balance carries one's weight across a bridge over a small creek.

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Very High Racket Position for Returning Serve

You wouldn't want to be so high (and wrapped around toward forehand) that you couldn't chip a backhand. But I love the shot known by me as the Beasley-bam, and just think the higher wait position would make for even more speed than this form of stroke already has in getting the shot off.

Western citizens tend to put things in categories rather than seeing them as continuum. Thus one waits low or high without considering all the gradations in between.

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Just as BAD INFORMATION IS BEING DISPENSED AT PRINCETON is the title of a J.P. Donleavy novel, I now declare that MORE GOOD IMAGINATION NEEDS TO BE IMPARTED TO THE TENNIS FOREHAND KNOWN AS THE ELLIE-BAM.

The player attempting this shot (I) needs to ask, "What am I doing already? How can I build on that?"

Keeping both hands on the racket for a long time ("I give you sex for long time" says the Thai hooker) may be good for the conventional player, but I never went to Thailand and I got left hand off the handle long ago.

So I now will shoot both bent arms, separating slightly, toward rear right fence post.

Scapular retraction then will complete the separation.

And scapular adduction will take racket to the ball (scenario one).

In scenario two, arm instead takes racket to ball, saving scapular adduction or "husking" as additive to power pivot.

Dunno which is better, haven't campared them yet.

But either scenario to be accomplished in 1-2-3 rhythm in which arms movement is 1, scapular retraction 2, all the rest 3 .

Note: Fallback position is The Beasley-bam. That one works great both in self-feed and actual play.

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Latest Version of my Ellie-bam

looked really good in self-feed at Rouge Park, southwest Detroit down the river. I know I'm being personal here, the great criticism of me apparently, but I'm telling you, breaking a few rules by shifting the arm hoop toward rear fence as a part of unit turn leads to something entirely new. Now trying to touch the shoulderblades together does everything you used to do with your arms. Your back places both arms exactly where you want them, and the Zen is a little better now. The hitting arm, not having done much recently, feels free and loose.

I like the Tim Mayotte article very much except for its too many numbered lists, stuff we're supposed to memorize but probably shouldn't. The other thing is with all tennis players, playing pros, teaching pros and tennis writers: They simply are not open enough to interesting departure when it comes to stroke mechanics.

It's as if there is a consensus forehand which we all should have. Why? Is it particularly good? No, the great strokes have been more personal and individual.

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The Idiot Forehand

This forehand doesn't call anybody an idiot by name. It implies it as it zips by him.

The critics of Ellsworth Vines had a field day because of his hit or miss forehand. Except for the four years when he was the number one player in the world.

In those four years they (the critics) looked almost as dopey as they actually were.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. It's a song that later came out of Detroit.

"Dopey." One of the Seven Dwarves.

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The Most Insidious Aspect of Tennis Stroke Design

You get one that works. Then you change one little thing. The whole thing suddenly doesn't work.

The best remedy I know, in the Ellie-bam re-discovery case, is immediate return to the Beasley-bam if only for one or two strokes.

It could be, with these old fashioned shots, that keeping strings above one's wrist is everything.

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What are the Available Sources of Power when you are Trying to Hit a Forehand as Hard as you Can?

No no, don't do that, Bottle. So say sensible stalwarts.

No, I'm gonna do it. Rules were made to be broken by those who know them.

Pivot of the hips, that's a big one. How about "husking," which would be the reverse of scapular retraction? Could that be a legitimate source of power? I'll try it, combining it with the hips pivot that concludes every Beasley-bam, and every Ellie-bam.

And Ellsworth Vines is known to have had the hardest forehand in tennis history except for Pancho Segura's two-hander. So let's try and improve on Vines.

To get the benefit of added on husking, we need to do it from fully retracted scapulae, right? The two shoulder-blades need to be almost touching one another, no?

Where and when to do this? Count two. If one pushes bent connected arms back to physical limit while performing unit turn (count one), one ought to be able to keep the about-to-occur swing pretty level.

Count two: Scapular retraction on both sides of one's back. Pull the shoulders to separate the hands. Symmetry of the two arms has been restored.

Count three: Elbow swinging level first with leant over pivot and husking chiming in, not to mention one's elbow gradually straightening the whole way.

Here's Vines again in one of his Wimbledon finals 10th video down (http://www.britishpathe.com/workspac...is-Finals/full).

Does he husk? Perhaps a bit. But not as much as he would if he started from full scapular retraction.

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Hit Nothing but Ellie-bams and Federfores, one Basket of Each

But tried a few alternations of these shots too since I know that's something I'll be doing in actual play. The stroke scheme for the Ellie-bams in # 3655 seems good except that in count 2 the right arm may swim faster and farther than the left to bring it around more to a moderately in-close position behind the back.

Unless one wants to find more for the left arm to do, which I don't. Too much symmetry can sometimes be a mistake-- I know that from crew.

With the Federfores, a person is ignorant if he doesn't start racket twirl from end of mondo. Ignorant of the true purpose of mondo which is to start a stretch-shorten cycle.

Saw freedom of flight for arm while the twirl was going on. With hips pivot chiming in late. Hard not to have one's Federfores be influenced by all the Beasley-bam stuff.

Bounces for the most part stayed true to form. Ball occasionally however stayed low for a Federfore and came up for an Ellie-bam.

Can't wait for the day when people stop serving to my forehand.

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Reduction of Unwanted Momentum within the Same Form

The two elbows twist up like wings (count one).

The two hands and elbows separate (count two).

The rear elbow starts to catch up with the front elbow at which time one's pivot chimes in (count three).

The elbows once twisted up stay at a single level in a perfect shot unlike an Ellie-bam but like a Beasley-bam.

Obviously, a lot else is going on, e.g., count one is also a complete unit turn. And count two is also a complete bent arm swan dive with upper bod held still. And count three also sees hitting arm gradually straighten from beginning to end.

A question I have had in all these Beasley-bams and Ellie-bams is whether the elbow continues its free-flying independence during the weight shifting long smooth pivot of the hips.

Probably, but I no longer worry about this, striving instead for perfect follow through in which the racket almost was thrown at the target (Beasley, Vines and Budge).

Note: In count two, when we say that the two elbows separate, we mean that they separate from each other. One moves forward smoothing the waters while the other moves back.

Unlike in an Ellsworth Vines forehand the hitting hand does not drop before it swings forward.

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First Return Worked

Encouraging. So I hit nothing but this version of the new Ellie-bam for the full two hours of our Grosse Pointe Senior Men's Tennis Association 20-person (and sometime 30-person) round-robin play.

There remains a lot to do however. And since I don't have access to a good court with hitting partner here in Franklin Park, I shall continue to do self-feed on the newly mowed seven hard courts with net still up in Rouge Park, Detroit on Plymouth Street, quite a bit west from Grosse Pointe but still in Motor City.

Have yet to see another player out on those be-whiskered courts which I must admit I have come to love.

When I have hit 10,000 Ellie-bams in self-feed, I suspect the non-momentum producing breast-stroke or swan dive that constitutes count two will become smooth enough to accommodate a variety of footworks going on at the same time.

And that there will be less hesitation to delay weight transfer all the way to the hips pivot that supplies power and direction at the end of each one of these shots.

And greater melding together of the three elbow movements that constitute count 1, count 2 and count 2&1/2 .

All of these Ellie-bams were effective, but three or four of them were as spectacular as anything in self-feed, clean winner like a forehand hit by Ellsworth Vines.

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Total Commitment to the New Shot

Imagine that you have hit this shot-- The Ellie-bam-- 10,000 times per hour for 10,000 hours over 10,000 miles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8CcCQyj4fc). The impassive look on Malcolm Gladwell's face as the ball zips past him at 10,000 miles per hour will reveal that he can't tell the difference between some imagined shot and one with 10,000 miles behind it.

And we finally will have learned how to fake something as masterfully as little Malcolm's 10,000-suckers-per-second 10,000 thesis even though the expression "little Malcolm" sounds too much like "little Marco."

The real question is whether one will be able to make clean contact with a tennis ball the first time it comes toward one from across the net.

I don't see why not. Some new shots, e.g., The Beasley-bam, went from concept to instant reality in testament to the excellence of Beasley's original concept.

Note: Don't take old shots for granted however. You don't want to think you no longer need them. The Beasley-bam itself, which I had vaunted as most consistent shot ever, suddenly went sour on me last Friday. Fortunately I had learned from computer technology to look for a restore point, i.e., line up racket point position with right shoulder.