A New Year's Serve

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Something Makes the End of these DBBH's very Comfortable

It is the combination of the arm bending at the elbow and the wrist becoming concave again.

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Tweaking Mondo in Federfore

FROM: Straightening of arm and laying back of wrist and rolling down of forearm all at once, followed by "slow bowl"

TO: Straightening of arm and "slow bowl" followed by unified layback-and-roll-down and continuation of bowl upward.

ABOUT THE TERM "SLOW BOWL": Taken by itself, it would imply to me a vertical motion of straight arm close to the body-- what one sees and does at a bowling alley. The straightness, not the closeness, is what I'm trying to communicate. My personal opinion, by the way, is that once shoulders have stopped rotating one way, they start rotating the opposite way with a small stop in between-- there is minimal delay (only to about a third of arm extension).

ABOUT THE TIMING: I use a five-count when tweaking some stroke. Number one then is lifting both hands while laying the wrist back halfway. Number two is continuing to lift hands. Number three is separating the hands, closing the racket, pointing across with left hand to complete huge final portion of shoulders turn. Number four is smoothing the waters with left arm as right arm gets straight.

Number five is hitting the ball although I've already used the "slow bowl" term as part of this. Well, slowness is relative. The real acceleration comes from a sudden 90-degree change of hand direction with strings rolling semi-passively upward from forearm in a perfectly straight direction somewhere toward the right fence.

People who want to talk about past segments of the kinetic chain slowing down just here are the ones who are being too left brain. Actually, everybody should want to use both lobes of the brain in balanced fashion while playing tennis at all times.

Obviously, if being a bit technical is nevertheless okay, the racket can't unfurl in a perfect frame-formed straight line if the shoulders are constantly pushing it around. Should we worry about that, though, or just think about it in a slightly different way?

Maybe we should go here with Luci "outside-of-the-ball" Awl of Radio Wimbledon. This announcer has all great tour players hitting the outer edge at all times. And the body is providing weight in one direction, the tennis writer John M. Barnaby might say, the racket head providing spin in another.

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Straightness of Bowling Motion in a Federfore

In previous explanation I inadvertently used the term "straightness" to mean two different things in one sentence. To clarify then, "the straight arm bowls straight."

But it isn't close to the body. In fact, it's "far___out" (a sixties expression). Your natural inclination, with hand so far out, might to be swing roundhouse at the ball with body, arm or both but with no bowl at all. I know because I did it for several years.

One might think of bowling with hand at such a large separation, implying confidence, in the following way: Draw a circle. Then lay a ruler on the circle so the edge intersects at two points. The line between the points is desired bowling motion (slightly down and slightly up). But don't go all romantic on yourself and think that you can simply rejoin the circle after the second intersection point.

No, your hand goes more sharply up to the left than that while your racket head cuts a neat slot in the air up to the right.

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Service: Opening outward to a Right-angled Arm rather than Compressing Inward to it

Why should distance the arm opens out to the right angle matter?

The FACT that the arm can open out to a right angle in a "stir-the-pot" serve is more important than the amount it does so.

With this little piece of logic in hand there is no reason to squeeze the two halves of the arm completely together any more. Still, though, one can squeeze to less than 90 degrees-- 80, 70, 65, somewhere in there.

The opening out to where you fire the arm will assure that it doesn't try to compress again at a very late date.

It's a different kind of arm work. I'm still experimenting with it obviously, but am generating more constantly upward spin than I usually get so long as I don't hit hard. I'm almost ready to recommend this inversion of usual throwing method to all rotorded servers, at least as something to try in what has always seemed too much of a gloomy, forbidding and even impossible situation.

The feel now is of elbow first rising reflexively, as in any good serve, but followed immediately by a more pro-active toss of the elbow up/forward/inward to region of the eyes.

The throw of the elbow, which can be as nifty or vigorous as you want, replaces the old triceptic burst I was using.

Since the arm is already extending slowly and yes from muscles, it can fool countering muscles and centrifugate passively as fast as only spaghetti can do.

I'm hopeful that if I keep tossing the ball first with the hand and then with the racket so it clears the net by about four feet that in a short while I'll be able to add power while retaining the same clear contact and upward spin.

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Andromeda Galaxy Serve

From a conventional, gravity assisted drop you start spiraling the hand, first inward then outward and snap the arm straight.

You then have these options among quite a few.

A) Throw elbow from right angle which passively extends arm rest of the way.

B) Throw elbow from right angle and fire triceps all at same time. The sudden change in speed of arm extension can surprise the countering muscles that want to slow you down.

C) Toss higher to allow more time. Compress two halves of arm completely together during the press and leg extension, in more conventional manner. Fire the elbow to passively achieve a right angle in noodly, i.e. purposefully spaghettied arm. Stop the elbow and fire triceps the rest of the way.

D) If C) worked try opposite idea from same preparation. Fire triceps to achieve right angle before firing elbow to spaghetti (verb) arm straight the rest of the way.

E) Similar to C) or D) but let the catapulting body straighten arm to right angle. Throw elbow then to passively extend arm half of the remaining way. Fire triceps then to complete the extension.

Just played three sets against somebody who is younger, stronger and faster.
Good thing I beat him a lot when he was younger. That would be Shelton, the wizard of the drop-shot in Winston-Salem, North Carolina who now has the full game to go with it.

Option B) was the only one I could get to work against him, and there only on first serves.

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Racket Coming from More Around to the Left

Acceptance of one option among many on a drop-down menu sets up a new drop-down menu.

Get first service working as in match with Shelton the Speedy, which became necessary since he was creaming everything else. Then, remember? A few days ago you (I did) hit one good slice from the same formulation? Fat, slice, fat, slice, kick.

Bend arm completely. Do you realize there's a way now to extend arm passively to a right angle in a direction you've never even thought of in all your experiments? That would be after elbow rises reflexively. From there, twisting upper arm before throwing it, you could still send racket overhand toward the net but don't. This will involve not only keeping elbow back as you twist it but actually drawing it a few inches toward the rear left fence post. Any twist of upper arm, no matter how you do it, can also be considered part of the total throw.

Now you do the double-firing of elbow and triceps. What happens? Choose one:

(very fast kick serves)
(serves into bottom of net)
(lousy serves characterized by dismal, downward spin)
(elephantine timing)
(a new computer)

Never mind the above. I came back from the court with three serves for the next match.

1) Flat. Catapult of body can passively open arm to a right angle

2) Spin, involving a small bit of temporizing elbow that winds racket around toward net before you let it go. This twisting motion can help passively open arm to right angle and should lead to a serviceable second serve for now-- at least I'm not playing Shelton.

3) Dennis Ralston type slice (that stays low). This is a high maintenance shot requiring extreme accuracy against a great return of serve.

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No Temporizing

For Option # 2 in the previous post, one can just load the arm farther around
as elbow goes reflexively up. I'm squeezing both halves of the arm together but also cocking the forearm out now as I've done for most of my serving life. Then forward body rotation can open the arm passively out toward a right angle. In this serve, if elbow throw (something conventional tennis instruction doesn't emphasize enough?) and triceptic extension then occur simultaneously, the vectors of each will fire at right angles to one another.

This is untrue (or less true) of flat first serve, where elbow throw and muscular extension are more in the same direction. And to add a little slice one only need pronate a bit less-- this slice serve can be close to identical with the flat, unless one wants contact a bit farther back in the swing for some upward spin, too.

Frankly, I'm frustrated with the immediately previous experiments where I was slowly manipulating arm to a right angle (no matter how I did it, from outside or inside) before I threw. I just want the body to do that work rhythmically and passively and be relaxed. Those serves didn't feel as full and robust as they do now, maybe just because I've served from a fully compressed arm position for many years. The idea of delaying arm throw a little while shoulders go, however, might be something new or recycled I brought away.

Anyway frustration isn't always bad, gave birth to the Roddick serve when he
was a teenager. In addition to his many accomplishments Andy should be given credit as a great inventor. So should Ivan Lendl for his forehand. Coaches were enemies to the originality in both cases, I've heard.

So which will it be today-- basics as if we're at week one or follow the geniuses? I may not be a young man, but I feel like one when I consider the following statement by Emerson: "The young man reveres men of genius, because, to speak truly, they are more himself than he is."

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Report from the Front

If one agrees with me, dear reader (not always so likely, I know), then each American war since World War II has been stupider than the last, and battle metaphors should be relegated to the effect of black coffee on an empty stomach or to one's efforts to modify carefully chosen tennis strokes. I'm not even going to think about my backhand slice. Talking about or messing with one's best stroke also is idiocy.

1) forehand (Federfore). Try the opposite of the idea I suggested, which started with placing a straight-edge on the right side of a circle, thereby identifying two points of intersection and then bowling from one to the other out on the court. "Don't be overly romantic and think you can just rejoin the circle at the second intersection," I wrote. Wrong. Be romantic and do it, thus working through opposites just the way that the pronouns "you" and "I" are interchangeable in all tennis discourse. Mondo to occur during the bowl. Throw hand to left of circle's perimeter to whap the ball severely cross-court (short angle).

2) backhand (Budgian). Sometimes we have to go with what nature gives us. If my opponent stays at the baseline, the best non-slice I can hit, I have decided, is the most simple Budgian. That is a backswing-transition sequence in which the straight arm first points at the rear fence and then the racket points at the rear fence. But how do they do so? In such a way that bisection of the angle between these two imaginary lines will form a perpendicular to the rear fence. From there you slowly swing the shoulders to any position you want and stop them with the arm continuing on (with contact right there). Slowness of swing and just straightened, firmed up wrist enables this to happen. It's a pocket-billiards shot. You should be able to hit any depth and angle you want.

But, what about more topspin, more like the Vic Braden backhand which is a Don Budge spin-off? (This overdrive shot has to be seen to be believed and I watched it for five and one-half hours once-- Vic drops balls and hits them while he talks). I'm saving my version for passing shots. I see a mild figure eight or inside out arm movement up to the ball before contact, which ideally is at same exact big separation as for the first (flatter) shot, but with vertical as well as angular body uncoil.

But what if I get jammed? I'm still thinking about this, and am tending toward something more like the first (flat) shot and always hit to my right. Just to show you how crazy I am (or substitute the term "right brain," kind reader) I have dreams of jamming myself on purpose. The shot may look like the inside out topspin to begin. After step-out, the arm can drop slightly forward and inward as it twists racket tip down/left in synch and knees may or may not bend more, too. On the unjammed version the arm then figure eights back to exactly where it would have been had you decided to hit the flatter version. Here the arm can simply bowl in the direction already started, going down and up as shoulders slowly unwind. Arm twist to happen pre-contact in all of these shots along with the concave-flat-concave movement of the wrist which is spread throughout the entire forward stroke.

Rotorded flat, slice, spin serves. Save your stingy rotors for discharge where they won't do harm. That would be with the racket high above your head. Use upper body rotation to passively centrifugate clenched arm out to a right angle-- this won't require much from you other than relaxation and a little arm delay. Throw from there (farther back) with simultaneous firing of triceps and elbow from shoulder. Emphasize stomach muscles in hitting flat and slice. Revolve one shoulder ball up over the other for spin (but don't let the front one go down). Also for spin, understand that elbow throw and elbow extension (opening of scissors) now are corollaries, inversely proportional and at right angle to each other. You may want to explore the different possible mixtures. I've had better luck with both my spin and slice so far if I wind racket head around more behind my back-- so it points more at left than rear fence. Whatever these positions, the forearm should be cocked to the right, I'm pretty sure.

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Two New Variations in Donald Budge Backhand Genre

Rule of post: "I" equals "you."

Neither of the following (additional) variations has yet been match-tested. "Keep innovations fluid" is my motto.

1) Why doesn't the topspin the way I've been hitting it work as well as the flatter shot (which has a milder version of topspin)? Because the shoulders don't turn as much when you're doing a whole body coil and uncoil? It could well be that you have to work much harder, taking much longer, to get the racket around, and most times you never get that shoulders weight applied at the right time. What if you prepared the same way with just as much backward shoulders turn but shortened the back-swing, pointed straight arm at LEFT FENCE and then twisted the racket down so it pointed only at left fence post? At same time you could add a folding down of the body like an accordion. This would take racket tip low but not from the arm. Figure eight then becomes entirely formed by the body. The ball went very high when I tried this, depending on amount I didn't roll wrist straight approaching contact. There was good pace and spin.

I don't even know how this all works in a high left elbow closed racket Braden backhand (for which I've already dramatized my admiration-- five and one-half hours as witness). I never went to tennis college in southern California, tried on my own, didn't master the shot to my satisfaction, but no longer care. Why should I, considering what I've got? Concave wrist to straight helps bring the racket tip around. You can therefore use the shortest back-swing possible.

2) When jammed or crowding the ball. I figure that with all the separation or "scope" in every Don Budge backhand ever seen, you need a variation same as Federer in which arm comes closer into the body; without it you're a sitting duck for a jamming. But this special shot, whether Budge, Federer or you could have enough virtues of it own to be more than just defensive.

The solution I've come up with may or may not be an arbitrary tilt toward mechanics adapted more from the flatter shot. At ball comes toward your body you wind the racket tip down and to left per usual but at the same time row head left and also bring the arm closer to the body, thus reducing scope. Now your shoulders because of skater's effect will naturally want to rotate faster and farther-- let them. Then stop them with left hand and send the racket forward and up at 90 degrees to its just previously cross-ward path. More upward arm swing than usual. Most likely a cross-court shot.

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Two Corollaries for Rotorded Servers

The two sides of each corollary are in inverse proportion to one another like judgment and sympathy in life or in fiction.

1) Elbow throw vs. arm extension. Both actions to be muscular and simultaneous. Other variables besides respective muscular effort include length and direction. Keeping the idea basic, however, we can see the two actions as equal or unequal. Perhaps that is the best way to think of them.

2) Horizontal rotation vs. vertical rotation of back shoulder ball around (over) the front shoulder ball. One might like to say these two extremes were similar; however, horizontal rotation of the shoulders seems most powerfully to come from the center of the body, not from the left edge of it, which means, like it or not, the left shoulder will go backward. The more vertical the rotation, however, the more still the front ball can stay. Some degree of both rotations will transpire in all serves.

People may tell you that rotation of the upper arm-- as if it is a twisting axle-- is essential component of all good serves. Ignore them unless they are speaking of things that happen above the head.

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Federfore Reiterated: A Big Circle with one Small Section of Perimeter Bashed in

If one enjoys tennis, one likes competition, and therefore should welcome any contest to describe the Federfore.

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Cleaning up Debris from Change in Federfore

Earlier, kind reader, I said that one could slightly vary direction of arm extension in the mondo for a down the line vs. short angle shot.

But mondo now is seen as part of the bowl, which is a precise, mechanical set-piece that one needn't vary once one has mastered it. The hand, driven through solid connection with the smoothly rotating body, travels in a broad circle. Suddenly the hand bowls shallowly, drawing a straight line from a first intersection in the broad arc to a second. Your mondoed hand rejoining the circle is just enough of a second change of direction to roll the racket tip out right and upward on relaxed forearm at high velocity.

There are great players who rotate the racket tip up with muscles, but you don't have to be one of them. You can do the same thing with physics.

I also suggested that you could throw hand to left of the broad circle to "whap" or push or clobber the ball sharply sideways for a quick short angle.
It's true. But to really hit the ball with maximum spin for a more precise shot you can extend the arm forward a bit more (to gain time) and then bowl, rejoining the broad circle same as usual.

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Wrist Movement in Budgian Backhands

Immobilizing your forearm by pressing it down against a table, you can hold a pen with your wrist concave as if you're about to hit a one-arm backhand. If you simply then straighten the wrist you will do nothing to bring the tip of the pen around.

If however you simultaneously wag the hand from radius to ulna, the pen will circle through 45 degrees of arc, which is huge. You will then be in position to shorten any one of your backhand strokes if you want to.

Of course I wanted to do it on every backhand and immediately screwed up my slice, and had inconclusive results with my backhand volley. I now do it only on flat, topspin and crowded/jammed (offensive) backhands. On the flat version this combined wrist movement happens as the shoulders slowly roll around-- a convenient aid. On the other two shots better not to be so left brain but simply follow the rough principle of "concave-- straight (lightly firm)-- concave" with no over-conceptualized correspondence of these acts to others you are performing-- all you really need to know is that light, straight wrist firmness happens while you are hitting the ball.

This combination of wrist straightening and hand wagging across forearm bones-- might as well call it "wrist roll" for lack of a better term-- will combine with forearm roll (which is a true roll) and with whole arm roll, too, if you use that as well, i.e., your backhand will become more sensory.

An exception to the formula would be if you decided to omit the second "concave" and rolled the straightened wrist more around the outside of the ball instead-- in that case I wouldn't bend the arm for comfort at end of the followthrough as I now customarily do.

As always one can pursue the opposite of any idea-- a great way to learn-- e.g., have your wrist injected with novocaine and set in plaster.

No, there are sensors in your wrist which are useless to you until you move it.
That's my argument.

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The Imitative or Federer-influenced Category of Modern Retro Forehand

Rolls off of the tongue, right? I just wanted to give people who are reluctant to use the term "Federfore" a happy alternative.

The term "modern retro" to describe Federer's forehand comes from Roger himself
(See THE ROGER FEDERER STORY: QUEST FOR PERFECTION by Rene Stouffer-- I don't remember which page).

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Jammer Backhand

My ideas about this shot are evolving so quickly that I or anyone could argue that I should remain quiet until I have decided more; however, that's not my method, or my mission, which is fluid discovery from one second to the next.

Much depends on what you're working from. In the six videos of Donald Budge one can clearly see that his bent elbow goes back before it straightens (two counts). But the total action can simply be called "pointing arm": a good place then to gain some time.

Count one: Point arm on a slant at rear fence while turning shoulders considerably less than usual.
Count two: Roll tip down left while bringing in arm to reduce scope and bowing shoulders in rough direction of desired departing shot.
Count three: Rotate shoulders to get racket head at least somewhat between you and the ball.
Count four: Roll wrist straight and establish desired pitch with whole arm.
Count five: Lift elbow from shoulder while thrusting hips for weight and upward power (BAM!).

Alternatively, one can spend two counts on the pointing part and combine
counts three and four into a single action. Think of the intimidating topspin
Jimmy Arias generated with his brutal arm lift as a kid before he conventionalized his backhand.

Follow-through can be Don Budge comfortable (bent arm, concave wrist).

Questions: Can this shot also be hit from open or semi-open stance and as
a service return and on the rise? Most certainly.