A New Year's Serve

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Curled Racket Serves

What you are willing to try must have intrinsic worth. That means the idea could be lousy; still, it's an idea. And not all pros and players give new ideas in tennis their proper due.

The idea under consideration is best expressed in a tennis tip from TennisTeacher.com :

"Imagine that you put your hand above your head, with the wrist bent inwards, looking at your palm as if protecting your head from the rain (with your index finger pointing to your left), then moving it slightly forward and mainly to the right (for a right-hander), and finishing with your index finger pointing to your right, with the wrist still bent inward.

"Another analogy would be pushing your hair forward and then to the right.

"What is remarkable is that the player accelerates the racket head more in the second serve than in the first serve, but across to the right rather than forward. And the more he accelerates the more spin he gets, the more the ball goes into the service court, and the more it jumps."

The most jump I've generated in this method occurred when I used a simple knees-back, knees-forward sequence to:

1) cock the wrist behind me, pre-loading the upper arm.
2) Released upper arm twist simultaneous with front leg thrust
3) Kept upper arm twisting hard as triceps exploded arm way out to right
4) Remembered the part about keeping grip looser even than on a first serve
5) Took it easy, going for harmonious rhythm without muscling anything too much even through triceptic firing clearly is pure muscular discharge
6) Adjusted toss, contact point and elbow level to ensure an upward racket path at impact
7) Used extreme backhand grip in addition to curling wrist inward at outset of serve
8) Payed with the HUBR/VUBR ratio for most effective upward RHS (HUBR equals "horizontal upper body rotation"; VUBR equals "vertical upper body rotation"; RHS equals "racket head speed").

Serving this way is NOT a lousy idea. I've witnessed these serves working: In some cases the hand almost grazes the head. A distinguished member of the Wake Forest University women's varsity, from Russia, appears to use this method on first and second. Me, I want it as an option for second only. Then again, I am a "rotorded" server, which doesn't imply anything about the human mind although some would disagree. "Rotorded" refers to inflexibility in rotors in the shoulder.

So, can a rotorded server incorporate this provocative idea from Oscar Wegner, which gives up a primary late instant contributor to racket head speed in the first serve studies by Brian Gordon, viz., wrist flexion? Will it work? I think so although best response is still sporadic and I haven't mastered it yet.

[rosheem]

That description is similar to the feel I get on my second serve. Maximum upward racquet head speed is a good thing to shoot for. I think of it as throwing the hand straight up while using the other components of the motion to fling the strings through contact for the out-to-right acceleration.

One thing there is more of on my second serve is racquet lag. Not for extra speed, but to get the strings to move straight up the ball. The natural tendency is to swipe across the ball, but if the hand is thrown up while the lagging head is still catching up, by the time contact occurs, the strings can go more up instead of across.

Another point...for me, anyway, is to maintain the hand alignment so the hair can be "pushed forward and to the right" on the top of the head instead of allowing the palm to open, which would be more like pushing the hair from the neckline up the back of the head.

Another key feeling for me is that the harder and faster the hand is thrown in the upward direction, the harder and faster the rotation must be at the top of the stroke (maybe you could call it a flexion/pronation hybrid move) to ensure there is still a sensation of swimming over the top. This is the feeling of torque or opposing forces.

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Merci

Thanks. I'll try each of these ideas in my attempt to complete the exploration. I definitely was brushing the hair where there is hair.

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BH Ongoing Development

is such a trail that I wonder why anyone would want to follow it unless it were for the moral of TRAIL, i.e., learn how to trail-blaze and establish your own trail and then follow it to see where it goes.

I started with full swing one arm backhands like Don Budge or Roger Federer, abbreviated them to half-swing numbers more like John McEnroe and was pleased at the improvement.

I added my own rolled wrist straightening from sweep oar rowing, then sequenced it into roll of full arm to find the ball-- far superior, in my view, to the one-handers which use that same roll while hitting the ball instead. Boris Becker had more roll while hitting the ball; John McEnroe, characteristically, less-- he had already used that roll, earlier, as part of preparation rather than perpetration but with plenty of penetration.

Eventually I felt, conceptually, like straightening the arm a little farther back-- just because this felt good and might produce even more power. At the same time however I started missing a few more shots, which made perfect sense since I was swinging hard from farther back rather than feeling my way right up to the ball.

The solution would appear to be extending arm while rolling wrist straight exactly where that feels good but then add a bit of non-forcible whole arm easing swing while performing the whole arm roll-- which uses the old idea of a train moving slowly out of a station before turning on the power.

My acceleration then starts with an opening of the wrist straight along the
swing trajectory followed by a clenching of shoulderblades together. This method puts me on outside of ball and results in less racket head tract from
impact onward compared to the other one handers I see every day.

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Backhand Development Continuance

Have been re-reading TENNIS FOR THINKING PLAYERS by Chet Murphy. He suggests putting a few wrinkles in the wrist. That translates to my particular case as locking it as I've been doing to start the rip-- but doing so a bit less to form a slightly more narrow lock-- which melds well with the previous idea (#304) of adding a bit of slow swing to my second machination of twist.

Such slowness says to me, "Just call this whole part of the tract 'feeling for the ball.'"

A generalized idea, yes, but with specific details one soon can forget through committed practice.

Believing in an idea is half the battle when you know how many of your ideas have let you down before.

Besides tennis, I'm interested in history-- especially when I can relate to it with my hand. "You may carve your serves," John M. Barnaby said. "Don't carve your serves," Chet Murphy said. Between them was Timothy Gallwey, who wrote INNER TENNIS and THE INNER GAME OF TENNIS. I've always felt that Gallwey was rebelling against his college coach, Barnaby. And Murphy clearly was rebelling against Gallwey, whose books were so popular that they infused American tennis with a nebulous quality it still may not have escaped.

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Pooch Ace Go With

My best serve right now is pooch ace out wide (deuce court) or down the center (ad court). Unbeknownst to me, it has become faster and faster. I don't know why and needn't find out (Post # 290). What I do want is fast kick off of the same basic start.

Go back with slow knees but not forward with them (i.e., don't rotate them forward, only backward). The two serves are identical to this point.

Go forward with hip leading and finish the transition to front foot by bending knee more, now throw upward from left foot (quadriceps and triceps). Trust the quadriceps to overpower the triceps thus providing the linked sequence you desire. Straightening body, sometimes called "cartwheel," must remain subservient. If this move becomes too prominent a step all of its own, it separates the quadriceptic from the triceptic work, thus hopelessly interrupting flow of the throw and its building energy.

The knees start out fairly bent, like a golfer's. If they're too straight or too bent, they and the hips they control won't rotate properly (Boomer, and Ledbetter ripping off Boomer).

As you rotate backward in this "go with" serve the front knee should naturally start to thrust forward, thus providing a good transition to hip-led travel to front foot. Why lift the heel yet, however? Save that for final go down on knee and hurl the racket handle straight upward from ball of that foot.

From ball of foot to contact will be a straight shot. Racket is to go up the longest possible straight runway (Chris Lewit). You must have learned a wrist and arm twist combination that will work or maybe could learn it now.

The original backward turn of the knees, preserved, will, along with arch of whole back but primarily in mid-back region, provide more racket tip lowness.

Both of these serves start from an extreme stance.

One recurring, unanswered question in these posts is which is better, spaghetti arm, triceptic throw, or a combination of both. In pooch ace, with its third phase all out circular throw of the elbow, one wants spaghetti arm. In pooch kick, one wants a "fire the extensors, baby" throw.

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Advice for all Tennis Writers

There used to be more left-handers, according to Leonard Shlain, the late surgeon, scholar and anthropologist.

One bit of evidence is the number of cave paintings drawn by somebody's left hand.

As the number of left-handers continues to shrink, so too should the number of tennis articles in which the author says, "A left-hander would reverse everything I just said, haw-haw-haw, with right foot instead of left pointing at LEFT net post this time, by golly."

Since the best communication occurs when a listener, student or reader fills in the most important detail himself, and since many left-handers are dyslexic anyway, they love inverting tennis information for themselves and do it routinely without help.

Similarly, I, who am right-handed and just slightly dyslexic, sometimes can better apprehend video of a performing tennis player if he is a southpaw.

Just assume everybody is right-handed. You'll waste fewer words. Life will be sweet. The reader will feel less weary. And you'll probably be right.

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Go With, Cont'd

Turn knees back only as you shift weight onto front foot. Then go down on front foot some more just as arm achieves its right angle with hand quite far back and even with base of skull.

Should knees still be going back during the added bend? For a rotorded server, perhaps. The goal is best upward spin.

When, just to think about things, one holds racket in the lowest tip down position possible, one sees that one can gain a few inches more of lowness if knees and hips are still rotating backward just then.

Of course that's not how one serves. The racket tip only squeezes down as part of last instant double move embraced by leg extension. The arm 1) squeezes passively together and 2) vigorously, triceptically extends both while leg extension does its thing.

Should knees still be rotating backward as leg extends? It's an idea.

One wouldn't need to start knees backward as soon as for pooch ace, then, and toss would be unchallenged by body rotation.

Knees to rotate backward through three phases of the serve: 1) weight transfer onto front foot, 2) extra bending of front knee, 3) firing of leg extensor.

That should be enough of backward rotation phases.

On pooch ace serves, the knees rotate the opposite way, and early. I like to think of no pause between the two golfer's rotations whatsoever. You can keep both feet flat or try pulling left heel backward like Jack Nicklaus or pivot backward on the heel (three options). Change of direction can form a complete, natural arm loop. Slowness of the knees keeps toss relatively undisturbed.

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High Backhand Slice Revisited

It makes such a difference to know which way the arm ought to twist. Clockwise, NOT counter-clockwise, if you want to hit a sharp angled short crosscourt. (Clockwise if viewed from ABOVE!)

In other words, you carve around outside of the ball, possibly even as racket goes up similar to a serve but in all cases as racket chops back down.

This still isn't going to be clear to somebody. If you carved around outside of the ball on a serve you might get a decent and nicely unfashionable slice. (Helped me and my partner win a big division of a tournament in Berryville, Virginia one time.)

In "modern" serves both pronation (twist from forearm) and shoulder twist (unlike pronation a contributor to racket head speed) help one perform the upward action. Just take these same direction twistings, as they are, and move them over to the backhand side.

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A Last Word, I'd Say, If I Didn't Know Better

One quality has so far distinguished my careers as embassy chauffeur, census-taker and server of tennis balls-- the ability to get lost.

In mitigation, I shall endeavor today to pay more attention to just where the elbow is.

FLAT was helped if elbow passively got thumb near juncture of arm and neck rather than behind head (idea from Scott Murphy's TennisPlayer lessons). And if I then allowed elbow to throw upward toward body median.

PURE SLICE (my Pooch Ace is impure-- a blend of slice and flat) also was helped by the "juncture" tip if I remembered then not to change level of elbow, but throw with body, arm and murderous intention toward right fence rather than around.

KICK was nothing like what I envisioned. I encountered a good server yesterday at the court. We did our usual thing of playing points (one guy serves from both courts, then the other guy does the same thing).

Intelligence from my kick serve exceeded the thoughts I then had overnight, i.e., I did certain things that caused him trouble on his returns, and I need to remember them, to continue them.

First, the elbow will throw forward toward the net as if thumb is stuck in the juncture as a pivot point.

Seeing this movement demonstrated, one might get confused and think that it ought to be slow. Just the opposite. Arm extension must occur while leg extension still is happening-- Chet Murphy tip-- with as much of serve as possible fast and linked.

We have to THINK in slow motion, however. The triceps and shoulder rotors now take over, i.e, the racket goes straight up while twisting left and then to right, and as racket head speeds to right it takes the whole arm with it.

But let's back off from these thoughts for now. Think how far forward the elbow gets at point of maximum stored energy in a conventional flat or sliced serve (leg at mid-extension, racket tip at low point for immediate throw).

The upper arm is almost but not quite parallel to baseline. For rough calculation of where elbow should be, alternatively, for kick release, add 90 degrees of level turn toward net.

Such a construction is apt to be weak. And one would prefer generation of energy equivalent to the other serves, thus necessitating re-design.

"It's not what you don't know that hurts you. It's what you know that just ain't so." -- Satchel Paige

I'll settle for a first experiment now on toss going up as racket tip bends arm up to a right angle, same as in any old-fashioned Lloyd Budge serve.

This bending of arm happens later in most of anybody's good serves nowadays coincident with body press forward.

So, body press forward now is to be coincident with the two halves of my arm
squeezing together, from willpower, this time, mimicking the usual passive reaction to leg extension in which compressing arm finishes loop and then extends in rapid sequence.

But I'm not interested in loading the upper arm-- not yet. That is another difference in the mimicry from the original.

The usual loading of arm takes elbow forward 90 degrees in passive reaction to leg extension.

Everything, in terms of power, is the same, only the elbow is 90 degrees farther forward. In old fashioned slice it turns about 90 degrees; in flat it turns about 90 degrees. Here it turns about 90 degrees. It's just a different 90 degrees.

Does this new 90 degrees cause hand to brush hair forward on top of the head? Yes if arm is relaxed enough so that the centrifugation opens it a bit from the elbow.

Arm will now extend racket straight up from the triceps muscle as rotor muscles spin racket first to left and then to right blending into linear movement of whole arm in that direction.

This design overcomes the rotorded server's endemic weakness of not getting racket tip low enough.

Racket tip doesn't get low but it does go far-- very far at a pretty good clip, thus giving itself space in which to accelerate.

Many thanks to Rosheem for his input (post # 302), which helps a lot in this special adaptation.

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Liquifying the Previous Instruction

What works and should work better and better is, if doing everything as described in Post # 310, one curls wrist inward during the toss rather than assume that position before the entire service motion begins.

This gets the racket tip pointing at left fence during the toss leading to more horizontal swirl as elbow throws (at half-speed) the first 90 degrees while body bends.

There's a bit of "needle-threading" in this section, i.e., the two threads of upper and lower arm combine as if to go through an eye. I'm for staying loose and resisting any impulse to twist upper arm backward during this part of the tract.

The developmental challenge is to preserve most of the passive moves one employs on other serves.

Upper arm will load (or twist like an axle) and elbow will rise higher than it already was-- very much a conventional pattern. Perhaps one also has mastered twist of forearm outward as part of the passiveness. Perhaps instead one twists racket tip outward in first part of arm extension. That discussion is rendered mute. Turning wrist inward helps one better to forget certain things. (Wrist and forearm turned in becomes wrist and forearm turned out through simple, natural inversion.)

Passive compression then can be mostly the same as in other serves with one big exception: The two halves of the arm won't come together from a right angle since they already did that by "threading the needle."

A series of negative experiments in fact led me off the radio beam of post # 310 . They all were about what you can and cannot eliminate from passive compression in the more forward elbow position.

Worst probably was pivoting elbow 180 degrees on a level plane rather than 90 . You want to save the final 90 degrees and make it passive as it twists upward-- I'm quite sure.

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Liquefaction: Get the Action and the Spelling Right

In post # 311 I suggested that curling the wrist inward as part of bending the arm to a right angle created "swirl." And swirl definitely can be an aqueous term. So, swirl toward left fence and then right fence. Arm bend starts this motion; arm blend and horizontal bringing around of elbow continues it.

For what distance though? For the distance that produces the highest bounce.

I'd love to say you should "swing" the elbow around yet don't believe this is true. Better if the motion remains liquid. One significant difference from many other sub-tour (and sad to say mediocre) serves is that this liquid "half-swing" is actually contributing to racket head speed through the time-force principle.

The racket tip swirls from way back. "A small force applied for a longer period of time can result in racket speed equal to that gained by a larger force applied for only a brief period."-- Chet Murphy, page 59, TENNIS FOR THINKING PLAYERS, in which book section Murphy explains this phenomenon among the most basic known ways of increasing racket head speed in all tennis strokes.

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Personalized Rotorded Kick, Cont'd

Similar, but with a new emphasis on taking elbow BACK, i.e., wrist inwardly curls racket toward left fence as arm bends to a right angle, and now, instead of circling elbow around toward net, one uses the same smooth contuation in a rearward direction squeezing arm together (completely together or not?) and twisting shoulder rotors down. One really feels like a big league pitcher arched at top of his wind-up-- a position of strength which one can actively seek.

One can slightly continue the compression of all this in what comes next: Drive from leg and elbow swim-throwing forward to the hitting position one has probably already achieved in other methods.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obliterate 50 per cent of the foregoing. Having hand far back is a solidly good idea, but I am returning to "a lot of power in a short space," as in other serves. For me, this means tossing with the racket hand fairly low, then bending the arm while turning in the wrist, and forming butt-scratch with leg extension, which gets elbow up late but where I want it.

There was upward spin but not enough power the other way, in my view.

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Elbow in, holds, then throws up. Standard Wrist-cocking

Anyone who wants to learn from a good Roger Federer second serve kick out wide will never ever in their whole life have a better self-educational chance than now exists in the Interactive Forum.

Education never happens in an English class until a bumblebee flies through the window. Nobody sees the painting they are looking at in an art museum until a worker falls through the skylight, according to Walker Percy, the late New Orleans area novelist.

The awakening surprise in the Interactive Forum is that the out wide serve that everybody thought was first, hard slice in deuce court, is second, hard kick out wide in ad court, but still match point in Cincinnati.

By now John has the match point up, for anyone to see. And how it complements the 500-frame slo-mo of the same exact serve! You can
go back and forth from one to the other. That's another educational idea. 500-frame shows certain truths. Natural time shows certain others.

Another lesson coming out of this is that there is not as much difference between great first and second serves and their direction as most people believe. Educational articles in this site have expressed that argument before.

I decided to come back here because I would be embarrassed if I wrote four
posts in a row in such a public thread. Since my method or madness, take your pick, is to talk about personal over generalized experience whenever possible, I'll tell you, dear reader, I announced that I was going to do an
experiment in delaying the twisting backward of upper arm.

Well, I did it. The result was negative. Best, I'm pretty sure, is what Roger appears to do in the natural time video. Upper arm twists backward as much as it can with elbow being held low-- from squeezed arm at beginning of leg drive and then the wrist cock blends in. (This all looks leg-driven.) Now racket is away from body, maybe a foot-and-a-half or two feet from right edge of body turned well back, with tip pointed almost straight down. The upper body rotation is almost entirely of the vertical or shoulder over shoulder variety. One sequence: 1) upper arm twists backward 2) wrist cocks 3) forearm tocks while arm halves are glued together but continues tocking (outward) until halfway up arm extension when upper arm starts twisting everything the other way.

For more on all this, if you haven't done so already, I would go to Interactive Forum right now and see everything and read everything too and then contribute-- why not?

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Rules are Made to be Broken by Those who Know them

Rule: Toss before or after bend of your knees but not during.

Breaking it: You can toss whenever you think best. If bending your knees while tossing, just bend them slowly. But if you want to break that rule, too, start early and maybe even bend your knees marginally before the hands go down and keep bending them very, very slowly even while gliding forward and then bend the front leg a little more.

It's not what Roger Federer does; but, so what!

NOTE: Start stealing from Roger the micro-instant that front knee is fully bent.