A New Year's Serve

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More on John McEnroe's Backhand as a Model

Personally, I think the JMBH as productive model makes more sense than Roger Federer, Ivan Lendl, Justine Henin, Ivan Ljubicic, Eliot Teltscher, Brian Gottfried, Evonne Goolagong, Donald Budge or almost any other great one-hander anybody can think of.

First, the JMBH is almost as minimalist as the short straight back backhands favored by most of those tennis instructors who actually do teach one-handers nowadays.

Loop, however, is declared essential to a good one-hander by no less a master than E. Teltscher. Okay, so JM has a loop. The difference, compared to RF, say, is that the loop is small.

One probable reason people DON'T emulate JM is his zany, hump-wristed grip. Who else did that? Arthur Ashe. And JM places big knuckle on 1.5 for all of his strokes as revealed in YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS. What all this means is that wrist goes from humped to straight in the "turn the corner" phase of his arm swing. But why doesn't he hit the ball up into the sky? Because he rolls his arm to close his racket face, i.e., he keeps his elbow in, twisting it down. How much does he or doesn't he roll his forearm, too (?), one might wonder, but this is an academic question for someone with an eastern backhand grip.

Directing one's energies to finding one's own best way to round the corner sharply like Arthur Ashe or John McEnroe seems preferable over lockstep imitation of one or the other.

The goal again, re-phrased, is-- without using any disruptive muscular effort-- to push the racket tip ahead of the hand before the most vigorous part of the stroke.

What are the elements available for doing this? Moving wrist from concave to straight to concave again. Rolling the forearm clockwise. Rolling the elbow clockwise. But in what sequence or amounts or simultaneity? There is only one answer, and it comes in a single word: Invent.

Essential to the enterprise, as far as I'm concerned, is a very old tennis idea implicit in the McEnroe strips and in my old Arco book in which one riffles pages to see Evonne Goolagong clobber/caress the ball. This latter film has no soundtrack unless one is a poker shark super-sensitive to the noise of shuffling cards.

Thinking McEnroe only now, I say two counts to get the shoulders and bent arm turned back, one count including body segmentation and forward shoulders turn and rolling down of the racket tip to take all slack out of the arm (the very old tennis idea), one count to turn the corner with hand still held back, and a big fifth hitting count in which gross body takes over.

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So That was the Long Version

And here's the short version, followed by a question.

"Sling the racket head at the ball." -- Arthur Ashe

Is the shape of such a swing, which starts with a SLING, compatible with finding the ball? Won't slinging the racket destroy one's hand-eye coordination?

Answer: Slinging racket moves its tip a lot but not the hand.

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Ricky Fowler Upside Down

When no less a tennis authority than Howard Brody at the University of Pennsylvania appears to subscribe to his colleagues' assertion that a tennis serve is a golf swing upside down, we tennis neophytes if not tennis sheeple must make the moral choice: I want more power-- I know that-- but which sport shall I study today?

If tennis, the tennis gods will remain appeased, but we and you or "little u-i" as the late E.E. Cummings used to say, may become "a dull boy" as the late Fotherington Tomas-- a fictive creation of Geoffrey Wilkerson, the Brit-- used to say.

So let all games begin, say I, and who can deny that the entire golf world is a-buzz about a new cover story in Golf Magazine by the young powerhouse Ricky Fowler.

I only read the article in a doctor's waiting room with half-attention, I freely confess.

Fowler, on take-back, nevertheless keeps his lower legs more still than the great Jack Nicklaus, who likes to jive with his knees and heels a very small bit, and Tiger, too, and beyond either one of these three are millions of shankers who are altogether too loosey-goosey with their legs and hips and therefore lose three-quarters of their power.

Best amount of tension in lower body, it would seem, enables the big rubber bands in one's middle to wind and stretch with less self-consciousness and most directness, fullness, harshness and purity.

As soon as one's shoulders have slowly wound to the max, Fowler insists, one can immediately crank one's hips with all that one's got the opposite way.

"Immediately" means with no self-conscious faltering or pause.

So in tennis serving, a right-side up sport, if one can also figure out a way effectively and with no self-consciousness to toss while shoulders are still turning back, one can eliminate the usual delay before one blasts off with legs and hips and achieve good result.

Note: I haven't had time to experiment yet, so feel free, dear reader, to beat me to it.

P.S. I changed profession at the age of 14 when a garlic-chewing golfer threw his clubs off of the 400-foot-high Indian mound in Granville, Ohio and said, "Caddy, go get them."

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Have You Ever Read an Article

that said that kinetic chain (feet to knees, knees to hips, upper body, arm and racket) is superior/inferior to Degas dancer hips spinning at the center of your body with two different force fields emanating up and down?

Me neither. Nor have I read an article rejecting the premises of such basic options in favor of a third way of serving that emphasizes vertical thrust. Even VT serving on the tour has its successive rotational components-- no?

Just didn't want to see you get too complacent about whatever it is you do, dear reader.

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1HBH Design (Evolution)

When Mauro Marcos describes a one-hand backhand in the following video, he's trying to reach 10,000 people:

http://www.coachkyriltennis.com/wordpress/

When I describe a new one-hand backhand idea, I'm trying to reach one person-- myself-- and if three others overhear me, that's more than sufficient.

If I bowl straight like Mauro, I know that my racket face will constantly open unless I minimize this by rolling my arm slightly.

And I'm not afraid to discuss the different arm roll possibilities-- all of them. Is that too left brain of me, dear reader?

My idea of the day is, starting with strong eastern backhand grip and a concave wrist, twist racket tip down with the forearm, then twist it up through elbow turning down, i.e., with the shoulder, then lower it again through rolling the wrist straight during the upward bowl past contact.

This pattern is counterintuitive. The overly logical mind says, "If the racket tip starts down, I want it to continue down," and one soon will see that one can hit the ball that way. The ultimate question as always is what works best.

However, if following the newer idea, one can then return the wrist to concave at the very end of the follow-through thus following the ancient Budgian pattern described by the tennis writers Talbert and Olds.

After that, if one is a real masochist, one may reconsider the wrists and milder grips of both John McEnroe and Don Budge. Do they have wrist give in their backhands like many staple forehands nowadays? Does wrist go forward or backward while they hit the ball?

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Every Kind of Roll: ALL the Possibilities

Talkin about the 1hbh. Why accept anyone's word for anything if you possess all the capability to develop your own criterion? You have to experiment, work at it. You can't be lazy.

Of course if you don't have that much capability, as expressed in frequent griping about your lack of time, sign on with Sun Mung Prettybun Moocow.

Here's a new roll idea, at least from my standpoint. And there may be an infinite supply of roly-poly ideas available in the tennis universe.

Using an eastern backhand grip with heel of hand on 7.5 and with wrist quite concave as you look down upon it, roll your racket open from the forearm, then close it by rolling your elbow down then bowl up to and past the ball with wrist straightening-- backward you could say-- during the contact.

Did that work? Then be emboldened, or bow like Mauro after he hits a cone (see previous post). Wouldn't it be fun to hit just one backhand like John McEnroe in one's life?

Put big knuckle on 1.5 . Start with a straight wrist. Roll open racket with forearm as before, but at the same time hump the wrist in the most unhealthy fashion possible. Close racket and make the short corner by rolling down elbow as before.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHCenterFront.mov

As you bowl up to the ball move wrist back to straight. Nothing unhealthy about that. As you strike the ball, slightly hump the wrist again to provide some give to the ball. Do it just the right amount.

Pantomime the whole action again.

Now pull out a copy of DON BUDGE: A TENNIS MEMOIR, Viking Press, if you have it. The dust jacket has to be intact. Ignore the forehand on the front-- too good for a normal human being. Turn the book over and read the caption:
"Don Budge displays his famous backhand in a match with Baron Gottfried von Cramm at Wimbledon in 1935 ."

Note where big knuckle is on his racket. Note the configuration of his wrist (slightly convex, i.e., humped). Compare with John McEnroe and Arthur Ashe.

Be happy with arm bowl for now. Add power later perhaps. One obvious power source would be to clench shoulder-blades together.

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Another Source of Power

would be to row like an oarsman, specifically, to use a combination of leg drive and back straightening, just as Pancho Segura used to do on his two-hand forehand.

(Check clip just above one more time to try and isolate this phenomenon.)

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All the Way with J.M.

"But you can't do that-- he's a genius and you're just an ordinary person!"

Well, stuff it, say I. A genius is more simple. The continental grip variation works better than the eastern backhand version (post # 351). Genius shouldn't imitate ordinary people, e.g., Obama following Bush's bad examples, or Donald Budge telling his tennis students to put their big knuckle on top of the racket even though he himself didn't do that when defeating Baron von Cramm.

Conversely, ordinary people should imitate the elegance of genius whenever possible. But ordinary people are usually too complicated for that.

As arm and body both take racket down, curling wrist does, too, and even the legs, sometimes, can bend an extra amount from where they already are if they want to. There's more of a distinct gathering of frisbee-like force.

Now the stroke starts forward, in more concentrated form. The elbow stays in place, at first, rolling down. The wrist straightens at the same moment-- how John McEnroe turns such a sharp corner.

Does this method "sling the racket at the ball" as Arthur Ashe recommended? Precisely.

The racket head gets flung, and the rowing body with clenching shoulder-blades counters the fling. The racket, caught between, whips. The wrist can relax at contact as if to catch the ball.

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Dialing the Right Numbers

The universal grip system of TennisPlayer is very useful. But one has to start counting on top panel and not finish there. Thus Roger Federer's most conventional forehand grip is 3/3 as if he went "palm slide close trigger."

Recently, while afflicted by an evil spell cast by Morgan le Fey, I described John McEnroe's single grip for all shots as big knuckle on 1.5 and was far from the truth since 2.5 is where that big knuckle resides.

Similarly, Donald Budge's big knuckle, as seen on the backhand cover of DON BUDGE: A TENNIS MEMOIR is somewhere around 2.5 or 2.0 as he displeases Adolf Hitler in 1935 .

Now, let's get the rhythm numbers right for John McEnroe's frisbee-like backhand as well, a subject which interests me not only for reason of tennis aspiration but because I've never thrown a frisbee as well as either of my two brothers.

Two counts to get slice-ready wrist back. Two counts to get racket cocked on straightened arm and curled wrist down low behind rear hip. One count to let the contraption go, with the mechanics of this final hitting count "FIVE!" explained in more detail in my previous posts.

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Michigan Turn Backhand—Different from Winston-Salem Backhand

Why not try a backward moving wrist on backhand as well as forehand? I took this notion from my first mixed doubles match in Michigan, during which I had two c-grip adventures. The opposite male was a teaching pro roughly my age who decided to give me the benefit of his doubt.

Those two most interesting shots I hit, unexpectedly effective, in my own view, were a lob and half-volley, both rushed on a day in which I didn’t feel sharp. Both times the racket butt flashlighted toward the ball and the wrist moved backward very late. In a McEnroe backhand this filmed phenomenon is perhaps more visible than in a Federfore.

Well may we ask: In the parlance of tennis, does “wrist moving backward” mean the wrist moves forward while the hand moves backward? Once you have reached your decision, dear reader, you will be ready to continue paying attention to this blog.

Me, as a direct result of the two shots, I chose a conceptual return to Barnabian Bonk of the netpost. No wrist will want to move forward when encountering a netpost. But the wrist might consider offering some give for absorption as in catching a ball. This is the experiment and it might apply to a whole bunch of tennis shots, e.g., were we all not instructed to lead with the wrist on every volley and exactly what does that mean—static
lead or lead that internally moves?

And what could the same concept mean applied to a ground stroke? That you could continue whatever bonk you had going not just as you approach the ball but as you hit it? The weak grips of Arthur Ashe and John McEnroe allow them to do this well, I think, to “turn the corner” as they hit the ball but not before. The bonk—the heel or edge of the hand—is total karate except for the WRIST. If one brings over from slice one’s knowledge of abrupt racket direction change for an easy burst of acceleration, the racket can go BUTT FIRST THEN BUTT FIRST IN ANOTHER DIRECTION WHICH IS LOWER ON THE ARM IN THE DRIVE NOT SLICE VERSION.

The big roll of this shot (muscles working in both upper and lower arm) is countered by the wrist moving backward.

What does the experiment look like with racket in the hand?

Lloyd Budge thought that the musculo-skeletal structure of the wrist—or “stirrup”—naturally tightened for contact. Talbert and Olds, or maybe one or the other, thought the wrist should be laid back, then straighten, then continue moving after the contact, which would re-transform it (the wrist) into a concave position—no?

Well, say “no,” dear reader, if you’d like. That would be perfectly all right. For who can know exactly what these old tennis engineers were getting at, not with all tennis language as ambiguous as it is.

My humble belief is that Lloyd Budge, Bill Talbert and Bruce Olds talked about the Don Budge backhand but only Don Budge ever hit it. And his later coach Tom Stow never messed with it, not once. And the back flyleaf of Don Budge’s TENNIS MEMOIR, a photo of him hitting his famous backhand against Gottfried von Cramm, may very well picture a wrist which is moving backward.

[gzhpcu]

This is a very, very long thread, and, consequently, with a certain sense of trepidation I will risk making a couple of comments (based on what I think I picked up towards the last 10 or so posts...):

If I do not want to have a strain on my wrist, I want to get the palm of the hand behind the racket handle. This is why I never used the continental grip on either forehand or backhand. I use eastern forehand, eastern backhand.

I feel that the topspin backhand is a mirror image of the forehand to a certain extent (excluding the body rotation):

- forehand: laid back wrist/flexion at the bottom of the swing, supination at the bottom of the swing to enhance and speed up (stretch-shorten cycle) the subsequent pronation of the forearm needed for the windshield wiper motion. To accentuate the low to high motion, the racket frame is angled downwards when coming forward prior to impact.
- backhand: laid back wrist/flextion at the the bottom of the swing , pronation at the bottom of the swing to enhance the speed up (stretch-shorten cycle) the subsequent supination of the forearm to hit up and across the ball. To accentuate the low to high motion, the racket frame is angled downwards when coming forward prior to impact. The finish is high, however, and not near the hip.

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No Reason for Trepidation!

Phil, I must have agreed entirely for most of my tennis life since I had the grips on both sides you describe and probably the supinations and pronations, too. That would be 30 years of non-stop tennis.

I wonder, though, if maybe one's wrist doesn't get strong after three decades, in which case one could try something new but only if one wanted to. As Martina Navratilova pointed out in the Tennis Channel coverage of the French Open, one can hit a backhand with any grip one chooses, that there isn't a rule, that controlling the pitch is what matters, that different people have differently constructed wrists that are only strongest when they use the best tailormade grip.

This is an argument against one size fits all, for sure, and you've got to hand it to Martina for trying to help people open up and become more sophisticated, and why shouldn't we consider her own backhand grip when evaluating possibilities since she did pretty well in tennis?

Could lack of sophistication be the trouble with American tennis-- it's possible!

That said, I believe that both Arthur Ashe and Donald Budge urged their students to put more meat behind their backhand grips than either of them themselves did.

So should I now do as they said or do as they did?

In one film I saw, Ashe pointed out that the less meat behind the handle, the more one has to rely on timing to achieve the same effective strength. That might explain John McEnroe's backhand as well as Arthur's own.

Combine this with all the new information on "absorption" in ground strokes and you might have an interesting new working idea.

Strings give when you hit the ball but so does the hand and wrist.

If the wrist is moving BACKWARD do you strain it?

Public discussion has concentrated on forehand wrist give so far. But what applies to the forehand may also apply to the backhand, as you yourself suggested, and thanks.

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More on One Hand Backhand

People need more latitude in tennis, I think, more ideas from which to choose.

Instead of declaring any one of the following three filmstrips more useful than the others, let's compare them if we can. First, Martina Navratilova:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_woman/martinanavratilova/nav_net/nav_approach_and_volley/nav_approach_and_volley.html?MartinaBHRet2ndSFHHalfVRear.mov

Second, John McEnroe:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHShortRear.mov

Third, Coach Kyril:

http://www.coachkyriltennis.com/wordpress/how-roger-federer-hits-those-wicked-one-handed-backhands-and-how-you-can-do-it-too/

Obviously Navratilova and McEnroe, using continental grip, don't hit the ball up into the sky, but Coach Kyril's lesson is nevertheless a great one, with heart in the right place and revealing a clear enthusiasm for helping anyone.

So, when I try Coach Kyril's demonstrated backhand later this afternoon (no tilting backward like McEnroe in the middle of the stroke and therefore more simplicity with shoulders level throughout-- hoorah) I'll steal it in a nano-second if it's better than what I already have.

I've always been partial to a five-count rhythm and see two counts here to get shoulders around, one to raise arm a slight bit, one to golf arm down easily and fifth devoted to a final rip.

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Golfer Snake

Three sets of guest mens doubles last night tell me that the new backhand isn't ready yet.

So I'll try it with a different one of many possible formation counts: 1) shoulders around 2) racket up 3) and 4) downward spoke of the U; finally, 5) the rip.

People talk about whether Wegner, Braden, Lansdorp, Bolletieri, Mauriesmo, Mandlikova, Rolley, or Ziegenfuss is a genius or a buffoon, but more interesting is practical application to one's own game of what each of these coaches or anyone has to say.

Monica Seles used two hands on both sides and I use two hands on neither, but I think she is the clearest illustration of effective delayed takeback in the modern era.

Seles would measure each shot with both hands before she took the racket back. She would move to the ball with head lean and simultaneous pivot and running that placed her hands close to where she soon would hit the ball.

In my electronic communications with Bungalow Bill-- which weren't all cantankerous by any means-- he said that he himself lines up the ball with his lead shoulder rather than with his hand.

A useful idea. Still level shoulders with hand rising slowly and slightly behind could become an effective siting mechanism, like a snake with the slightest motion readying itself to strike.

Films of the Federer and McEnroe backhands show a more leisurely turning back of the shoulders as these two great players glide to the ball. The videos bring to mind some basic options seldom discussed together all at once. Should one use a full loop as they do or take the racket back straight or golf it up and down like Bjorn Borg or Ivan Lendl? Should one wind shoulders back smoothly and slowly like McEnroe and Federer or yank suddenly with left hand on racket throat as Nick Bolletieri used to preach? If one is going to YANK or merely take the racket back with rapidity, a fair question remains of whether this action should be delayed and not come too soon.

On the other hand, since shoulders originally turn as part of first movement one could maximize this motion and have less to do-- if one wants to run with midsection muscles fully stretched.

Doesn't this discussion relate to keeping the racket in front and then using left hand to point at the right fence on a forehand? You can't use a full unit turn as they taught us at the NTA and then turn a whole lot more by pointing with left hand, too-- that's overkill, awkward, inelegant.

Conventional tennis instruction, whether it understands this or not, seeks to deaden the soul of American kids and bore them to death along with its dreadful tendency toward overly early preparation.

I admire Oscar's idea that experienced players ruin their strokes through pulling the trigger too soon more often than by pulling it too late.

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One Hand Backhand: the Joy of Circularity

The reason I go round and around, tennis instructors, is that YOU taught me eighth grade carpentry when I sought the cabinetmaking of the Danish master Gordon Frid.

So, slice today (after the sun comes up) turns into topspin. Chopper grip turns into Kyril grip with everything going backward and rolling right up to the ball. Wrist is never fixed. The fingers tighten for impact as wrist still straightens back for absorption. The wrist only gets fully straight at impact.