A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Of course one could do the relaxed fingers trick but do it a bit later so that body rotation alone could initiate the stroke.

I haven't tried that for a couple of centuries.

[bottle]

Alternate Methods of Grip Change

Upon further reflection, the grip change used by Mikhail Youzhny amounts to fingers adjusting more on the handle than handle adjusting within the fingers.

This removes the slight roughness in takeback present in the alternate method outlined above. It also changes just where the racket tip will point at different micro-moments in the whole cycle of backswing and strike.

"Cycle" may be the appropriate word for any 360-degree sequence where racket tip ends where it began.

[bottle]

Flying Grip Change: A Computer Worm Infecting Certain Backhands?

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. --Shakespeare

Mikhail Youzhny adjusts his fingers more on the handle than his handle within his fingers.

But Stanislas Wawrinka waits with a backhand grip. Or so it seems to me.

That other watch-maker, Roger Federer, might do a little of both. Sometimes he seems to be working his hand on the racket while in ready position, shifting grip back and forth. In the beginning of his forehands I see more finger movement than on most of his backhands. Am I wrong?

The numbers say people are reading my tennis comments, so, player, feel free to tell me if you've reached different conclusions about Youzhny's, Wawrinka's or Federer's grips. Let us agree that it's difficult for us amateurs to see such subtleties in the movies. It much easier to feel one's own racket in one's hand.

But Youzhny waits with his forehand grip, no? And, as I've now said three times, he adjusts his fingers on the handle more than adjusts the handle within his fingers.

Some of the old coaches who advocated flying grip change or said very little about grip change at all were some of the same old coaches who advocated, in words or by example, preparation in which a right-hander placed racket wide to the outside with arm pointing at the left fence.

Then, when they stepped either straight toward the net or on a 45-degree angle or more to the outside, their racket tip could automatically go farther back, affording them the chance to make a good if not great swipe-- since racket tip moved abruptly backward in the beginning as well, with all such movement adding up to something workable.

I'm just exploring as usual. I'm eager to see, next Wednesday, if a Youzhny type grip change will improve my backhand timing so that with a 360-degree swipe-- something I don't plan to use all the time-- I can still make contact on the outer edge of the ball.

[bottle]

1HTSBH: Racket Head Speed in the Movies

One old VHS had you cranking your shoulders until you abruptly stopped them, thereby accelerating the arm.

This new theory, untried, has you golfing your arm down and through and up until you abruptly stop your elbow, thereby enabling you to better concentrate on twisting it since you surely wanted to do something just then to put strings on outer edge of ball and didn't want your just restrained elbow to get bored.

Okay, you've just turned the corner and as sharply as possible. And yet the ball and your racket and the contact are still on the left side of your body.

From contact onward (to right side of your body) you clench your shoulder-blades while moving elbow out to yardarm extension or beyond.

Elbow, in summary in this theory which will be cockamamie only if it doesn't immediately produce great shots: Elbow goes, slows, goes again.

[bottle]

Opening a Can of Grips but not Worms

To laugh at, to sneer, is what tennis players of certain attainment do. I don't know for sure but suspect that the topmost players are above this (and maybe are topmost-- occasionally-- through being nice). And as far as technique is concerned, I've always thought that it comes from everybody, that anyone from any level of play has just as good a chance of understanding something exotic as anyone else, if not of personally putting it into effect.

Whether or not this view is cockamamie, I now continue my discussion of Mikhail Youzhny's backhand and combine it with Coach Kyril's advocacy of diagonal grip.

Heavily influenced as I am by the little known teachings of John M. Barnaby, I invoke here a central tenet of his, that body can go in one direction, racket work radically in another.

So, to further consider the Youzhny 1HTSBH, in which Mikhail straightens his arm earlier than Roger, there's therefore one less variable to control in coming into contact, so it's a good stroke to think about. Master its elements and then return to a more prolonged straightening of the arm, or not?

We've been tending, in recent posts, toward more delay of final roll of the arm, namely "turning the corner" while shot is still on left side of body as you just come into contact.

With the diagonal grips I've examined, this roll takes the racket tip more toward net for a crunched, flat shot which someone might call "slapped."

With grip at same setting, but in right-angled or hammer configuration, the racket head rises on a steep or nearly vertical path.

For best combination of spin and weight in that case, the spin of frame upward will have to be strong and confident yet controlled or "in hand" and probably slower than macho players (most male players) think.

At the exact same time body travel through the ball will have to be very good.

[bottle]

Youzhny vs. Wawrinka

Everybody should be on the lookout for easy explanation that isn't too technical but still can help someone achieve a specific goal. I am the someone in this case, and I've been thinking a lot about Youzhny's backhand, which subject has spilled over into Wawrinka's backhand. The two are similar but Youzhny rolls the racket more. You can see this by examining the rackets when they are low. Youzhny's is more open, Wawrinka's more closed-- I think Wawrinka straightens his wrist as he straightens his arm.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/stanislas_wawrinka/sw_backhand/sw_bh_center/sw_bh_center.html?SWBHCenterClosedStanceCourtLevelFront.mov

Taking just Wawrinka now (but with much overlap between the two), he, Wawrinka, lifts racket with arm close to body. Teaching pros in nearly all cases will tell you to get your racket back fast, but I tell you, compared to what is about to happen, this is the slow part.

Now it's an easy rhythm to contact, so unified that it seems minimal and not the long swing generating racket head speed that it actually is.

Slow the action down or stop it with one's computer and one sees, from here to contact 1) upper register horizontal swing (a yard long), 2) loop down (a yard long), 3) lower register horizontal swing (about four feet long), 5) only about 10 degrees arm roll combined with 30 degrees upward path from arm LIFT.

[gzhpcu]

Archer's Bow

You like the archer's bow... so here is a video for you bottle...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGRDVTb35KY

[bottle]

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." -- Tennyson

Thanks, Phil. This is a new experiment for anyone, it seems to me. Not that I or anyone hasn't been here before. There's always a slight difference to recurring experiments, however, if any other change is also in the works. How will the changes complement each other, or will that happen at all?

People who criticize this return principle ("You're going in circles!") are often superstitious labelers who have, unnecessarily, handicapped their own mind and limited the actual possibilities open to THEMSELVES. Then they wonder why their game is stale.

If nothing else, this filmstrip is simplification. Many players see Roger bend his knees as he bends his arm. Others first bend their knees as their hands go down. But this video is saying, at least to me, "Try starting with knees already bent. Then move them straight toward the net. Then bend them a little more (while moving them toward net a little more, too)."

This information certainly combines with some provocative thought by Mark Papas at "Revolutionary Tennis" website. A good question is whether it combines with platform stance. Don't see why not. But I haven't tried it yet. I'll try it then return to what I've been doing just like somebody on the tour.

Or unlike that person on the tour, I might keep it. There are distinct advantages to being a lesser player.

Does the lesser player wake up in the middle of a night sweat and cry out to himself, "I won't go backwards!" I can imagine a tour player doing that.

When one plays once a week, waiting for Spring, the experiments may add up. Now I have two of these print jobs queued up for indoor tennis tomorrow night: The Wawrinka backhand and this serve.

This is too much. I am very apt not to play well.

But I don't care. Just need to remind myself that any new experiment is part of others and therefore is more interesting than winning/losing.

So don't choose me for your doubles partner! Thanks again.

[bottle]

Backhands: Youzhny, Wawrinka, Federer

I want to add Roger to the comparison in #561, which got a favorable, unsolicited review, privately sent.

Youzhny and Wawrinka: a big box loop with four sides. Who knew that? I sure didn't. And tennis instruction like other forms of education is not about the brilliance of someone's presentation. It's rather about how some student received the material and made it her or his own.

A single missing element in the student's understanding is a torpedo sure to scuttle the precision of any great one-hander, topspun.

So a pox on any explainer who doesn't hit the important stuff in this or any other subject. I'm now emphasizing lower register sideways swing parallel to both the court and the rear fence as crucial.

Youzhny appears to use a square box similar to Wawrinka, but keeps his wrist at a single setting. They both get arm straight behind the back. For more, see # 561 .

Federer's loop has the same four sides only it's more rounded. With the other two, the elbow pretty much swings the racket in high register-- that doesn't change its verticality very much-- well, a bit more for Youzhny. Then elbow is quiet while arm straightens.

Federer, he starts keying the racket head more to go behind his still winding back, then keys to lower register, then swings the elbow. They all swing the elbow in lower register, and that's a fair cue. Swing of the elbow can be with a straight or bent arm-- Roger's is bent. This means that, unlike the other two, Roger has bend available to add to racket head speed coming into the ball.

Which works best? Probably a different choice in the case of each amateur trying to learn this stuff.

[bottle]

Wiper the Viper in a Gutter Next to a School

Will Hamilton has made something clear to me-- a forehand question I've wondered about for years.

Somewhere in the jungle two hours from Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka: One of the two teachers with whom I stayed in a corrugated schoolhouse out in the middle of an open field wielded a camp flashlight and cried: "John, come with us. You may see a serpent. It is one of the vipers we were talking about."

In Hamilton's explanation at Fuzzy Tennis Balls, wiper is something that happens in follow-through. But don't blame me too much. If you scissor your arm early from straight to bent, you're creating a kind of wiper before contact, too. Just don't confuse yourself further with this, reader. The wiper happening after contact can come from elbow turning over.

Whatever you do, try to get the strings to rise in a straight line below and immediately above contact if you can. I detect a scenario here on a ball of a certain lowness where arm scissoring and slight rise of elbow will cancel each other out and thus preserve the perfect alignment that hold-out champions of one elbow setting on all forehands over-value so much.

In any case, if you go with Hamilton and declare wiper as something occurring strictly after contact, you will probably think more clearly-- a perennial problem for tennis players everywhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtuTHsFlfGg&feature=relmfu

For gone from consideration will be any wiper before contact. That leaves 1) scissoring and 2) elbow lifting in different or no amounts as the variables one can play with if more topspin than on a flat shot is the goal.

[gzhpcu]

Bottle,
Have you ever considered that trying to get our tennis strokes right is somewhat akin to the labors of Sisyphus?

[bottle]

Absolutely. But sometimes you can get your racket underneath and lob.
But when the boulder comes at you at shoulder level it's really tough.

[gzhpcu]

But if it were easy, anybody could do it, right? Why even try doing it, then? To quote (or misquote), Sir Edmund Hillary, when asked why he climbed Mt. Everest, he replied "Because it is there...".

[bottle]

Quixoticism: A Little Different than Most People Think

Yup. And the novel I most enjoyed "teaching" at the University of Rhode Island was DON QUIXOTE by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Part of the pleasure was a very good student who you could say became a pickup assistant team-teaching the course, which was in centuries of picaresque novels, namely books starring rascals rather than heroes. The student was Channing Gray, more recently arts critic of The Providence Journal. His brother, the late Spalding Gray, was a terrific performance artist-- few human beings have ever been able to speak off the cuff as well. (I saw him on TV last night playing Fran Drescher's psychiatrist in "The Nanny.") An older brother, Rocky Gray, remains brilliant in American and all literature.

In that class, only Channing and I seemed to appreciate the zaniness of the knight of the rueful countenance. But we'd keep talking. And then other students would start getting it, as evidenced by their chiming in. Some good classes came about this way.

In physics, I admire Richard P. Feynman, who besides winning two Nobel prizes and diagnosing the Challenger disaster taught safe-cracking at Cal Tech. He emphasized that to be a boy or girl scientist, the only kind, you have to be comfortable with uncertainty.

Even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn. Something is required, however.
You have to keep pecking.

[gzhpcu]

Richard Feynman was quite a personality. I enjoyed his autobiography "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman". One of the greatest theoretical physicists. His "Feynman diagrams" really visualized particle physics. Now, if we could get some equivalent, simple diagrams for the tennis serve....