A New Year's Serve

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April is the cruelest month, too, or is it May?

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Idiosyncratic vs. Model Forehands

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/HD/Novak_Djokovic/Forehand_Backhand/Forehand_Backhand.html?djokovic_fh_center_side3.mov

During this writing, Novak Djokovich beat Rafa Nadal in the final of the Madrid Open. Always—always...some new player is on his way up.

Could Djokovich be a good model for an ordinary player who is hungry for best possible technique rather than what ordinary tennis lessons will teach him?

What does Djoker’s arm do on a typical forehand? The video I have before me shows westernized grip and bent arm in the takeback, a straightening before start of the whirl, like Federer, but a re-bending of arm at beginning of the whirl followed by absorbency mondo right on the ball.

On the face of it, this idiosyncratic shot doesn’t look too promising for our purposes.

However, if Djoker, himself an expert at miming other players, remains top player in the world for as long as Federer or any other long-termer did, the tennis community will re-examine every tit or jottle of his technique with increasing frequency each year.

And so it will always be with any new player rising to the very top.

Always, however, the questing recreational player, eager to escape his own mediocrity, will want to keep the example of Fred Perry in mind.

Yes, one can go out with the Marlene Dietrich of one’s time just as Fred Perry did with the real Marlene Dietrich.

But to win world championships in tennis and table tennis both?

Or to hit the ball like Fred Perry and make it work?

Again, very unlikely.

I’ll stick with the big whirl forehand of David Ferrer as my prime model unless or until something better comes along—because of this particular shot’s economy and simplicity.

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How the Human Mind Refuses to Learn (Reprise)

"Don't think," it says to itself. Then it wonders why it is so abysmally stupid.

Somebody has to think in tennis, perhaps one's grandmother, brother or first coach.

But, in the general surge toward opacity in the Bush and Obama administrations, "dumb" somehow became beautiful as if all of us Americans are blonde jokes.

Billie Jean King said that the better the player, the less he or she knows what she is doing.

But we learn here as everywhere through opposites. Billie Jean King did indeed make that statement, but she also says that a good player must know at all times where their racket tip is. And the biographical material on her, whether she or somebody else wrote it, reveals that she, like Arthur Ashe, always read every single tennis book that she could put her hand on.

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Relating New Information on “Heavy Ball” to One’s Personal Ideas

THE MYSTERY OF THE HEAVY BALL is an article by John Yandell on expanded, ongoing research findings sponsored by NASA and started by Yandell and the scientist/physics teacher Nasif Iskander.

Heavy ball (or an oncoming ball that “feels like a brick”) is seen as a special combination of pace and spin, both of which can now be measured, through digital photography, as never before.

A first finding is that any serve, no matter how huge, loses more than half of its speed by the time it reaches the receiver.

Practically speaking, I as receiver should find return of a big serve easier than I ever dreamt.

Actually, however, I need to train my brain first to detect differences in ball speed all at once, again as never before (and never before dreamt).

A good place to start in this quest may be isolation of one’s own focus on a pair of “spots,” 1) bounce of the ball and 2) high point of the arc thereafter.

That is a tennis tip.

About spin, some first findings were that a so-called “topspin serve” is more sidespin than topspin and that big impact with the court generates a greater percentage of the topspin than had been thought.

To me, the autodidact, one obstacle to such learning has been the ready-made notion of acceleration-deceleration.

On a serve, as well as forehand and backhand, we are supposed to find ways to abruptly stop body rotation so that the arm or arms can accelerate through, up, down, or across the ball.

Great spin is wonderful however it is made. The big whirl forehands, serves, or even some backhands we now see, however, have the shoulders rotating through contact and afterward.

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Souping up a Forehand

Have been re-reading TENNIS FOR THINKING PLAYERS by Chet Murphy. What a gyro he was! Cleverness can be a horrid irritant in art; in tennis, it’s usually pretty good.

“But when you do want a great deal of speed in your shot,” he writes, “try a bit of sophisticated body action not often recognized. I’m referring to what can be called ‘reverse body action.’ On the forehand, it works like this.

“Though you turn your shoulders clockwise and move your arm and racket with them into your backswing, they shouldn’t move together as you start your forward swing. Step with your left foot (to shift your weight) and reverse your shoulder action (turn them counterclockwise) while your arm and racket continue to move back for the last foot or so of your backswing. Then whip the racket through the remainder of your backswing and into your forward swing. With such action, in which your body turns first and the arm and racket follow afterward, you’ll be applying the forces successively, one after another, and not simultaneously. The result will be a whip-like swing and probably a faster shot.”

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

[don_budge]

What's in a name?

Her name was Maple...not April. I see what you mean. The implications are not in my backhand as you know...although I teach his backhand in the land of Borg. He would love me for that alone. Aha! There is the answer. What's in a name?

Don't mind me...I am only a student, quietly taking notes. And please continue. Thank you, sir.

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ono. "Maple." That's right. Affected her whole life, especially when she went to the city.

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More About Reverse Action

Re # 620, how does the reverse action described by Chet Murphy apply to David Ferrer's forehand?

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/david_ferrer/df_forehand/df_fh_arm_action/df_fh_arm_action.html?DFFHWideArmActionFront2.mov

I must admit, what I'm doing is a little different, but wasn't that always the game-- never to slavishly imitate but to use the overall pattern as a springboard to develop something nice for oneself?

In the video, I see Ferrer turning and then pointing arm across for more turn, and this continues to take the racket back, but before racket gets to a normal place he's already spring-whirling forward.

Me, I'm experimenting with different placements of the right arm as signal for the jete/ (a term from ballet suggesting Baryshnikov and Nureyev, hopefully). Or I don't know: What I really want to do is use left arm finishing its point across as the signal.

One thing is for sure. If your shoulders are revolving more than twice as much as for a classic forehand, you can, if you want, leave your hitting arm in a different place.

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Progression

This shot is working. So, if I become a bit more conscious about it, will the great, deceptive forehands I like so much go away? Perhaps. Then I'll back-peddle frantically to the previous design, hoping I haven't lost it.

The new idea is to take elbow a little more back in the slot as left arm finishes pointing across.

That leaves elbow out in the air, but it's moving backward, definitely, as outside leg fires.

The reverse body then brings elbow into side while wrist mondoes-- those two actions only.

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Stupendous Federer Feat

http://www.webtennis.com/players/roger-federer-is-this-for-real/

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Ingredients for Grandaddy's Groundstroke Ragout (Forward Swing Only)

1) Level arm swings for first half of the forward action

2) Knees to go down before they come up

3) Two pinches of horizontal upper body rotation

4) Shoulders hunch twice with one straightening in between

5) Arm roll restricted to level arm swing

6) The two ends of the racket lift together in the second half of the forward action.

Pulling this Dish Together

1) Swing easy at the ball!

2) Sink into the shot by putting the level arm swings in a descending elevator!

3) Revolve the shoulders early, late or all spread out!

4) Finish over the shoulder for a forehand; finish with a clenching of shoulderblades together for a backhand!

5) Leave the ground but do it late!

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In What Form Will the Antidote for Rotorded Serving Suddenly Appear?

Will it be a pill? A draft? An exercise and stretching program? A malevolent masseur ready to snap the adhesions in your shoulder? A draft beer?

Contrariwise, a re-arranging of the elbow to inspire divine delay?

Face it, the best serves in the world, like the best golf swings, are constructed on judicious delay. But this delay is human. The rotorded server must develop superhuman delay.

For this, he will need a superior detection system with clear benchmarks in plain apprehension at every jot or tittle of the service path.

Today, during the toss, I'll try extremely high, soaring rise of hitting arm like John Newcombe, and combine subsequent bending of the arm with a controlled lowering of said arm so congenial with body bend at same time.

This is nothing new. I've been trying this among other service ideas for some time. The difference shall be that elbow continues to sink even as front leg drives upward.

Basic to this line of thought: We want some degree of heavy topspin built into every service that we shall henceforth deliver. And we now know without any modicum of doubt that body pressure as opposed to anything the arm does supplies a big percentage of such topspin.

The evidence for this existed for decades whether one was ready to accept it. Serves from certain servers came flat off the racket. One detected a lack of spin. The balls would knuckle toward first collision with the court after which they would bound high with effective weight.

Were these servers good at stopping body rotation with their left arm so that their right arm snapped off the ball creating unpredictable spins? Probably not. Were these serves predictable though good? Absolutely.

The best course now would seem to be: 1) Rotate shoulders forcibly through the ball for heavy ball effect. 2) Start exploration of arm dynamics all over again until one restores one's spins that were combined with one's earlier serves flawed by their lightness.

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Grandaddy's Ragout, Cont'd

On both forehand and backhand, the shoulders move more slowly than the swing.

And on the forehand, just as for the backhand, the level part of the swing is wide, that is to say, it goes out before it comes back in.

This is swinging level from the shoulder with no bowling or rope tricks of any kind.

"Rope trick" equals tennis terminology equals pulling an imaginary rope from behind you so hand greases past your stomach. Andre Agassi and others have been accused of doing it.

In a Ferrerfore, reverse body action whips arm and hand close into body, and in only two or three clicks on one's computer screen one is at contact.

We've heard plenty about wiper overlapping contact and now plenty about reverse body. But what happens in between?

Does hand really ride the big whirl as if a tick embedded in one's side? Or does it shoot ahead? Why, after all, did one go to all the trouble of accelerating it with the reverse body trick? To slow it down and start acceleration all over again?

Returning to Grandaddy now, note how, on his forehand, he drops his elbow to initiate a sidearm throw to first base.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/donbudge/donbudge_sa.html?DBFHFront1.mov

And here's David Ferrer: http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...ctionRear4.mov

Swinging from the shoulder rather than maintaining a solid body-arm connection is the subject of this inquiry.

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Don't Take This for Granted

A friend sent me a YouTube slo-mo of the Pancho Gonzalez serve while urging me to also click on all the other short serving videos running down in a thin column on the right edge of my screen.

Asserting that good serves are alike in seamless effortlessness, he pointed at Robin Soderling's as the exception, calling it "very pronounced, very muscular and contorted."

I loved receiving this communication, but, as so often happens during informal, unfettered tennis talk, found something entirely different to think about.

In the Rod Laver video, elbow stayed basically solid with shoulders line.

In the Pancho Gonzalez video, by contrast, elbow went down an inch or two as it bent ("double-clutched," as Chiro might say although this phenomenon was far less pronounced than in an Andy Roddick serve).

What fascinates me is Pancho's loose throw of his elbow upward just then. His elbow goes faster than the slo-mo rise of his shoulder.

We've always been told that serving and throwing were the same. Perhaps the moral here is that if you want more zip, then load and throw the elbow more, but if you want more control, cut back on such loose elbow.

On the other hand, more zip may be the way to generate more control.

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Apprenticeship Education (Note: This Approach is Less Boring)

Since Grandaddy's Throw to First Base forehand helped me understand reverse action in a Ferrerfore (both kinds of shot are basic swings from the shoulder rather than from THE SHOULDERS), I'm starting a new program in which any modern forehand may be evaluated in the light of Grandaddy's Throw to First.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/HD/Rafael_Nadal/Forehand_Backhand/Forehand_Backhand.html?nadal_fh_center_openstance_rear_1.mov

In the Nadal forehand, the forward shoulders turn starts off much more abruptly than in Grandaddy's forehand. Big whirl of course means twice as many degrees or more, so many that one can experiment within the motion, i.e., you don't need to be doing the exact same thing in each micro-second.

This shoulders turn, for Nadal, is at two different speeds, fast and slow.

Realizing this might be the first step toward generating one's own equivalent of his racket head speed.

What is the slower shoulders speed doing? The deceleration helps the arm to pick up speed, yes, but what is the slower speed's second function? To lend weight to the shot.

As arm extends, the outer knee bends, while racket tip stays cocked and higher than wrist.

Big whirl cannot have started if knee still is bending-- big whirl always starts with thrust from the outer leg.

So we now have discovered a new program (2) within our new program (1).
It is to go from bent arm, sidearm throw (1) to long arm underhand throw somewhat like a rising softball pitch (2).

But we know that Nadal always hits with big separation, and we'd like to do this, too, so again, we drive the elbow to the outside.

The shot is more underhanded-- that's true-- but it's not exactly bowling, either.

Call it a 3/4ths underhand throw.

Note: Any time number one knee bends, on Grandaddy's backhand, on his forehand, on anybody else's forehand, one can and should straighten one's body just then, too. One can resume one's tennis player hunch immediately after that.