A New Year's Serve

[stotty]

Purchased...I'll read it over Christmas.

[bottle]

Which seems as if it will be a good one for me. In addition to Tom's review
appearing yesterday, my other book, THE LAST WORDS OF RICHARD HOLBROOKE, suddenly sold 36 copies. Do I understand this? Not at all. But 36 copies in one day after one or two per month is quite a change. My internet writing started in this thread.

Thanks, Stotty.

[bottle]

Low Backswing to Start Steffi-Slice

Explaining any new design is much more fun if you do so before you try it out. That's when idea burns most brightly. Imagine a health-conscious architect smoking a toy pipe at a huge drawing board under cantilevered lights full of weird elbows. Once he finishes his sketch, the poor guy/woman has to go out and talk with engineers, subcontractors, the zoning board, inspectors, advocacy groups, the mayor, governor, senators, customers, etc.

Today's thought grows out of previous research on Korda's backhand. Should one announce slice (a higher backswing normally) or drive? Which shot will you hit more often?

Hitting Steffi-type offensive slice is a big goal of mine. I haven't yet even examined the defensive slice that Korda uses to stay in a point. The immediate challenge will be to combine a pair of big shots-- Steffi-slice and Korda backhand drive.

So, high or low take-back? Let's continue to explore the lowness alternative.

Simply don't fan hand as much over the top of the handle as part of the flying grip change. A weak continental with big knuckle at about 2.5 (like John McEnroe) will work exceptionally much like a stronger grip because of slant in shoulders downward toward the net.

Instead of holding arm and racket stationary as rear shoulder wells up like a wave for the drive, one can lift arm to normal slice level at the same time.

What excites me about this is that hand rise will blend into elbow rise (which occurs as part of the self-assured forward action-- first of two arm rolls as a matter of fact).

When one takes racket immediately back to shoulder level there is a bit of abruptness as elbow next twists up from the hand.

Hand, similarly, is to be still for the first roll. The fulcrum for the second roll, similarly again, is the shoulder, not the hand, thus creating a longer and therefore accelerating lever. (The satellite farther out in space travels faster.)

[tennis_chiro]

Petr Korda

Petr Korda must be one of the most underrated players of the last 20 years. His strokes are a wonderful template for constructing a complete modern game. He does not hit as heavy a ball as our current top players, but he is not far behind. In fact, it is because he does not hit as heavy a ball that I think he might be a better model for most players to emulate. Simple straight backswings with the racket head up followed by a simple "J" or "C" shaped forward swing with relatively conservative grips and penetrating groundstrokes that put him in the driver's seat in the point. His footwork and balance are a wonder to behold. He did best on hard courts, but he had a complete game.

How many players in that period have won both a Grand Slam singles and a Grand Slam doubles championship? Were ranked in the top 10 in doubles as well as 2nd in singles? Won 10 doubles titles as well as 10 singles titles? There are others, although Rafter was the only one I could find who won at least 10 doubles titles in recent years. In 1993 he beat Sampras and Stich in consecutive matches to win the $2,000,000 first prize in the Grand Slam Cup. He was one of the best players of his time and seems to have been virtually forgotten.

We often talk about the best players never to have won a major, but here is a player who won a major in singles and doubles and seems to have been swept from the general collective memory. He was really good!

don

[stotty]

Poor Petr

Sadly, Korda will just be remembered as a cheat. I never saw him that way, never will.

[tennis_chiro]

Sadly, Korda will just be remembered as a cheat. I never saw him that way, never will.

I forgot all about that. It's pretty sad. I wonder if it had something to do with him coming back after more than a year missed with groin surgery. He certainly didn't look like he was doing steroids. What was his defense at the time?

Kind of a lesson in there about how much the cost can be for getting involved in any way with PED's.

don

[stotty]

Fitness

I cannot fully remember what Korda's defense was against the charges of taking steroids. But I seem to remember he denied knowingly taking any banned substance but failed to come up with the source of how it came to be in his bloodstream. But I believed Korda and pronounced him innocent at the time and still do.

The stop/start nature of tennis makes it totally unnecessary to take performance enhancing drugs. There is no rally a naturally fit young player cannot recover from given the luxury of a 20 second break. Contrast this with the relentless drone of running or cycling. Athletes who take performance drugs in these sports have an overwhelming advantage over athletes who run or cycle clean.

I know a lot about fitness. I was fanatically fit when I was young to the point of it being on the brink of a mental disorder. I was completely in tune with my body and what it could do. On this basis, I am convinced what I say about players gaining little or no advantage by taking steroids to be true.

Everyone has a "basic fitness" level. In players like Borg and Federer this basic fitness level is very high. Other players like Murray have to work a lot to become fit an stay there. Once players stop training they will gradually plummet back to their basic fitness level - the one that nature set for you. But whether you are a Borg or Murray, with work, you can dramatically increase your level of fitness (naturally, without drugs) to cope with even the toughest rigours of the game

I am confident in what I say. I have never been a top player or experienced such demanding rallies within my own game, but I have done equally demanding things in my youth in terms of fitness - probably more. I know few would believe me, but it's true: Players don't need to take drugs to reach their best performance. With a good fitness regime they can do it naturally using the body they were born with.

[stotty]

Corkers

A few good Korda backhands to be seen here. Courier never leaves it alone....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCeXFXwUAz0

[bottle]

Conservatism

Great clip. Which among other things makes me aware of the slice that Korda does use. Which is very much like the slice in the sixties' national championship semifinal video made by Brent Abel and posted right now elsewhere in this forum.

A very direct, economical, high take-back, even in the case of Korda, who doesn't bother to disguise anything.

Did you guys see that Brent Abel video? It's amazing. A slice-a-thon with both players jockeying for the slightest opening.

But this isn't the way I want to play seniors tennis. Wouldn't fit my temperament. Admirable but no thanks.

If this were billiards, it would be safe the cue ball every time. If this were chess, it would be the English opening as in Petrosian against Botwinnik.

[bottle]

Here's from the seniors semifinal I just was talking about, video made by Brent Abel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDEjIt8rvAo

If this isn't a tennis lesson, I don't know what is.

Note the limited takebacks, the accuracy and everything else.

Tennis stripped down to essentials. Tennis should be economical, no?

Perhaps one realizes this better-- or should!-- as one gets older.

Even a senior or anyone trying to diverge from the central premise here ought to recognize the different dimension offered by Larry and Wesley. Anyone should find plenty to learn from them, in other words.

How easy would it be for young Turks to hit these guys off the court? Ummmm.

At the same time I can't help but think that they're an illustration from a book on tennis after 50, 60, 80, etc.

I've seen or rather experienced too many senior players who can hit very substantial topspin by now-- medium topspin at least has been around for long enough that they mastered it young and carried it with them into old age.

I guess I'm asking for the privilege of with-holding judgment on this slice-happy alternative.

[gsheiner]

Bottle,

I think that, in the youger age groups, the slice backhand is neutralized somewhat by the ability of the receiver to run around and hit the inside out forehand and take control of the point.

And, younger players with two handers on the backhand might be able to hit over the ball and hit a nice crosscourt backhand which can open up the court more than a slice.

Still, LarryTurville has an excellent slice and was playing a great pattern over and over --a couple of slice backhands crosscourt, then the slightly inside out slice backhand up the line spinning away. He looks like he'd be a nightmare to play.

[bottle]

I pretty much agree but think a good slicer can hit fantastic angles and sometimes with a greater margin for error.

[bottle]

Two Qualities of Backhand

Tennis players often seek a certain unclarity of mind. This is supposed to put them "in the zone." Often, it keeps them mediocre.

Some of us think the mind works best when it has a specific goal. Or question. The best tennis sometimes even happens right after we've been working on a specific issue in technique although we put such conscious and cosmic concerns to the side while we actually play.

Perhaps 40 times in the tennis fora in which I've participated I've asked the same question about straightening arm. Does it, should it straighten actively or passively? Should we use the triceps muscle? No? Somehow anesthetize or rather "fool" the muscles that oppose the triceps? Relax the whole arm the better to centrifugate it (whirl it straight)? Or remove the slack in a linear or other way or all ways, etc., etc.

Once or twice, I think, somebody tried to answer, most recently Don Brosseau while a group of people was discussing Ken Rosewall's backhand slice. I had opined that Rosewall used arm muscles. Don thought not. He thought that Rosewall straightened his arm from his hips, that everything about Rosewall was easy stroke production.

As usual (but not always) I accepted Don's view, which is more seasoned through a billion administered lessons and therefore more tennis-specific than mine.

The same question about arm straightening always comes up with regard to the serve, it seems. Here today I pose it with regard to the Korda-type one hand topspin drive backhand.

I've tried straightening the arm both ways and am prepared to say there is a difference in how the ball flies. One method produces a quicker ball. But is it more accurate? Which ball is heavier? Am I exaggerating the difference? Will I use both methods or just one?

These are among the issues I hope to resolve any way I can.

[bottle]

Oregano

Add two pinches of free form to the already existing concept of twisting racket tip DOWN and elbow UP from the fulcrum of one's hand while attempting to hit Steffi-slice.

When Steffi or you or anybody hits this type of shot, they employ a pair of linked arm rolls-- one backward melding into one forward.

One can see both rolls in some of the existing film sequences of Ken Rosewall as well. At other times his racket prepares earlier so that the viewer sees-- during the hitting part of the stroke-- only the second half of the series, the forward roll.

Simple, very effective backhand slice eschews loops, rolls and anything else that might be extraneous and burn needed time.

Additionally, one can use triceptic extension to put "bite" on the ball in this simplest version.

But why can't someone-- anyone-- learn both?

If going for double-roll, I'm preaching today (before actually trying this of course), compromise on the idea of still hand during the first roll.

The hand is the hovering fulcrum of a teeter-totter, I suggested in earlier posts, but now I'm saying, "Keep that basic shape but go ahead and move the hand a bit through bringing it back a little higher to begin with-- all in the interest of loosening up and not being too conceptual and stiff."

[bottle]

A Bird, Plane, Snowmobile, Upside Down Bumper Car?

Andre Agassi's publicists and madmen, the ones who put their words "image is everything" into his mouth were right after all.

Agassi never said any such thing, he revealed in his autobiography.

But our topic is the Petr Korda backhand and all clues that might help a hacker to hit it.

Here image IS everything. And a snowmobile, which I've never ridden, has a leg with a ski on it.

And an amusement park bumper car, which I have ridden, carries a pole with a ski on top that contacts an electrified ceiling.

I also rode a Segue once but didn't go fatally over a cliff like the owner of the company or fall off of it like George W. Bush, who in one hand carried a racket which didn't help him guide the two-wheeled chariot toward a tennis court.

Robert Frost, the poet, was extremely interested in the border where metaphor or image representing something else stops conveying its unique meaning and breaks down. He of course didn't want to and never did cross that border.

Well, riding a Segue with a tennis racket in one hand conveys no enlightenment as to how to hit a Korda type backhand drive but could be the perfect emblem of W's presidency, and the presidency that came after that, and the one that will be determined in the coming year.

The bumper car pole rising up to a ski, however, might help a person envision what his forearm ought to do if he can just use his brain to invert the electrified ceiling above him into the tennis court surface below him.

Simpler, I guess, would be to envision a snowmobile's leg.

Because, if we remember our films of Korda and bend our arm just slightly like him so that forearm points down at the court, we may get the sense of a tactile connection with the court's surface if not an electrical connection.

So that's my idea: slant the forearm down at the court's surface so as to form a mental connection for purposes of orientation.

The racket tip, characteristically, stays up, as Don Brosseau pointed out in this discussion.

But the forearm-- no it points down to connect mentally with the court.

Then, toward end of the backswing, the rear shoulder rises like a wave as both shoulders turn farther beneath one's chin.

If one performs this stretch well enough, one will resemble the Gustavo Kuerten warlock, as in a Stephen King movie, and the forearm will become parallel to the court, the signal to swing.