A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Join the Anti-Mondo Club?

Casually divulged by me? 15 per cent more accuracy when I remove the mondo from my Federfore and bend my wrist back gradually. Doing the same on Ferrerfore doesn't make such a difference but isn't worse.

[bottle]

Two Things with the 1HTSBH Stomach

1) Turn with transverse muscles on top of hips as hips spiral up.

2) STOP the transverse muscles by freezing them just as you freeze the hips.

Stopping the stomach may sound difficult but is a matter of willpower or intention.

"Intention!" my Carlos Castaneda immersed Hungarian girlfriend used to shout. That was when I knew I was in trouble.

Just as you can tighten a cheek or left or right quad, you can isolate or tense or harden or concentrate any muscle in the body. If you are a woman, you can even do a kugel.

So you (I) can use Stotty's description in # 1004 and suck in the gut as in # 1005 where I was hitting high line-drive backhands that only plunged down at last second to hit the line. Perhaps there was a little movement from the gut beforehand that I didn't recognize.

As for stopping the hips, intention again plus legs plus left hand contribute.

But note how Roger's left hand doesn't really fly out until late, after contact.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/roger_federer_09/rf_backhand/rf_bh_center/rf_bh_center.html?RFBHCenterClosedStanceCourtLevelRear2.mov

Stopping the hips by extending the front leg can draw on the golfer's barrel of Boomer and Ledbetter.

The idea is that if the legs are bent just the right amount the knees and hips turn easily.

But if you bend the knees too much, they get stuck in the barrel.

But if you extend them too much, they get stuck in the imaginary barrel, too.

That's where the metaphor or image of getting stuck breaks down.

So you just have to take the idea on faith. Extended or partially extended leg doesn't rotate as easily as comfortably bent knee-- knowledge one can use to help stop.

[bottle]

How Much Does Roger Turn His Hips in his 1HTSBH?

I'll ask it again. How much does Roger turn his hips? Some but not much. How much does Roger turn his shoulders? A bit more but not much. Is this information important? I happen to think so. Roger is best model for a one-hander in the view of many. Certainly, he has been filmed more than any player.

Taken together, these last two statements alone could qualify the info, but the final test is whether the proportion of hips and shoulders given here works for thyself.

Also, I notice that, characteristically, Roger steps out very far with a straight right leg (that means heel first landing like Guga) and then the knee bends but only a small bit and then straightens but again only a small bit.

A lot of people probably think that there is deeper compression and then longer extension of the front leg, maybe from reading Vic Braden four score and seven years ago. No, Roger gets low another way, almost by doing a split.

Me, I see the slight extension of the front leg as an element that is spread out through most of the forward stroke. (I may just have had some help in reaching that conclusion.)

Anyway, that's what I see this afternoon.

[bottle]

But, if we're going to include more turn from the gut in our ultimate concoction, and then we're going to suck in our gut in an abrupt stopping maneuver, perhaps we should inhale (either that or stick out our gut and exhale, etc.) at the same time.

[bottle]

Baseballing the Hands

The idea is mine, no matter where it came from or how it recurred. But I thank Geoffrey Williams for writing about it now, in detail, and would like to hear more from him or anybody on this fascinating subject applied to one handers and two handers both-- and on both sides. Baseballing your hands on one side has implication for waiting position and ground stroke on the other side no matter your style or what you choose to do.

Budge and Ashe are some of the one handed players who have utilized this method though not all of the time or at every moment of a varied career. Early studies of Budge and Ashe-- which some readers found annoying (but why should that matter when all one is trying to be is a boy scientist)-- had me starting with guide hand on strings or on the racket throat or touching the other hand. I don't think I stuck with this last experiment for long enough.

Petr Korda, the admiration for whose backhand I wish to maintain, is at the opposite extreme, with fingers wedged well up on the strings as Peter Burwash used to teach and as Stotty pointed out, saying he didn't do that.

With regard to J. Donald Budge, the tennis writers Talbert and Old wrote about a grip change BEHIND his body which involved guide hand starting first in one place but then shucking down to the other-- an added complication with a rhythmic component but damaging, I think, to more conventional grip change already installed.

(The Tennis Player videos do not show Budge doing this dramatic trick, not at all, his hand like that of most players stays in one position on the throat until he leaves it in mid-air. The alleged drawing together then must have occurred at some other moment in his career.)

Pursue this avenue too much, reader, and you might end up with overly complicated tennis strokes.
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So, I go with hands glued together on all ground strokes for the time being. How often do I see a high ball anyway if I'm tall (I am but shrinking fast). If I get some high balls I'll improvise. Waiting position on volleys will not change.

The hand together baseline game will immediately affect whatever ground stroke style one already has. If your forehands are better with hand on the throat, then on the throat hand will be.

For me, hand can start pointing (with movement!) at side fence sooner since it has already pushed the racket tip back more. Experiments on Federfore and Ferrerfore are not complete, but neither stroke is appearing to suffer, and as for Ziegenfuss, it's wowie-- here's the biggest improvement in feel of all.

A Ziegenfuss, or rather my variation of it, is an intensely conservative, careful shot, indispensable to someone who to the least little bit is all over the place.

I want an extremely round, small, geometrically perfect circle of a loop (a coin on edge) for this particular shot. And the orchestration for all three forehands dictates no reverse action whatsoever for this one. I've even decided to abandon the point-at-the-side-fence maneuver on this one and revert to older, more classical way of getting the hips and shoulders and foot around. The perfect round loop now is much smoother and easier to achieve. The guide hand, as on the backhand side, gets racket far back soon.

On forward stroke the left hand goes first, smoothing the waters, followed by the right hand smoothing the waters again. Let's change the image, each hand a snowplow.

Finally, the body chimes in. One catches the racket up left.

[stotty]

I heard Don Budge didn't wrap the thumb round the handle to meet the fingers on his backhand like most players do. Instead his thumb lay horizontal along the back of the handle.

A bit like a "thumbs up" gesture. Then turn your hand over over 45 degrees to the left.

Whether this was true or not I don't know but an old friend of mine (who is old) watched him play a number of times - albeit form a distance - and said it looked that way to him. I also read it somewhere too.

Seems strange because the thumb is the major gripping tool of the hand, and rackets must have been real heavy back then. It would make sense to wrap the thumb round the handle and not have it stuck out horizontally along one of the back bevels.

I would love to have this verified. Perhaps our very own don_budge might know as I seem to remember reading in one of his posts that he either met or played with him once.

[bottle]

Progress Report

Yes, thumb up the back panel on a diagonal was the Budgian idea, which Vic Braden brought across to his minimum arm swing backhands in TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE. Braden even used a brush pen to draw a black X on the flat of the thumb which one could then use for directional purposes by keeping it faced toward the target for a prolonged time. In the wrapped method preferred by most one handers including me you have to find another part of the hand for reference-- front of the knuckles say or pinky finger (this latter Al Secunda's "tip").

But I wonder about any "balance a penny on frame of racket" method for a free-wheeling ground stroke of any kind. Give me open racket face coming toward the ball and then closing to square, or, usually better, closed racket face coming toward the ball and then opening to square. These swings are less hyper-controlled. They are loose, uninhibited, and paradoxically translate into better control through more racket head speed.

Last night I played doubles for the first time in over a month on the eve of doubles day in Davis Cup. I didn't want to play since the night before my left knee and leg stiffened during a waltz lesson. It was the late rise up on both sets of toes during the third beat that did it. But my physical therapist at Cottage Hospital, Jennifer Ostrowski, thought I should play to see if my left quad felt stronger and to help detect just where we are in our joint (pun) effort toward strength and limberness.

Think how boring we contributors here in this forum could be if we announced every victory and gave the score. Well, I guess the first victory was that the leg didn't stiffen until the third set. And the second victory was that my revised Ziegenfuss was extremely accurate with moderate heavy topspin to bring it down. Left hand as a snowplow running down the road was a helpful image. That first snowplow can set a relaxed pace for the second snowplow as well which sure isn't going to try and pass it. Then and only then the body chimes in. For me, this is the most relaxed forehand ever, and a couple of aficionados at the club took note of it. Also, I discovered that there are degrees possible of baseballing the two hands together. To say one should have fingers on the strings or wrapped around the throat or pressed against the other hand sounds like an expansion of possibilities but is in fact too conceptual. Playing with varied amount of distance between the hands and seeing the whole subject as infinite spectrum is both instructive and fun.

The third victory was 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 .

[bottle]

Using Injury for Health and Profit

What a strange time to zone out-- when you're hurt. It surely did help that my third partner, John Cutter, had a shock and awe forehand that neither of our opponents could return-- not once.

But I played well throughout the evening. Pure desire to play must have been part of the reason. Also, I made conservative decisions to honor my injury, choosing to go with the mildest of my forehands although pretty soon I may have to call it my best. Starting out slow and gradually working into one's shot shouldn't be a new idea for me or anyone, but sometimes we need a reminder.

Here's a true story: When I told the above scores to Hope, who likes to advertise herself as a simple and very upfront person, she said, "Who gives a damn!"

At net, the timing seemed good, and in serves, something good happened the closer I brought the racket edge to the ball.

Thanks for listening, reader. I have to add that there was a price: Barely being able to walk at first every time I got out of a chair the next two days.

Tomorrow my physical therapy at the hospital resumes. Ten minutes of heat to start, almost an hour of exotic exercises, ten minutes of ice to finish. I hope that Jennifer won't be horrified that I played three sets.

[bottle]

In Praise of a Ziegenfuss

In A NEW YEAR'S SERVE, the book, I define a Ziegenfuss (a goat foot) simply as a forehand in which hand travels toward the oncoming ball before the body chimes in. This is very much a "spring don't swing" forehand.

Well, how significant or rather pronounced is the hand travel, and aren't there all kinds of forehand in the universe in which a person doesn't drive from the back fence any more than a good golfer gets vigorous from the top of his backswing?

All I can say is that in my other forehands, I drive off the sole of the foot pretty soon-- so this one is different.

It's small, efficient, and has improved recently thanks to Geoffrey Williams talking about keeping hands together in a one hand backhand.

What you try on one side you then will try on the other if you are anything like me.

Having guide hand farther down on the racket creates ease in getting the racket head back-- farther. It creates time, too, since you no longer are pointing at side fence just on this one shot.

The double snowplow image works well on this shot. From a small C-loop the left hand ploughs slowly toward the net followed by right hand doing the same.

Delay seems a crucial component of best athletic movement. If I don't send both snowplows forward I'm not taking enough time on the shot.
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Here's a video of myself which I succeeded in putting up just minutes ago. We can see together if the new link will work. I'm trying to use this video to promote my three books, one of which is A NEW YEAR'S SERVE: PERSONAL TENNIS STROKE DESIGN.

Link for the video: http://youtu.be/6ABvVJnG2FO
Link for my books: http://goo.gl/VX6Xs

[bottle]

Video isn't uploading yet. YouTube says to wait a few minutes. Uh-huh.

[bottle]

Link for the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ABvVJnG2F0

Link for the books: http://goo.gl/VX6Xs

[stotty]

Link for the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ABvVJnG2F0

Link for the books: http://goo.gl/VX6Xs

Lovely interview, bottle. You came across as candid, which is the most important thing in the world in an interview. I really liked you a lot. You are everything I'd thought you'd be. You're different... that's a compliment...hope you take it that way.

I think I'll go and buy that Afghanistan book of yours...

Great to see you looking so smart in a "whistle and flute"...that's cockney rhyming slang for a suit...ever heard of cockney rhyming slang, bottle? I'll teach you some:

apples and pears = stairs
dog and bone = phone
mutt and jeff = deaf

Probably all double Dutch to you, but it's a whole language over here

Just purchased The Last Words of Richard Holbrooke...

[tennis_chiro]

Ditto, but I want to see you hit that backhand!

I loved the interview, John. It's funny actually seeing you after imagining you as I've read your blog (or TLWORH). I think I'd have liked to see you standup at the end of the interview so we got the full sense of your height.

But I thought you left the interviewer off a little light when he asked you what you meant by being engaged in current affairs. Your voice is so much stronger about how wrong the whole Afganistan situation is for us.

But, most of all, I want to see some video of your Federfore, or even better, your slice backhand. Come on, give us a peek in a youtube video. I guarantee you'll get a lot of feedback!

all the best,
don

[stotty]

But, most of all, I want to see some video of your Federfore, or even better, your slice backhand. Come on, give us a peek in a youtube video. I guarantee you'll get a lot of feedback!

all the best,
don

I agree, that would be wonderful to see...

[bottle]

Great responses. I love learning a bit of rhyming cockney slang and what to call a suit. And as for letting the interviewer off the hook, I agree. But I was madly editing myself on the run and trying not to be abrasive on the subject of 1 per cent complacency--had to!--throughout. Federfore, Ferrerfore, Ziegenfuss, Backhand, Slice Backhand, Net Game, Latin Dance Serve all coming your way in video just as soon as it gets warm and my sprained left leg heals a bit and I've found a paper publisher for my tennis book. But I'm going to play dubs tonight inside-- last week was so much fun. Doubt if I can be zoned out twice in a row but what the hell.