A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Two Bubbles in a Typical Federfore

First bubble has to do with closing the racket. How does Roger do it? Try for a minute to think of every single factor contributing to closed racket face. I'll try, too.

1) Roger's grip, which is mild though 3.5, closes strings less than a semi-western but more than the 3.0 of a standard eastern. 2) Straightened arm. A straightened arm always closes the racket face as Ray Brown pointed out. 3) Waiting position of both elbows or of right elbow slightly out from the body. When you move elbow toward side fence you close racket face. 4) "First bubble," which is simply another way of saying that elbow may go out more toward side fence as part of the backward action as seen in this clip:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Moves_Back&stroke=RFFHMovesBackRear1_500fps.mp4

Both backward and forward actions in a Federfore are "pretty connected," I contend, which means that body moves the racket. And I can imagine some of Roger's forehands where he doesn't change the arm-body alignment on his backswing at all. Most often, however, he closes strings an extra bit by slightly moving elbow toward right fence in early part of the backward action (a bubble in the backswing).

Second bubble is in the followthrough. Many of Roger's imitators want to swing directly to left upper arm. As the video shows, however, the racket rises toward the sky before it arcs down around the left upper arm = more topspin. A bubble if you know what I mean.

On forward swing, despite the flip, the arm is solid with body also until scapular adduction occurs.

[bottle]

Rotorded Nation Requires Rebirth of Tomahawk

We rotorded servers never get our racket tip low enough, which may lead to a feeling of being unmanned.

Do not submit to this degradation.

Bend the stick the other way. Will racket tip get lower then? Just the opposite and good for the soul!

Devise a more porpoiseful serve, a serve which starts out with a leaning Tower of Pisa converting into upper body swimming toward the net like a twisting porpoise as arm shoots up and forward hitting the ball on top of its head.

[tennis_chiro]

Closer than you think!

Am I being too provocative? Dare I eat a peach? Am I about to attack Quick Start? No, like a golden retriever I like those fat balls and little kids and eagerly await the triumph of the first one in the singles final at Wimbledon. ...

Anne Pankhurst introduced Quickstart going around the country for a couple of years for the USTA beginning about 5 years ago. I spoke to her because she was supervising one of my students at Carson and then I went to one of her one day workshops. She had run the Quickstart program in the UK for about 20 years. She told me she had Henman and Murray in her program. In fact, she said Andy was the only kid she had ever had go through all the stages of Quickstart in one year. So perhaps there hasn't been a Quickstart graduate that has WON Wimbledon yet, but pretty close, and at least one Grand Slam title has been taken.

don

[bottle]

That's good. I'm glad to know this and perhaps it will prevent me from being such a wise-ass.

[stotty]

Anne Pankhurst introduced Quickstart going around the country for a couple of years for the USTA beginning about 5 years ago. I spoke to her because she was supervising one of my students at Carson and then I went to one of her one day workshops. She had run the Quickstart program in the UK for about 20 years. She told me she had Henman and Murray in her program. In fact, she said Andy was the only kid she had ever had go through all the stages of Quickstart in one year. So perhaps there hasn't been a Quickstart graduate that has WON Wimbledon yet, but pretty close, and at least one Grand Slam title has been taken.

don

Strange, I thought Henman was pre Quickstart (we call it mini tennis) . He was the short tennis era. Short tennis (now obsolete) used a slightly larger court than mini red. After short tennis kids went straight to the standard ball. Mini tennis wasn't around when Henman was an under 10...or at least not in the UK....not that I knew of...unless Anne was way ahead of us...which she could might have been I guess.

I saw Henman playing short tennis when he was around 5 years old. He was amazing. He came to the net all the time...a habit he never lost.

[bottle]

The Purposeful Porpoise Strikes Again

But does he hold serve? I hope so. He certainly wants to hit the ball and not just push it, which is possible with this serve and highly inadvisable.

Really good players, locked into their own success, don’t get to experiment much and therefore might not know something like that.

Lousy players ought to try anything and thereby have a great time since ACALG and NCAWG are the two good acronyms in the game. They come from Tilden although many other people have claimed them.

Always Change A Losing Game. Never Change A Winning Game.

How much should shoulders lead the hips at contact in this new serve modeled on J. Donald Budge?

Should contact be made halfway through the porpoisey thing? Sounds like a first serve to me. At end of all porpoising for a topspin serve? But is a topspin serve even possible with all of this porpoise stuff?

Yes, I’m pretty sure. I knew a guy who unlike his brother Dave had one, a Jeff Stickley of Woodstock, Virginia. Dave attributed Jeff’s zinging, hopping serve to his strong wrist, but if you saw how far bent over Jeff's upper body was, you might be surprised. You could even call his upper body a submarine or torpedo rather than a porpoise and I wouldn't mind.

Jeff’s serve looked unlike anything else in northwestern Virginia but was very effective.

I’m now trying to figure it out to my own satisfaction. If along with everything else you porpoise completely during count two of a three-count serve (knees not per usual rotating forward and shoulders therefore rotating backward a farther distance and heels not threshing in opposition to each other, either), racket tip lowness will become a relative matter since elbow will start quite high. But shoulders should wind the racket lower-- or farther over-- if hips stay cocked to enable this larger range.

You won’t get considerable weight on this serve since the jackknifing will already have occurred, but you’ll have the potential to make the racket go steeply upward.

What might be a useful cue? Porpoise on its back to get the racket low?

As always, my preferred though not always pursued method is to write first, try later.

The serve doctor Pat Dougherty and others have recently suggested that keeping chest open to the sky can put more swing behind the head. Is that true?

Before any likely disillusionment at an actual tennis court, I wish to think that one might save the new phenomenon of threshing heels (new at least for me) for serves that are flat or sliced. And eliminate the "wriggle" used in these two kinds of serve to load and empower the jackknife.

On kick serves I’ll just keep the hips wound back and front heel up on the toes. That method can engender natural on-the-job leftward lean while allowing the relaxedly pushing out shoulders to wind back-- or over farther-- no?

[bottle]

Trial

By the time I got to the court, I was ready to declare that these new kick ideas were cockamamie. But I wanted to remain open-minded. So I tried two radically different versions of kick: 1) way out front without the threshing heels, and with tossing arm coming down early to initiate the throw (# ) and 2) no jump but high contact slightly behind upright body like Lloyd Budge with threshing heels if that's what has happened in the illustration here.

Neither shot conquered the other. That the way out front version could compete with the other however gave me pause. And just before I got in my car to drive to the court, I re-read the service passage (prose) in THE GAME OF SINGLES IN TENNIS by Talbert and Old, which led me to hit fast slice serves with a slightly bent arm and to hit all serves at peak of toss rather than the several inches down recommended by Donald Budge and his later coach Tom Stow.

After coming home, I re-read the service passage (prose) in TENNIS MADE EASY by Lloyd Budge, which made me want to use his cue of a "pendulum" in all service actions.

A mystery remains about tossing arm left up after contact as shown in the illustration here. Helen Wills Moody is also shown doing that in a kick serve drawing in THE GAME OF SINGLES IN TENNIS. Both she and Lloyd Budge, from what other people say, finished their kick with racket off to the right, but how can one ever be sure.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How bout them Tigers. I find it very interesting that their worst hitter over the past month, Jhonny Peralta, hit two home runs in the pennant and penultimate game against the New York Yankees. Asked for the reason why, he said he had no idea.

[bottle]

More Ifs for the Iffy Tennis Player

Starting from the premise that tennis is golf on wheels, one wants a slow, smooth body turn at the heart of one's backswing, with backswing here defined as everything in a forehand that isn't forward swing.

Holding hand in front to measure oncoming ball for too long will rush the latter part of one's backward shoulders turn. Either that or one won't use enough of a backward shoulders turn and thereby will diminish power.

Zinging backward so that opposite shoulder immediately tucks under the chin as part of the unit turn creates an abruptness which is overly conceptual, mechanical and schooled.

I understand why so many tennis instructors advise this but think it's a mistake. Sure, too many players don't get back in time. Does that fact dictate however that one should sacrifice the essential smoothness of a more protracted backward turn like that of Roger Federer?

No matter how rushed he is, Roger always has time for smoothness. Not that his shoulders don't stop similar to the top of a good backswing in golf. Perhaps one should say they "pause" if there is a difference between "pause" and "stop." In either case, the shoulders aren't stopped for long.

When I watch videos of Federer, I see his shoulders slowly swing back similar to one's pulling back of a pool cue in pocket billiards. I see his shoulders briefly pause then while his arm straightens. Before his arm has fully straightened however, his shoulders have started rotating in the opposite direction.

Forward rotation then drives the last bit of arm straightening and the flip.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Center&stroke=RFFHCenterOpenStanceRear4_250fps.mp4

[bottle]

In Praise of Lopsidedness

Building on post # 1336, "Two Bubbles in a Typical Federfore," which outlined four factors contributing to Roger Federer's closing of his racket face to hit a forehand, I should now like to eliminate one of these factors once and for all.

"Eliminate useless motion" is either a well known maxim in tennis or should be.

The factor I wish to eliminate is the first bubble in the stroke where Roger pushes his elbow mid-motion out toward the right fence.

Totally unnecessary in my view. One simply modifies one's waiting position so that opposite elbow is tucked more into left side, and the right elbow has more space between the body and itself.

Possible downsides to this change: 1) Atypical oncoming ball may require more closing of the racket face than the new position offers. Solution: Put some bubble back. 2) The new waiting position will disturb the one-hander's ten-year myelination of his backhand backswing. Solution: Use a vigorous flying grip change that all at once takes the racket quickly back and deposits it anywhere and in any attitude that one chooses.

Altering one's waiting position seems radical departure but isn't half as radical as abruptly tucking one's left shoulder under one's chin as part of one's unit turn-- a proposal tried out in hits with good players and in this thread and in doubles and now intensely disliked by me.

[bottle]

Goose, Gander, Forehand, Backhand

A decision to protract the turning back of one's shoulders on both sides using Roger Federer as forehand model and John McEnroe as backhand model is significant occurrence in the tennis life of the hacker/recreational player.

He or she will probably need to do something very clever to buy the time necessary to manufacture such dramatic improvement.

Improvement over what? Not turning in time and/or not turning enough. Abruptness of preparation abetted by weapons of mass tennis instruction.

Does abruptness work in a good golf stroke? A good billiards stroke? A good baseball stroke? A good tennis stroke???!?

So what is the magic or "clever thing" that will allow anybody to keep turning his shoulders backward as he runs so that those shoulders just become fully cocked as he seamlessly arrives at his destination and strokes the ball.

I'll tell where and what I think it ought to be-- different on the two sides-- but first I need to stress a simultaneous unit turn and leaning of the head in the direction you want to go. This is the first requisite. And this is only the beginning of the long turn of the hitting shoulder.

If the ball's coming right at you on your one-handed topspin backhand side, you may want use opposite hand to "yank" the racket as far as it will go toward the rear fence, as Nick Bollettieri once advised for one-handed backhands all the time in an early book. Or yank it toward the side fence if you're so thoroughly strapped for time that you want to shorten up.

YANK! What does that mean? Plenty of abruptness, right? And complete turning of the shoulders backward as part of the unit turn and flying grip change all of which is simultaneous.

Well, it was an emergency.

In the longer geometry of a ball hit away from you, you can stop at a convenience store and buy some milk, i.e., you can turn your shoulders as you run or drive your car. Your car has a player in it and you're going on a long trip so you may as well bring along some talking books.

Flying grip change in that case would get the racket back but not the shoulders-- not yet. Of course if you're John McEnroe no grip change is needed. He is truly set up for a slow winding back of his shoulders perfectly timed to the ball.

On forehand side, I've already said what I think you/I should do (post # 1344): Wait in an offset position which closes racket since the goal for both sides is to subtract arm motion from a groundstroke equation in which body dominant solid protraction equals rhythm that is nothing if not smooth.

Most simply, this instruction preaches less waving around of your arm as the counselors taught you at Camp Nippeewaukee in order to consign you to mediocrity. And preaches a great and super-early break for the ball that will at least give you a fighting chance to initiate and attain the timed and gradual takeback of a big league tennis player.

[bottle]

We Think And Then We Conclude

The world is full of mystery and surprise. The greatest forehands are never the most sensible ones. The forehand backswing of Karsten Popp, more economical than that of Roger Federer, can be used to hit either classical Karstenpop or Federforian top.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/classiclessons/scott_murphy/traditional_forehand/

[bottle]

Self-feeding

Just as "flip" improved on "mondo," so "self-feeding" is better than my "dropping balls and hitting them." Once agreeing to some such verbal improvement, I try to use it from then on.

The language of tennis as of anything has far more power to shape than people usually understand or acknowledge-- the main reason I've always thought that teaching pros should be talk genre linguists or writers or English majors (or minors or miners).

Here is the sentence that originates "self-feeding" for me. It occurs in the Scott Murphy article "The Traditional Forehand: A Living Model" and has to do with Scott's decision (temporarily as it turned out) to obliterate his classical roots and commit to the modern game: "For hours I would self-feed and work on hitting copious spin."

Note: In recent posts I have extolled the Karsten Popp backswing over that of Roger Federer (admittedly a bit sensationalist of me). And the backswing of Roger Federer over that of Juan Del Potro.

The true goal of such statements however is not, "My daddy can whup-up on your daddy," but rather the development of critical insight. You see, I expect reward for all the years I've spent on my Federfore. But what reward? A forehand like Roger Federer? No, a forehand somewhat like Roger Federer which coincidentally is the most reasonable I can find anywhere in the world or discover on my own as if none of the world's examples and models has any pertinence to me.

The elliptical backswing of Karsten Popp is spare and therefore more useful for me than that of Roger or Juan. Karsten and Juan however hold on to their racket with left hand for longer to meet the universal turn-the-body requirement. Both point at side fence with left hand but not to turn the shoulders more the way Roger Federer does.

Am I on to a bit of Roger's greatness here? Perhaps. But why should I care?

Because I can hit the ball with more consistency and accuracy and pop or spin if I turn back my shoulders for a longer time to keep my backswing more of a single piece.

[bottle]

A Trio of Forehands from Karsten Popp's Takeback Only with More Protracted Body Turn

1) Long-armed and flat with no wiper but rather a modicum of poptop. Catch followthrough or cross wrists, touching them together.

2) Short-armed and flat-- a shot perhaps as different from 1) as 1) is from a Federfore. Catching followthrough or touching wrists together is a good possibility.

3) Federfore.

2) probably needs most explanation in context of posts already written, and also by virtue of my not having had time yet to air this redux version on a court. For me, 2) is a return to something I did way back only off of straight back preparation.

Played five sets of indoor doubles with five different partners last night losing first two sets and winning last three concluding with a 6-0 . Different people think about different things after they lose or win. Me, I'm apt to come up with something like 2) .

2) will be a shot in which the right-angled arm never alters length. Well, that isn't strictly true since a Karsten Popp looking backswing

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/classiclessons/scott_murphy/traditional_forehand/

with right elbow offset toward right fence in waiting position will start with two halves of arm at acute angle (see note at end of this post).

As racket comes back in slot-- at good elbow separation that will maintain as well for 1) and 3), I'll, you'll, we'll, they'll, it'll want a timing drop to correspond to the straightening and reverse through flip and contact and beyond of 1) and 3) .

Why do I say that? Because, in the tango lessons we're taking, I'm learning that the special language of "slow, slow, quick-quick, slow" is what personally helps me do this dance the most. Or "slow, slow, quick-quick, slow, slow, quick-quick, tango, close" (sixteen beats) and a few other eight-count variations, e.g., "quick-quick, quick-quick, quick-quick, slow." The two instructors can mold my posture and connection and mood and get me to turn my belly button more toward my partner and other technical stuff, but, if I can get the rhythm right, I can pretty much do anything I want and lightly push Hope counter-clockwise all around the edge of the floor (line of dance).

Same with 2), the redux shot proposed here. Elbow of bent arm maintains good separation from body-- we already know that.

So, simply adjust arm to no more than a right angle as you circle elbow in to body. Same timing, same style, same game.

Then-- and here's the big difference-- the forearm swings around (forward) on top of everything else as if one's elbow is the hinge on a gate.

Think that through again. Independently, the forearm sweeps around perfectly parallel to the court. Finally, elbow lifts to desired followthrough.

This is a shot that absolutely kills balls of a certain spin (or non-spin) and height. And is useless in countless situations, which is why you need 1) and 3) or different but equally potent shots.

Note: The first video of Karsten Popp clearly shows that the two halves of his arm are at obtuse, not acute angle to each other. So, if one wanted to obtain 2) from this construct, one would shrink rather than expand arm to a right angle as one circled the elbow in.

[bottle]

This Way and That

Hungarians are good for aphorisms and proverbs. The great Hungarian film director Alexander Korda, whose production company was behind "The Third Man" (1949) directed by Carol Reed and starring Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard and the zither of Anton Karas, came up with a proverb that goes, "If you have a Hungarian for a friend, you don't need an enemy."

Well, I have had just one Hungarian girlfriend in my life and don't ever want another. But after just one tennis lesson she hit good topspin. And among many talents, she wrote songs, one of which contained the English words "this way and that way."

When she came to this phrase she would lift one arm from her guitar and twist her hand this way and then that way.

Some tennis players would say "pronate" and "supinate," or "internally and externally rotate"-- not the same as in my friend's song but if you don't understand the difference, esteemed reader, sorry, I can't tell you.

Vic Braden thought a server ought to keep his palm faced down the better to form a natural loop. But John M. Barnaby thought the in and out of this contraption-like loop was unnecessarily complicated for a human being, so the aspiring player should open out his racket near the rear foot instead, then drop the racket from overhead straight down.

The part of the Pete Sampras serve that Steve Navarro specifically points to in Tennis Player relates to Steve's notion that one's serving loop should be full and natural. If one follows this clue, one may find that one's racket turns this way and that way, which subsequently may make him more philosophical about life.

What I remember from my "imitate-Pete-Sampras-days" (before I correctly perceived that everything in his serve is predicated on extraordinary human flexibility) is the abbreviated wind up (early bent arm) in which palm faces down. But in the split-action frames provided here by Geoff Williams and narrowed down to possibly "key" by Steve, the racket next turns the other way, i.e., opens out behind Pete Sampras' head.

And after that in good serves as we all have been repeatedly told, the racket lines up with right edge of the body.

Is there news here? I think so. I see new transition probably never before expressed or comprehended between racket fall otherwise too parallel to back and racket lining up with right edge of the bod.

Note: By mistake I put this post here rather than under "My take on the Sampras serve. The things no one else talks about"-- a sentiment that certainly can apply to more than one or two aspects of this amazing shot.

[don_budge]

A wave of the hand...that meant nothing in particular

Hungarians are good for aphorisms and proverbs. The great Hungarian film director Alexander Korda, whose production company was behind "The Third Man" (1949) directed by Carol Reed and starring Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard and the zither of Anton Karas, came up with a proverb that goes, "If you have a Hungarian for a friend, you don't need an enemy."

Well, I have had just one Hungarian girlfriend in my life and don't ever want another. But after just one tennis lesson she hit good topspin. And among many talents, she wrote songs, one of which contained the English words "this way and that way."

When she came to this phrase she would lift one arm from her guitar and twist her hand this way and then that way.

Another fascinating post bottle...if you don't mind me saying so. That business about the Hungarian girlfriend is tempting for me to comment on but I will refrain...for now. I knew this Hungarian girl and she also sort of tossed her hand this way then that. When I first met her and offered her a ride home I asked her where she lived and she made that exact gesture and I never gave it a thought. I just dropped her off somewhere and I assume she would find her way home. She had a lot of difficulty with the backhand probably due to the same sort of ambivalent motion with her hand. Funny that you mentioned that.