A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Lloyd Lob

The Lloyd of whom I speak is neither the Chris Evert ex nor the comedian of early film but Lloyd Budge, Donald's older brother.

To hit a lob, he suggests in TENNIS MADE EASY, ship the racket forward a foot or so before you send it up.

Seems like a good idea to me.

[bottle]

Montaigne and My Tennis Book

Once upon a time, Montaigne was stuck in his inherited Dordogne chateau. How he wanted to go outdoors. How he longed for his daily horseback ride.

Impossible.

The whole landscape was ravaged by the religious wars of sixteenth century France. Indoors in the chateau one was relatively safe. The fighting and killing lasted week after month after year and, frankly, whether one survived or not, it got one down.

If he picked the smallest horse in his stable, Montaigne reasoned, nobody would notice him. I’ll do it! He rides across a flat and heads up into the mountains, followed by attendants who have saddled up, too.

One of them, a lusty, tall fellow mounted on a huge German horse with no sensitivity in its mouth lingers with all the other attendants behind the small Montaigne on his smallest of horses.

The group of attendants has ridden with Montaigne many times before, so they know enough to maintain a discreet distance.

But the lusty, tall fellow isn’t content. He wants to feel a rush of air. So he forges ahead of the others and loses control.

They all are on a narrow twisting path with a blind curve between them and Montaigne.

The huge horse rounds the corner and clobbers Montaigne from behind. “He turned us both over and over,” Montaigne writes in the essay USE MAKES PERFECT, “topsy-turvy with our heels in the air, so that there lay the horse overthrown and stunned with the fall, and I ten or twelve paces from him stretched out at length, with my face all battered and broken, my sword which I had had in my hand, above ten paces beyond that, and my belt broken all to pieces, without motion or sense...”

The attendants decide that Montaigne is dead. They start carrying him back to the chateau. Part way there, he starts to move, and pukes up a bucket of clots of blood.

Montaigne continues:

“I will not here omit, that the last thing I could make them beat into my head, was the memory of this accident, and I had it over and over again repeated to me, whither I was going, from whence I came, and at what time of the day this mischance befell me, before I could comprehend it. As to the manner of my fall, that was concealed from me in favor to him who had been the occasion, and other flim-flams were invented...” (Translated from the French by Charles Cotten.)

For my tennis book, I stress what Montaigne “will not here omit.” While allowing that the accident was “light” (since he survived!) he insists that he learned from it, and if anybody wants to know more about death, they need only to approach it—closely—something that happens naturally in most lifetimes.

Similarly, if anybody wants to know more about tennis, they need only to approach it—closely—which means not shying away from the intricacy the way most players do.

If tennis, reader, seems a minor topic compared to death, I apologize. But Montaigne, who always has more to say about anything, has much to tell us about becoming “more personal,” and that is especially important in tennis.

You’re supposed to stick to basics and not really say anything about yourself. But Montaigne understands the fault in this. “Instead of blowing the child’s nose,” he says, “this is to take his nose off altogether.”

[bottle]

Three Forehands for The Middle Class

Here are three eastern or strong eastern forehands freshly mimed in the shower. Hit them in order in a half-hour warmup before actual match warmup.

1) Ziegenfuss (ten minutes). A small C-loop followed by slow sweep of arm followed by spring-don't-swing followed by catching racket forward left. This is a formy forehand but boy is it useful, with double-bend structure the best. Since the stroke is junior, don't worry about turning the shoulders back overly much. Keep everything natural and relaxed.

2) Sockdolager (ten minutes). Do turn shoulders back overly much. Do it with unit turn and continue with pointing left arm across. Take wrist back a little at a time, sometimes all the way through contact. Backswing is parallel to court, i.e., is as level as humanly possible. Use double-fulcrum backswings and double-fulcrum foreswings, which means that arm is to sweep from the shoulder in both directions along with the body rotations you apply to this task. Transition between backswing and foreswing makes a lower register loop from golf-like pressing out and relaxed turning of hips. Arm straightens during the transition, which adds to the feeling of long sweep. Either catch racket or let it go where it wants.

3) Federfores (ten minutes).

[bottle]

Down Time from Injury is Think Time

The usual constraint of on-court testing is gone, and with it all those pusillanimous experiments in which one does not go far enough through lack of imagination or fear of injury.

One should have no worries if one is quietly ensconced in a warm, safe place.

When exactly, talking "twist," does Stosur's pre-load of her upper arm cease in one of her kick serves? When, in other words, does internal rotation of upper arm that is forward movement a person could see-- begin?

Does anyone actually think it starts with Samantha's hand somewhere behind her neck? I vote for the moment that the upper arm points straight up at the sky.

If half of Roger Federer's forehands are hit with arm beginning to scissor and half with arm straight, in which half do more of Roger's ue's now occur? It's eine Frage, Roger, not a frog.

And which of these two diametrically different strokes helps the other more? No one wants to "snatch" at a forehand, so I vote for the straight-armed version as set-up for the scissoring version.

My reasoning derives from the ideal of centrifugal-centripetal balance at contact. Tennis players and golfers ought to remember Percy Boomer, the old Scotch golf pro who wouldn't mind a little upward action from toes and ankles just as one hits a golf ball. That thought threatens fatal uplift of the head, but done properly, Percy Boomer's argument goes, the head only rises a few fractions of an inch.

Surely this principle applies to tennis strokes. To which ones? And using which device/devices? Body coming down in a serve? Arm slightly scissoring in a serve? In a forehand? In an overhead?

[bottle]

Continuity in the Donald Budge Serve

The first person to win a Grand Slam did not have a bad serve.

Here it is again.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/donbudge/donbudge_sa.html?DB1stSRear.mov

In looking for how the various parts of it blend together, the hips to jack-knife sequence may seem most bizarre to those who adhere to a straight body philosophy (nearly everyone).

But there they are, like it or not, hips that rotate on one leg only followed by a big jack-knife of upper body forward.

Toss was two feet into the court, according to the tennis authors Talbert and Old.

Dunno. I think by now I'm ready to say that the hips rotation and the jacknife are simultaneous, not sequential, and that the hips spinning right send the jackknife veering left.

[bottle]

Wrist in Three Forehands for The Middle Class

I agree with don_budge that no forehand is ever going to work properly unless the wrist movement within it is unconscious.

So before I purposefully forget, I want to note the wristed difference in the three senior moment forehands I've ordered for myself.

In a Ziegenfuss, since arm goes slowly out toward the ball, laying back of the wrist can be slow (yet late). Since I wouldn't call this a flip would I call it a mondo? Probably.

In a maximum sweep forehand (but all in the slot until end of the followthrough), wrist lays back slowly and gradually all through the backswing and sometimes but not always through contact, too.

In a Federfore there is a flip. It is late, violent and abrupt. It is high-risk but always with potential for high reward. Is this shot mediocre when not hit perfectly? Yes.

[bottle]

Centripetalating

How is centripetalating a serve different from short-arming it, which almost everybody agrees is bad. It isn't different if you've decided that a chin-up at contact after first zapping arm straight is in order. You wouldn't have to rely so much on your head and eyes coming down with the weight of your body. I guess that would be the reason for the experiment.

The following serve is bad news, not only for anyone trying to return it but for anyone trying to imitate it.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/andy_roddick/andy_roddick_v1/andy_roddick_v1.html?AR1stSAdSide-0274018-0001.mov

But notice how straight Andy Roddick's arm is at contact and how his head is going forward and slightly downward, also at contact.

Note on the language in this post. If you don't want to centripetalate, then centrifugate or Watergate or fumigate (finally, a real verb).

[bottle]

Time to Play with the Ziegenfuss

It's time to play around more with the Ziegenfuss, the goat's foot.

It's just a small forehand. I've got bigger ones. But if I'm going to hit Ziegenfusses, I'd like to see more delicacy and variation than one will ever find in the howitzers.

Hitting down the line, for instance. With either a Federfore or a sockdolager, the right-hander's ball always tails left-- very useful. But what about my friend in Virginia the cabinet-maker Greg Robinson, who could make the ball fade any time he wanted?

The structure of the Ziegenfuss is very simple, arm first then a spring-don't-swing. I've said before that double bend arm structure works best. And a small c-loop. Vertical was what I had in mind.

But why restrict oneself on either count? For loops, keep them small but make some cockeyed. For arm length, let final effect be the only determinant.

Or don't you think a slow approach shot down the line carrying a mixture of topspin and sidespin to make it bounce deep by the sideline and veer outward would be useful?

Listen, anyone has a perfect right to be bored with my progressions. They have their own progressions-- I understand that. Or no progressions.

Inside out Ziegenfusses for crosscourt or passing shots down the line: Skew the loop. Send it out then in as it curls down.

Outside in: Send the loop out as it curls down, then cross the ball on purpose to hit a slider (but combined with topspin).

Don't skew the loop at all for a shot down the middle. Use a small, vertical c-loop.

Then hit Federfores and sockdolagers and another Ziegenfuss.

[bottle]

Stir-Fry Ziegenfusses

Can't try the slanty loops of # 1418 right now due to calf strain, so don't know if they'll work.

I was thinking actually of Phillippino pool players, who unlike the rest of the world, put a bit of side-arm unto their cue technique.

Worth exploration in tennis, I dreamt. Might work. I certainly won't know till I try it, and I wouldn't take anybody's word for it. First, "anybody" probably wouldn't know who Valerie Ziegenfuss Bradshaw was. "Anybody," too, probably wouldn't have read her chapter on forehand in the old lace-characterized book TENNIS FOR WOMEN. And all in all, "anybody" has let me down a number of times. I shan't seek revenge though-- that would waste psychic energy.

If sideways stirring of the descending portion of a small c-loop (and Valerie's loop from photography in the book was bigger, I think) doesn't immediately reinforce-- effectively-- the stroke paths I want, I'll return to the basic, straight-up topspin of spring-don't-swing looped tinily at from directly behind.

Junior ball DTL won't flare out as much as I would like but ought to remain pretty accurate.

[bottle]

What Might Scapular Adduction Look Like in a Good Serve?

Good serves regardless of their form and vintage are characterized by a high elbow, by vertical or nearly vertical upper arm when arm is at its most twisted and cocked point.

How does the arm arrive in this position without pinching itself against the head, which would be very unhealthy.

In the following clip, the server's chest, at three keyboard clicks from where elbow reappears to the server's right, looks concave. Most interestingly, the upper arm goes blurry.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/donbudge/donbudge_sa.html?DB1stSFront.mov

Could it be that scapular adduction plus camera speed has caused that blurry look? And that scapular retraction occurred before that, with both phenomena hooked on leg extension?

If this is too much detail, simply say that chest muscles have just been involved in the throw?

[bottle]

Tennis for the Middle Class: Soothing the Flip

Flip is a good idea, maybe even essential for modern topspin.

But that doesn't mean one's flip has to be as violent as Roger Federer's.

Breaking flip into parts might be helpful: 1) layback of the wrist, 2) twisting the forearm.

There isn't a Jon Lovitz tennis rule somewhere that says you have to do both at the same time like Federer.

You certainly can if you want. But if you've decided, like me, that A) My flip shall not be as violent as Roger's and B) I want some optional flat, penetrating shots that carry only enough topspin for control, and while they shall not be flipless may come close to that.

You might then consider separating wrist layback and arm twist into sequential functions.

How? This is personal stuff. In my case my thinking is affected by injury, old age and dance lessons.

Dance lessons? Yes, I took them at nine years old (U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York) and at 72 years old (Grosse Pointe War Memorial, Michigan) with none in between.

If I'd taken some at 17, I would have become a better tennis player. Why am I sure? Because dance lessons teach balance and economy of motion. Also, they teach the man at least to return to the basic after the flamboyant, which then qualifies him to be flamboyant all over again.

Tai Chi also might work although the flamboyant is frowned upon there. But anything might work other than tennis if it teaches "economy of motion." Tennis itself certainly does teach that paramount lesson, but I know we all need to get out of tennis from time to time as out of ourselves.

When I was 17, my basic forehand had a level takeback. As I turn 73, the same thing has become true again.

Wrist goes back gradually. For a sweep shot, the arm then straightens passively from active agent the hips-- a good time to roll down the racket tip as well.

But now I want more topspin from the same basic shot. Although the backswing shall still be level, it won't be as long since I won't lay back the wrist a little at a time.

Neither shall I roll the racket tip down as hips straighten the arm. No, I'll simply lower and sweep toward the ball as if I'm wielding a Tolstoyan scythe.

Just before I get there, I'll do the full flip like Federer.

But wasn't I supposed to be arguing against the violence of that?

But I've done away with so much loop that I've bought extra time that may change the equation.

Will this plot work? How would I know when I can't play tennis for a month.

[bottle]

Straight-Arming a Ziegenfuss

If one is used to hitting Federfores or any other straight-armed forehands, why should one insist on always short-arming a Ziegenfuss, i.e., on hitting this special shot with structure that is double-bend.

Habit is the only reason I can think of, hailing from some earlier design concept arrived at long ago.

The main feature of a Ziegenfuss is that the arm goes out toward the ball in a feeling, non-propulsive way before the shot turns into Doug King's "spring don't swing," all body in other words.

If you deem that this method is also non-repulsive, esteemed reader, then why not gently extend from the elbow at the same time?

Arguments for this: 1) Twill be easy to hit the ball out front, and 2) Extending arm from the elbow always closes racket face a bit, and 3) A long sweep makes weight transfer easier to get just right.

[bottle]

How Fast The Wrist

Maximum feel from the hand could be what tennis is about, especially if it re-transforms one's hand into an extension of the brain.

I focus in this post only on bending wrist backward whether on backswing or foreswing.

And since a lot of more or less reputable people think that your wrist should have give in it at contact, you probably should pay attention.

Not that I am one of those people. I only think your wrist should give backward at contact sometimes.

Now Roger Federer, possessor of entirely violent flip-- well, I remember seeing some Tennis Player video where his wrist moved slowly backward at the beginning of his forehand.

That means he was mitigating his flip, i.e., was subtracting from his considerable range of sudden wrist layback ahead of time.

In my version of Ziegenfuss-- small c-loop followed by slow feeling extension of arm FORWARD combined simultaneously with slow laying back of wrist that may continue through contact-- a spring-don't-swing mechanism provides the power.

In my version of a sockdolager-- and yes tennis should be self-expression and entirely personal so why shouldn't I have my own names for things-- the racket stays in the slot.

I know men and women both who hit this shot with a huge wind-back around the body, but I have no interest whatsoever in that and will even sacrifice the privilege of hiding the racket directly behind myself.

Anyway, wrist can lay back gradually starting during the unit turn and continue for as long as you want, but perhaps the reason this shot works for me is that I started hitting it early sans professional instruction as a kid.

In a Federfore, I'll delay some wrist layback to put more into the final mix of twisting arm and wrist in the flip. But if this scheme will work with the more level takeback of my sockdolager, I'll apply for a more heavily topspun variation there.

Throughout these experiments-- and experiments are where I take my greatest pleasure in tennis-- I'll constantly fiddle with different combinations of wrist layback, will do stuff I haven't even conceived of yet but all with the purpose of putting my brain in my hand.

[stotty]

Maximum feel from the hand could be what tennis is about, especially if it re-transforms one's hand into an extension of the brain.

I focus in this post only on bending wrist backward whether on backswing or foreswing.

And since a lot of more or less reputable people think that your wrist should have give in it at contact, you probably should pay attention.

Not that I am one of those people. I only think your wrist should give backward at contact sometimes.

Now Roger Federer, possessor of entirely violent flip-- well, I remember seeing some Tennis Player video where his wrist moved slowly backward at the beginning of his forehand.

That means he was mitigating his flip, i.e., was subtracting from his considerable range of sudden wrist layback ahead of time.

In my version of Ziegenfuss-- small c-loop followed by slow feeling extension of arm FORWARD combined simultaneously with slow laying back of wrist that may continue through contact-- a spring-don't-swing mechanism provides the power.

In my version of a sockdolager-- and yes tennis should be self-expression and entirely personal so why shouldn't I have my own names for things-- the racket stays in the slot.

I know men and women both who hit this shot with a huge wind-back around the body, but I have no interest whatsoever in that and will even sacrifice the privilege of hiding the racket directly behind myself.

Anyway, wrist can lay back gradually starting during the unit turn and continue for as long as you want, but perhaps the reason this shot works for me is that I started hitting it early sans professional instruction as a kid.

In a Federfore, I'll delay some wrist layback to put more into the final mix of twisting arm and wrist in the flip. But if this scheme will work with the more level takeback of my sockdolager, I'll apply for a more heavily topspun variation there.

Throughout these experiments-- and experiments are where I take my greatest pleasure in tennis-- I'll constantly fiddle with different combinations of wrist layback, will do stuff I haven't even conceived of yet but all with the purpose of putting my brain in my hand.

Violent flip...

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/roger_federer_09/rf_forehand/rf_fh_arm_action/rf_fh_arm_action.html?RFFHCenterArmActionRear.mov

Flipless flip...

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_forehand/mac_forehand.html?MacFHCenterSide1.mov

Remarkable that McEnroe is virtually flipless even when laying back for his biggest forehands...while Federer flips violently even when laying back even for his most passive forehands. Like 10splayer said, it's all in the grip. Nevertheless McEnroe must be at the most extreme end of the continuum at the flipless end...with Federer the most extreme at the flipping end.

[bottle]

Holdovers from Ross Perot

This is exactly true, as far as I am concerned. And you were right all along that John McEnroe is flipless though not clueless. And the four persons in the Forum poll who voted that M was a flipper were absolutely wrong. The zero persons who voted that M was flipless were one hundred per cent correct. That I was in the mistaken four is irrelevant since I have no credibility on holding a given point of view on anything for long.

Last night for instance we went to a huge surprise party in which teams of guests arrived at a certain house north of Detroit at 15-minute intervals so as to keep the surprise a-going. Worked like a charm. Later, the girl whose fiftieth birthday was being celebrated introduced me to somebody and asked if it were all right if she told the story of how I got my name Bottle.

"If I get something wrong," she said, "correct me, okay?"

"There's no right or wrong," I said. "Just make up a story."

And there were writers there of course since everybody is a writer. And I told again how to get an agent, i.e., go to Times Square and hit the literary agent named Nancy Kerrigan in the back of her knees with a Federfore.

The whole group except for me appeared to be a cult of former employes of EDS, a company owned and headed by Ross Perot, a man who ran for president here in America. He was a person who enforced a strict dress code and would fire anybody for anything at a moment's notice. He was a bit like Henry Ford, who used to send out agents to spy on his employes in their houses. If the agent looked in through a window and saw someone smoking, that person was fired the next day.

At least the members of this cult-- lifelong friends from working for Ross Perot-- weren't carrying Bushmasters.

All that said, I don't see why a person using the basic pattern of an M forehand couldn't once in a while bend his arm and wrist a bit to hit a different, more Tom Okkerish shot based on the speed hand in a Ben Hogan golf swing.

Steve Navarro, I believe, identified and presented a video in which M himself did it.

As for the Federfore you have presented here, maybe it is just the new increased size of all the videos on my computer, but this seems a good example of what Geoffrey Williams says about snapping everything back and then snapping everything forward.

Note also how M always extends his legs on his ground strokes (and volleys!) even for his most passive forehands. And how F, by contrast in the terrific video you present here, stays down.