A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Ramped Up Katoui with Give

One combines the virtues of Katoui-1 and Katoui+1 so that the subtraction and addition cancel each other out.

This clearly will be a "give" forehand, a modern forehand in which the mondo is so late that it turns into temporization that embraces the contact.

Paradoxically but only if done perfectly the temporization keeps strings on the ball longer for increase rather than loss of efficiency.

So what if any difference is there between this and the previously described Katouis?

We go with one of the greatest of many great things that Martina Navratilova has ever said. When faced with a reasonable choice go with simultaneity rather than sequence.

So, backswing remains the same. The strings roll open. That is the stroke beginning we have been exploring and we don't stop now. (How much the strings should open could be another question.)

Wrist stays straight. So get to the difference, Bottle, what is the difference? Three-quarter length arm twists traveling racket face closed from independent upper and lower arm rolls all as one.

Only then does elbow perform its shove combined with backward traveling give by the wrist.

It goes without saying that it is raining outside and I haven't ever hit this shot in my life and therefore can't say whether it is any good.

[bottle]

J. Donald Budge Model Serve

I'm an oarsman. I therefore would like to use both legs to jump high in the air. Old age however does not agree. There could be other reasons for somebody to use a model more old-fashioned than Federer or Sampras.

Two different kinds of hip rotation characterize a Budge serve. I'd like to call the first one internal and the second external. And I'd probably be right. Unfortunately, however, the usual lousiness of tennis terms has co-opted "internal" and "external" to mean two different directions of arm twist.

Well, when it comes to hips rotation in a Budge serve both kinds go in the same direction-- counter-clockwise for a right-handed player. And I'd like to put the first kind-- hips rotation against a fixed front foot with the 1 of a 1-2 rhythm. See how the right heel comes up as a result of this first kind of rotation in the following video (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...DB1stSRear.mov).

Put the second kind of hips rotation-- the kind that will turn ahead of the right leg and then drag it-- with the 2 of 1-2 rhythm.

Establish comfortable speed for the first kind of rotation against fixed foot, say I.

Multiply this speed by 4 for the second kind, the one that's going to drag the ghost leg across the pivoted front toes.

The suddenness of this increase in speed ensures that the ghost leg comes into the court as a result, not as something preceding or co-happening with the final hip turn.

In addition, adjust all racket work to allow sufficient time for the racket to turn 180 degrees from internal shoulder rotation as the last thing arm does before, during and immediately after the contact.

[bottle]

To Evaluate

So, starting from the Katoui, a stroke that despite being new worked well in two matches over the weekend, I now keep the wrist straight as forearm brings racket around with elbow held back. Mondo now happens during the elbow push-lift-- a BAM which embraces all contact with the ball. The racket gives, in other words, an idea espoused and seen as good in one of the books by the stringers Lindsey and Cross even though they were describing and illustrating a supposed forehand of Roger Federer and I think most likely they were far from the truth. Well, I'm nevertheless willing to give this mondo-as-give idea a try. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with some give.

In one self-feed session I liked both strokes and tried a third. To keep them straight I herewith assign names. First there is the Katoui. Second is the Katoui-1 (Katoui minus one) a Katoui in which wrist stays straight through forearm forward wag part of the stroke. Yes, the wrist stays straight but the forearm still rolls to lengthen racket head travel. Which gives rise to another term.

"Bring the racket tip around," somebody might say. But what is a racket tip? Does a tennis racket even have a tip? How about a spike like on an old war helmet? A rational person, if very amicable, might possibly agree with me that the rim of a racket is round and therefore does not have a tip. You could call the tip the part of the round rim farthest away from the handle, I suppose, but I don't want to do that. Instead, for purpose of this example, I call tip the part of the racket that travels the farthest. It's on top of the racket in this case since the racket head is rolling in addition to coming around, and this fact enables more racket arc for less effort along with subtle control of sharp angles and in fact any angle.

That leaves a third experiment, a Katoui+1, a Katoui in which forearm roll turns into whole arm roll even before the elbow starts its shove. Why this experiment? Because if there is windshield wipe to occur in a forehand, it should not be late. It should rather produce hook to the inside along with the topspin imparted to the ball. The hook, it would seem, is one indicator of the health of the shot.

Of these three shots, Katoui seemed most powerful except for one Katoui+1 hit remarkably well. But we'll suspend judgment and call the Katoui+1 a mystery for now.

Of the other two shots, the plain Katoui seemed more powerful and the Katoui-1 more careful. Since I liked all three shots I'll keep them for now, waiting for a reason to jettison one or another. I'd be happy if all three were keepers but maybe that's me.

[bottle]

Yikes, the BBC story is not coming up in America although I'm sure that any statement by you once again is true.

[stotty]

Nothing is real! Not me, not you, not don_budge....not even New Year's Serve. We are all a figment.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160...-it-may-not-ma

Stotty

[bottle]

Don't Disguise the Lob

Disguise not the lob. Then hit a Katoui forehand instead.

I told you, reader, that I play chess.

[bottle]

Reverse of Backswing

There will be times when backswing blends more immediately into the foreswing. The unique motion of the frame (circling but opening straight-wristed too) may form mondo on the foreswing more perfectly.

Stopped racket however will also work. Think of a slight pause preceding a sidearm throw.

[bottle]

The Backswing

What could be better for tracking the ball than a backswing that feels like a catch?

The body turns. The upper arm turns. The lower arm turns. All three turn as one to take the racket tip economically to where you want it.

[bottle]

Reflection

Those other forehands, the ones you see on the tour, are silly what with all of their waving around of the arm.

Waving the arm around takes up too much energy and time.

A boxer doesn't do it so why should a tennis player? Kid Gavilan from Cuba had a bolo punch but it was his short preparation punches that knocked people out.

[bottle]

The Katoui is a Double-Crank Forehand

The first crank is from the forearm. The second crank is from the whole arm as elbow goes out.

The Katoui, inspired by Katharine Hepburn, is an exceedingly simple shot even though it took me half a century to figure it out.

Katharine Hepburn praised it when I still didn't understand it. And she wasn't Bill Tilden although she had lessons from Bill Tilden. But she was Katharine Hepburn, so that her praise impressed me. Actually, praise from anybody impresses anybody else a lot, I have found.

Put another way, if Katharine Hepburn did not praise the shot I almost surely would never have figured it out, not with all the distraction I encountered as I later followed conventional tennis learning routes.

[bottle]

Phlebotomist Backswing for Forehands

I'm still writing about Katoui forehands, aren't I? I don't seem able to stop.

One could call this foolishness, I suppose, or passion to make my description of the new shot full and accurate.

An observation: The ability to describe the shot does not mean one won't be able to hit it, although the maxim probably still holds that the better the player the less he knows what he does.

I just think one can work toward that sef-forgetfulness through a lot of design work first. You think about the thing a lot and then you don't.

I'm about to have a physical. That means a blood test. "Which arm?" the phlebotomist will ask.

The one opposite from the one you hit with if you are a tennis player.

But you stretch out your arm turning the soft side up. How is the wrist? Straight. How is the imagined racket in your hand? Pretty open.

Just the opposite of Sam Querrey.

[bottle]

Three Corkscrew Forehands

A tennis instructor, like Donald Trump, repeats himself. It is both his strength and his undoing.

I am no different. Reps are essential for the understanding that comes before the mastery of these three forehands. You could say they are wiperish but I would prefer they be viperish.

The change today is verbal, which is appropriate to a person such as myself who believes that words have a life of their own even after you have stupidly tried to alter the intention behind them.

Scratch: "windshield wiper." Substitute: "corkscrew."

Now for a Katoui forehand we get better extension since elbow goes out during the internally rotating hitting part of the forward stroke. Think of a punch by Manny Paquiao.

Now for a Katoui moonball we still get better extension although there has been some real along with "felt" loop.

Now for a Katoui lob we have more trouble using the corkscrew image, but we remember what Robert Frost told us, that there always is a place where metaphor breaks down.

The lob is really more of a big swishing figure eight, but, because of waist high vicinity takeback combined with the headstart we gain by opening strings to begin all three of these Katoui forehands, remains manageable.

[bottle]

Forehand Feel for the Ball and Cream the Ball Paradox

Reader, it is only fitting that you take your biases out on the court. And that I do so. Or would it be better if we listened to somebody else?

Me, I am an old port oarsman. I feathered or twisted the oar with my right hand to prepare it for going in the water (the catch).

Now that I am a tennis player I do the same thing. Or to be as honest as possible, I finally do the same thing, glomming in on the muscle memory or myelination of a million shell boat strokes.

But one needn't have rowed if this is a sound idea.

What I like is that forearm gets cocked early as blended part of the backswing so that I will be fully ready to pry and twist the other way.

"Pry" and "twist" are violent verbs. "Feather" is not. One feathers in a featherbed, i.e., relaxes. I feather the forearm clockwise. I pry and twist the forearm counter-clockwise.

The non-violent feather maximizes, with delicacy, the unmitigated violence of pry and twist (SIM) toward the net.

The wrist stays straight as the forearm smoothly twists about 90 degrees. I can't believe that there is any pre-load going on, just deliberate positioning for what will happen next. We're getting ready to lob, in fact, but won't-- not this time.

Intead, we twist the arm with "brio," i.e., with unrestrained joy. At same time wrist flops back to feel for the ball as if to catch it.

Then elbow releases and twists the racket a bit more as arm and racket go out.

[bottle]

Narrative

Somebody hit a ball that set me up to hit a PetraKordian, a new stroke I am striving to master.

I hit a good but not great backhand, good enough for it to come back to the exact same spot.

This was rare, wasn't it?-- a duplicate return offering educational opportunity.

The second backhand I hit was not good but great I would say if I were Donald Trump.

Let us assume that, extraordinarily, Donald was right.

The next question becomes: "Why exactly was the second backhand you (I) hit so much better than the first?"

Because you just hit the shot and then had the chance to improve on it.

But what did you do that was different?

The answer should become the subject of systematic search.

Present sequence that I am willing to edit for purpose of quest: 1) forward hips rotation, 2) small rise from front leg, 3) elbow, which has been held in, moves out from bod a small amount.

New paradigm: 1) forward hips rotation, 2) small rise from front leg as elbow moves out from bod a small amount.

Of significance: Step 3) has disappeared.

New design then: The arm straightens and rolls-- a single motion that is very personal and requires attention to develop and make smooth just like someone working out a dance step.

The arm then swims in molasses toward the net as front leg puts a bit of bod on the contact.

To repeat in slightly different words: Elbow moves out nine inches while front leg raises bod an inch or two.

[bottle]

Further De-Coding of a PetraKordian

A PetraKordian, which is an imitation Petr Korda backhand, comes in code as any other tennis stroke does. Simple difficulty of code breaking is why most tennis players become self-deluding romanticists who say stuff like "Don't think" and "The shot makes the mechanics."

One code principle implicit in a PetraKordian: A racket circling the bod horizontally at constant radius does not change pitch. But pitch opens when racket moves away from the bod, i.e., moves straight forward and up.

That is the case after one makes contact in a PetraKordian. The strings go forward with relatively low racket tip finishing just to right of target "to form a roof." Mainly, the racket travels a small distance on a straight line, and that straight line opens pitch a small amount.

Memorizing this pattern, I believe, helps one to hit the ball with subtle movement from the quadriceps rather than from a lot of arm (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqpARpkF8WA).