A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Milkweed Pats Her Forehead

By far the most notable feature in these slow motion videos (of forehands) is the racket descending like milkweed.

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

By contrast, the subsequent spearing or tugging forward with racket butt is short and quick.

We stroke designers are supposed to learn the difference between some universal and a personal tic.

I don't know how to do this other than by trial, error, and a lot of reflection.

In the successive forehands in this video, I can't see the advantage of prying the racket up like Roger, then closing it, then letting it descend like milkweed.

(Roger Federer: "There shouldn't be another me.")

I wish to keep the milkweed part although I've had city boy readers before who didn't know what milkweed is. They should come to Detroit. It's floating around right in the middle of the city.

I simply object here to the notion of lifting the racket to an excessively open position before closing it. What is the sense in that?

Why not gradually close the racket with opposite hand as you pry it up?

Well, you might or might not get wrist depressed too soon if you think that would be a mistake.

Note: Are "racket descending like milkweed" and "patting the dog" the same thing? Why not? In either case, gentleness is implied, i.e., a motion of simple ease.

The real trick may be in establishing Roger's "double tilt" of racket at bottom of the pat in the microsecond before racket inverts (i.e., "mondoes" or "flips"). And this could possibly be done (successfully?) in different ways. I'll try:

A) Close the racket while depressing the wrist as I bring the tip up.

B) In a more shallow path take racket up and down more toward side fence closing strings the whole way.

[bottle]

Too Many Discoveries at Once: Worry or Not?

Not. Here in Tweakcave City we expect breakthroughs, setbacks and treading water.

Both forehands of #1801 work well from self feed. But a version of B) discovered out on the court holds special promise. Instead of a turtle shell racket trajectory with strings closing both during the upward and downward legs of a parabola, they can close only during upward phase. Think of a high topspin-laden line drive that suddenly swoops to hit the baseline. Or a 40-mile-long mountain fin with an abrupt cliff at one end. High point of the racket preparation can happen even behind the place where the two hands separate. Bent arm with straight wrist can have closed the strings from forearm only. Perfectly prepared pitch will produce, after easy and uncluttered "patting of the dog," at least in some cases, racket length tilted down toward side fence and front edge also tilted so that any canapes would fall off toward right edge of the net.

In Stygian or Budgian backhand, flying grip change has taken on a new function: No longer to get racket back as far and fast as possible but rather to push racket butt forward even as the strings flip back. This transforms racket end into a siting device to detect desired point of contact. This also lengthens and unclutters sensuous palm down bonk and gets arm out from body a little more to integrate (with all racket motion) footwork and linear weight transfer and removal of slack.

My rear foot shotput style serve is combining with my baseball pitch serve. Breakthrough lies in transforming continuous palm down racket into open racket structure mid-serve in the case of slice and topspin variations.

A strict adherence to curveball grip in baseball along with formula driven followthroughs helps in developing this whole service package since thumb approximates the direction of racket length. Thumb points at side fence for slice, at rear fence for flat, at front fence for topspin.

Is this "rule of thumb" a perfectly accurate directive? Of court not. But "rule of thumb" means approximate, e.g., my new finish for a topspin serve is with thumb pointing across the net at left fence post of a lonely mountaintop tennis court. And with hand a foot or more out front so as to avoid hitting right side of right-hander's left knee. (But if you have a large bruise there you can rest assured that you are on the right track.)

It's a lot to think and talk about all at once. The big alternative is between a Beckerish left leg off the court (in place or kicking back) or a braced left leg (slightly bent with foot now flat-- solid, in other words) as in drawing # five of the Don Budge serve.

My forward serves, as I suggested, all start with back leg coil. Balance and body weight are maintained on back foot for a longer time than in most other methods including Don Budge to the best of my knowledge.

For a hard serve I don't let bottom fingers push out but keep palm down to form a natural loop. For the spin serves I open the palm out mid-serve and relax all fingers except for thumb and middle to form a pivot point ring to add to lowness of racket tip.

Hips are conscious. Shoulders are unconscious. And that's how it is today.

[bottle]

Reader, I Announce My Stygian Backhand: Are You Scared?

The announcement (telegraph) comes with a flying grip change in which you (I) relax the fingers of the right hand while pulling back with the left while pushing forward with the right.

Now the three other doubles players know that John Escher is about to hit his Stygian backhand rather than his usual slice. I might go with deception, I once thought, combined with the clean contact of a modified skunk tail but decided on level intimidation instead.

So the telegraphed shot has to be very good to live up to its announced potential. I imagine an attempted volley in reply flying into the backstop behind me.

Well, palm is down on top of the handle. I'm holding a roll of quarters ready to bonk with either end.

A Stygian backhand of course is a backhand in which one communes with souls on the other side of the River Styx, namely with those who have tried and failed to master the Budgian backhand.

We'll only get five minutes, so I figure on three with Molly and two with Frank. I'll peel off one of the quarters and press it down into the palm of Charon the oarsman right now. He'll take us through the mist.

Charon: Molly and Frank are waiting for you on the opposite shore. But you only get five minutes. Clear? Five minutes and two seconds and you have to stay.

One can only see water if one looks straight down beneath the threshing oars. The current is fierce. There are smooth puddles of emerald green where the water is welling up and next to them nasty black holes in which water drains down.

And here they are. I'm glad they're wearing tennis clothes rather than long robes.

Charon to me: Sit. You have to stay in the boat!

I start to talk.

Molly: Well, that might work. But don't you need a bigger loop to generate sufficient racket head speed?

Frank: I got hung up on turning and timing from a forehand grip. You wouldn't believe all the trouble I had changing to eastern backhand behind me. First I'd lift the head. Then I'd relax the fingers of the left hand and slide my right hand up to graze it. Then I'd change the grip. Too slow. That was never going to work.

[bottle]

Droid

Still to try more often in play: Gradual depression of the wrist as the racket closing from forearm economically prepares to hit a forehand more like U.S. Open Doubles champion Radek Stepanek:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/radek_stepanek/rs_forehand/rs_fh_arm_action/rs_fh_arm_action.html?RSFHWideArmActionFront1_Tennisplayer440.mov

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/radek_stepanek/rs_forehand/rs_fh_arm_action/rs_fh_arm_action.html?RSFHWideArmActionRear5_Tennisplayer440.mov

That way you (I) can cut mondo in half to make it "less harsh than Roger's" and resort to "backward roll only" to help load the actions that come next.

After which, like Stepanek, one can whip out one's cell phone and cry, "Hello, darling, I'll be home soon!"

A week later: In the rear view video one can clearly see that Radek got his wrist laid back early, maybe even in waiting position for all I know. One less thing to do. No, the following video shows straight wrist in waiting position. Early wrist layback is what we're talking about then.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/radek_stepanek/rs_forehand/rs_fh_arm_action/rs_fh_arm_action.html?RSFHRunningArmActionFront1_Tennisplayer440.mov

[bottle]

Back Off From Too Much Concept

The concept: A flying grip change in which you (I) relax the fingers of the right hand while pulling back with the left while pushing forward with the right.

That gets racket tip WAY AROUND before the running backswing even gets underway.

But note in the following video-- maybe the best portrayal of a one-handed backhand ever-- exactly where Don Budge has his racket tip at the exact microsecond that the video begins.

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

We didn't get to see how racket got there, but the fact is, it got there. So we can fill in the blank ourselves.

Here, in my view, is a compromise between a purely natural takeback and the extra racket turn that a flying grip change provides.

Budge himself was very proud of how natural his whole backhand was. He didn't believe that it necessarily was best on the planet but did assert that it was perhaps the most natural.

Natural, I say, because of some enabling cleverness that no one talks about.

Fair to ask is whether Don Budge then raises racket tip the way that Gasquet or Federer does and the answer is yes, but to a far lower height than either.

The height is sufficient, however, to create a very level swing from the shoulder once the fist has worked passively down.

[bottle]

Don Budge: Watch his Front Shoulder

Is it perfectly level throughout or does it lower-- anywhere? And if so, where?

Conclusion, from the two main videos: The shoulders are level but on the side of being sloped down a little. They hold their setting throughout the running backswing and contact.

The very slight cocking, i.e., raising of the racket tip, comes therefore from arms, not from a sudden sloping in the upper body.

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

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

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Re "Mondo" and "Flip"

Actually, both terms, which refer to the same forehand thing, came from the same person.

[bottle]

Stepping Back With Steppenwolf

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/radek_stepanek/rs_forehand/rs_fh_arm_action/rs_fh_arm_action.html?RSFHMovesBackArmActionFront_Tennisplayer440.mov

RS closes opens closes (the strings). And look at his left arm, leaving the racket and going down before it points across to abet his late shoulders turn.

Recommendation to perennial tweakers married to a flip:

Flip has two components, which are laying back the wrist and rolling the forearm back (which slightly opens strings from whatever pitch you achieved).

Instead of eliminating one of these components at fliptime-- in a quest for less harshness-- why not keep them both by taking some of their combined action gradually during the backswing? Why not minimize them in this way just to see what will happen?

[bottle]

Stepanek's Forehand And The Release and Feather In Crew

Perhaps I'm writing today only for the oarsman jbill or any tennis player with extensive rowing experience-- or not.

I am emboldened by an upper New York State visit with my brother-in-law Allie Malavase, a former pitcher near the top of the Oriole's farm system, who, in his late seventies after two knee replacements is a machine for winning golf tournaments and hitting home runs in national seniors softball.

He put one of his new bats in my hands. I couldn't believe that the shaft was as slender as a golf club. He mimed a swing to show that baseball and golf are basically the same.

This is the cross-sport view. That's what I'm talking about, and in rowing one quickly learns that if one doesn't extract one's blade cleanly out of the water one ends up watching the departing shell hoping that the other guys or somebody will stop to pick you up before you die from hypothermia or drown.

Clean extraction happens when you squeeze hard right to the end of the stroke to create a vacuum to allow the blade naturally to pop out still square.

In that split-instant you've transformed your medium from water to air and now it's time to alter the pitch of your strings. (Sorry about that but once your instrument is in the air what's the difference between an oar and a racket or a bat, club, paddle or anything else?)

We learned, jbill, to make a vee between our hands which were only three fingers apart. The sport since then has evolved. Now the hands are much farther apart in almost all top crews, so that in "feathering," people learn to use their outside two fingers more right from the beginning, but a bit of wrist will always figure in the equation both slightly before catch (the catch will be so fast that it's invisible so you don't want to be feathering just then) and after the release.

In any case, an angled hand doesn't depress or straighten the wrist as much.

After examining videos of Stepanek, I feel that he depresses or rather "lays back" the wrist quite early, probably before closing the racket. But I go with that other Czech Martina Navratilova in advising simultaneity whenever possible to offer less to go wrong. And a lower, wider, shallower takeback like Stepanek's creates the hand angle I want, so that I can use my beginner's feather in crew. The wrist lays gradually and slightly back and the forearm closes strings gradually and slightly (comfortably, one might say) and I've now eliminated a pair of undesirable things from my tennis forehand once and for all-- too much sequence and too much extreme in cocking forearm and wrist.

But I myself am in my seventies, by which time any tennis player still on the courts should have long ago edited his backswing, for which Stepanek seems a good model (although he developed an extremely economical forehand while he still was a young man).

The hand can really not change level very much. The turtle shell backward trajectory of the racket head can be almost entirely due to this new (or old) unified feathering mode.

From there it's patting the dog and flip.

The flip is less harsh because of the earlier taking of some wrist layback and some racket closure during the running backswing.

Less is more.

[bottle]

A Harvest Of Unexpected Points

I've got to keep going with my rotorded serves. That is my best opportunity to reap a Fall harvest of unexpected points for me and my doubles partner whoever that might be.

The unexpectation is apt to come from that doubles partner and our two opponents, particularly if they have experienced my serves from ten years earlier and therefore think they know all about this subject.

What folly not to recognize the evolution around them-- creationists all.

My latest tweak or total revaluation is in the fingers. Progress started there when I chose nifty over nitroglycerine. I (you) could take one or two fingers off the rim. Or no fingers off the rim but rather relax the bottom two so that they naturally will pry out. But if one were truly rotorded (and I am), one might want to manufacture more clever wrist-and-fingers feel and racket tip lowness at the TOP of the hand, i.e., at the base of the index finger. Why let the fleshy pad there provide support when one can use the web between forefinger and thumb?

At Wimbledon, the extremely flexible Charles Pasarell served with his index finger off of the handle so why should a rotorded server not do the same in 2013? The rotorded server should not only get his pointing finger off of the racket but the fleshy pad at its base so that only thumb and middle finger provide one's control.

In addition, he should bunch the thumb and middle finger to keep them from providing an all-contact ring. Two points not twenty will turn the racket.

Note: These finger tricks within the Michael Jordan vertical thrust predominant millennial serve do not work as well as in a three-quarters baseball style pitch closer along the ground.

I discovered this in non-juried but nevertheless clinical trials.

[bottle]

Stygian Backhand: More Attention To Detail or Less?

Here are the two best models once again with our personal lifetime effort to learn from them and other surviving materials or wisdom in an interesting place.

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

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

Two squatting carpenters, side by side, hammer down nails. The one, a beginner, uses five blows per nail, the other, a cabinet maker, needs only a single effortless whack to force the lid of the nail to lie flush with the overall deck.

Before, I fretted about which hand would carry more load at some arbitrarily chosen freeze point in the upcoming cycle of my next backhand.

Obviously, a right-hander's left hand does the work in a flying grip change. Precise racket position at that achieved moment however may be more important than the mechanics which put the strings there.

After that, a slight lift with both arms and step out with front knee to crumple more to get body even lower and upper body turning backward all the while to unleash its natural rabbit punch.

(The reporters Richard Woodley and John Pekkanen and I used to sit on rolling chairs in the city room of the Middletown Press (Connecticut), each with a freshly printed newspaper in his hands. "Look at the lead!" someone would cry. "There isn't any verb!")

Right. No verb. Just the shoulders turning back as the foot goes out and the two arms lift a small amount.

[bottle]

Stealing from a Contrarian (one takes what one wants!): The Cuckold’s Serve

If one arranges some part of thumb in a firm position on large plane of the racket handle having declared this as one of the two pivot points one will use in a baseball pitcher’s serve, one can then begin to figure out the other.

I’m placing the opposite pivot point at second joint counting down from tip of the middle finger.

A very strange thing will happen if one uses such a weakly bizarre grip with loads of empty space behind the fingers. Before I talk farther, I wish to advise that less or no air between fingers and handle will work better for certain persons thanks to more stability.

In the wilder option presented here however, the racket edges, rolled by that same middle finger prying out, will slightly close strings as handle settles down deep in the yoke of forefinger and thumb.

Does one want this? There is only one way to know.

My link here is to page 67 of RACKET WORK: THE KEY TO TENNIS by John M.
Barnaby, who is pictured in the two photos.

Best power in these baseball pitching serves lies in hips springing horizontally off rear foot but with you immediately (but not simultaneously!) braking with front leg so that exceedingly loose but blood-filled arm “scoots.”

Vic Braden has written a lot about accelerating the arm. He suggested that one does the braking with leg, does it with crossing arm, and does it with head by which he may have meant brain but one can’t be sure.

Federerian serve prefers extension off of front leg and push through contact with the hitting shoulder rather than Justin Verlander's bracing with BENT front leg and all that entails, i.e., all in the tail of that.

To be a baseballer and therefore frowned upon by Oscar Wegner among others one can lay both pinky and forefinger on the handle but then naturally remove both in middle of the serve. Or one can use the cuckold’s sign all the way through the serve. Or one can start and end with cuckold’s sign but halfway through give an extra thrust with all three fingers (pinky, middle and index) to clear the index finger’s fleshy base.

[tennis_chiro]

Little finger vs Internal rotation at the shoulder

If one arranges some part of thumb in a firm position on large plane of the racket handle having declared this as one of the two pivot points one will use in a baseball pitcher’s serve, one can then begin to figure out the other.

I’m placing the opposite pivot point at second joint counting down from tip of the middle finger.

A very strange thing will happen if one uses such a weakly bizarre grip with loads of empty space behind the fingers. Before I talk farther, I wish to advise that less or no air between fingers and handle will work better for certain persons thanks to more stability.

In the wilder option presented here however, the racket edges, rolled by that same middle finger prying out, will slightly close strings as handle settles down deep in the yoke of forefinger and thumb.

Does one want this? There is only one way to know.

My link here is to page 67 of RACKET WORK: THE KEY TO TENNIS by John M.
Barnaby, who is pictured in the two photos.

Best power in these baseball pitching serves lies in hips springing horizontally off rear foot but with you immediately (but not simultaneously!) braking with front leg so that exceedingly loose but blood-filled arm “scoots.”

Vic Braden has written a lot about accelerating the arm. He suggested that one does the braking with leg, does it with crossing arm, and does it with head by which he may have meant brain but one can’t be sure.

Federerian serve prefers extension off of front leg and push through contact with the hitting shoulder rather than Justin Verlander's bracing with BENT front leg and all that entails, i.e., all in the tail of that.

To be a baseballer and therefore frowned upon by Oscar Wegner among others one can lay both pinky and forefinger on the handle but then naturally remove both in middle of the serve. Or one can use the cuckold’s sign all the way through the serve. Or one can start and end with cuckold’s sign but halfway through give an extra thrust with all three fingers (pinky, middle and index) to clear the index finger’s fleshy base.

That's right: the question is whether you would rather hit the ball with the strength of the flexion of your little finger (and maybe your ring finger as well) or with the power of the internal rotation of the upper arm at your shoulder. Please check my post today for Robert Meakin's serve, Bottle. The sequence suggested there very much applies.

BTW, it's metacarpal-phalangeal joints and then proximal and distal interphalangeal joints (MP's, PIP's and DIP's).

don

[bottle]

Thanks so much. I will. Right after I put up a book review.

[bottle]

EDITING YOUR TENNIS STROKES, Reviewed

No tennis player can do without this fabulous book written by the great Morris Moose.

Moose started as a midget with gleaming, beautiful antlers. He combined forces with another moose of huge body but puny antlers and rode on his head. Who knew that both mooses would forsake their undefeated record in forest jousts and become tennis authors.

Another sports book, in an altogether different realm, is THE BOYS IN THE BOAT by Daniel James Brown. As a graduate of Brown rowing, I'll disqualify myself from reviewing this one other than to say that it more than deserves its present place at number eleven on the New York Times non-fictive best seller list.

BOYS is, first, a re-telling of the Jesse Owens and Don Budge/Gottfried von Cramm stories, which is another way of saying that no sports contest can ever really sing for us until Adolf Hitler is busy at work behind the scenes trying to cook the result.

I'm only now reading BOYS-- with a deliberateness slow beyond belief-- and therefore haven't gotten to Hitler yet, only to the first section about Joseph Goebbels.

The main character's freshman crew coach at the University of Washington in Seattle, Tom Bolles, is the same fellow who witnessed the first dual race between Brown and Harvard on the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

He indicated to us that we maybe could have beaten Harvard in that tight race if we hadn't reached so far out at the catch that we were squeezing the gunwales of our shell together instead of contributing extra boat speed.

But back to Morris the Midget Moose's tennis book.

Just as the Brown Cinderella Crew in 1959 lifted its shoulders before it pressed down its legs (described in the words of Brown's first women's coach Peter Amram as "hit the catch and don't run into anything"), so all the tennis players around the 2000 millennium who wanted something hot started copying the evolution-in-technique apparent in Roger Federer's forehand.

Before Roger there was Ivan the Flying Elbow. But Roger now kept elbow down so that the racket head went up instead. Then Roger Featherer feathered. Then he patted the dog. Then he harsh-mondoed. Then he wipered the dog.

Roger's editing of Ivan the Tebl was huge progress, but with so much in the stroke still happening it would be nothing for Radek Stepanek to step along and condense more.

Radek ("Hello, darling, I'll be home soon!") was an interesting departure from Roger. First, his on court cell-phoned darling-- Hingis, Vladisova, Kvitova-- was never the same person. Second, Roger always defeated him. But Radek had technical things going for him (just ask those women). And something different from Roger.

Just as Roger excised Ivan's elbow, so Radek now kept HAND down or level if you like. It was his wrist and forearm that gave his forehand loop its distinctive shape just before he patted the dog and mild-mondoed and wiped, with everything of potential major interest to the not yet perceptive tennis world.

Similarly, by the time we of the Brown Cinderella Crew raced Harvard on a Saturday in the cold early Spring of 1961, we no longer raised our shoulders to sting the catch before we drove down our legs. That was our beginning way, the way the 1936 gold medal crew with Brown's protagonist Joe Rantz in it rowed-- I'm pretty sure-- in Berlin.

No, we exploded with legs, back and arms all at once. Which formed natural sequence since legs overpowered back which overpowered arms.

Too late. The Navy lightweight coach had meddled with us for the 1960 Olympic Trials while our regular coach Whitey Helander, a Rhode Island School of Design student we picked up in a bar had to do his National Guard duty.

So that, as Rantz's first coach Tom Bolles pointed out, we learned to press our gunwales inward.