A New Year's Serve

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Don't Fix Radek But Do Modify Him

"Look at all his girlfriends-- and you want to mess with Radek's racket?"

Well, in his foreplay, I mean his forehand, he, Radek Stepanek ("Hello darling. I'll be home soon!") bends his wrist back at least somewhat and then closes his racket.

You don't have to be an oarsman with a beginner's feather to know that the sequence in this is unnecessary and you could do the two acts together and gradually and all at once.

Take the long view for a minute of the big forehand discussion always going on here at Tennis Player.

The ATP Style Forehand possesses a pat, a mondo, a spear and a wipe.

In the olden days before Brian Gordon's 15-year science project, people merely spoke of a "windshield wiper" and left the curious player to figure out the the rest by himself.

To this day, many of the best teaching pros, concentrating on basics, delay the teaching of a wiper or never teach it at all.

On television one day the announcer and former top junior and substantially high level tour player and chronic victim of Ivan Lendl, Jimmy Arias, known for his heavy topspin, advised that he wouldn't teach the wiper to any player at a 4.5 level or below.

He never has repeated this assertion through many broadcasting opportunities-- maybe because I wasn't the only tennis player who was enraged.

By now however I'm glad he said that.

And the articles here by Scott Murphy on the back to basics ground strokes of Karsten Popp opened up a whole new avenue for anyone willing to tweak.

I ask now, "What about a version of mondo or flip less harsh than that of Roger Federer?"

Even Roger bends his wrist back some before he bends it more (in his mondo).

The more one bends wrist in the takeback (and the less one closes with forearm, I would add), the less one will use those body parts during the mondo.

Today, just for fun, I shall try advanced feather from crew since I already know that beginner's feather works.

To slow blend of wrist and diagonal forearm I'll add a little prying in both directions from thumb and bottom finger.

This could put some more spice and direction variety in my shot or not and will be a safe experiment since I have a nice plateau for myself to return to.

A great irony I find in all of this is that one closes racket to open it and then close it again.

So that if one doesn't close it very much, one doesn't need to open it very much-- and contact could be cleaner than usual thanks to lack of a big shenanigan.

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Radek's Racket Plus A Flying Feather

It's not that I'm promoting U.S. Open and Davis Cup doubles champion Radek Stepanek but rather that I'm stealing from his forehand something I find interesting and then taking off with it.

If one has a flying grip change for backhands, perhaps one should have a flying feather in one's forehand-- an idea I'd like to push beyond rational limits and then back off from a little.

We're all advised to hold the racket like a bird's nest. But if one overdoes such looseness, one may end up with a miss-hit and a lawsuit depending on the grace of one's doubles partner.

If one does that in crew-- in single oar sweep rowing-- one may fly through the air and end up unconscious in the water.

In both tennis and rowing however, looseness of grip is far preferable to its opposite. In crew one's fingers are hooks with space behind them.

Every one of the dozen good authors in rowing including Homer, Vergil, the current best-selling Daniel James Brown, the more overlooked but excellent Craig Lambert (a serious tennis player too), Stephen Kiesling (very metaphysical), Silky Laumann, David Halberstam and the late Thomas B. Mendenhall (a former president of Smith College) always write about crabs and how to catch one and end up in the water.

In ten years of collegiate and club rowing I ended up in the water-- from a crab-- only once and that was in a pair (two people with one oar apiece-- the most difficult shell of all).

Crabs get good discussion in Brown's THE BOYS IN THE BOAT but I haven't come to a really dramatic description of one crab yet.

People outside of the sport need to understand that although you may have caught a crab you didn't necessarily end up in the water. No, you may have wrestled with it and caught it and this could have been very painful and not just in your hands, wrists and forearms. Because of your personal mistake, your crew (all nine persons), may have lost the race.

I am so happy this never happened to me, but it sure did to several of the 200 persons I coached in two years.

The half crab can happen if you don't create a proper vacuum behind the blade to pop it free with your outside hand. The water bites your oar and rows YOU, only YOU are on the end of a speed lever-- this is Archimedes in reverse.

The handle comes hurtling toward you and there is no place to go.

I'm not aware of anybody's forearms ever snapping but that seems a possibility.

More often the oar handle flattens the person on their back. The handle, bouncing, may strike in succession shins, knees, stomach, shoulders and forehead before it goes outside of the gunwale with the blade a sea anchor now dragging and spouting a plume and bringing everybody to a dead stop.

A full crab, happening from the catch, is a hundred times worse.

This is right up there with with the innermost fears of any crew coach along with hypothermia for which I carried super-sized garbage bags in the bow of the coach's launch so that I could wrap up a person to enclose his or her body heat.

The blade in a full crab hasn't gotten square, is tilted up as in an unplanned lob.

It dives deep down into the water. There is less than a micro-second in which to wrestle it out. It's you and the other seven oarsmen and the boat's momentum and speed all against you.

Our 6-5 200-pound seven man-- Marsh Bassick-- did this in practice one day. The oar grabbed him (I don't know where). He flew five feet up in the air. From my position in the middle of the boat I had a good view. There he was, far away, his head bobbing like a small buoy in our wake.

He was tough. And conscious. And swimming well to help us pick him up.

Sometimes though the person gets knocked out.

How did this accident happen?

Well, Marsh (a.k.a. Marshmallow Basketball) was experimenting with mostly feathering with the pinky of his inside hand. He didn't turn the oar over quite far enough on that particular stroke.

Using the pinky a little more as part of a unified feathering motion in a Radek Stepanek type forehand is what I'm trying right now.

So-- I have a misshit and lose the point. Big deal.

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In Any Sport, Who Is A Great Coach?

I am probably the last person in the rowing world to learn that the U.S. Olympic sculler of 1960 and Harvard crew coach and classically educated person Harry Parker died from a blood disease on June 25th after an undefeated season in which his varsity beat Yale by six lengths two weeks before his death.

In the three years I attended in Cincinnati, the winner of the annual National Championship Race was Washington, Harvard and Brown. The year Harvard won I was doing a feature article on Brown for the Brown Alumni Magazine and the Brown coach Steve Gladstone was keeping me away from the Brown oarsmen for fear of distracting them.

But I was standing on a dock on Harsha Lake when Harry Parker asked if I would like to come along in his launch for Harvard's last practice-- possibly because he wanted to distract the Harvard oarsmen and lighten them up and relax them through the presence of a guest. That night at the regatta's banquet, he said of me to the other coaches, "He knows how slow we go."

Another time on the Charles River a couple of decades earlier, I took a racing start in a single scull (one person with two oars, i.e., sculls). Suddenly there was the Harvard launch next to me with Harry Parker in it watching me with interest.

It didn't matter who you were and whether you were a beginner or an expert. The fact is, Harry Parker's antennae were always out and he kept track of every muskrat on the Charles River and probably on the edge of every other estuary in the world.

That is what I would say about the best teaching pros I have encountered in tennis, as well. They are generous and supportive and they notice anything both in front of them and six courts away.

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Forehand Departure From Radek, Cont'd

First we pick Radek Stepanek over a bunch of other players and then we depart from him. Makes perfect sense.

Almost no good players take opposite hand off of the racket as soon as Radek or John McEnroe does (he of the 2.5 grip).

But they nevertheless get their shoulders around with a good point across. When I try this like Radek, my departing ball goes higher and feels quite firm. This doesn't mean however that I ought to copy this feature. No, I'll do what I'm used to-- take shoulders partway with opposite hand and then keep them going with good point across.

That will be the first difference from Radek. The second: Advanced feather from rowing to begin once the hand separation is accomplished.

One doesn't have to know anything about rowing to try this. Racket can go slightly up from wrist and close slightly from forearm which simultaneous process is helped somewhat by twist action from the little finger.

Why do this? To spread the repositioning out. If pinky finger closes racket a little, the hand wrist and forearm can work less.

[stotty]

Laver rivals anyone...

Almost no good players take opposite hand off of the racket as soon as Radek or John McEnroe does (he of the 2.5 grip).

Laver...who often never put the opposite hand on at all.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/rodlaver/rodlaver_sa.html?RLFHShortCourtLevelFront.mov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiSakiF4jzk

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Right. Not exactly teaching pro orthodoxy, is it? And then there was Tilden with his backhand self-invented over a winter in an indoor court in Providence, R.I. still in existence. "Look, ma, no opposite hand!"

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/billtilden/billtilden_sa.html?BTBHSide2.mov

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/billtilden/billtilden_sa.html?BTBHRunningSide.mov

[stotty]

Squash

Right. Not exactly teaching pro orthodoxy, is it? And then there was Tilden with his backhand self-invented over a winter in an indoor court in Providence, R.I. still in existence. "Look, ma, no opposite hand!"

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/billtilden/billtilden_sa.html?BTBHSide2.mov

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...unningSide.mov

Squash shot!

Interesting clip this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERBDJ9yvvKs

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Yikes! I'll not go there.

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Bloopy High Bouncing Serve And Lob Aim Points

Am playing early morning doubles twice a week in a new seniors group on freshly re-surfaced indoors Har-Tru. They are the strongest players I've consistently been with in a long time and they invited me to join them. I'm grateful. What fun.

But I still want to perfect the soft serve that hops above the receiving opponent's shoulder.

Mine jumps quite high but not sky high which means it's apt to get clobbered.

Some factors I've identified so far that taken together might make the subtle difference in this serve to complement a choice of harder serves: A higher and perfectly placed toss with more drop to it, a 10-degree alteration of pitch around the time of contact, a designed landing point nearer the center of the service box, i.e., a more cagey ball trajectory diving into that box...and all factors in the service action that could produce more whiplash i.e. more racket head speed without hitting too much through the ball.

"The higher the top, the steeper the drop."

Eventually, I should think, one might devise specific aim points in the air just the way one sometimes does in hitting a lob when one remembers them (I almost never do), which would be either directly above the net or directly above the opponent's head.

Those are established aim points for lobs. The similar aim points (similar but not the same!) for deuce and ad bloopy topspin serves might startle one by how radical they could be. Starting from high, Naomi Totka hits a rising line drive from which the bottom suddenly drops out. This shot sure isn't a lazy parabola.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds6CZ4qCXD4

Landing ball purposefully short of service line is a new working idea for me as I imagine it would be for many other persons if they even heard of it. In lots of other serves that would be a mistake.

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Thumb And Finger Additive In A Forehand

I'll now assign 3.5 grip preparation additive to thumb and strong middle finger rather than to thumb and little finger.

That information may not be of interest to you, reader, but if you have a 3.5 grip and would like to adjust pitch with a bit more sensitivity, I can't see how you would go wrong with subtle finger action.

Every forehand has some kind of a design behind it, and the player ought to think if not talk or write about his various tweaks within that design.

The wrist opens THIS way while the forearm rotates THAT way. The thumb and middle finger rotate the handle in same direction as the forearm rotation, with all these actions perfectly gradual and simultaneous and occurring after start of the unit turn-- from point in time where opposite hand comes off of the handle.

One certainly doesn't HAVE to use finger roll in this way. But it's an option. I see wrist opening THIS way and continuing to do so not just in backswing but during the mondo which is part of the foreswing.

The forearm and middle finger can reverse action in mondo however and without destroying stability or power or racket head speed within the shot.

What comes after mondo or "flip" in an ATP Style Forehand?

Spear (before wipe). So one has time for these two additives (retraction of middle finger over thumb and then forward thrust of middle finger over thumb).

Today I hit a high forehand this way when the opponents were expecting a low one. I simply think the finger addition makes for new subtlety of feel and choice, but then of course one of my 27 jobs was as a crew coach.

[bottle]

Try, Rotorded Server, Totka's Hammer Followed By A Smoosh

Terms:

Rotorded Server: Tight in shoulder, can't get upper arm to twist backward enough. He doesn't have enough play there for a long runway followed by abrupt change of direction toward the right or outside.

Totka: See previous post, probably two up.

Totka's Hammer: A blended opening of the arm from completely bent to completely straight combined with Upper Arm Rotation (some people would call that a throw as in "throw the hammer or tomahawk or racket with as much arm as possible"). If the rotorded server uses such UAR as part of getting racket up in the air he won't have any of it left to line-drive the ball higher as he abruptly changes racket path out to the right. The racket tip's path will start down too soon-- horrible. So let's employ opening and closing of middle two fingers in cuckold serve formation with pinky and index finger lower pads off of the racket from beginning to end. One needs to work this out in a place like this rather than on the court. Different things get worked out on the court. Actual pronation (twist from forearm only) will occur simultaneous with clenching of the middle fingers which is blended with ulnar deviation. One vigorously hammers the arm straight first so that these three simultaneous events will mean something. But where did the fingers pry out? In middle of Totka's Hammer. Previously, one pried out fingers passively from body rotation. Fine. Works well. But only for contact on back or outer edge of the ball.

The Smoosh: Already described it. Simultaneously, the wrist not depressed or even morose deviates toward ulna, which motion is multiplied by clenching of fingers and aided in positioning to inside of ball by pronation of the forearm.

Double Jackknife or Archer's Bow (doubled if you like): The main direction of twanging bow is toward side fence. But rear shoulder can be rising toward net at same time.

Followthrough specific to this different kick serve is formed by horizontal rotations of shoulders and hips delayed until now and which permit racket to clear front of body.

Degree of Difficulty Here : Considerable. So let's go for irrelevance. Is this possibly Mexican proverb true? "Beautiful horses always love mules." And does it apply to Radek Stapanek?

[bottle]

No Title Kicker

Raonic's second serve is hit behind his head (behind and to left).

One can not be Raonic and still hit ball at that spot.

One can even be a rotorded person and hit ball from there.

If one can hit good flat and slice serves by quickly stopping a horizontal-hip-rotation-dominant serve, one should explore similar stoppage in a VERTICAL ROTATION serve with NO HORIZONTAL ROTATION COMPONENT to it until after contact when such component becomes necessary for a followthrough close to that of any other serve.

If one watches slow motion film of the baseball pitcher Justin Verlander, one can see that he stops body rotation with bent left knee but even pushes back a little which is extension in front knee but nothing like the Jordonair tennis serves of the present age.

From a coil where front heel rises on toes I now want to drive that foot flat to form a brace.

That means I won't shift any weight on toss but rather save it. For when I need it.

And that "when I need it" is body-toward-net component in my kick serve.

Body-toward-side-fence component (total body arch and unarch if you want to call it that) loads and supplements the "Totka's Hammer" I discussed in #1826 .

Rotating horizontally from back foot would be easy. Don't do it. Skate weight (linear) through left heel instead.

And bust with the hammer. Go all out with this combined motion (extension from elbow and upper arm rotation) which perhaps is the rotorded server's one hope for subsequent wrist, finger and forearm motion that will produce significant kick because of transmittal and increase of energy rather than complete generation of it as if nothing happened first.

Slower and late compression of arm are ingredients. The middle two fingers only pry out during the hammer (the tomahawk), which only loads AFTER the leg thrust (an idea from Geoff Williams). Load and unload, over and over, with the last load and unload ("whiplash") very late and fast.

All of which can be done with Raonic's contact point behind head.

Last night, a 22-year-old lefty with a booming kicker recommended that I, a righty, hit wide slice or flat (with slice) on all first serves from deuce to deuce court in doubles because of the "natural movement" he noticed in these serves when we played four games of singles.

A helpful idea. But when it's time for the kicker I want it to work and think it will better than at any previous moment in my "rotorded kick" quest.

A rotorded server, I think, over time becomes afraid to twist his upper arm forward with the vigor he needs-- because he sees himself immediately losing all significant upwardness of spin. He may generate the racket head velocity sufficient to produce significance but never does thanks to poor vector for that spin. So, if he is like me, he starts exploring inferior tricks.

Upper Arm Rotation (UAR) is UAR whether the racket is going upward or sideways or both.

Playing with fingers now becomes the significant factor in achieving the upward vector that has become so long lost.

Common sense is required however. One can shorten the loose motion shown in the three linked Barnabian photos (see 1812 Overture, "Stealing from a Contrarian-- One takes what one wants!-- The Cuckold's Serve"). Do the exercise as Barnaby does but shorten the motion somewhere-- where?

Which end of the loose finger motion is more important to a rotorded server? The end where racket handle slides into yoke of forefinger and thumb-- no?
So abbreviate the other end by aligning racket tip higher up than usual at beginning rise of the two hands to initiate one's rhythm. If you previously tried loosening of fingers during your serve, perhaps you never got handle down into the yoke at all but stopped it with pad at the base of index finger.

START NOW with handle on pad at base of index finger. Loose motion as middle fingers open can now take handle into the yoke. We've bought into the loose fingers free motion idea but made it minimal and put it where we most need it.

I hope that all of this is not too dense. What I wish to stress: All out hammer but a hammer that opens out the middle two fingers. Followed by simultaneous clenching of fingers and ulnar deviation and true pronation (from the forearm only but if some UAR was still getting into the act that would be okay, too).

[bottle]

Using Finger Additive More In Forehand And Serve

Can one afford to wait to decide which finger arrangement to use once one has decided to go the increased use of fingers route? Maybe if one plans to play and study tennis for 200 years.

Not that well known tennis teachers have never discussed the role fingers play in serve, forehand and other strokes. Good information can always provide a shortcut. I just think I'm finding some new wrinkles although my means of discovery sometimes approaches big mess. I'm looking for creative mess.

A friend of mine in Virginia used to say, "A perfectly kept house is the sign of a misspent life."

If one's tennis world was perfectly in order, one would get one's technique down at two years old and never ever change a thing.

But that is not how tennis or life works at least for me.

My first attempt to state a good finger fulcrum for serving was thumb on one side of handle, second joint down from tip of middle finger on the other.

My revised view is thumb on one side, pad at base of index finger on the other.

This leads to:

1) Shorter amount of finger-produced racket tip fall

2) More feel of a backward surgical incision during which the handle no longer rolls in hand to close strings a little

3) The same add-on of racket tip lowness that a rotorded server desperately needs (through handle sinking into yoke of forefinger and thumb).

4) The addition of strength to hammer snap by inclusion of index finger to blended clench. Three fingers rather than two can now clench toward palm. I'm leaving pinky off of racket since that gets racket tip an inch lower or more.

5) A longer total lever since pinky is off of the butt rim.

[bottle]

More About Finger Action In Two Different Sports

I once overheard a USPTA pro give a tennis lesson to his pretty wife. What he said to her was something he didn't say to just anyone. "It's not what you actually do, it's what you think you do."

Any repeat reader of this thread should long ago have concluded that what I think I'm about to do in a given shot is the subject in tennis that interests me most. "Too much about you," some critics have suggested. All right but with a possible spill-over since readers like anyone else must occasionally stop and reflect and plan the content of their shots.

In crew the feathering hand's finger action used just after the oar pops out of the water is delicate but fast. The finger action used just before the catch, by contrast, is delicate but smooth and slow.

Some crews-- the Williams College women in a headwind come to mind-- have done themselves in by rolling up too soon or TOO SLOW starting this action over their shins rather than ankles.

A tennis thing to understand particularly for seniors who might like to reduce their forehand loops is that closing the racket face in backswing can involve forearm, wrist and fingers-- all three-- and be quite slow.

And the same economical technique reversed must exist during mondo which always is fast.

I'm good when any tennis player including myself keeps fingers relaxed without more thought than that.

But I do see the option of using a little actual finger roll in both directions as a way of creating new shots by doing less.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRqd903rIFQ

[bottle]

Topspin/Kick Serve: More from Tom Avery

A new conclusion on kick serves after re-watching these Tom Avery videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRqd903rIFQ

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Tom+Avery+on+Topspin+Serve&FORM=VIRE3#view=detail&mid=0BD39652024E93E3D2380BD39652024E93E3D238

The strings must barely miss ball and keep going in the same surgical straight line BEFORE they turn to the right.

Questions: How (A) do they do that and how (B) do they best accelerate while doing it.

Hammer to put strings on ball with strings pre-set just right—to where leading rim barely misses the ball. (Needed: purposeful misshits to demonstrate that your quest is in the neighborhood of good results.)

Totka’s Hammer though fast is now permitted to put strings on the ball.

Blended finger and wrist action is permitted to take strings off of the ball in the same line.

Pronation and horizontal body rotations are now relegated to AFTER blended wrist and finger action coming OFF of the ball.

Is this information important? No, crucial. Tom Avery makes the good argument that most people can only learn a very effective topspin/kick serve through the patient mastery of baby steps one after the other and over time.

One needs the same approach, in my view, even to UNDERSTAND a good kick serve, which for some people due to weird temperament comes first.

There are no doubt other ways to hit a kick serve, but in this system, which I have arrived at through my own physique and experience, pronating on the ball causes ruin. As does applying the wrist and fingers blend before or coming up to contact.

To end on a positive note, one will accelerate the wrist and finger blend if contact is properly behind one and Totka’s Kick has forcibly straightened the arm so that the racket tip has nowhere to go but up (with brake-induced effect—due to straight arm—now producing added natural acceleration, i.e., whiplash).