A New Year's Serve

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Good for a Try

Me, I'm not ready to try it yet (so don't know what will happen) but will in the spirit of Stan himself, a person who believes in all tries.

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Singular Peace

The Lausy batters in baseball hit with a palm sandwich. Except that they aren't lousy.

In tennis, once you start to roll the racket head in a 1htsbh up to the ball, like Stanislas Wawrinka, the racket head, as if it has an ego, wants to get higher than the hand.

Don't let it! Counter the tendency by swinging your fist sideways in the direction of its bonking edge.

"Swing it!" I say. But we need to review, to back up, to slide the capsule in two directions beneath the Wawrinkle backhands.

Twisting the arm shall flow now into swing until everything sliding back and forth is a single piece.

Don't, reader, keep the shoulder down. That's for some other kind of effective shot.

The front shoulder goes up to help racket tip achieve its low point and then stays still (like the Stanimal's head) for what comes next. Or is this too exact? In some of the videos the shoulder still seems to be rising at contact. One fools around with/from some basic idea? Maybe not until you hit a great shot do you say, "That's it!"

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Find the Ball with your Hand

Strings can come up to the ball from significantly below and away from the ball, but notice how the hand is nearer to the ball. It's at same level and close. (Just slide the capsule back and forth until this contention comes true.)

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/stanislas_wawrinka/sw_backhand/sw_bh_armaction/sw_bh_armaction.html?SWBHShortHittingArmRear.mp4

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/stanislas_wawrinka/sw_backhand/sw_bh_armaction/sw_bh_armaction.html?SWBHCenterCourtLevelFront.mp4

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/stanislas_wawrinka/sw_backhand/sw_bh_armaction/sw_bh_armaction.html?SWBHRunningArmActionRear2.mp4

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Fail Better

"If a 74-year-old," I wrote, "can talk himself into a great 1htsbh I may do it now."

Lunacy. Nobody writes stuff like that, and there is no more sure way to make one's potential scuttle backward into the shadows.

Friday night tennis social with full dinner: I am attending for free because of "the situation" that arose two weeks ago.

My new doubles partner cried "mine!" and ran at me while I was hitting an easy forehand from short in the ad court.

Rather than clubbing him in the butt, I aimed for a winner but squashed my loop which caused an excessively muscular upward roll that cut me above the left eye.

The tennis facility provided first aid but neglected to drive me to the emergency room. I did that myself in heavily falling snow, and there could have been a concussion, sudden death, a lawsuit by my girlfriend Hope (or so she nicely says) and I think all of this could be the reason that some facility employes may have been bawled out.

The superglued laceration is now healed leaving the semblance of a scratch, and here I was playing at my first social since the accident.

My new partner had never played on clay and asked what the phrase "first one in" means.

On the other side of the net was a 79-year-old brother I have played with and against numerous times whom I would never underestimate and a tall sister who is one of the more promising juniors in the United States. I had told her mother that I would write a college recommendation for her and I will, but I have not interviewed her yet and had never had the chance to hit with her.

For four games we hung, 2-2 . My Rosewallian slice, returned to its pristine wonder from my reading Ellsworth Vines' repeated disquisitions on Australian grip (a single grip system used by John McEnroe in which big knuckle is on pointy ridge halfway between the continental and eastern steppes) was zinging my backhand returns quite nicely due to the extreme pace of the junior's serve.

So I tried the Wawrinkle 1htsbh-- ono.

Reader, I'm telling you, these TennisPlayer videos of backhand Wawrinkle with their own technology that allows you manually to slide a capsule on your screen are one centimeter away from effective emulation of "a great shot in tennis" by you.

The experience of watching them is similar to sitting in the midst of a party of pot-smoking and guitar-strumming Hungarians chatting among themselves in Magyarul.

"I can understand this language," you say, but you can't.

So I will change my grip even more. There will be a flying grip change as at present to form the palm sandwich and verticality I like so much, but the grip change won't stop there but rather will continue as arm extends and rolls backward.

A protracted grip change like this sounds insane unless one says to oneself, "My hands are wolves and it's time to dance with them." As you step out, you will stride closed while your racket turns to the inside and your right hand's turning, detached, goes even faster for re-purchase of heel on slat/steppe 7 if 8 is TDC (Top Dead Center).

Why, at 74, should one voluntarily submit oneself to such a bone marrow, liver or heart transplant?

Because my entire career in backhand exploration has been in Don Budge styled opening of the racket face rather than Ivan Lendl styled closing of the racket face, and when I turn knuckles to point at side fence I can hit good backhands from a dropped and bounced ball but never in high level play.

Alternately, I've got for seniors doubles a single grip (Australian) system in which every backhand is sliced.

Not enough. I still want towering, solid, rapid backhand topspin that kicks high from one foot from narrow end of crosscourt alley box.

Note: Reading Ellsworth Vines, a number one tennis player who believed in reading about tennis and still remains the best tennis and golf player combined has made me think more about grip change than I usually do. While I have opined that a flying change can easily and smoothly take one to any grip in the universe, I now believe that LENGTH of the change has a built in limit. From Australian to semiwestern backhand looks good but not 3.5 eastern for a Federfore to the 7.0 semiwestern BH position-- the reason for my dancing with hands/wolves idea. All of this requires further exploration: I shall now pick up a racket for the first time today.

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Lausy-Law Backhand (Theory)

. Get grip numbers straight. 1 is TDC (Top Dead Center). 1.5 is the pointy ridge to right of that top slat. 2 (Continental) is the slat to right of that. Big knuckle on 2.5 (Australian) is comparable to John McEnroe's all-purpose left-handed grip. 3.5 is Roger Federer's forehand grip. Slat # 8 is now where I want to put the heel of my right hand.

. There should be no difference in changing grip from 2.5 or 3.5 to 8 . Pull with left hand then slowly turn left arm. Relax right fingers so handle slips, but then reposition right hand on the handle as it slowly turns in same direction (and while you continue to straighten arm and you stride).

. Left elbow now is pointed down so that one looks like a big league batter in baseball with bat in launch position (racket or bat at 45 degrees). One shouldn't worry about whether racket passed through vertical position-- it didn't. Save verticality (skunk tail) as a helpful aid for some players hitting Rosewallian slice.

. Left hand pulls racket back. Right hand pulls racket forward.

. Main goal is a flat palm swing, which means that palm is parallel to court or less as strings leave the ball. "Less" means that racket length was still slanted downward at contact.

. Question: Is there forward arm roll? Yes, a little, to bring strings steeply up to ball. But strings depart from ball in a shallow uppercut, and this transition is seamless.

. Question: Why this design? To bypass the major complication in the backhands of Ivan Lendl, Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka. Those guys are athletic and smooth in rolling strings closed in an unnecessarily contorted way. I refer not to the forward roll I just described, which they also do, but to their earlier roll after start of the forward swing but a long time before contact. They all do it at different places and in different ways (Lendl with the aid of freakishly long left hand fingers) and I'm tired of thinking about it. This is where I go with Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Simplify! Simplify! Simplify."

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Smooth Uppercut

Some stupid little thing makes a big difference.-- Former Tennis Player Aunt Frieda Peslar Johnston, 100

1htsbh or 1hfbh

I'm hoping that Frieda's "stupid little thing" will be to straighten and lock the wrist, but am always amazed at how easily someone gives straightening advice without defining what the straightening is FROM or IN WHAT DIRECTION or FOR WHAT DURATION since one's wrist is versatile, probably too versatile.

"The shot should be made with a firm grip, the wrist straightening and locking naturally at the time of contact."

From what, from what?

In following the latest progression running through these posts, the heel of my hand is now stuck to slat 8, I am poised in launch position from baseball, the wrist is extremely concave as I look back at it.

Most tennis players would probably describe the shot I'm proposing here as level or flat although there is a slight down and up to it.

The wrist smoothly straightens during the slightly downward section of the easy and unified swing. Now it firms. Now it flies up to the palm-parallel-to-court position that I have decided should happen by my thymus.

Upper bodies are constructed differently, so neck, chin, breastbone-- somewhere around there but most likely same place every time.

After that, there may be more followthrough-- a Budgian relaxing of arm from elbow joint seems appropriate.

This is one shot-- a waist high hit-through drive.

Don't crowd the ball. Stay away from it. Contact 12 inches in front of front foot, say Talbert and Olds. Even with front shoulder, says Ellsworth Vines.

One feature: Openness of racket face in launch position with strong grip.

Straightening wrist while swinging racket down lowers racket tip causing acceleration that continues as karate edge of hand comes round to right and everything goes up.

Press down, bonk up but pull knob the whole way.

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Altered Plan

Originally, I thought I would describe an extreme topspin version of Post # 1986 .

The ratio of snow to available court time here in Detroit however is such that I need to slow down my playtime within the present design.

What if one were to put low point here or here or HERE? Variations of pace and spin in need of thorough exploration, correct?

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Joint Invoice and Check

2/6/2014
John Escher, Hoboken, MI 41394
Pay to the order of Norbert Escher of Zurich and Lugano, Switzerland
ninety dollars and no/hundreds
$90 & 00/100's
CHASE OF AMERICA
To beat Maria Bueno. For lesson on putting more air under long diagonal backhand: $10 discount for common blood.
Bottle Escher

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Gradual Straightening of Wrist in Followthrough

A famous teaching pro who was neither of my former correspondents Oscar Wegner or Vic Braden once told me, in a private email, that he likes to feel that he gradually straightens his wrist during the followthrough of his backhand. His backhand as a matter of fact is famous too.

This never made sense because I figured that he cocks up his wrist just the opposite of John McEnroe or the late Arthur Ashe and therefore would be weakening rather than strengthening his swing.

In the present evolution of my perfect backhand, however, such a weakening could make perfect sense.

First the wrist muscularly straightens as arm also muscularly finishes its last little bit of straightening at the elbow. The total effect, when combined with pressure on knob, is that of "pulling on a rope" or "pulling the knob straight at the ball" rather much to the outside in present case.

Then hand and wrist naturally firms up during contact.

Then wrist achieves a last little bit of ease-off straightening in followthrough.

Relaxing wrist this way may relax the rest of the body as well.

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Lift an Imaginary Button

Tennis instruction is over-detailed. In TOO SOON TO PANIC, Gordon Forbes of South Africa, memoirist member of a tennis family if ever there was one, speaks tangentially of his father's "range of broad spectrum instructions"-- what works best, I would submit, to teach people tennis.

Ellsworth Vines seems to understand this point. At the end of his book TENNIS: MYTH AND METHOD he advises, essentially, that his reader forget all the tips he imparted for just two of them-- hit forehands by the shoulder and hit backhands by the shoulder.

Useful but not good enough for someone as cantankerous as I: Where is the shoulder? Does "by the shoulder" mean "bei" as in German, i.e., in the neighborhood of? Or is the arrangement Vines is attempting to communicate more geometric involving parallelism within the grid provided by baseline and net?

Since I don't believe in answers in tennis technique, only in progressions or iterations, I pick up where I left off in post # 1989 . I'm proposing a 1hbh I may get to hit now at a weekly tennis social for the very first time (tonight, a Friday) .

I wish to add only three points to my disquisition before I've actually tried the presently cerebral shot: 1) Grip can be the grip that works and 2) Amount of initial wrist straightening can be the minimal amount that works and 3) An effective cue for relaxing wrist even straighter after it has firmed up can involve the slight lifting of an imaginary button at hand end of two tendons that run down underside of forearm and are about a centimeter apart.

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Reckoning

Had a very productive half-hour hit before the tennis social with Richard (Ricardo) of Lima, Peru, a self-confessed baseliner unused to severe winters and doing a Detroit residency in pediatrics. By the end of our session he was asking for volley advice which I gave, and I felt looser than usual from all the nice groundies.

During the hit I generated a lot of backhand topspin but still was not happy enough-- too elaborate!-- to use it in actual play. For which I had exceptionally fine partners, one a USPTA pro, second a promising junior, third a victim we'd been beating up on. I was glad I still could win with her thanks to her improved play and my backhand slice.

"Nasty," the pro called one of those slices.

I had so much fun with those slices that I never wanted to hit anything else. And I KNOW I was producing more underspin sizzle than anybody at the social including the pro-- great player and great teacher.

Why, unlike some of my stroke progressions, has my backhand slice continued to gel? Because it has become more grooved and unconscious. And more myelinated. And more assuredly part of a single grip system (Australian) since on the other side I have a John McEnroe imitation that draws one third as much energy as my ATP3 Federfore, and though a bit high-risk, is probably more accurate.

Okay, here's where I'm going with this. If a person discovers some stroke that is better than any other he has ever had, why would he not build on it?

In my case, this idea dictates further revision on my backhand side.

I'll do it in my office. Many players only believe in on-court discovery. No, sorry, I have traffic, civil and criminal courts in my office, and I want a topspin backhand more similar to my Rosewallian slice.

But I've been here before. I'm circling back to a previous subject. Should I call this a "circum-iteration?"

Doesn't matter what I call it if I do it successfully. I contemplate a more complex flying grip change which initially and immediately and once and for all gets the major brunt of fiddling with the wrist out of the way.

Goal: Immediate skunk tail with wrist almost straight and big knuckle or heel of hand or both on slat # 8 (fluid grip philosophy-- work out precise details later or never work them out). I do think the skunk tail will occur a bit deeper behind one because of the straightened wrist.

Consider the enormity of challenge to readjust grip over three entire slats from 3.5 Federer forehand. I see some twisting with lefty hand against the detached right hand twisting oppositely. If both of one's hands twist against each other one can produce bigger yet still easy change. At the same time however you are pulling with opposite hand-- the action that gives "flying grip change" its name.

From skunk tail I want as close a facsimile of my Rosewallian slice as possible, with racket coming level to the ball or slightly from beneath, the wrist to firm up naturally at contact and then relax into a last bit of straightening in the followthrough.

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On Building from One's Strength

While I was interviewing Carmella Goree, who as freshman number one player on her team led Grosse Pointe South to the Division 1 high school championship of Michigan, she told her mother about the experience of playing doubles with instead of against me: "They kept talking about his slice!"

Well, it's my best shot, and as my close readers know, it is nothing but imitation of Rosewallian double roll in the YouTube video "1954 Davis Cup."

To get from that shot to Wawrinkle backhand drive could be a large order; but, I have to ask, "Why does my backhand slice work better than any other shot?"

Could it be that there isn't a flying grip change involved? I love flying grip changes, but maybe they're mechanical and therefore disrupt. I'll have to put on my Sherlock Holmes hat and investigate further.

I was thinking: If I were to combine a middle finger over thumb twiddle with slight straightening of the wrist, there would derive an almost deceptive closeness between my slice and drive preparations. There wouldn't be the humpback wrist of Ashe or McEnroe and yet the strings would have closed 80 or 90 degrees all in my initial move.

As for Carmella, her team-mates her freshman year gave her "The Young But Mighty Award." Her sophomore year they gave her "The Queen Sass Award."

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Question, Anybody

In a serve, how can internal rotation of the arm ever be as powerful and therefore effective as it is cracked up to be, if there isn't a right angle from the hand? I'm just asking.

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Sliding Capsules all over the Place

Wow! Well, isn't a tennis player supposed to react to what's going on? I love the sliding capsules, which to my mind are a big change here in this website. You grab the capsule with your hand control, back it up, push forward. You won't be counting clicks, I think. You'll be more like a painter or musician and less like a lawyer. To describe where something happens in a video you may even use words instead of numbers although I note that there is a counter for handy reference.

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Progression, 1htsbh Grip

Using a grant from the National Science Foundation, I conducted an exhaustive experiment in grip change, transplanting the feather that an oarsman uses just before every catch to a backhand service return from ad court in superseniors doubles.

Although the miss-hit flew sharply upward and off of the court, it did so at least in a crosscourt direction away from the netman, which might have inspired further efforts along the same line.

I didn't like the feebleness of the hand to wrist connection however and reverted immediately to my personal version of Rosewallian slice.

The next backhand grip change I shall attempt (there was only the one for all of Tuesday) shall involve immediate finger twiddle in opposite hand only: A flying change combined with spreading out of index and middle finger on the handle thanks to Chris Lewit's recent TennisPlayer article and confident placement of a bit more hand turned over on the racket stalk.

Armed with such a grip and the following video, one can see that Stanislas does not loop his stick horizontal behind his back, well, not this time and many other times too:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/stanislas_wawrinka/sw_backhand/sw_bh_armaction/sw_bh_armaction.html?SWBHShortHittingArmRear.mp4

Still, I don't like the Kuerten-like way he splays his stride, preferring the closed stride of LAU'S LAWS ON HITTING and Virginia Wade.

Face it, a Big League batter is apt to lift his front leg right off the ground while twisting his knee inward. His replacement of front foot is then going to trigger the balancing dancer's mechanism of forward hips rotation that Mercer Beasley so admired.

And Beasley's star pupil, Ellsworth Vines, was surely telling us in TENNIS: MYTH AND METHOD that no more hip turn than that or even no forward hip turn at all is required unless, pulled wide, one steps across in an extremely closed stance.