A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Science

Well, in the WAW, since loop is now being better used to accelerate racket tip around, why not use both hands at once and get them doing the exact same thing at the same time during this baseballer's phase of the overall stroke.

"You're either wrong or you're partially right." -- Craig B. Mello

There is no way that both hands can do the exact same thing at the same time in the pursuit of AWEWAW.

But one could establish palm sandwich (with racket handle the filling) at bottom of the accelerative loop if one were willing to undergo a second grip change, this one with opposite hand.

At that point-- precisely at the bottom of the non-pause loop-- the two palms would be parallel to each other and slanted upward slightly toward side fence.

Here's how the mojo of this would work.

1) Modified flying grip change to flat-wristed eastern backhand with thumb along back plane parallel to the strings. In a normal flying grip change one just pulls back with opposite hand while relaxing fingers of the hitting hand. In this version however the hitting hand takes a more active role in turning over top of the racket. Why? Because more turning of that hand is about to happen so let's combine to make everything more seamless.

2) We just loosened hitting hand for readjustment while opposite hand held steady. Now we reverse the roles! The hitting hand keeps firm connection with the turning racket as opposite hand readjusts. Important: The hitting hand whirls the racket through talking to the beginning of hips rotation. I don't know how to say that without turning to jazz where the different instruments speak to one another. If anything becomes too deliberate or conscious or "intellectual" at this point the scheme won't work any more than jazz will.

3) Opposite or passive or "guide" hand just loosened its grip, almost released it in fact. The big question-- and I haven't tried this yet or probably I wouldn't be writing this since I bore myself easily-- is whether my left hand can rejoin the racket in a meaningful way to help ship the racket head forward with both hands employing ulnar deviation at the same time. Also, at the same time, the arm is straightening its last little bit for the same purpose. Seemingly, the two arms and hands are doing the exact same thing, but there is a caveat, a flaw in that conceptual ointment (4).

4) The two elbows are pointing in different directions. While front elbow is pointing in a direction that will aid the roundabout swing, the rear elbow is not but is pointing down. So for guide hand to hang with the swing there must be scapular adduction, i.e., extension from rear shoulder house.

Point 5) here is reflection on 4). The scapular adduction of rear shoulder can correspond to the scapular adduction of front shoulder either happening or being maintained just then. Some might say these two adductions add up to a single term, "HUSKING." And that the two scapular retractions about to happen add up to the term, "RIPPING SOMETHING APART" or, more clinically, "CLENCHING THE TWO SHOULDERBLADES TOGETHER."

6) Stride, if there is a stride, is with foot closed unlike Stanislas Wawrinka and just like one of the Lau hitters in baseball and followed seamlessly by a huge hip rotation. By "huge" I mean huge. Major sin in Lau type hitting is "squishing the bug." Which means one didn't rotate one's back heel up high enough. Such a full hips turn, to make heel come up that high, flows into braking with the front leg. One can recall how Ivan Lendl, when he was younger, almost used to thread his left knee through his right. In any case, the rear leg turns a lot to preserve balance against extreme action from the hips. And the racket tip whirls down (keys down) and immediately catches up and passes body to transfer this energy into roundabout swing.

7) Well, WHAT is swinging around? I used to think it was just the hips. And then just the arm. Ellsworth Vines after all writes that one doesn't necessarily have to use the hips at all-- not if one is stepping straight toward the net. For WAWAWE though I believe perfect set-up is always going to put contact slightly to outside and one will have stepped, if one did step, slightly across as well as toward the net. So what is swinging around? Ulnar wrist motion is swinging racket tip around. Extending front arm, simultaneously, is swinging racket tip around. The rear arm is extending too, but it is scapular adduction from the rear shoulder housing that is keeping that arm connected to the swing.

8) Delayed arm springs. Simultaneously, the two shoulderblades clench together. Since this total package involves two different fulcrums, there is more dwell than usual. One fulcrum instead of two would take strings off of the ball faster-- BAD.

9) How zany is all this? How over-elaborate? After all, I was hitting nice backhands yesterday against the city bangboard (and nope, nobody else was there). Well, a scientist and even a baseball player tries to cover all the bases.

[bottle]

After Trial

After taking #2101 to the bangboard, I'm ready to dispense with double ulnar deviation although I'm still planning on single ulnar deviation since I am, no doubt, a deviate.

Most other features of #2101 will survive at least through morning doubles in the last session of our indoor league in which I bring the tennis balls and therefore serve first.

How important is left hand on the racket during the actual hitting part of a good one hand topspin backhand? Put another way, how long should hand stay at the throat if throat is where the fingers are? Where in the stroke cycle does that trailing hand best come off?

[bottle]

Maximum Commitment to Invention

"The shot you practiced is the shot you play with."-- Stan Smith

The truth in this statement applies to sensible persons. Last week I found myself hitting nothing but one hand backhands against a bangboard in preparation for this morning's doubles.

These shots involved a bent arm going back during coiling movement to the ball and final hitting stride as well.

Then, while re-watching the Tennis Player video of Dominic Thiem's one-hander, I noticed that Thiem does something different: He straightens his arm, next he bends it, next he straightens it again.

The logic of this seemed to overwhelm perhaps because I come from a golfing family. A right-handed golfer is taught to keep his left arm straight, in fact nothing else works.

On the other hand, logic and tennis players frequently go in different directions. Jim Courier has been quick to point this out during the player conversations associated with the Plowshares senior tour.

Another consideration is that I may not be a sensible person, committed as I am to finding new invention whenever possible in any stroke mechanics I plan to use soon. Since half the pleasure I take in tennis comes from my invention and I would rather invent than win or paper-publish, Stan Smith's sage advice may not apply to me.

With no preamble or self-feed or bangboard or ball machine or "hits" of any kind I started this morning to play doubles with the new concept immediately and found that for about two sets the new backhand pattern held together nicely.

Why then in a third set did it fray?

Just not grooved and integrated enough and therefore a bit slow-- as fatigue set in-- to get off.

For a mildly intellectual player however the Thiem pattern-- straight arm bent arm straight arm-- may hold promise.

Initial straightening of the arm is an excellent time for grip change combined with flattening of the wrist. This also is an excellent time for sliding thumb along the handle-- not what Thiem himself does but what Don Budge advised in a movie, and it is my contention that people still ought to listen to him.

Subsequent bending of the arm relaxes the whole player. And gives the supposedly intellectual player something very specific to do while striding out-- slightly bend the arm, thus providing a small transition between backswing and foreswing.

So I didn't play as well as I could have this morning-- sorry, doubles partners-- but the new investment I mean invention should pay great dividends.

[bottle]

Straight Bend Straight

Very promising. Sorry Dominic for my flagrant theft. But I need the structure of this. It will serve me well.

At the bangboard (after the rain stops): 1htsbh's with forward stride, 1htsbh's with backward stride, 1htsbh's with no stride.

In each case, grip change and bend of the arm will be a single though sequential move to form a circle.

After that, one might as well be Stanislas Wawrinka.

When to stride, when not to stride? Just as arm goes from straight to bent.

This course of action will provide limited (i.e., relative) happiness for you, for me, for The Knight of the Rueful Countenance.

[bottle]

Yah, I still haven't made my way to the bangboard but really like the idea of getting some essential stuff out of the way at the outset of a 1htsbh.

For me, that's flattening the wrist. I've seen mid-stroke flattening of the wrist in videos of Wawrinka and in at least one sequence of Thiem.

Why do that? What is the advantage? A person should always be looking for something to cut. Why not have the wrist already straight? Unless you're hitting Federerian backhand slice or a drop-shot. But why should concave wrist ever be the default? The default ought to be the wrist setting you use the most.

The second thing I like about straight bend straight formula (am talking about drives again) is that with a full eastern backhand grip and a flat wrist and thumb along back slat the forearm and the thumb go SIDEWAYS behind one's back.

We know that "keying," a very symmetrical circle loop, occurs in these shots.

So-- which of the following choices to immediately precede the keying would best facilitate an easy circle, 1) downward motion, 2) no motion, 3) sideways motion?

Exactly.

Also, because of the new transition supplied by the slightly bending arm, one can initially use more of a conventional flying grip change from any other resting grip.

That would be simple pull back with opposite hand while relaxing fingers of the hitting hand.

[bottle]

McEnrueful Forehands

McEnroeful forehands are full out rolled forehands that are often passing shots that are so deceptive and fast that nobody else on the court or planet can quite believe them.

Is this a low percentage shot? How about medium percentage shot? With the potential for becoming medium-high percentage shot?

This shot is hit with a perfectly straight wrist and grip that is barely milder than eastern forehand, i.e., a right hander puts big knuckle on 2.5 pointy ridge to form the "Australian" grip in the terminology used by Ellsworth Vines.

When this shot goes wrong, and it will go awry, the mistake is spectacular-- the ball can fly 40 feet above the baseline or crash into bottom of the net.

Shouldn't one just ignore the humiliation of hitting a "McEnroefool" and continue?

Of course, in conventional teaching, no one is supposed to attempt these shots. Eastern forehands though-- they're okay. And most Americans other than the late number one player Vines have never even considered speaking the term "Australian grip" much less using one.

They simply prefer to say that John McEnroe has a continental grip the better to dismiss him as useful model.

But the Australian grip is not a continental grip. It lies halfway between continental and eastern forehand.

People including John McEnroe often compare his style with Rod Laver but there are differences. I don't think that Laver's wrist is straight like McEnroe's on a forehand.

A true forehand commonality between them however is that Laver will roll. Here are two of Laver's forehands, one in which he rolls and one in which he does not roll.

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

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

When conventional teachers praise Laver or McEnroe they always seem to include the caveat "Don't try this at home."

This is not only stupid but unfair. The best teachers retain a bit of skepticism about their power of student assessment, always keeping open the possibility of hidden potential that they somehow missed.

P.S. In an earlier post I suggested that in hitting these shots, one can roll to contact but stop rolling from contact.

That is true, but I am now ready to completely refute the advisability of that course. One should roll all the way through the shot, uninhibited.

Note: See here how the shoulders get well turned, but not by opposite hand on throat of the racket. You could say, reader, that the shoulders get turned by the man's brain, or by his opposite hand pointing across, if you wanted. The backswing, as loose and relaxed as you ever will see, is one of the best features of this shot. Jimmy Arias pointed out from the Plowshares phenomenon the other day that McEnroe only requires a fraction of the energy used by other tour and former tour players to get a forehand off.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_forehand/mac_forehand.html?MacFHRunningCourtLevelFront2.mov

[stotty]

Jimmy Arias pointed out from the Plowshares phenomenon the other day that McEnroe only requires a fraction of the energy used by other tour and former tour players to get a forehand off.

Interesting... Great post...absolutely wonderful.

For me the most fascinating thing in all this is McEnroe's incredibly subtle and sometimes imperceptible use of his hands. People often get confused between wrists and hands. With McEnroe we get no wrist and just use of the hand, making us realise just how subtle that element can be. The slighter the hand, the more deceptive the trickery. McEnroe and Mecir were utterly gifted in this regard, perhaps even peerless.

[stroke]

Interesting... Great post...absolutely wonderful.

For me the most fascinating thing in all this is McEnroe's incredibly subtle and sometimes imperceptible use of his hands. People often get confused between wrists and hands. With McEnroe we get no wrist and just use of the hand, making us realise just how subtle that element can be. The slighter the hand, the more deceptive the trickery. McEnroe and Mecir were utterly gifted in this regard, perhaps even peerless.

McEnroe is the best 55 year old tennis player ever. Courier has mentioned this also. He takes the ball so early on both sides with his masterful continental grip. He can even hit topspin(non excessive) off both sides with that grip. He is definately to me the blueprint for playing tennis as one ages. That forehand or backhand, you can't tell wthether he is going to hit it deep or a touch drop shot until it is too late. I go along with LC, peerless. And Arias is definately spot on about the energy expended thing. Volleys, half volleys, and groundstrokes, service returns, are all on the same foundation for Mac.

And one more thing to me. I think to play like, or attempt to play like Mac, one needs to use a heavy racquet and let the racquet do the work. Mac plays with a 370 or so gram racquet.

[bottle]

In answer to Stroke, I have a pretty heavy racket. But I cavil when anyone says that John McEnroe has a continental grip. He studied with an Australian coach and has an Australian grip. An Australian grip is halfway between continental and eastern forehand grip according to the American Ellsworth Vines, one of the greatest and most intelligent tennis players who ever lived. He later was a great professional golfer too. John McEnroe himself said in his autobiography that he has his big knuckle, his forefinger base knuckle, on a pointy ridge for all of his shots. So on which pointy ridge? For a right-hander, 2.5, using the TennisPlayer grip system. Steve Navarro, a left-hander who has done extensive on court research on McEnroeful forehands, recently pointed out that this grip is not much different from eastern forehand grip. Just a smidge to the left of it, I would say (speaking again as the right-hander I am).

I thank Stotty so much for his support and agree with him that McEnroe and Mecir are peerless, but don't think their peerlessness should intimidate anyone from attempting this shot. It is great fun to hit forehands that either go into the rafters or go for clean winners that everybody discusses over coffee afterwards. The higher the percentage of one's clean winners, the more one may come to prefer this forehand over all of one's others.

[bottle]

Dwell on Dwell?

Returning back to a neutral position from an extended and radially deviated position would occur in the forward swing after contact. --Doug Eng

The better the player, the less she knows what she does. --Billie Jean King

Billie Jean said that of men, too.

Me, I know what I’m doing (or so some persons have alleged). Which makes me a lesser player.

Fine. But if I knew less I would play worse.

Reader, let us examine together the Doug Eng sentence. Due to my personal nature, I then will probably elaborate or “embroider” as one editor said. Since he was a USPTA coach, he wanted me to take some idea at face value and keep things simple.

But the first thing to notice here is the concept used by Doug of “radial deviation.” This relates to two branches of human knowledge, 1) anatomy and 2) the accepted language of serving in tennis.

Radial or ulnar deviation as thought refers to cross-bone motion toward the radius or ulna, the two long bones set next to each other in the forearm.

Discussion of such motion in one hand backhand slice, as Doug and I engaged in, might apply to a 1htsbh as well. In either case I see some “predication” or acceptance of a karate-like idea. (See attached illustration from the books of John M. Barnaby where the player uses the edge, not the side, i.e., back of his hand to hit an effective shot.)

Enough for definition and fine points. This post becomes about what I now want to try building on my previous one hand backhand iterations.

I’m thinking, use a flying grip change that slides thumb along back slat parallel with strings. But not with a spread of first two fingers so that fungus can’t grow on them as Roy Emerson says. Rather, a hammer grip even though thumb goes along back slat with plenty of fungus.

I’m designing a 1htsbh from scratch here, a habit I have for better or worse.

Next question: Where does radius to ulna motion or its reverse begin and how much of it should there be and which ought to happen first?

It’s cold rain outside, so no self-feed or bangboard today. In 43 games of doubles last night however, I got around on ball enough for the crosscourt backhand drives I desire despite the fact that Barnaby’s karate edge structure puts racket very much behind the hand.

I believe I’m at a point in my backhand thinking where I really need to believe—strictly—that double fulcrums of any kind in any swing lengthen arc and even form a straight line rather than make some arc sharp.

One makes the mistake of adding turns to the stroke to get around. But the more simultaneous turns there are, the less one gets around. Is that counter-intuitive? I think so.

We want to get around when we want to get around. And we would prefer not to get around when we are right on the ball and probably afterward too since any followthrough conditions what came before.

There is more than one way to increase both sharpness of swing and then “dwell.”

I’m proposing grip change to straight arm then slight bending of arm like Dominic Thiem then straightening of arm to inside in response to forward hips rotation, then braking of that rotation to make the arm fly.

Within this scheme, I want to try ulnar deviation of the hand and thumb and base knuckle of the pinkie first as part of the flying grip change. I then want to hold this ulnar deviation through the loop. I want to hold the hitting shoulder in for a longer time than ever before. I want not to “cast” whether with arm or shoulder or kinetic extension at elbow or through forward roll of the arm or through ulnar deviation.

In fact, I want radial deviation while on the ball to achieve more dwell, at least today I do.

Note: Turn the image by right-clicking on it then left-click on "rotate clockwise."

[bottle]

Modification Before First Trial

Better to conceive one's change before trying, practicing or even drilling some incomplete scheme.

Most structural improvement probably occurs this latter and more painful way, but if one can absorb the lighter content of a book like DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY by Erik Larson, one can come to better appreciate the difference between architects and the engineers and fiddlers who must depart from some original blueprint.

The self-sufficient tennis player of course is self-coach, architect, engineer, athlete and improv actor combined in one.

I'm thinking diagonal rather than hammer grip in my new 1htsbh. That would be a grip such as Roy Emerson advises in a recent video with first two fingers also spread out to match thumb on the opposite side of the handle.

Why this change? Among other reasons because I've had unnecessary trouble throughout my tennis career getting around on the ball especially when I try to keep my backhand drive swing close in to my body as I do whenever I think that a bit of bowling or golfing would be good to try.

For a grip cue I'm thinking "extended thumb lined up with left edge of forearm." The total grip thus created allows for moderate ulna to radius deviation which I wish to occur right on the ball. With radius to ulna deviation occurring after contact during followthrough. And a slightly golfed swing following slight bending of arm to inside that follows the grip change and initial straightening of the arm.

In this swing there will be milder turns than I ever imagined.

Each of these milder turns will go around a single fulcrum.

[bottle]

First Trial (Self-Feed)

So what do you do, reader, when you find some stroke design you really like? Modify it to destroy it as soon as possible, naturally.

I joke. I don't think I'll be doing that. But indulge me, reader, by permitting me to tell you some of the features I like so much about my new shot:

1) I can hit it easy, real easy.

2) I get big clearance when I want it.

3) I get to do all the things I've been working on but in smaller measure, especially hip turn. If one starts with Ellsworth Vines' premise that one can hit a backhand drive with or without forward hips rotation, it follows that one can use just a little of it if one wants.

4) I think that ulna to radius deviation overlapping contact prolongs dwell. I also think that when you say "radial deviation" or "ulnar deviation," most people don't know what you're talking about. Just as when someone uses the term "wrist extension" in tennis. No one can possibly understand that unless they have a code sheet in front of them.

5) I was lucky when I chose "extended thumb in line with edge of forearm" as default position after my flying grip change. This permits the moderate amount of ulna to radius deviation that I seek. But it also permits the moderate amount of radius to ulna deviation I can use for a short sharp-angled backhand to the end of my opponent's service line since I prefer that means to a goal over its alternative of forward arm roll. The philosophy here: "Rules are made to be broken by those who know them."

6) Like most Americans, I love blanket generalities and oversimplification since they connect to any secret wellspring of unreasonable frustration or anger deep in my being. In this case I wish to personify all tennis instruction and say that that single person has never definitively made up his mind whether he wants give or no give with wrist firming up or forward motion from the wrist during contact.

Of course, if Tenny Teach or Teach Tennant is open to each of these possibilities, that is a great person.

[bottle]

The Thing that Will or Won't Destroy it

A slight splaying of lead foot as I stride. This will automatically open the hips, a Detroit Tigers baseball announcer announced last night.

He obviously wasn't a student of Charley Law Sr., late batting coach and stupendous catcher for the Tigers, or a student of Charley Law Jr., who corrupted his father's ideas or developed them depending on whom you're talking with.

Junior wants the stride foot kept sideways. In tennis that would be roughly parallel to the net.

Well, if my effort to become a splay-foot fails, I will return, painfully no doubt, to my naturally pigeon-toed delight.

In any case the new backhand can be hit with a backward stride or no stride at all, alternate solutions to the challenge.

[bottle]

Smart Bomb: The Backhand of Dominic Thiem

If I had any sense, I'd go to Austria immediately and gather up biographical information on Dominic Thiem so sketchy right now and consisting of a video or two on the internet of Dominic having a hit with Roger Federer before Dominic reached full growth.

Yup, I'd show up at the Rathaus (rat house, City Hall) in Wiener Neustadt (Vienna New City about an hour from the old city) to begin my research.

My Hungarian girlfriend and her former husband surfaced in a refugee camp in Wiener Neustadt after they switched trains while part of an international choral group in the days of goulasch Communism.

They were in the camp for a year before a mid-Atlantic Methodist group brought them to the states where they were closely allied with the church until they introduced the parishioners' kids to pot and were invited to leave.

Yup, Wiener New City with its new backhand is a helluvaplace.

But its favored son Dominic having just upset the Australian Open Champion Stanislas Wawrinka had to withdraw from The Madrid Open due to food poisoning or an upset stomach or worse.

Just remember this, reader: One can have the worst trots and the best backhand on the planet at one and the same time.

Was Dominic's stomach bug the worst or something more serious? Is his backhand the best?

I don't know the answer to either question. The biographical information as I said is sketchy-- a state of affairs that will not last.

More germane to human existence: Is the 20-year-old Dominic's smart bomb attainable by a 74-year-old tennis player? Is there such a thing as a "smart bomb" in the first place?

Of course not and whoever coined the term should be called Henry Hudson and set adrift in an open boat in Hudson's Bay or rocketed to the Andromeda Galaxy.

"Smart" though does have its connotations. As we observe Dominic's four backhands from 6:42 of the following video, we can note the strange tilt to his racket behind his back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDydrdDju2w

Or maybe see it better in this link since the first link just was removed by the user whoever that user or usurer may be, someone in the Latin country of the Latinate language of the Thiem-Wawrinka video perhaps? Things can happen fast on the internet.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/bulletin/showthread.php?t=2626

That unique tilt may be unlike anything to be pilfered from separate analysis of Federer or Wawrinka.

But is the rakish tilt this important? Is it personal mannerism or a basic tenet adaptable by any 74-year-old? Yes basic yes yes yes. Well, could be.

So then one abandons forever any notion that Dominic Thiem lines up the ball by delaying his strings in front of him. The more clever and older way to line up the ball is to imagine an eyeball embedded in one's turned front shoulder.

In the four backhands most of Dominic's time is spent with his racket up and behind him, the crucial, slow top of a golfer's back swing.

So, here's this since most of the writing in this thread tries to be cook book or how-to: A flying grip change starting at instant of recognition in an almost level direction.

Almost straight arm (or elbow as cue point) slightly rising and turning, then it slightly bends.

The best analogy for this is a rising wave.

Swing from there.

[bottle]

Well, after hitting the bangboard and again clicking on

http://www.tennisplayer.net/bulletin/showthread.php?t=2626

I'm tempted to stick with my statement that there is an imaginary eyeball in one's front shoulder, but I note that Dominic's real eyeballs are very close to where the imaginary eyeball would be.

And there is definite delay of the strings also possibly improving one's aiming chances as the handle butt arcs under them.

I now see the identified strange racket tilt happening sooner than originally thought.