A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Chi Troppo Pensa, Passo Diventa...

bottle, I am reminded to an old Italian adage, which also applies to me btw:

quote: Chi troppo pensa, pazzo diventa...

which literally means: "he who thinks too much goes crazy"....

But, I can't stop doing it either...

My new motto. Whoever thinks too much goes nuts. But whoever doesn't think enough already is nuts. So I am determined to think the right amount.

Should we remove all chess from tennis and play like Fabio Fognini? Remember, Fabio doesn't teach geometry like John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors or Novak Djokovic.

Ironically, an Italian professor of women's studies married to the editor of the Wake Forest (University) Press is the best authority on American anti-intellectualism I know.

And he who serves like Dementieva is dimenta.

Phil Picuri: "I noticed my grip occurs automatically... (only thing I don't think about...)"

No, hook thumb joint on 7.5 when hitting a Federfore. And don't wrap first thumb digit on left vertical panel. Just let it ride, barely in the air. The thumb joint is enough connection. This helps carry out the instruction delivered to me by the Winston-Salem Russian dentist now living west of Chicago, Ksenia. That name means otherness or individual or alienated one. She told me to hold the racket like a bird's nest even though I was her tennis instructor. I like the image. It makes me think of, besides grip...Oh, never mind.

In Ziegenfusses-- forehands in which the arm feels forward before the body core chimes in, I discovered in self-feed yesterday that I can do this with the McEnrueful, or if not that then with McEnrueful grip (1.5/2.5).

Ziegenfusses are shots that incorporate one's common sense contempt for the often too logical "kinetic chain."

I love shots that technically speaking follow ground force up and out but I love Ziegenfusses too.

If doing Ziegenfuss with 2/3 one can replace arm roll with arm scissor. If doing Ziegenfussisch McEnrueful one can replace arm scissor with arm roll.

How about that, Phil? You may be convinced that I am presenting too much information here and am trying overly hard to think too much, but isn't the way teaching pros sometimes talk about arm scissor and arm roll in the same breath outrageous, leaving some unsuspecting student to try to do both at the same time?

Outrageous, that's what.

[bottle]

Perpendicular Norm in Backhands and Serves

If you keep thinking about a single subject long enough, you may go pazzo or your thoughts crystallize ("gel" is perhaps the better verb in sports) or both. Conceivably, you become a tennis player better than most at your age.

1) Edge-down backhands. By keeping backhand edges square throughout the entire cycle per ED FAULKNER'S TENNIS you may develop unexpected consistency. In a recent seniors carousel-determined round-robin while I was spraying forehands all over the place I never missed a single backhand.

Ed Faulkner said, "Opening racket face makes height and spin control uncertain. Have player understand importance of keeping racket face perpendicular throughout swing to ensure control. Right thumb should sense this, and fingers of left hand during backswing."

Elsewhere in the book he suggests that backhands with extreme amount of roll in them (flat or topspin-- less of a problem in slice) may produce sporadic great result but are difficult FOR MOST PEOPLE to replicate.

2) Edge-on serves. Paul Metzler of Australia in my view is one of a few tennis writers who has ever succeeded in becoming sufficiently subjective about technique. To serve with more power, he asserted, he turned the strings out a little during his backswing; to serve with more control, he kept the strings turned in a little during his backswing. It was all a single thought.

Ed Faulkner advocates keeping hitting side of strings vertical and faced toward left fence to begin. Then, after basic down and up motion, the hitting side should face the right fence.

This seems to me the interesting norm. A player should learn it and then explore in either direction but form all variations through amount of opening out of the strings during the basic down-and-up rhythm.

Mechanical alternative to this scheme is exotic address such as used by Isner and Raonic before the serve even begins.

Those used to edge-on ("perpendicular racket") however can next explore the differing degrees of opening out without reinventing the wheel.

[bottle]

Sit-And-Hit Backhand Excellence Further Surmised

It has now been 37 years since VIC BRADEN'S TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE came out-- time then for further I mean futuristic thought on his great backhand.

Having witnessed it, I call Vic Braden's backhand a great shot. Granted, he was only hitting it from self-feed. But he did so for FIVE-AND-ONE-HALF HOURS. That's right. He hit very economical topspin backhands that bounced in turbo-drive to the top of a huge tent . On outlying courts that also were under the circus tent, teaching pros from all over Virginia gave free lessons. On Vic's court, Vic carried forth in monologue, dialogue and quadrupalogue while dropping balls in order to hit backhands beneath the pelting rain.

Cut to Harry Constant in a Michigan restaurant telling me about playing Vic when both were in college. Harry was at Hillsboro, Vic at Kalamazoo. Harry was on the varsity squad but just had slipped off the bottom of the team ladder. So was not scheduled to play although he went along with the team to Kalamazoo. But the Kalamazoo coach saw him and asked him if he wanted to play. Vic Braden already had his topspin backhand and his topspin everything, Harry said, but he (Harry) like Harry's team-mates barely even knew what topspin was. (Yes Harry did not fare well in his match that day but may have gotten to play doubles later as Vic Braden's partner, I forget.)

Cut to Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith smiling indulgently but wryly at Vic Braden's sit-and-hit forehand in the VCR TENNIS OUR WAY. Was there a similar scene involving the Braden backhand? Certainly not.

Cut to the paragraph of Vic Seixas' autobiography where the one Vic tells us-- in disdain-- that in singles he crushed the other Vic. But Vic Seixas praises Vic Braden's backhand.

Cut to the paragraph of TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE where Vic Braden describes himself as a youth studying Don Budge's backhand through the knothole in a wood fence.

Cut to Front Royal, Virginia, where I am playing Harry Sartelle, a six-foot-six dentist telling me that he modeled his backhand on Braden's in TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE.

Only Harry Sartelle's backhand, while good, is certainly not sit-and-hit and probably resembles Braden's in not a single point except for maybe the thumb-on-a-diagonal Don Budge grip.

Cut to the paragraph in TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE where Vic Braden describes himself hitting backhands from hips only with the aid of a leather holster specially fashioned for him by an Argentine leather craftsman.

To me, this "swinging from the hips" contains the mystery or missing ingredient that Braden and his co-author Bill Bruns never quite sufficiently explained-- at least not in a way that would have made my many experiments with this shot consistently work.

The key, I think now, has finally been provided to me by WBTC, a contributor to the TennisPlayer forearm during two widely separated periods.

In repeated posts, WBTC spoke of "a backhand punch" comparing it to the murderous backhand punch outlawed in boxing. WBTC advised students of tennis to develop this backhand punch through self-experiment with boxing's body bag.

"Punch" can very effectively function in a one hand backhand, I now think, and can best be described in the expression "cut the wire," which reached me fourth or ninth hand allegedly from Roger Federer. (Roger certainly wasn't trying to reach my person, but a Michigan teaching pro supposedly picked up on what Roger said.)

But I am not at all certain that the backhand punch I desire need be murderous.

However a cut the wire punch is effective in a sit-and-hit backhand.

Racket settles down on both hands to thigh above the knee just as front foot also settles down. Racket should be several inches out from knee in my personal case.

This early straightening of the hitting arm, provided that one has stepped out on a 45-degree angle to the net, leaves hips free to drive the shoulder into the shot while doing little else.

But the hips rotation's other function, as far as I am concerned, is to load the two hands for dramatic if subtle punch.

The hips driving under the maximum-wound shoulders move the hitting shoulder as if both hips and shoulders are gears of different size.

The hips want to bring both shoulder and racket tip powerfully around (shoulder to where upper body is parallel with sideline).

Guide hand, however, keeps the racket straight. Baseball sluggers call this "pulling the knob straight toward the ball."

In tennis, springiness can thus develop between the two hands.

As rear hand then releases, an extra bit of acceleration is imparted to the racket and ball.

Put another way, the hitting hand stubs out of the guide hand.

The extra bit of acceleration is what makes this minimalist topspun shot work.
No huge loop is needed and in fact is a nuisance to discard.

[bottle]

I'm Buying. Here's a New Forehand. It's on Me.

Using the similarity between the John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors forehands, take the racket back in a slow skunk's tail.

And no, reader, you did not arrive at this perception of similarity by yourself. It came from Jimmy Arias broadcasting a Special Olympics match between McEnroe and Connors as parcel of the Plowshares Old Fart Series.

Because Connors was playing with two hip replacements, McEnroe kept hitting deep to the center of the court, a strategy which whether worked out by telephone in advance enabled him, McEnroe, to win very easily without making Connors look bad.

The similarity in forehands extends to Connors' former girlfriends Tracycakes and Chris Evert. I don't know for a fact whether Jimmy ever went out with Tracycakes but just look at their forehands and you will see what I mean. Check out the forehand of Giraldo Rivera as well.

I have not studied these forehands enough to state how long each of these persons keeps opposite hand pulling the racket around, but I am suggesting to you, reader, that maybe you need not worry about this.

We have learned from our study of Federflora that the two most accepted ways of getting the racket back are 1) keep left hand on racket and 2) point across at right fence with left hand.

Roger Federer like most players hitting the ATP3 forehand does both in the indicated sequence. Variety occurs not in sequence but in amount of item.

Again, I ask, why bother? Both methods work, do they not? So why use both? Just choose the one you like better.

To start out for my proposed new shot I recommend the 2/3 eastern grip of ED FAULKNER'S TENNIS over the 3/3 eastern grip of Roger Federer. Keep 3/3 for Federfore.

The 2/3 is an exceedingly comfortable grip in that it encloses the entire racket handle like a glove or, well, never mind.

The heel of the hand is on right bevel. The base knuckle of the index finger is on right vertical panel. The thumb is wrapped around the left vertical panel. The fingertips are wrapped around everything else, i.e., lower right bevel, bottom, lower left bevel and again left vertical panel.

This writer, reader, advises that you learn both the words and the numbers for all reference points on a tennis racket. Contrary to popular belief, this information will not harm you and may in fact come in handy. Above all, keep the grip loose.

A choice to use Connors' skunk tail could well be determined by waiting position with racket tip at level of left shoulder, cheated over there for a one-hand backhand.

Me, I like a simple pointing across with left hand from there. The racket tip can keep its height and slowly circle around yourself as if you are Tracycakes with pigtails waving an ice cream cone.

From ice cream cone or skunk tail behind you, the racket head can then fall to parallel with court and drive straight through the ball.

Thank you, Stotty, for your help in the invention of this shot.

[stotty]

Thank you, Stotty, for your help in the invention of this shot.

My pleasure...

[bottle]

Poor John Isner

Poor John, all mixed up with with the slickie Jonnie R. Williams, who has a condo at the Bollettieri Academy and is the key figure in the Bob and Maureen McDonnell corruption trial.

Jonnie is so slick, according to the New York Times, that he was able to hire both Isner and golfer Fred Couples as "paid pitchmen" for Williams' product Anatabloc.

I have no stake in the destruction of Bob McDonnell, the Virginia governor who had to quit. I don't even live in Virginia any more. But I do have arthritis. And I was interested in such drugs ("supplements" they sometimes are called) as Celebrex and Anatabloc.

When I went on line, I found some expert saying the side effects for Celebrex and Anatabloc are about the same. Anatabloc, according to the Times, is made from a synthetic version of a chemical found in tobacco. Williams' company that produces it is called "Star Scientific."

Williams is such a charming extrovert that you just want to believe anything he says, the Times reports.

Well, I see the name Anatabloc on Isner's hat or is it his shirt.

My family physician prescribed Celebrex for me once the price came down and it may have reduced my inflammation somewhat. In selling me on it, however, she told me that it had totally transformed her mother's life.

Then her mother had a stroke.

[bottle]

Good Tennis, Fully Clothed

http://vimeo.com/62124101

[bottle]

Set-up for Fans of Domenic Thiem

In one semifinal at Kitzbuhel, Domenic dominated Juan Monaco 6-3, 6-1 .

The announcers for this match declaimed that Monaco was their pick.

Kitzbuhel being in Austria, however, the crowd was for Thiem (He's from Wiener Neustadt).

The announcers admitted one email from out in the world into their ski-place coverage.

The emailer pronounced that Domenic Thiem was overrated.

All the shenanigans, not to mention the quality of Thiem's play, made this tennis broadcast a satisfaction bigger than most.

[bottle]

Stubbed Slice and Scissored Ziegenfuss

I wanna try...

A) Some stubbed slice. Believing as I do only in progressions not answers, I think I owe it to myself to stub a few backhand slices. Ordinarily, in my backhand slice, the right hand gets out of the left hand rather early and smoothly with no resistance from that left hand lightly surrounding the throat. Once separated, the racket spears a little before it rolls more closed.

Now we add a bit of strangulation to the mix or is that too strong a word? I hope so. Since fingertips only are on the throat, they can add a bit of pressure during the spear with the spear now happening before more abrupt separation, i.e., "cutting the wire."

Our progress with the sit-and-hit version of a diagonal thumb backhand drive indicates that "stub" is always roundabout and never continuation of the spear.

For slice I'd say this still is true no matter the slice grip one uses. Personally, although I use diagonal thumb for drive, I use wrapped thumb for slice.

B) Some Berdych-like scissoring before contact in a Ziegenfussed 2/3 eastern gripped forehand. Tomas Berdych, with 3/4 semiwestern, is going to have his forearm move according to different direction and musculature.

Undaunted here in the forearm, from either Tracycaked level takeback or McEnrueful golfy-goofy takeback, we use every bit of natural timing we've got to seamlessly change direction of the racket then break the arm to gently feel forward with the strings.

By the time gross body chimes in (gross especially if we've recently added belly fat) we're back into double-bend philosophy even though we long ago chose the straight arm route.

Note 1: If using Tracycaked level takeback with big point across over unnecessary clinging with left hand to racket, let left hand go in a level path too.

Similarly in McEnrueful takeback since the racket goes down and up the pointing across arm should go down and up too.

Why? To feel good. Dancing is not just about the feet.

Note 2: Nobody said anything about the elbow moving in relation to the rest of the body. Should it or shouldn't it? I'll decide in self-feed out on the court.

In this proposed shot, however, the rod of the arm-- (the forearm)-- gets pointed toward the net and ready to push.

I know that if I push on a stuck cellar door, the legs and body are going to work more than the arms.

My guess is that the elbow might independently move a little but not a lot.

[bottle]

Cut the Wire Backhand Slices Require Less Forward Roll

Cut the wire backhand slices require less or no forward roll because of increased racket head speed causing more emphatic sliding of the strings past the ball.

[bottle]

Ziegenfussed 2/3 Eastern Gripped Forehand is Aided by Turning Front Knee During Prop

The pertinent self-instruction: "Turn knee in during the prop step. Turn knee out during the stride. This is a single feel."

Furthermore, coordinate this mild but hip-turn beginning stride with the self-instruction "break the straight arm to gently feel forward with the strings." You may, because of the low velocity of this, be feeling but you are swinging and sweeping in a very unified way too (and are about to accelerate).

I continue to report here on the self-feed program organized by # 2214 .

[bottle]

O My Arm is Getting Tired!

Tired arm is the rap on not keeping opposite hand on throat of the racket for all or some of the forehand backswing.

And didn't Jimmy and Chrissie and Traceycakes use opposite hand to turn the shoulders? I don't care enough to investigate. Reader, you do it if you want. Okay, okay, I'm lazy today:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/jimmyconnor/jc_forehand/jc_fh_arm_action/jc_fh_arm_action.html?JCFHArmActionSide2.mov

I can turn my shoulders all I need using one function instead of two. A big point across will suffice.

But that leaves my arm to become wearier and wearier according to classical instruction.

Okay. I'll save ice cream coned level takeback for emergencies.

More often I should have time for John McEnroe's backward swing down and up instead, which uses gravity and requires no effort at all. Jimmy does this a bit too, judging from the video here albeit with a different grip.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/jimmyconnor/jc_forehand/jc_fh_arm_action/jc_fh_arm_action.html?JCFHArmActionSide3.mov

So simple. Hmmmmmmm. And Ziegenfussed, too. (Well, Jimmy didn't articulate for his fans the arm going forward with the body next chiming in to lengthen followthrough. Valerie Ziegenfuss did, in the forehand chapter of a book called TENNIS FOR WOMEN.)

[bottle]

Evert, Austin, Connors, McEnroe: Forehand Backswing Comparison

Here is Chrissie giving instruction. Note her backswing despite the moviemaker’s annoying habit of flashing from ready to backswung with nothing in between.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9WOcEIjGJQ

Here is Tracy wanting to give instruction for $3.99 .

http://www.protips4u.com/how-to-hit-the-tennis-forehand.html

Without paying the $3.99, note the early hand separation in the still photo of Tracy.

Here now is video of Tracy. Despite her early hand separation, she did very well in her career (understatement).

http://www.usta.com/videos/stonyfield_tips/default.aspx

Here is John going down and up. He gets a gravity assist.

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

Here is Jimmy going down and up with what I assume is 2/3 eastern grip (8/7 since he is left-handed). He too gets a gravity assist even though the backswing makes a shallower U than John’s since his arm is bent. The rhythm of Jimmy’s total shot is provocative and interesting. Perhaps one should think of a grandfather clock vertical style going back and a grandfather clock horizontal style going forward. The level forearm swings racket around like a farm gate. The elbow, the fulcrum for this, stays where it is for a long time.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/jimmyconnor/jc_forehand/jc_fh_center/jc_fh_center.html?JCFHCenterFront1.mov

For a high ball in the case of a player modeling Connors, I can see the level
takeback of Austin as acceptable variation. Whatever the model I think the two arms should resemble each other in bend or straightness in the backswing phase of the stroke.

Where I'm going with this: As a player gets older, he should shorten his strokes. If a teaching pro started that player’s tennis education with straight back preparation that player should reach an understanding that big loops are often overrated, i.e., are stiff and romantic hotshot mechanics encrusted on an organic game. Time maybe to return to one’s childhood if one didn’t already do that in middle age.

All players should suspect that their strokes are getting too long and always be on a quest for simplicity.

Notes: The four players shown here break the rule that one should keep left hand on racket a long time to help turn the hips and shoulders. In some of Connors' forehands in the TennisPlayer cache, his arm seems straighter and sweeps then more like a farm scythe than a farm gate. In Chris Evert's backswings one can see mild down and up action. But that's not for Tracycakes. Her backswing is level as a pool table.

[bottle]

Note How Tracy Dilutes Chrissie's Model of Finishing off to Left

I refer to the films of Chrissie and Tracy in that order in # 2218.

Clearly, Tracy is answering Chrissie. Nobody else suggested a followthrough way off to the left. Tracy could have addressed any topic in tennis or under the sun but chose followthrough off to the left.

Me, I love Tracy's forehand but hate that dilution.

The relationship of Chrissie's unique followthrough to the rest of her stroke is something to explore rather than to dilute or dismiss.

[bottle]

Farm Gate or Farm Scythe?

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/jimmyconnor/jc_forehand/jc_fh_arm_action/jc_fh_arm_action.html?JCFHArmActionSide3.mov

When I first saw this clip I thought the racket came around like a farm gate. That would predict a section of the overall stroke where elbow acted like the hinges of the farm gate. The elbow would twist more than it moved toward the net. The strings would pass the elbow as if they were having a race, and this would all work best if arm were quite bent in fact formed a right angle.

Now I see that may not be true description of Jimmy or even partially true if "swing elbow to swing both upper and lower arm as a single unit" is the operative cue for best understanding here. Jimmy's arm like that of Chrissie and Tracy is neither right angled or straight but in between.

But the stroke still is Ziegenfussed, i.e., the arm swings the racket easily forward before one's core chimes in.

And there is no reason not to try my perceptual "mistake." What if one may hit great drives that way as well with sharper angles suddenly enabled?