A New Year's Serve

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Rory McIlroy Backswing for a Serve

Reducing stroke production to design phase all the time, as I do, runs in the face of Malcolm Gladwell and Matthew Syed, but I would be willing to play singles against Gladwell at any time.

As for Syed, former ping-pong champion of Great Britain, I would be more wary, knowing from my newspaper experience that Tom Wiswell, former world champion of checkers, once took a game or two of chess from Bobby Fischer.

Syed is an expert on how new design won't stand up to 10,000 hours of having ingrained something as exemplified by his hapless attempt to return serve with a new design from table tennis in tennis against Michael Stich.

Yah-yah-yah.

But any new design is probably a return to an old design, maybe one that one spent 10,000 hours on, the old design again but with a new twist.

So to build on posts #ed 2292 and 2294-5 I now keep feet flat after the roll-out of strings. The front heel only comes up as part of the slow stuff and body settle at top of the second wall of my gorge.

This puts backward hips turn and forward hips turn closer together as in a Ted Williams baseball swing.

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Rory McIlroy Backswing: A Big Deal

I'm going to use it on every serve and many forehands. On a wide forehand if I think I get a faster break employing some version of traditional gravity step involving early hips turn I'll still go that way.

(Am not convinced yet however that same thing the always taught UT-- Unit Turn-- is more effectively fast.)

The McIlroy backswing entails moving shoulders first before letting hips rotation chime in.

This A) completes full stretch of stomach transverse muscles early and gets that out of the way B) puts backward and forward hips rotations closer together C) lends stability through initial flat footedness D) combines shoulders turn and independent arm movement to start racket backward on a straight path rather than pulling it inside. In service this leads more to a favorite model of mine, Queen Beatrix Bielik, who once was the best college player in the land.

There may be better first-rate serves somewhere in the world but this is the one I studied over time when Bea and I were both in Winston-Salem. Because of the straighter backswing, now, a more crosswise arm action behind one's back gets enabled sort of like Bea's.

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Finishing Shots

Some of the school coaches in Grosse Pointe are getting interested in my experiments.

Eight high school teams were playing this morning (Saturday) on the newly re-surfaced town courts.

I watched a fabulously interesting match between a totally consistent player and a tall skinny lad who at first I thought was the North # 2 whom I had worked with in a first session.

No, this lad played for South and had a full arsenal of shots, power and touch both.

His slice stayed low enough to extract points all by itself but most of the time set up a final forehand.

Of what did the winner consist? Semi-western grip from high loop hit right through the ball-- a lot like Jack-son although Jack-son hasn't learned to flatten out that much yet.

Jack-son wants me to work with him again-- we can try some groundies where you-I-he-we think we're swinging flat over the top of the ball.

Then we can continue introduction of slice, the first step of which is seeing Rosewallian slice at YouTube "1953 Davis Cup."

Next step after that is seeing Trey Waltke's article on his slice at Tennis Player-- off-shoot of the Rosewall but without the skunk tail.

Third step: Films of Rosewall also without skunk tail.

Fourth: Self-feed on court.

Fifth: Motion dependent straightening of elbow off of cut wire leading to short angle clearing the court.

General principle: Forward hips turn always corresponds to something significant armwise. A few options each very different from the others: Straightening of arm, building of circular tension between the two hands, building similar tension but from the upper arm this time with motion dependent straightening of elbow then for acute angle hit to intersection of singles sideline and service line (short angle).

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Effective One Handers Easily Topped

1) Hips straighten arm.

2) Hips build circular tension between the hands with arm already straight. (Sit and hit.)

3) Hips build circular tension between the hands with arm kept bent. Don't use triceps then but rather shoot the motion dependent suddenly relaxed arm straight. (Sit and hit.)

2) and 3) are "cut the wire" backhands. 1) is smooth and beautiful and is not. All three require diagonal thumb on back of the handle in my view. The 20 years when I didn't do that were a waste.

In 2) and 3) feel the tension not just between the hands but in back of the upper arm.

Right now I could use all three in a given match. 2) and 3) need further examination in self-feed however to see if one should edit out the other.

Also, flat shots should be closer to slice than most people think. Read the section of Don Budge's autobiography that deals with this point. He describes an unconscious lapse toward slice in the middle of his run to the trophy at Wimbledon before he finds the solution in watching a woman player hitting topspun one handers on an outlying court.

Regardless of grip then, reader, a flat shot is close to being slice. Perhaps you should make it even closer.

Some choices here: Mild slice, more speed, mild topspin.

In a recent match I won a point with a short-angled knuckleball but found the experience disconcerting and unwanted.

A shot that doesn't spin? No thanks.

Fast with mild topspin please.

To this purpose, I wish now to try something that has started to be effective in flattening out strokes on the forehand side.

Feel as if you are swinging over the top of the ball.

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Improved Cue for Cut the Wire Short Angle Slice Backhands

Establish two points for feeling tension build: Opposite hand (probably left) on racket throat and back of upper arm around from hitting hand.

Keep bend in arm throughout the build. Make forward hips turn synonymous with the build.

In the past I suggested circular tension between the two hands and in fact that will happen.

As cue however this instruction isn't good enough.

The bent elbow is taut and full of tension.

The tension is felt in diagonal thumb on pointy ridge 7.5 .

Radial deviation of the wrist is resistant and tension-filled as well (in slight flat wrist movement toward the radius bone of the forearm).

Learn but then ignore all this information other than to think perhaps that you (I) am stretching racket butt to keep it pointing across the net.

Focus on left hand and upper back of hitting arm and the tension build between them.

Tension at the elbow joint should help it suddenly to relax.

There is a minimum of roll in this slice. Save big double roll for special other slices. Get pitch right at outset and next keep it perfect.

Follow through normally-- up and to right-- after arm shoots straight.

One might think that control is related to accelerative spin right on the ball and the greatest acceleration here occurred too far before contact.

Straightening/straightened arm however extends a lever. If the world could just put on some weight it could spring Archimedes pretty far and fast.

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Ducky Adduction with Duct Tape Leading Back to the Other Side

One's addictions in serving are just as serious as one's adductions.

But we want to operate on the pre-verbal level.

So start, reader, by going "quack-quack" and "aflac."

Or as our crew coach used to say before he got Alzheimer's, "Take ten deep breaths. Now blow it out your ass!"

All this is leading to the old conundrum regarding the shoulder.

Is tennis adduction the same as scapular adduction or should one be seduced by both of these addictions?

Perhaps the answer is to quit quacking and start mah-mah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ing or is that goat instead of sheep?

Last Saturday night in the revitalized downtown of Detroit we saw a light show involving three curious Icelandic sheep danced by three women from Italy.

Kids in the audience had battery operated hearts attached to their chests.

When these hearts lit up it was time for the kids not to go to a medical appointment but to climb up on stage in front of huge waterfalls and volcanoes and glaciers and splashy meadows on curved movie screen enclosing them.

After 50 minutes, with everybody in the crowd bah-bah-bahing, it was time to go out in the street to see the other 30 light shows and maybe play a little tennis.

When you employ spaghetti arm off of the Rory McIlroy backswing should you throw from the shoulder or from the scapula just behind the shoulder or both just before you stop that elbow?

Mah-ah-ah-ah. Quack. Pre-verbally, figure it out.

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Closers, Cont'd

The most original technical chess book ever written starts at the end of a chess game-- a checkmate-- and works backward. This pattern is repeated throughout the book. The author is Bobby Fischer.

I'm thinking now of a checkmate on every tennis point. If I am wrong and my opponent reaches my closer and sends it back, the point starts all over but at least from a position of forced weakness.

If my opponent or opponents are able to answer these closers with strong shots of their own, I didn't do my job well enough, didn't succeed in producing a closer in the first place.

The two closers or checkmates I propose are first a high forehand slap-shot through the open court and a backhand dink to the side T whether loaded with topspin or slice.

The slap-shot closer, discussed before, is an ultimate crunching shot in tennis. Because of its speed, the opening through which it is hit does not have to be narrow. I watched a top player-- THE top player (?) at South High School in Grosse Pointe, Michigan work with soft shots toward a similar decider again and again.

That was a nice match I saw. He, lanky kid extraordinaire, hit his final sockdolager with a high but squat loop off of a semiwestern grip-- a killer every time.

Me, I want neither that grip or any loop-- he can have them. I want, as I said, a slap-shot, a Chris Evert whollop hit from racket lifted above the ball and then swung over the top of it finishing moderately high out to the side. By now I have explained, I hope, both how this shot is an actual slap-shot and how it is not. Whatever it is, it is not subtle. Initially, it stays in the slot except when hit with an Australian rather than eastern grip. Then I bring it high behind the body and roll the racket head forward as I slam down on imaginary ice.

I save my forehand loops-- my Federfores-- to help set up this final shot.

To go the opposite route, the short backhand checkmate, just think for now, reader, not what sets this up but how to hit it.

Again, I have proposed a special shot, a cut the wire backhand which always can improve.

Whether sliced or topspun, the primary characteristic is not a loop but a hoop building tension as the hips roll forward.

The hoop is formed by arms and body and racket. One needs to form this hoop shape early simultaneous with a step-out. The two best pressure points are left (opposite hand) on the throat and back of right upper arm. Getting those conflicting tugs right should take care of most of the intricacies between them.

But should there be movement within the hoop as tension builds? Not an absolute requirement but I think so. At first I thought there should be resistant yet yielding radial wrist movement. Right, and this should endure.

I add to it now however some new scissoring of the arm also in a way that exerts resistance.

In motion produced torques as of wrist and elbow-- as are about to happen here-- we ought to ask how much range of free motion there should be, should we not?

Radial movement of the wrist is always going to be a small and finite amount requiring no further thought.

Ideal amount of bend at elbow for the cut the wire release however could be anything. How can you know until you have tried different amounts? And should passively extending arm shoot straight by contact or still be straightening? Darned if I know. The only test is what works best.

Drill: Alternate grip and set of hoop on successive shots to produce both sliced and topspun checkmates. Bent diagonal thumb positions: 7, 7.5, 7, 7.5 . Hoop tilts slightly up, down, up, down. Just did it with a fallen stick in a garden we're taking care of, knocking the tops off of weeds before I extirpated them.

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Slimy Sliding Words

Begone thou slimy words each one a small wrench in the fluid works of my still unrealized dream.

Wait a sec. Slimy wrenches will slide.

Perhaps. Or not.

Palm down serves: Vic Braden and Welby Van Horn. Palm up: Jack Barnaby and Ed Faulkner. Palm down for more control and palm up for more power: Paul Metzler.

Agnostics can go far with Metzler, far enough even to invent a mechanism that allows them to explore all territories including the demilitarized zone between the conflicting armies.

Palm up first off of a Rory McIlroy backswing. All the experiments will start with a Rory McIlroy backswing. Caroline Wozniacki has moved beyond Rory but not the rest of us. I mean to say I like his backswing.

Hands up, hands down. They separate with the racket rolling as desired.

Right arm circles round side of second wall of one's gorge.

Right shoulder circles round side of second wall of one's gorge.

With arm and shoulder slumming and summing in sunny cooperation and arm moving ahead of shoulder, one easily and quickly reaches the gorge top.

Now the legs bend as hips continue the rotation backward while easing under an imaginary limbo stick toward right fence, not toward net as when one served some newfangled way.

In this as in related move of the arm the goal is to put strings behind the neck for longer than when they flew out to the right contacting ball on its outer edge.

"Related move of the arm": loosey goosey bending gradually along the baseline who knows how much just when.

With impeccable logic scapular retraction now begins since this process will take racket farther behind the neck.

Getting racket so far behind shoulders line might be a flaw in some other kind of serve but not this one.

Tossed ball has created a structural post round which the two scapular retractions can revolve.

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Part Two, The Forward Serve

As one might suspect, forward serve begins at the ground.

Not having any wish to fight body weight and fly we simply keep naturally separated feet in place and rotate hips fast.

If front heel came up, it clunks down now. That sounds like unwanted lowering. Left knee straightens however at the same time.

The left leg's extension is greater than the left heel's sink thus creating net rise.

But what has the arm done meantime? Maintained solid connection with the shoulder.

The whole shoulder is moving however, in abrupt throw.

Some would call this scapular adduction and I am one of those persons. Scapular adduction yes but from one side of the body only. Left scapula remains retracted.

Now the elbow has stopped. Now the transverse stomach muscles fire. Now the racket is flying up to the outside of one's hand and in tandem with it as if one's hand is tracing a tall building in Atlanta and one's racket is a capsule clinging yet shooting up.

This is fast-- much faster than any elevator in Atlanta-- as fast as an ALTA serve at 4.5 level (Atlanta no Lawn Tennis Association).

Very fast internal rotation of the arm begins now.

Hoping for an ace, let us leave this happy serve right there.

Note: My sympathies have always lain with the vast ranks of the rotorded more than any other subset of servers. I opine therefore that as Atlantan capsule does its trick in racketry-rocketry the upper arm pre-loads and no time else.

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Slap-Shot Progression

We found a more sentient flat shot ground game when we decided, at the age of 74, to index or thumbnail our grip system, abandon most of our forehand loops, broaden the use of down-and-up backswing, reject the keeping of opposite hand on the racket in favor of early pointing across.

As important as any of it is commitment to the progression ideal with its "no answer at any time" just growth of variation of a theme.

Thus, today in advance of the tennis social tomorrow night, I'll self-feed some early roll slap-shots with eastern grip (bent thumb on panel eight and separated from bottom three fingers by one centimeter).

Early roll? What sense could that make? A lot so long as one doesn't permit it to infect one's no frill shot.

The progression here grows from acceptance that the longer slap-shotted McEnrueful is working pretty well so why not re-apply its scheme back to thumb on panel 8 rather than pointy ridge 7.5 ?

The shot as in slap-shotted McEnrueful is lifted a smidge more behind one to allow room for the early roll.

The question then becomes how much to roll. As much as in the McEnrueful. But that will close the strings to transform them into a thin knife similar to the one the author Alex Waugh used to use on the top of his egg cup. Fine. Now one can swing uninhibitedly with no rolled adjustment. With contact point out front, the strings will open naturally to square.

The opposite thought is the low ball that Chris Evert discusses in her great instructional video. One can crowd that ball, bowl forward down and up, adjust roll forward for square contact, finish over the shoulder close to the head-- reader, do you see the difference?

That shot produces more topspin than Evert hitting a waist high shot. If ball will bounce waist high and one wants more topspin however one can hit the Federfore.

Federfores should benefit from abandonment of loop in other (still flatter) forehand shots.

The slap-shot motif with its 45-degree hitting whack is quick and compact and all zen but tai-chi smooth too.

The preparation for these slap-shots which really aren't slap-shots can be down and up for rhythm and consistency or theatrical just up.

One halves the rising path one backswings for the just up shot to start one's dog pat, thus creating a better Federfore.

Am I delusional? Certainly not! Most loops are showy and superficial. This loop has been defined by a common sense parameter of timing brought across from the no loop forehands.

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SIM and SEQ: The To Be Or Not To Be Of Tennis

This comes up everywhere, in other sports too.

So, in a supported serve where one resembles a hunky baseball pitcher finding better things to do with his energy than to lug his body weight up into the air, one works with grounded torques.

Does body still rise? Does a bicyclist push with his legs?

Suppose he is a sciaticat with arthritic knees. Which hurts him least: bike or walk or hops? Answer: Keep order of the questions.

We are more or less saying here-- aren't we?-- that serves before the rule change were more horizontally rotational, and the best of the modern innovators, either McEnroe and Sampras or their coaches, preserved and added rather than replaced.

So, believing the ancient cry we heard from an adjacent court: "OLD MEN SHOULDN'T JUMP UP IN THE AIR!" we ground ourselves and Chubbily Checkerly twist like we did last summer: ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND WE GO.

With what serving elements however and are they SEQ or SIM? Up and down hands kept together = SEQ. Continued lowering of racket arm combined with rolling pitch adjustment = SIM. Rory McIlroy straight backswing = SIM. Hips turn and legs bend under side fence oriented limbo stick and arm bend and retraction of the scapulas = relaxed and SIM.

Before proceeding, reader, get all this right since even by dance class standards it is a lot.

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Balanced Aggression: McEnruefuls and Federfores

Freedom from the shoulder is what I envision in my McEnrueful slap-shots. With that forehand or even with the Chrissie-and-Jimmie (though a thing of the past) just swing the arm by itself, reader, and once you've learned how to do that add a vertical stripe of Muhammad Ali jab from the foot.

That replaces the Ziegenfuss, which was all about extending followthrough by saving shoulders till late. The new stroke will be close to the Ziegenfuss yes but slightly different since shoulders turn in the middle. They don't turn at the end. They don't turn at the beginning. They blend into the middle. "Blend" sounds good but I suspect there is independence of arm both before and after the column of kinetic chain mid-stroke.

This said, I must confess that I know little about slap-shots, having hit only one in my life. When I was a hockey defenseman I only used wrist shots and scored seldom maybe never in a season. I could skate backward pretty well though.

The one slap-shot I hit was unsuccessful in that the ice floe I was standing on ungrounded and floated out into the shipping channel of the Connecticut River, a twice-told tale. I jumped in the water, swam to shore, caught pneumonia. The slap-shot was unsuccessful.

Now though I am having success rolling racket tip forward while whanging the ice. The success appears to be a contact cleaner than ever before. With Australian grip the racket can be square by contact-- no matter which way it got square-- combined with a swing more through the ball at least for me than in that thing of the past the ever curving Jimmie-and-Chrissie.

Ergo, I shall use a new forehand orchestration: McEnruefuls and Federfores.

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Cooking Spaghetti Just Right

Some service instructors endorse spaghetti arm, some do not. Some of those who do don't possess enough conviction to convince anybody of anything.

So which is it going to be, spaghetti arm or muscular extension from the triceps? A person could live one's whole tennis life switching back and forth. Well, what do we think at this moment? Anaesthesia of countering muscles to astonish the triceps by suddenly removing every obstacle in its way? Anaesthesia of the triceps itself thus creating true spaghetti arm? No al dente today.

And what was the nerve block used in the distant experiment in a sport medicine doctors' suite somewhere? Should we bring a doctor himself to the court along with the placards from his wall declaring his degrees? Have instructors from our club knock down some tennis student and pin her on her belly while the doctor injects the back of her arm?

Have the instructors bring a big hypodermic needle to the court and do the injection themselves? The question then will be which nerve block to use. Surely one with an impressive name. Anatabloc, they say, can cure warts and sebaceous cysts, and if you pulverize the pills and add water you can boil eggs. So let's inject Anatabloc whether that word appears on John Isner's hat or not.

The true spaghetti arm that tennis players are sometimes allowed to believe in requires one to be loose, loose and then looser. A science teacher in Virginia told me that if I tried to make my arm extend faster I would make it extend slower.

I think now he was right, but why didn't he convince me for life so that I never had to think about this subject again much less waver back and forth?

But one does want one's arm extension to be "motion dependent." Which means that the muscular elements just before the event had to convince. To hell with people who won't convince. Let's get our own muscles to convince the extending muscle or muscles not to convince.

Pretty convincing, reader, right? We convince our kinetic chain to admit scapular adduction into its chain letter.

Fine, even dandy, but we've got to pre-load upper arm-- surely we all agree on that. And scapular adduction is muscular, so there we are.

We can't do the active and passive at once, can we? Have one part of the arm be muscular while another part, simultaneous, is not? I think not, so I guess that the pre-load must come first, during the scapular adduction, and the arm extension be so fast that one doesn't lose one's pre-load, i.e., one's cookies.

I know, don't think, play tennis, be a dumbass.

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Up Up Up With One's McEnrueful

No answers here, just detached observation of a changing forehand.

(A stroke that isn't getting better all the time is getting worse all the time. Compare this to Stendhal: A love that isn't getting better all the time is getting worse all the time.)

Some other prominent versions of the no opposite hand on racket to help one's unit turn school contain elements of down and up bowl but not to the extent of John McEnroe. What backswing has ever been more relaxed than this?

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

So use that backswing, reader, if it's the best. At least fool around with it even if you don't adopt it later.

A few points about Australian grip. That would be bent thumb feeling pointy ridge 7.5 in the case of me, a right-hander.

With such a grip there has to be roll forward for square contact out front. Here are some choices for producing that roll: 1) Produce it at beginning of the forward stroke 2) Produce it shortly before contact continuing it into the followthrough 3) Produce it evenly from beginning to end 4) Overproduce it at the beginning so that racket naturally opens up so long as contact is out front.

These choices persist into "immediate up" backswings as well. I would go exclusively with McEnroe's simple down and up backswing except for one reason: Concealment for a Federfore which should always start high.

The idea of concealment for low level tennis is exaggerated but useful SOMETIMES.

To set up the Federfore variation use immediate up McEnruefuls for a while. Or reverse the process by giving opponents a diet of Federfores before socking them with an immediate up McEnrueful.

Note this important difference however between the bowl back and immediate up McEnruefuls.

Bowl back gets racket closer to inside of the slot. And inside of the slot is where one wants to be. So take the immediate up version to inside of slot (a bit of an overhand arc). There is no down and up but equivalent length backswing path.

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Compensation

Compensation for not developing a great serve through words: People who don't use words but still don't develop a great serve (Category C).

Great serves are the result of an aberration in the genes of cavemen.

Personally, if I don't use words I won't even beat the members of Category C.

So here are some words.

Good serves are largely about when the arm and racket go down in connection to something the legs do.

Will try today, if weather is good and other duties or pleasures don't interfere, to get to a court and apply common sense to elements previously identified.

Does this sound like starting from zero, a rebuilding of serve from ground up? I hope so. That is the way I like to feel before every serve.

So, in my Chubbily Checkerly round and round you go version (since my physicians point out that I have lost weight) I shall speed up the entire motion but not the arm so that forward hips and shoulders rotations shall both have started as scapular retraction occurs as twisting upper arm pre-loads.

But here is a quote from the first post in the present configuration of this thread: The active tomahawking can passively straighten a spaghetti arm for sure accelerating it faster than any other way.

On the one hand, in first and most recent posts both, I see a role for spaghetti arm. On the other hand, I arrive at two different ways of straightening that passive arm. So am I going forward or backward in my thought and who cares? The more important question is which method of straightening the passive arm is better, internal rotation of the arm just then i.e. "the tomahawk" or acceleration-deceleration of the elbow with internal rotation of the arm starting later specifically about halfway up in the relaxed arm extension.

The correct answer, determined through self-feed experiments, may not achieve greatness but will make A HUGE DIFFERENCE in how one chooses next to configure this serve.

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Build Then Compare and Choose

Build a serve with these main features:

1) Scapular retraction is held through the hitting area and only turns into scapular adduction after contact.

2) Arm never bends to more than 90 degrees, not at any point in the serve from beginning to end.

3) Pre-load of upper arm occurs during scapular retraction.

4) One tomahawks passive arm straight thus turning racket head out to right.