A New Year's Serve

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Next Question and Modification

If racket tilts while still high, does racket tip go down or hand go up or both? Answer: None of the above. Because the racket does not tilt while still high. It tilts while going down. If you can do this, reader, you lose no time or feel whatsoever.

A magic elixir? I doubt it but haven't tried this yet. The magic elixir, as far as I am concerned, is item 1) in the previous post, and that remains a good, alternate shot even if item 2) works.

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Progress Report

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

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Double Coins with a Retreating Tilt

I just won't give up on this, will I? I'm like a dog with a bone.

Who are the biggest imitators of Roger on the tour? Baby Fed of course. And Rafa, Fernando, and that great journeyman and doubles player before he became a coach, Jonas Bjorkman.

We've already discovered the flaw in Baby Fed's imitation of Federer's forehand. Grigor has been doing extremely well in recent tournaments; he nevertheless extends his arm too soon and gets his hand too far out right also too soon.

I invite both you and myself, reader, to note one thing in my favorite clip: how Roger's hand going down veers toward his body (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...1%20500fps.mp4).

I don't know about any flaws of imitation in the forehands of Verdasco and Nadal-- a subject for study some other time or not at all.

One can't really fault Federer for his ownership by Nadal because of the decade before Nadal's arrival on the scene. Roger, young, pretty much mowed everybody down.

Well, why include Jonas Bjorkman in the bag of prominent imitators of Roger? Because he did it briefly by his own report, supposedly putting every single detail of Roger's forehand together only to discover that the result didn't work.

An instructive story, but I wonder if Jonas got every detail right in those days before Brian Gordon's study, and I simply don't know about that. Not the way I know with certainty that Grigor's hand is too far to his right.

A breakthrough comes with insistence on double coin imagery to effect a flattish version of a Federfore.

This version then instructs the player-- myself-- as to where his hand should be as he goes into his mondo.

But extension of the arm simultaneous with tilt of racket tip toward outside fence naturally keeps hand out in same direction. Resist this tendency. Veer the hand in toward body instead.

You won't bring the arm around the body as far as you might in a Stan Smith imitation forehand. Rather, you will still be in the slot. But your hand will be farther around than Grigor's.

Your hand will be where Roger's is, and where mine is when hitting my flattish Federfore, and now I'll get more topspin than in that version.

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To Review (Who Ever Heard of Such a Thing)

Tennis is learned by feel, not logic. But once you've discovered maximum feel in some stroke you can use logic to spread the feel out to other shots as well.

The lesson here is to get to inside of the slot to implement double coin pattern. The overhead backswing puts racket pointing down behind hand, which is on the inner edge of the slot, and low.

This feels good and simple. Over the top and set the racket (but with no hesitation of course that would upset the rhythm and continuity of immediate mondo or flip).

Is there topspin in this flat, speedy shot? Sure. But to get more topspin add "a retreating tilt."

Eeek, a new and difficult term. Do not be intimidated. Straightening of the arm started a little sooner tilts racket tip toward right fence (if you are Roger Federer).

You are not Roger Federer but again do not be intimidated. By him or anybody.

As elbow straightens pull it back to get hand on inner edge of the slot very low and exactly where it was before.

What has happened or would you rather not know? The mondo got more cocked. The fuller bodied mondo builds more racket head speed for more topspin.

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More on \"Retreating Tilt\"

Vic Braden wrote that an eastern gripped player could close his racket by lifting his elbow on his forehand backswing.

Ivan Lendl had more of a semiwestern than eastern grip but surely did close his racket extra amount through leading his backswing with his high protruding elbow.

When we speak of lifting elbow, don\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t we often mean \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"twisting elbow up\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" or \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"employing internal arm rotation.\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" (Ono-- here, now?). Twisting either the upper or lower arm closes the strings but upper arm is the biggie.

Roger Federer closes his racket to a remarkable degree considering the mildness of his grip. How does he close it? Through blinding genius best not contemplated by ordinary eyes? Through \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"manipulation,\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" a word that might suggest he\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s doing something with his forearm?

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Retreating tilt\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" disguises what he\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s doing-- it\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s hard to see but worth trying to understand.

The hand veers sideway toward his body to maximize \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"horizontal adduction,\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" a term right out of anatomy textbooks (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...1%20500fps.mp4).

Before Allen Fox became a business consultant, he wrote of a basic forehand choice faced by anyone-- bring racket around with body only or with body and arm providing independent but simultaneous movement. The arm movement, he felt, is significant if shaky additive, a joker factor. He proposed as reasonable compromise a solid body-arm connection (i.e., \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"fixed\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" arm) combined with some less defined use of the wrist.

Me I go with horizontal adduction as contributing factor to many if not all forehands and serves.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Retreating tilt\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" meanwhile is a useful way to get the hand to ideal starting point for the subsequent \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"horizontal adduction.\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"

Now straightening the arm will close the racket somewhat. Pushing the palm down, an old cue from Braden, might apply to straightening arm here toward right fence (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...1%20500fps.mp4). In this clip Roger Federer does not appear to be twisting his upper arm, but if he wanted to close the racket more he could do that too.

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Reflection

The slashes were just what the post needed. The closing of the racket was seen to be accomplished by 1) arm straightening toward side fence, 2) elbow veering toward opposite side fence but not by 3) upper arm twist which could have done the job too.

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A-Train and B-Train

The next time I have a hit with a good player, I am going to shift into Federfore mode to do strict alternation between the two shots I have described here enough.

To do this after recovery from knee replacement seems very important. The A-train shows the B-train where to place the hand.

Hand on rear inner edge of slot is the same. So is rhythm and duration of the backswing and continuing shot. To know this intellectually is one thing, to practice it another.

A-train, B-train, A-train, B-train. Should be fun.

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Deep Backhand Table-Top Slice vs. Deep Backhand Chop

They are very different shots, the virtues of which have been argued endlessly in this forum for years if not decades. Anyone with half a brain should have learned them both by now.

Today I want to think about the deep chop. The books of the old tennis writer John M. Barnaby are difficult to find, but Jack is tremendous at explaining all shots in which racket work and body weight are at right angles to each other.

To this basic concept of form we add Tom Avery's admonition about chopping down on the ball. The steeper the chop the more one needs to open the strings, Tom says.

A shot of special interest: A combination of steep racket path, open racket face and full body weight coming through almost like busting loose a stuck barn door to send the ball heavy and deep (and it won't come up very much).

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A-Train Federfore, B-Train Federfore, Short Angle Federfore

A couple of Tennis Channel announcers were discussing the role of convalescence or time off in prolonging high-profile tennis careers, Andre Agassi being a good example.

Down time offers one the chance not only for physical healing but re-charge of one's psychic batteries, also, I would argue, for re-invention of oneself.

Here are three of the shots I have been working up. (Later, I plan to post photos of the respective arm and hand positions just before mondo.)

I would like to say that double coin imagery applies to all three but that would be untrue.

Double coin does describe the A-train shot. Backswing is a coin on edge. Foreswing is a coin on its side.

In the other two variations hand arrives at the same place it would if the shot were A-train.

But the way it got there is anything but a neat coin on edge.

The foreswing however is practically the same-- circular creating inside out path and large separation.

The A-train mondo is mild.

The B-train and short angle mondoes are more extreme and therefore could become overly harsh if one fails to keep a loose grip combined with determination to smooth everything out.

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A-Train, B-Train

Something that was complicated becomes far less so once you find a single cue to carry out your purpose.

I'm having fun-- obviously-- alternating the two trains of what I call my Federfore albeit from self-feed for the time being.

I used to think that my Federfore and the ATP3 were exactly the same shot but now realize that the Federfore uses more scope and is hit from inside edge of the slot rather than from out in the slot.

In the A-train, elbow and the racket get lined up behind oneself before the flip.

The single cue which changes that to B-train is to pull the elbow in to get it out of the way of the hand. This re-shapes everything mid-backswing to more like 3/4 rather than 4/4 over the top.

Arm straightens to send hand toward right fence, yes, but retreating elbow sends hand toward left fence so that these two actions cancel each other out and the hand goes exactly to where you want it.

Note: Watch Roger here to see how his elbow is "behind" his hand or rather closer to left fence than his hand just before the flip (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...1%20500fps.mp4). You could say that Roger's elbow, like that of Ivan Lendl, ends up leading his backswing for similar closing of the strings but closer to the ground and with less or no twist of the upper arm.

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McEnrueful, the Ground Stroke, Contrasted with Forehand Volley

Does one lean from the hips like Rory McIlroy? Or does one maintain the martinet's posture of John McEnroe?

The answer could eliminate further consideration of this post.

If one is a leaner, however, a curious observation arises.

A McEnrueful is a short forehand that is sorry that it isn't the forehand of John McEnroe.

Its arm backswing is short. Its shoulders backswing is long (yes, one should really get those shoulders around).

Although this shot is flat ground stroke with some topspin, one hits it with a volley grip.

The key is to feel for the ball with loop or straightness-- either will do-- before the application of body weight that again is circular or linear.

The suffragette Valerie Ziegenfuss, a pioneer of this shot in the 1970's, used loop. In a famous book called TENNIS FOR WOMEN, she explained that she had no desire to swing prematurely across her body, that she wanted a followthrough with places to go.

I, in discussion with the teaching pro Rip Stott of Great Britain, was extremely surprised to hear him argue that loop was quicker than straight back preparation.

After that discussion, on dark tennis courts, I resolved to make his assertion untrue through successive shortenings of my straight back (or "up") hand until the hand travel was sometimes only one or three inches. The idea was to develop a short alternative to my Federfore, which in my view is a long forehand.

The next key then was to ease bent elbow forward (or "down") until it was centered between the two shoulders, feeling for the ball through every small inch of that move.

Lean of the straight strong body then provided all the uppercut one would ever need. To review, arm took racket down, rotating body the racket up.

If, modifying this pattern, one sets elbow by rear shoulder instead of by navel, one has a Welby Van Horn type forehand volley provided one is willing to let body rotation do the work.

Body tilt on one half of usual ground stroke backward pivot will take shoulder and racket down before it takes them up so that racket butt points at left hip.

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An Autobiography of Blocked vs. Sticked Volleys

Rowing was my sport until the age of 42; tennis was my sport from 42 onward.

Not that I haven't rowed since 42 or didn't play tennis before 42-- in fact I was considerably younger than 42 when Katharine Hepburn and I beat her brother and my brother.

It's just a matter of emphasis or should I say a giving in to a particular obsession on purpose to feel that one is living more fully one's life.

Vronsky liked women, one in particular, but he liked horses and steeplechases too.

Once one has fully yielded to an obsession, every detail of that obsession expands and goes forward.

And so at the height of my tennis efficacy in Front Royal, Virginia (which some would argue was not highly efficacious) my volleys got better before they got worse.

It wasn't that I knew how to hit them-- although I'd had free lessons from a good teaching pro-- but rather that I still did not know how to hit them and therefore was content to block them.

Also, I was influenced by one of Billie Jean King's instructional books not to mention her performances at Wimbledon. Obviously the cartoonist Charles Schultz adored her in the form of Lucy, a main character in his SNOOPY series, a pretty high recommendation it seemed to me at that time.

It wouldn't be for some decades that I became aware that a famous L.A. teaching pro couldn't stand the screechiness of Billie Jean's voice.

But Billie Jean was and is Billie Jean and who can argue with that?

In her book, she advocated flat racket work on volleys over racket work that goes down. At the same time Vic Braden was favoring volleys that go up. When I finally was lucky enough to encounter Luke Jensen in person, he too was teaching the women of Grosse Pointe Yacht Club to volley up.

How is one to reconcile all this? I had no idea. No matter how many times I watched and listened to the Nelson Eddy Jeanette MacDonald duet in Europe of CARRY ME BACK TO OLD VIRGINNIE in the movie MAYTIME, I just blocked everything, used Mercer Beasley's written advice to get slow forward motion of the strings going and then rely on speed of the oncoming ball for one's result.

Fortunately, I was playing with a super partner in a four-state league just then in which everybody hit the ball hard-- the only time I ever had any kind of a substantial and published USTA rating.

The Welby Van Horn volleys as described by Ed Weiss in Chapter Ten of SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER don't bother to make the common distinction between blocked and sticked volleys, it seems to me.

(Being a former English teacher, I would say "stuck" rather than "sticked" volleys but that might prove unproductive.)

The Van Horn volleys are very solid and go down for one ball's width even after contact before they come up again, it seems to me, and rely entirely on glide into truncated body rotation for their oomph.

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How Can A Mild-Gripped Tennis Player Close The Racket Extremely Much Most Easily?

Okay, sometimes he closes the racket up top (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...nt1_500fps.mp4) and sometimes he closes it as it’s going down with little or no twist of the upper arm (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...1%20500fps.mp4).

I understand this second case well enough to feel that I can do it.

But maybe just asking the question about the first case will enable myself or somebody to achieve that too. So here is the question: How exactly is Roger closing the racket up high before his arm even begins to straighten?

Here it would appear that the same device is in effect as when the closing happens more during the arm-straightening descent (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...nt4_250fps.mp4). That device is pulling of the elbow sideways. The racket head gets closer and closer to his body. But for it to close as much as it does there must be counterclockwise twist of upper arm going on too.

Note: I am not at all surprised that someone, myself especially, will see different things on different days. In this one (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...1%20500fps.mp4) I now see upper arm coming around up top and twisting counterclockwise too. The earlier identified phenomena during the dogpat still hold in this view but there is a greater totality leading into extreme closing of the strings. Here's another good one for seeing what happens and how much and when (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...ont_500fps.mp4). Watch the ball to see topspin. And here is my favorite clip that led to the whole discussion in the first place (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...1%20500fps.mp4). Yep, most but not all of the closing happens up high before the racket descends like milkweed. Say what you will about flip and wipe and how hard that stuff is for a recreational player to master, I may disagree. Most recreational players trying to do this just don't start their wipe on time.

I think I've identified right in this post the most difficult part of the stroke. Could be arrogance or not.

Roger would say, has said, footwork is all, but that's simply a matter of whether one is a natural dancer, the most difficult given, I guess.

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My Best French Open

One year my girlfriend Mopsy and I decided to attend another French Open.

A good thing she had an excellent trust fund, for the trip from Provo, Utah to Roland Garros Stadium was going to be very expensive what with the worldwide increase in airfares not to mention the price of Parisian hotels, of food, and even of admission to the tournament.

We were ready to pass through a gate with not more than a five-minute wait in store for us when suddenly we had a change of heart. I think it started with my telling a story that Mopsy had heard at least ten times but was gracious enough to pretend was new.

The story was Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s account of how his best friend Roland Garros crashed along with his postal plane high up in the Andes, but survived and determined to try to walk the huge distance out to civilization.

“A story of courage,” Mopsy said.

“And of frostbite,” I said. “And of deciding to take a first step, after which, presumably, one would be inclined to take another.”

“About what courage is for any person in any given moment,” Mopsy said.

All around us were people hoping to enter the Roland Garros Stadium and we had no trouble scalping our tickets.

We rented a car then started driving through France.

At our first stop I opened my suitcase and pulled out one of the two tennis rackets I brought. I had heard that there was at least one tennis court on the grounds of every chateau in France and wanted to test the proposition. I had a bunch of loose balls in the suitcase too, some of them not in bad shape, but much to my dismay could not find the tennis court at Moet & Chandon champagne headquarters in Epernay if indeed there was one, and I ended by bouncing a ball straight up five times before catching it on my strings and did this in a series of fifty sets.

My frustration at no tennis court and Mopsy’s frustration at my not being more curious and willing to look around did not stop us from staying overnight and drinking three bottles of champagne.

The next day we repeated this scenario in Reims, only the champagne was Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin. In successive days we made visits to Chateau de la Roulerie in Saint-Aubin-de-Luigne (three bottles of white Loire wine), Chateau Leoville Payferre in St. Julien (bordeaux red blend), Chateau Latour in Pauillac (claret), Chateau de Segries in Tavel (what?), Chateauneuf du Pape in place of same name (1er Cru Classe).

We zig-zagged a lot but so what.

I especially liked Margaux in Margaux, France, not the most expensive wine in the world but not the cheapest either.

Some of the chateaus included overnight accommodations for visitors to the vineyards and wineries and storerooms and some did not.

Eventually we crossed a mountainous border and then another and another.

It was either in Elciego, Spain (Spanish Bordeaux) or in the Douro Valley of Portugal (Vintage Port) that we finally saw a tennis court although I am sure there were others we missed.

I got out both rackets and Mopsy agreed to hit with me.

Crossing all the way back into France, we stayed overnight near the Chateau Lynch-Bages in Pauillac, Medoc. There was a tremendous tavern there next to our hotel. All night we drank the best Sauvignon Blanc I have ever tasted and caroused with a wild contingent of retired Detroit auto workers, Hungarian, from Budapest.

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Same Timing but with Longer Hitting Tract

We all, to greater or lesser extent, play Beethoven's game of "Fate shall not entirely drag me down."

While I was having heated disputes with rabid tennis players in the discussion boards of Tennis Warehouse, a certain Tyler Weeks jumped into my thread entitled HOW TO HIT THE ROGER FEDERER FOREHAND (27,000 hits).

Mr. Weeks, the owner of a Vic Braden Tennis College in Utah, pointed out that nobody knew exactly where Roger Federer's backswing ended and where the vigorous forward part of his forehand began.

We now are a couple decades later and I still don't know the answer. I could ask Roger, I suppose, but how often do I see him, and would he care to answer that question? He probably would comment on footwork.

Better to make an educated guess, I feel, or simply come to a self-directed decision of when to pull the trigger in one's own Federfore-- if one even has a Federfore or has determined that one will develop one following the example of Verdasco or Nadal.

Anybody who has closely read me (is there such a human being in existence?) knows that I first came up with a Federfore A-Train and then a Federfore B-Train.

I now regret the B-Train but just did try out, in self-feed, a Federfore C-Train which worked fine.

Concept for the C-Train came from watching this video (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...nt1_500fps.mp4) along with others of Roger. In the old TennisPlayer technology one could count clicks to determine the speed of some specific part of a stroke. This to me was good but "left brain."

Dealing with RATIO rather than miniscule units of time is "right brain." Ratio, through being less exact but more spatial, is close to the pure athleticism of great proprioception and therefore makes common sense.

To examine this clip then (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...nt1_500fps.mp4) simply count out loud the way a loud physical therapist would while putting you through some exercise.

Count out loud as Roger, from separation, draws his upper arm in to himself while simultaneously twisting it counterclockwise to close the racket face on high bent arm.

This is a new idea and therefore will require good attention. Several repetitions will probably be necessary before one is ready to count the dogpat (the descending milkweed part of the stroke) in a similarly out loud sort of way.

What I get is a ratio of about four to two or two to one. Two of draw/twist to one of dogpat/milkweed.

Dogpat and milkweed now become antiquated images, decayed metaphor which is thoroughly kaput.

To repeat, dogpat and milkweed, images that Macci and Escher chose for their implied slowness, now are kaput.

But "kaput" is just fine when one uses the iterative gadfly for philosophy. The slowest part of a Roger Federer forehand is not the dogpat but the drawing-to-the-inside-simultaneous-with-twisting-of-the-upper-arm-all-with-arm-still-bent-and-kept-high.

What used to be dogpat can now be seen as mere visual effect, or as the second gear in a three-part stick shift speed shift. First gear happens up top. Second gear is the racket descent. Third gear is hit and followthrough. Acceleration starts from a different place, not mondo as in a Federfore A-Train but from the beginning of what used to be called dogpat and now resembles the baseball batter's drop of a Miguel Cabrera.

The process by which we arrive at this new understanding is tortured but useful. A-Train teaches the timing of C-Train. In A-Train one sets the racket down behind one (low) then swings. In C-Train one closes the racket in behind one (high) then swings.

If one is going to do this for a deep shot one will do it for a good short angle as well.