A New Year's Serve

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All Brush, No Weight

Engineer 2 does not like the previous post in which he feels that quality of spin has deteriorated through failure to get one's racket tip low enough.

To listen to engineer 2 we'll coil like a snake to side and down low with arm severely squeezed as if trying to go through the eye of a needle.

Now we pitch the hitting shoulder down as we do on all of our forehands. What's really different is that although hips rotate, they don't rotate hard or far, and the two feet remain flat (but not locked!) so that balance transfers easily from one to the other.

In a normal grounded forehand the rear heel now would come up to complete the angular push. In other words your hips would complete a second half of rotation. No, we've used all the hips we're going to: The shot with rod (forearm) finally pointed at the target rather than parallel to the net will be all flip and wipe.

But do we want that much sequence? Maybe the whole forward shot can happen within the gentle framework of balance transfer from outside to inside foot.

Then: Need a little more weight to get ball to target? Widen the stride. Less weight to bring ball down on target? Narrow (verb) the stride.

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Report

Am hitting some of these balls too high (none too low). Am looking for a new cue to combat this. Initial guess is as follows:

A basic idea in tennis instruction is that the nature of any spin is formed by which edge comes off of the ball first.

But this, the see see, is "the pro shot," "a skill shot," "a special shot."

Regardless of what actually happens on the ball, I wish to preserve constant bevel of the closed racket face by imagining that its lower edge is rising first.

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When Stroke Discovery Comes in a Doubles Match Should One Deny it?

Probably. Better immediately to use the discovery but pretend it didn't happen.

I'm speaking of a realist of course which obviously I am not.

I'm more interested in peak experience as in one forehand that was ten times better than any of one's others in the match.

Then if one can spare a few brain cells to figure out what one did one can have a good day.

Kept tip down below and to left of ball so that when push rod unfurled, the fan on the end of it was cleanly perpendicular to the target no matter where that target was. The shot was an FETF, a forward emphasis topspin forehand in which there is absolutely no loop or arm swing to the ball, just a push combined with a swamp buggy fan rotating counterclockwise for a right-hander.

When I made the freak shot (freakish from being so clean), everybody on the court chirruped nicely.

To my partner I said, "Now if I can just remember how I did that." But I had been working on my FETF through self-feed at the park. I just didn't set up with racket tip to the left of the ball and quite so low.

I'm not saying that every forehand I subsequently hit was 10 times better than normal, just 5 or 6 times better, so I would recommend this shot to anybody, perhaps thus ruining their game once and for all.

Nor do I have great expectation for the next time I play but would like to be pleasantly surprised.

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Service by the Numbers

Numbers don't have to reflect what's going on or even to add up. They can be cues.

And so, this serve where g = 3.33 mph: g + 3g + 9g + 15g (triceptic extension) + 27g + 9g + g + 0 .

The pluses aren't addition. They just add up to a serve.

15g or 50 mph is the speed one wants at transition from triceptic extension to UAR (upper arm rotation).

Now, to fill in the numerical equivalents: 3.33+10+30+50+90+30+3.33+0 .

Pretty complicated for an athletic event, right? But we're dealing with cue as for an entrance in theater, and cues are things to mush around until they become memorable.

I say go with the third and sixth units, which coincidentally are both 30 mph. In other words, have a 30 mph serve. Forget about the 90 mph at contact in order to let it happen.

Focus then on two things: 1) 30 mph from initial lift to racket aligned with right side of body and 2) 30 mph as racket movement transitions from crane position to arm bend.

30-30 serve. Let her go.

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Forehand Not As Good As Expected

This is so disappointing: a new forehand is great one day and mediocre the next. Should a person then go back to an old forehand or stick with the new one or invent a new new one?

I'll take choice # 3 . The simple idea that one can hit a forehand at all from cheated over waist level position, that one can just prong the forearm at the ball in order to activate the pinwheel on the end of a dowell must have implication for next sketch in the design parade.

Keep pinwheel on end of dowell, say I, but come to this seminal position through more traditional route.

Why though must one get racket tip way back? If one doesn't really have to take it back at all, in fact can come at ball from the opposite side, then surely one can reduce takeback on the traditional side.

I'm thinking, "Just fly bent elbow toward right fence with a little curl down to end the 1 of 1-2, then key forearm to inside and down and you will be there in pronged pinwheel freeze point.

You never freeze when playing tennis of course but rather are like a tranquil elephant always moving something. (But if he becomes fully still watch out-- I learned this in a rice paddy in Sri Lanka.)

A health-minded alternative to this might be to think about one hand backhands. Have a short one that is a double roll. And a long one that has the same forward roll but substitutes a waterfall for the backward roll of the short one.

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Sure, I would be happy to tell that story but very quickly. I was at a New Year's Dance in Colombo, Sri Lanka and didn't have a date. At the table where I was sitting were two young male school teachers and an absolute knockout, a real piparoo but not from Kalamazoo who had to serve as feminine principle for all four of us, the fourth of whom was her very good looking husband. I'm making this part up but the knockout was so angry with her husband for his sexual transgressions that she was ready to take on an American lover.

I received invitations from both couples and hooked up with the males first. This involved a long bus ride north to Anuradhapura (and if I spelled that perfect poem correctly it's the first time in my life). From there the buses grew smaller and smaller until one let me off on a black asphalt road with jungle on one side and a rice paddy on the other and a shack a quarter of a mile away in the middle of the rice paddy.

I got to the shack and was greeted by the two teachers, who showed me in fact where in the shack I would be sleeping. I think there may have been some talk about vipers crawling into one's sleeping bag during the day. Anyway, in the middle of the night one of the guys went out with a hurricane lamp and then shouted back to wake me up: "John, come quickly, you may see a serpent." It was a small viper with nice markings spiraling down the concrete gutter that ran along the bottom of one wall. The teacher killed it with a shovel. The next day certain villagers gathered around it and went "ooooh." If this thing bit you you would be dead in 28 seconds. If you stepped on its snake corpse the same. So they buried it.

Then it started to rain. I think we played chess. At nightfall we took a Land Rover through the jungle to another rice paddy. Along the way, in the headlights, we saw hundreds of snakes, including cobras, slither to either side of the road. They had been up there to absorb the heat from the black asphalt.

Now there was another shack. And a bunch of other people. To get to the shack we walked along ridges between the big puddles. (And you could hear the snakes slither to either side in front of you.) "John, you go first. If the snake bites anybody it is the second person." We got to the shack and then went out to hunt at two hour intervals all night. Well, I wasn't hunting, just was a sidekick. I saw some bright eyes in a bush. The other team was the one that encountered the elephant. I might sound racist when I say their skin was very dark from all the sunlight in Sri Lanka but hope not to. I say they were dark because it is hard to imagine skin that dark turning pale, but I swear to you it tried. The reason they were so scared was that the elephant wasn't moving anything. That meant it was about to charge (25 mph), knock somebody down, stomp on his head.

Then I took buses all the way to the south of Sri Lanka, to Hambantota. Best dinner I've ever been to. Ten people, the whole family of the knockout's husband kept interviewing me about the Kennedys (JFK was recently president). The stars outside were unbelievable. The knockout gave me her address, in Lavinia, south seven miles from Colombo with instructions for how to get there and a time for me to show up when her husband wouldn't be there. Either the directions were bad or I didn't read them correctly or I just got lost but I sure did take that bus.

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Another FETF: One of These Experiments Ought to Work with Repeatability

In tandem with turning body, make a small loop out front that points tip at net. One could think of this loop as drawing a cannon or torpedo aimed at one's target. Or again as dowell-ended pinwheel.

The smallness of the loop should make the task of stopping it easier. The bottom part of the loop involves keying the forearm to finish the shape of the torpedo.

Then and only then comes neutral stance step, mondo, wiper and push.

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If You Have Ten Forehands...

If you have 10 forehands, perhaps you should hit all 10 during the 5-minute warmup. Do that instead of analyzing your opponents with whom you are probably over-familiar anyway. Pick the forehand that works the best and then use it exclusively during the competition to save all variety for the backhand side.

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But don't be surprised if you are me which you probably aren't that your McEnrueful is your best. The McEnrueful is a great shot but like all great shots will be better on some days than others. How could a forehand so flattish ever be anything else? Throughout tennis history players with topspin forehands have defeated those with flat forehands. And those with flat forehands have defeated those with topspin forehands. My friend Jim, who says he had to play Jimmy Connors in the first round at Wimbledon, started the warm-up with the self-statement: "Hey, I can hit with this guy." Jim was about 435 in the world.
Then they started to play.

Connors put the ball in one corner. He put the next ball in the opposite corner. He put the third ball in the first corner. Suddenly my friend Jim began to gasp and suck wind.

So if you hit the ball flat, the next question may well be how deep it is. And can you keep shots at that depth in the court over time?

Answer: On some days better than others.

But here's the way to go. For some time you've been hitting your McEnrueful with an easy down and up backswing pattern modeled on that of John McEnrueful. Time to make a slight alteration. Why do I know that? Because I just did self-feed at the park, had some hot chocolate with the skaters and came home. Didn't take much time at all.

If you accelerate the exact same pattern for the backswing it turns into a ski jump that unweights the racket as the racket skiis up the lip. Perfect. Now you have more time and perhaps a slightly less bent arm to make it solid with the shoulder just before that shoulder banks down.

Also, I think that as shoulder banks up I now go with Welby Van Horn basic eastern forehand form even though I'm using composite grip for this shot. Welby rather than Dennis Ralston. Welby: heel comes up in tandem with hip rotation then slightly replaces to right although it doesn't have to. Ralston: the feet stay flat for the banking down but then rear heel goes up in tandem with the continuing hips to a perfectly balanced finish with no adjustment step.

The McEnrueful is a solid body and arm shot very good for hitting hard or soft. It carries spin but not a lot.

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Onward Progression, Marching as to War

Ski jump, I said. No, that is too much "down." Down and up but more shallowly so. In the view of Jimmy Arias (a personable guy who knows a lot) the backswings of Connors and McEnroe were much the same and a big part of their withering consistency.

What I want to do now is speed up backswing to make the racket float a bit as it changes directions (but still within Wheatley's 1-2 scheme). The floating is not a separate conceptual and time-eating unit. Timing to remain the same as before when backswing was slower and didn't go back quite as far. All forehand backswings to remain in the slot, never to get behind the body which one might do in the olden days for purposes of concealment (and to be self-destructively slow unless you were Stan Smith).

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The Ten Forehands to be Hit in Rapid Succession

If you have 10 forehands, perhaps you should hit all 10 during the 5-minute warmup. Do that instead of analyzing your opponents with whom you are probably over-familiar anyway. Pick the forehand that works the best and then use it exclusively during the competition to save all variety for the backhand side.

1) McEnrueful with deep valley in its backswing.

2) McEnrueful with shallow valley but same but different timing. Connection of arm to body as active noun now replaces second rise of 1) in first Wheatley 1-2 sub-timing unit.

3) FETF (forward emphasis topspin forehand) in which arm never deviates from its starting position as exclusive body turn forms the backswing.

4) FETF with arm migrating a bit farther right there to draw a torpedo.

5) FETF with arm migrating a bit farther there to draw a torpedo.

6) FETF with arm migrating a bit farther there to draw a torpedo.

7) FETF with arm migrating a bit farther there to draw a torpedo.

8) FETF with arm migrating a bit farther there to draw a torpedo.

9) FETF with arm migrating a bit farther there to draw a torpedo.

10) Full imitation of a Djokovic forehand (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...3%20500fps.mp4).

Note: The first nine of these forehands, depending on effectiveness, may challenge the assumption of "early pulling on a rope."

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Anything Here for You and Me?

Is this more topspin than usual in a Djokovic forehand? (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...t%20500fps.mp4). I think so.

I see a flip and then the tip goes under. Is this an end-of-mondo anomaly? One can only conclude that the Djoker's whole arm rolls backward.

Mondo or flip therefore is accomplished first as a combination of wrist layback and forearm rolldown.

In the flatter forehands whatever rollback of whole arm there already is is permitted to suffice.

Forearm then keys around (or is that whole arm swing or swinging of the elbow so that arm above and below it rides along?). The severe bevel in the racket face is more important in creating poptop which is a different kind of topspin.

I'm surmising a lot but think that surmising by anybody ought to be encouraged.

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In This One...

In this one the elbow swings, taking all. There is no keying around posted elbow (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...r%20120fps.mp4). And there is no wiping until this has happened.

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All 10 worked, so what was I going to do?

1) McEnrueful with deep valley in its backswing.

2) McEnrueful with shallow valley but same but different timing. Connection of arm to body as active noun now replaces second rise of 1) in first Wheatley 1-2 sub-timing unit.

3) FETF (forward emphasis topspin forehand) in which arm never deviates from its starting position as exclusive body turn forms the backswing.

4) FETF with arm migrating a bit farther right there to draw a torpedo.

5) FETF with arm migrating a bit farther there to draw a torpedo.

6) FETF with arm migrating a bit farther there to draw a torpedo.

7) FETF with arm migrating a bit farther there to draw a torpedo.

8) FETF with arm migrating a bit farther there to draw a torpedo.

9) FETF with arm migrating a bit farther there to draw a torpedo.

10) Full imitation of a Djokovic forehand (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...3%20500fps.mp4).

Note: The first nine of these forehands, depending on effectiveness, may challenge the assumption of "early pulling on a rope."

Arbitrarily, I chose # 2, a shot the other old guys were unable to deal with. The scores: 6-0, 6-1 and I don't remember the third set. There's a trade-off of partners each time. But in that third set, # 2 forehand stopped working so well so I went to # 10, which was pretty good except that it could have been based on a better model (I'm kidding).

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Do in the Dour with Dewars

Not good advice for our friends and acquaintances in AA, but for others could be just the trick.

We need to loosen the verbal centers, we who assert that all of our progress in the game comes from neurolinguistic programming, i.e., from English teachers turned teaching pro.