A New Year's Serve

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Progression

I am sure that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe would agree that as something becomes radically simpler, a host of new subtleties settles in.

Sure, there will be a fresh drop-down screen to aid us in our never ending quest for a drop dead backhand.

The first new subtlety, I would say, is a necessity to remember something, namely, to keep the elbow down through forward roll.

But to "keep elbow down" does not mean "to keep elbow pointed down"-- two entirely different things.

A bit of dial change contributes to the open racket face behind one's back in The Woulda Korda.

So too does some winding back of one's forearm.

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Concorde the Wrist?

The new forehand, The Bam, is beginning to cook. Leon and I won 6-2 instead of 7-5 against the same guys. But now I wonder if expunging the wipe (leaving it altogether out) has not bought enough time to add some Concorde to the wrist to prepare it for the mondo.

"Concorde" alludes to the French jetplane, unfortunately retired. It had a humped beak just like your/my wrist can do if such modification proves a solid idea.

When to do it? That's easy if following the handbodhandbod rule. You do it on the first "hand." Try it in self-feed and then if it adds anything significant work it on up the assembly line.

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Sequence in Racket Arm Drop in the DB Serve

The arm straightens and then the whole arm continues back (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...B1stSFront.mov).

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Nq

Okay, so the next question is whether the waggle from outside to in front of the face is accomplished from the elbow only.

Reader, you may not think this precision is important but I sure as hell do.

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But now I wonder if expunging the wipe (leaving it altogether out) has not bought enough time to add some Concorde to the wrist to prepare it for the mondo.

One needn't Concorde the wrist every time since this shot, The Bam Forehand, mondoes well from a straight wrist too. Spin and pace are going to be different though.

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The Most Important Thing

It's always fun when the teaching pro-- she or he-- points out something as "the most important thing" then makes the same claim about something else. Does he realize he's contradicted himself? Sometimes.

This seems like an occupational hazard. The answer would seem to be to space the most important things out, make the assertion on different days, especially if all the items are important (although that's unlikely).

In the Woulda Korda Backhand, I've said keeping elbow at navel for forward roll/arm straightening is important, now I'll say that maintaining angle between racket and arm through a firmly cocked wrist is essential.

Keeping this angle is not difficult through first phases of this forward stroke but gets a bit more difficult toward end of follow-through requiring a bit more conscious effort at least at first when still learning the drill.

But why still maintain arm to racket handle angle when the ball has already been hit and is gone? Because this is a highly disciplined shot, very structured, one might say, and in such a stroke the follow-through can condition what comes before.

Petr Korda played at 145 pounds, 6 feet three inches tall. He was almost as much of a string bean as Eugene Gant in LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL. So Petr didn't hit his successful backhands with a superabundance of brute strength.

He must have done it through timing and structure combined with an ability to hit clean shots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqpARpkF8WA

Note: I earlier suggested speed ratios in which second half of the forward stroke was faster than the first half. In this video we see the opposite.

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Progression in DB Serve

One wouldn't want to turn the shoulders back too soon. One already has lined up with racket pointing to right of right net post. That qualifies as turn before turn happens (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...B1stSFront.mov).

The backward shoulders turn needs to be late in that it stretches the elastics of one's gut just at the right time.

And for another reason, that one's toss has a better chance of being good if one isn't moving one's body a lot just then.

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Progression: Backhand to the Future

The backhand in this video one should pay most attention to-- perhaps-- is the one where Petr Korda short hops the ball while hardly swinging his arm (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqpARpkF8WA).

Recently, I wrote in this forum about the tennis of my fellow Hollins College graduate Annie Dillard, who received a Pulitzer prize for the first of her many books, PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK.

Tinker Creek ran behind the college, and as you can imagine since I received a Master's Degree from that place I must know those waters well.

Later, Annie was on the board of the Ossabaw Island project whose varied ambitions included the running of an artist colony in an old hacienda ten miles from Savannah across the inland waterway in Georgia.

In fact, I know I was the first person to tell Annie about the Gullah population and snakes and wild pigs and feral donkies and bulls on Ossabaw, which I did in letters. You might think of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM or SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT or the world of THE MAGIC FLUTE or even Illyria in TWELFTH NIGHT.

But there have been other commonalities or should I say parallels other than that we both might show up at the same reunion.

During the time Annie was a professor of English at Wesleyan University, as my partner Hope's father in other years was too, she bought the house previously lived in by Bud Crampton, the university physician and obstetrician and deliverer of my two brothers, a nice house under a mound atop which are the university tennis courts.

Since Annie and her husband wanted to learn tennis they obtained a copy of VIC BRADEN'S TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE and climbed the embankment.

I know those courts well-- the place where Steve Crampton used to quell me with his Don Budge serve.

And while I have never witnessed Professor Dillard's tennis (she once insisted that I call her "Professor" Dillard-- I must have threatened her somehow), I know it couldn't be any good. Nobody who learned their tennis from VIC BRADEN'S TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE has ever had tennis that was any good.

On the other hand, as Vic Seixas attests in the worst most self-aggrandizing tennis autobiography ever written, Vic Braden had a good backhand.

I'll say. I witnessed him hitting it for six hours straight-- from self-feed under a tent in Winchester, Virginia as the rain pelted down. Hit, talk, hit, talk-- Vic Braden's way.

Vic Braden's famous sit and hit drill, introduced in that first and best of all his books, proposes backhands in which arm is little and body is much.

Petr Korda's backhand is similar only Petr doesn't have to sit down to hit it. His knees are already bent, his body is loose (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqpARpkF8WA).

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I'm Sure the Answer will Matter

What provides the "muscle" for the waggle up-- both arms, right arm, left arm (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...stSFront.mov)?

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Report

I went for left arm to propel waggle up-- in my Don Budge imitation serve.

And noticed significant change, I think for the better, if I then slowed down very much the straightening of hitting arm to initiate the pointing of racket at rear fence.

This is not something to analyze very much. I simply report.

Note: While this was going on, a lady came over to speak with me. She was girl's coach for the Grosse Pointe Academy with a sister who played for Princeton.

I thought she came over to kick me off the Academy courts since my club's rental of those facilities doesn't begin until June first, but she just wanted to chat.

She suggested 1) a hitting partner for myself and 2) a ball machine.

But I said I wanted neither because of my high valuation of introspection both in tennis and in life.

We had a nice talk during which I assured her that I would play tennis tomorrow.

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Restoration of Lead Elbow Reversed

"Lead elbow" used to be one of the most sickening phrases ever foisted upon some androgynous youth as mommy and daddy drove him/her home from the big tournament.

Nowadays one doesn't hear the phrase "lead elbow" as much since most topspin is administered through a turn of the elbow rather than a lift of it.

Yes, in that old paradigm of the BAM! forehand everything was about pushing open a stuck cellar door with the rod of one's arm perfectly aimed like a train piston for structural strength.

At the same time though the piston was attached to a well lubricated wheel that took the strings up and even returned them back over the shoulder.

So, the child just lost. Shoulder wasn't relaxed enough. Certainly there was no correspondence between what the elbow was doing and what the body was doing.

Same thing on the backhand side with the Woulda Korda if one has a one-hander in imitation of Petr Korda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqpARpkF8WA).

One doesn't roll over the ball at contact having already gotten one's silly roll out of the way.

On forehand and backhand both we now have both ends of the racket traveling at the same low and relaxed speed that permits one's body to administer topspin and pace at the same the arm does.

What is the opposite of lead elbow? Helium elbow? But that might be too light and hurried.

Too slow or too fast, lead or helium, neither is good.

Most important, when one rolls on the ball like Wawrinka or Thiem, one is apt uncontrollably to change pitch while sandwiching contact unless one is a circus performer like them.

But even they can screw up their contact on a big point and lose the match that way.

The average player-- let's say anyone under tour level-- could be kinder to himself by not rolling over the ball on either side.

He can roll at contact if he wants. No one is adamant about stopping him, I've noticed.

Oughtn't he though to raise the percentages in his own favor?

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Examples of Woulda Korda

Kenny De Schepper, 6' 8" and 143 in the world, who just qualified for main draw of French Open by defeating Igor Sijsling, 6' 2" in less than an hour, has a backhand like Petr Korda. So for that matter does Sijsling.

Funny how once one focuses on a certain genre of shot one then starts seeing examples of it everywhere even though it may not normally receive much print, talk or acclaim.

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Tennis Social: Good Partners and No Loss ever

A good thing since this was the last indoor tennis social of the year. Now comes plenty of outdoor doubles through a summer in which Michigan stays cool, hopefully. And there will be a week at Chatham, Cape Cod when 10-year-old Cate comes over from England. I wouldn't care what anyone said. She is coached by Viktor Roubanov and Luke Digweed and is a kind of tennis prodigy.

I love the way The Woulda Korda is cracking up, a shot that lends itself to being soft and hard, high and low, slow and fast but ever hit with less arm and more bod.

The Bam Forehand too has been coming along. It leant itself to a number of short angles against the hardest of the hitters on the other side of the net. Windshield wipe is over-rated. Time to delay then loosen the elbow. And the late bit of backward shoulders turn conceals one's intent. No one has yet tried to poach on this handbodhandbod shot.

The best shot I hit all night however was a sidespin lob. Just as the dude started to smash it the sidespin kicked in and it veered and he whiffed.

It's awfully nice in doubles tennis when you can lift some partner instead of that partner pulling you down.

I'd say there's a great potential in inventing new tennis shots. The pay-off may come late but it's worthwhile. All strokes are in flux. Better to push change than to resist it.

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Youth Wants to Know

Does Petr Korda turn hips to straighten arm/roll arm/SIM or does he delay hips so that they become part of bod application to overlap his backhand contact?

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqpARpkF8WA)

Am I wrong in seeing handbodhandbod sequence here? For me the two questions are exactly the same, namely, the shoulders are still turning back at a time when players of another philosophy keep shoulders back or even are turning them forward.

Note: The video of Korda hitting with his son is just the beginning. Several years ago one had to do a lot of secretarial labor to assemble sufficient camera work of Korda's backhand. By now YouTube does this assembly for you. First you see Korda at present. Then, if you just keep watching, more video of Korda appears and starts to run through no conscious action from you. Suddenly Korda is young and playing at top of the game at the top of his game once again.

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Let's Smudge Formula as it Applies to Woulda Korda Backhand

The handbodhandbod formula I've been exploring carries a fairly strict correspondence between each syllable and specific part of the BAM! forehand stroke.

The trickiest part in making this special forehand a success is the second "hand" which I have compared to a chip shot in golf.

Elbow stays back as keying arm, neither right-angled or straight but in between, could greatly change the angle of the strings within a small space but doesn't because of the mondo ("flip") simultaneously going on.

The racket head topples under the mondoeing hand to start the body supported elbow thrust out, up and back as knuckles then decelerate toward left ear.

In Woulda Korda Backhand, the shoulders may still be turning backward as arm straightens/rolls/SIM, which overlap thus makes handbodhandbod formula somewhat inexact.

This shouldn't matter if we value a good stroke over some verbal construct that might or might not sound clever.