A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

I don't know. We all played pretty well. Nothing to write home about.

[bottle]

Four Options

I'm lucky enough to be in a summer house in South Chatham, Massachusetts with four and possibly five good tennis players-- for a week.

We'll see how things crack up.

I'm the eldest. The youngest has the best forehand, taught to her by Viktor Roubanov, the former boys' champ of the USSR.

I'm thinking, rather than using the inverted loop that was somewhat successful last year, I'll go with my throwback to my own teen-aged forehand.

But unlike other players, I'm always on a stroke production journey no matter the latest decision.

I'd like to see coming naturally out of myself 1) a one-half arm length double bend arm forehand with upper arm roll to bring the right-angled forearm around level like a farm gate followed by residual roll to turn racket slightly over toward left fence:

2) a three-quarter length version in which racket tip gets around faster (and perhaps farther) in the initial stage;

3) a straight arm version from severely inside (and almost in front of one) to severely outside with very steep racket rise;

4) McEnrueful hit from composite grip, a very solid body shot (arm fused to body throughout), especially good in my case for low balls as I'm charging the net.

Why do I go into this stuff? First, to clarify subject matter about which I care.

We're back in Detroit. Will play this morning in the Grosse Pointe Senior Men's Tennis Association carousel before starting a gross inventory of items sold in a Grosse Pointe estate sale.

Important it is, too, to reinstitute A New Year's Serve to help me remember some of the new shots I've been working on-- if I want to play well in the carousel. A New Year's Serve is primarily about me, don't you know, although I have no intention of closing anyone out from my findings. Pretty much, I've found, the ones who want to be closed out close themselves out, and that's fine.

[bottle]

I did play pretty well today in the carousel, despite all the driving yesterday from Chatham, Cape Cod to Detroit. The forehands edited themselves out on court-- I didn't have to do it. I ended up with just two, not four or five: the shot I recently described but never had tried before, and my McEnrueful, a straight-wristed shot I use all the time though seldom as my staple shot. The weather was cool for a change here in Detroit-- very good for tennis stroke invention. Some of my partners were hitting the ball better than usual, also-- a good day pretty much for everybody with not a cloud in the sky, maybe an omen of Donald Trump not winning the American presidency.

My chess opponent for the week, John Cowper of the UK, sees Brexit passing in England and the possible election of Trump as similar unfortunate experience.

He pointed out that everybody in the UK, whether they voted for Brexit or not, now hates it. It wasn't up to this American to disagree, and besides, we had great chess matches.

[bottle]

Recently, I've been accused of circumlocution. So today I'll just grunt.

[klacr]

Recently, I've been accused of circumlocution. So today I'll just grunt.

Breathe, In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[bottle]

Got it. Thanks. My wife did that too and I just had a good talk in Schenectady with my sometimes estranged son.

[bottle]

Grunts worked well. Tried some SABR's too.

[bottle]

Hip Focus in a PetraKordian

How can a tennis player be too knowledgeable about what he wants his hips to do in a one hand backhand?

I would argue and have that the hips function as described in TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE and that used by Petr Korda hitting with his son (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqpARpkF8WA) are different with Korda keeping his head more over the hips.

No less a player than Vic Seixas suggested that Vic Braden's backhand was a great one although Vic S disparaged the rest of Vic B's game.

My friend Harry Constant however played Vic B in college and thought that all of Vic B's game was great. "We didn't even know what topspin was," Harry said.

To go more along the perceived Korda route, let's structure a one hander on two items: 1) hips turn to straighten and roll arm; 2) hips stop turning but continue toward net as front leg pushes up.

The provocative nature of this shot may become more apparent as one continues to try it.

Arm and hips take strings to the ball. Body, not arm, hits the ball. Followthrough is with the arm, not the body, after the ball is gone.

P.S. Happiness is a big screen and a new computer when watching the above video.

[bottle]

Roger Federer's Forehand Needs Editing Before You Or I Try It

When Roger Federer said, "There should only be one Roger Federer," he wasn't referring only to Baby Fed (Grigor Dimitrov).

Lots of tour players now lead backswing with their elbow more like Ivan Lendl.

Roger-- he lifts the racket tip first then closes his strings almost on the way down. He has done this so many millions of times that he is very quick and smooth with it.

Ayesha, daughter of Holyhobo in India, tried to do this, and was fully filmed for an issue of TennisPlayer.

But we haven't heard from either Ayesha or Holyhobo in a long while. How is Ayesha doing? Did she make changes? Did they work out? Have you won any tournaments recently, Ayesha?

My theory is that exposure of this nature on TennisPlayer or even YouTube is a big trauma-- amusing for sure but with possible dire consequence. How about Naomi Totka and her "sick kick?" Did she fade into oblivion?

How are your games doing right now, zchpcu, klacr? Won any tournaments? Played doubles together?

I'm thinking about Roger's forehand return of serve as well as his staple forehand. If you lead with elbow then straighten it to side rather than down, reader, you can next use Nick Wheatley's 1-2 rhythm but with subtle mental alteration.

For normal Federfore, the 1 of the rhythm can take elbow up. For service return Federfore, the 1 of the rhythm can include elbow turning up but also straightening of the arm out toward side fence. How we divvy up the actions of 1 and 2 is everything.

[stotty]

[B]

Ayesha, daughter of Holyhobo in India, tried to do this, and was fully filmed for an issue of TennisPlayer.

But we haven't heard from either Ayesha or Holyhobo in a long while. How is Ayesha doing? Did she make changes? Did they work out? Have you won any tournaments recently, Ayesha?

My theory is that exposure of this nature on TennisPlayer or even YouTube is a big trauma-- amusing for sure but with possible dire consequence. How about Naomi Totka and her "sick kick?" Did she fade into oblivion?

Interesting...

I have uploaded a number of students in the past. How are they faring? Were they/I able to implement the changes recommended by others in the forum? These are the questions that count. Revisiting is perhaps the most important part of all.

You are right, bottle. It's a trauma and there is much on the line?

I am more than happy to put my students back up on Youtube a year or two later down the line. Of course you won't see all the prescribed changes and they won't look like players from a Tennisplayer textbook. Coaching just isn't like that. It's not that I am no good or my students don't listen. The reality is I only see most students only once a week. The even greater reality is that even if I saw my students every day, their strokes still maybe nowhere near what I set out to achieve.

10splayer and I came to the conclusion a while back that, in most cases, the best you can hope for is to help students hit the right checkpoints in a stroke and see what develops. Coaches cannot govern everything....not possible. And why would they want to?

It's is a bit like raising children. You do as much as you to make them the best you can but in the end they will also become themselves no matter what.

The bottom line with someone like Ayesha or any child is some changes will stick and look all right and some won't. It's really as simple as that.

Coaching is tough to quantify. It probably only accounts for 10 or 20 percent of a players development, although it can of course be a very crucial 10 or 20 precent. You see, the student brings much to the table that the coach has no control of: degree of natural talent, height, physique, IQ, degree of natural athletic ability...the list goes on. A coach can only work with what he is given to work with.

Many coaches will count their worth by showing you their best students. I say show me your worst and I will judge you on that.

[bottle]

Splay, Splay-- Splay All Day

Am talking about imitation Petr Korda backhands, i.e., PetraKordians.

One wants the shoulders to continue turning backward as one steps out to hit the ball because one read in a tennis book somewhere that that is beautiful.

On the other hand, if one is still swinging backward at such a late date, when if ever will one's energy shift properly forward?

The answer may lie in compromise, i.e., change direction of the angular momentum at the end of the hitting step just before the front foot makes contact with the court.

We western human beings tend to be inflexible in thinking that something must always be this or that but never this-and-that.

So we splay with prop foot-- hooray-- we join the Christian cult of good unit turn.

But what is good for the goose is good for the gander, so now we splay with the other foot-- hooray again.

Splaying foot to prepare aids ease and amount of backward hips turn.

Splaying foot at end of step-out aids ease and amount of forward hips turn.

[bottle]

Divvy Divvy in 1-2 Rhythm

The other day I went to Grosse Pointe Academy in order to self-feed. All the best juniors associated with the teaching staff at East Side Tennis were present but there seemed to be an open court so I asked if I could take it.

No, some of the kids were just having a rest. In half an hour all the courts would be free. So I sat down with my old friend Michelle Snyder, who won with me when she played her first game of doubles. Wyatt Snyder, the 10-year-old son of her and Jake of Jake's Cranes in Windsor, Ontario, is a kind of prodigy, i.e., has a howitzer of a forehand mostly taught to him I believe by my friend Sebastien Foka of Wayne State and France.

Sebastien was on the other side of the net and observed to Wyatt, "You keep breaking me." That would be good accomplishment in that Sebastien has the best singles record ever at Wayne State.

So I became happy just to watch, not only to sit next to Michelle, but to study Wyatt's 1-2 rhythm.

Sebastien has worked with Wyatt for a number of years.

Wyatt loops. There is a pause at the bottom. Then Wyatt hits the crap out of the ball-- an ungodly potent forehand.

Pause at the bottom? Well, I could have that even though I have forehands where the pause or slow-down occurs at the top.

I see a bit of Steve Johnson turn-under of the racket as elbow rises up. The elbow always will be turning, in other words, rather than be already turned. Turning of the elbow will blend with rising of the elbow will blend with falling of the elbow will blend with mondo to form a slight pause at the bottom.

Everything else-- turn, footwork, etc. will adjust to this small loop. The mondo will already be done when I hit the fuck out of the ball.

[bottle]

The Tennis House and The Grosse Pointe Carousel

The Tennis House, an ornate round-roof structure, was built by the Fords four score and seven years ago.

Its membership of more than a hundred players has dwindled to less than fifty.

At the Grosse Pointe Farms Michigan City Council hearing last night, the question arose of which local citizens should most be heard from although everybody was invited to speak.

The closest structure to The Tennis House is owned by Hope, my partner Hope, who isn't Hope Solo.

She didn't speak but I did, bringing up among other fears the question of real and imaginary balconies.

Will the balconies the architects plan to hang on the huge structure afford an unwanted view into the backyards of us and our neighbor Phil?

No, the balconies will point inward, not outward, and lush foliage and other structure will shield our yard.

In every other place I've lived I've opposed the developers but rather like these ones.

The high end snowbirds they plan to attract to their new super-small condominiums won't have children and will hardly add to the automotive flow.

I have played on the one Har-Tru court inside of The Tennis House and loved the experience, I explained, but now those days are past. If the membership including many onepercenters was sufficiently motivated to pool their resources to purchase the facility and keep the court going, they would have done so long ago.

One young man, probably a Trump supporter, expressed deep grief if tennis in The Tennis House was about to end since he, a working stiff, greatly enjoyed playing with and against the one per cent.

But I get to do that three times a week as a member of the Grosse Pointe Senior Men's Tennis Association (annual dues, $10).

Not all the players are millionaires but more than one percent of them are.

They have a thing called a "carousel" which looks like a Hotchkiss machine gun from the Civil War with a plethora of different barrels aimed at the sky.

You stick the butt of your racket in one of the barrels. Your time is soon.

"Player on number six," comes the cry. You limp out to court number six and immediately serve.

This happens Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The place of it is the outdoor courts of The Grosse Pointe Neighborhood Club and Liggett University private school, then Wimbledon indoor facility through the rest of the year.

The carousel plus Wimbledon plus East Side, Indian Village and all the other private clubs in the area have longsince supplanted The Tennis House. Besides, who wants a huge soccer emporium or 15 clacking bowling alleys close next door.

[bottle]

Horizontal vs. Vertical Forehand Development

Many of my attempts to explore new ways of hitting forehands lead to horizontal development, i.e., the new shot is neither better nor worse than the old one.

I'm sure that few players would accept my definition of "a new shot" since any small tweak can be regarded as just that.

But me, I want to regard any tweak as part of an overhaul, viz., one part of overall cycle including preparation, hit and followthrough with everything affecting everything else. I get this total cycle idea from the late gold medal Olympic oarsman and rowing coach at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy New London Connecticut, Bill Stowe.

Like any curious player learning forehand in the era of Ivan Lendl, I experimented with hurling my elbow around.

What if-- now-- one tries leading or throwing the elbow in two directions but only a distance of an inch or two.

Thus the rising elbow can coincide with added wrist closing in the backswing and therefore more relaxed mondo to complete a loop.

Before aggressive forward body turn combined with the most aggressive forward elbow thrust possible.

I then foresee these binary options opening up: 1) severe poptop in which the arm plies around the body but doesn't twist/wipe and 2) severe windshield wipe combined with elbow smoothly rather than roughly moving out.

[bottle]

Aunty Wonk: Free the Elbow

Bump it up, bump it down (loop) then let both fulcrums (body and arm) go.

Per usual, the new shot, whatever it is, produced/duces about one spectacular winner in a two-hour session. What really were good were a series of PetraKordians when I remembered my tip for them to "splay splay all day" including a passing shot ripped up the alley.

And that is a difficulty in evaluating new strokes. Exactly when is the excellence of them, if excellence there be, going to kick in? Fourth session of competitive play? Difficult to predict.

I will say this though. When a new shot begins to work, you know. The danger then for somebody like me is that I may become bored, thinking I can do better, and next invent something else which half the time won't be as good.