Have a Question for Me?

[chwilson]

Closing of the Racquet Face

John:

I have a few questions based off a combination of personal practice and a quote from the One-Handed Backhand article.

Here it is:

"As we are going to see in future articles, extreme players can increase hand and arm rotation and deal with lower balls effectively. It's also true that extreme players, and in fact all modern players, close the face at times as a way of generating certain combinations of speed, spin, and trajectory. We will be looking at this in the future as well. But what we are talking about are the differences on more basic drives with the racket face more or less vertical at contact."

My question is how the pros may close the racquet face to control the trajectory of a ball. I have noticed that in short court warmup with more advanced players, they can keep energy in the ball with a full swing yet keep it in the box. Lesser skilled players decrease the racquet speed quite a bit and truncate the swing. It seems that just hitting up the back of the ball instead of more through the shot (for more depth) just results in an excessively loopy ball albeit with a lot of topspin to bring it down into the box.

So my specific question is how to experiment with controlling the trajectory with the racquet face. Should contact be made vertical and then slightly "come over" the ball? Or should one hit above the equator of the ball with a slightly close face with a low to high action?

I know there is a lot of debate on the angle of the racquet face at contact, but it seems very clear it is contextual to the type of shot you are trying to hit. I would like to know how these strategies apply to short crosscourt angles and approach shots as well (given that you are not just driving the ball downward linearly but instead controlling the arc).

Thanks for your time and your great site.

CHW

[johnyandell]

Definitely! If you feel that position, you will probably make the ball. It can vary slightly of course and players can be late getting there when forced on time, but yeah, I think it is one of the big keys at all levels. So many club players of course start the turn when the ball bounces. Nice photos!

[wicky10s]

preparation

Hi John,
Great article on Phil Picuri's forehand.
I submitted a (rather long) post back in Feb 2009 #402 that out lined basically the same point of view that you have stated here.After that I did a little more research on this site and pulled together a collage of famous tennis players in the" top of the back swing" position at the time that the ball bounces on the court.(2 of the photos got cropped and the ball isn't in view but the others include the ball in the picture just as it hits the ground)
I am amazed to see that even the older classic players with the Eastern and Continental grips are in a very similar position just before or just as the ball bounces. Most of the players have their lower torso roughly 45 degrees to the baseline and their shoulders 90 degrees to the baseline with the non racquet arm parallel to the baseline..classic coil position with weight loaded on the back foot.
I think of this as a Hallmark position for early preparation on the forehand side.
If you get into this position by the time the ball bounces you'll have much better timing.
It made a huge difference for me.

[johnyandell]

Australian??? Between continental and eastern? Not sure. Maybe a 1 1/2 --1 1/2. Others??

[stumphges]

Australian grip?

Hi John,

Where does the australian grip fall in your x/y classification scheme? Thanks.

[johnyandell]

Nikae,
My apologies as I thought I had posted a response about your videos, it's just too tough to tell much from these super wide views. Also I absolutely detest the youtube format for analysis, because you need to go frame by frame and this requires an additional download.

Try filming tighter! Look at the Stroke Archives and fill yourself up in the frame.

John Yandell

[johnyandell]

There is some significant stuff on the site alrady. The Myth of the Toss in Advanced Tennis, and also in the Sampras Serve article series.

Would be nice to know where it lands, yes. Of course Roger and Pete probably wouldn't be willing to give us a demo, but maybe some less well known players...

Personally, I think that the contact point is critical and if you get the contact point you want, then the toss must have been on the right flight and where it lands isn't of functional importance.

Still I get this question a lot, so I will give it more consideration.

[gzhpcu]

John,
I was wondering, would you consider doing, or having someone do an article on the placement of the toss on the serve?
I find there is very little literature on this aspect of the serve.
The pros and cons of a high ball toss is often discussed, but not where the ball would land in respect to the initial position of the body, for the various serve types.
I posted a thread in the forum with a picture of the ball toss.

[nikae]

Here are the videos I promised. Quality is kinda bad, and camera could record only for short time, so its not much.

I'll get much better videos soon, until then I hope that its possible to see something from these:

running back http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilaVKArW1Qo
low ball http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilaVKArW1Qo
2nd serve and 2 forehands http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zkk2M77EIU
ruining forehand http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3U9B-U71X8

videos are recorder during a match, not practice.

I try to do everything I learned from this site.

You can download the videos by pasting the link at www.keepvid.com , which should make it better quality and you can also see it frame by frame.

[nikae]

Thanks for the answer. I will upload my strokes this week, I didn't have an expert analyse my strokes yet.

[johnyandell]

320 is still fairly light. That is the about the weight I am using, although I like a slightly head light balance.

So I don't know what you mean by lighter--half an ounce (14g) or more?

There was a trend a few years ago to super stiff super light inverted weight rackets--hammmer style. My own opinion was that there were very hard on the joints and particularly the shoulder.

So going a little lighter, sure. But those other rackets--not even sure they are much around--can be seductive til your shoulder starts to hurt.

The real problem here of course as I've said repeatedly is that unless I can see you strokes it's hard to know if problems are technical and what the role of the racket might be, so this is not a definitive answer.

[nikae]

Hi John,

you explain differences between club and pro tennis very nicely.

I have a question about racket weight, for club player such as myself. I have been playing for about 1 year, with 300g unstrung (around 320 strung with over-grip) racket, 320mm balance.
And since I am kinda a small guy (5'9;154 pounds) i find that racket just a bit too heavy for me.

I guess professional players use heavier racket for stability because balls are hit with a lot of pace and spin in their game?

So my question is, since there isn't as much pace or spin in club tennis, I guess players can use lighter rackets? I played with a lighter racket for one set, and I noticed my timing is better, and I can put more spin on the ball since I can swing faster.

Is there anything I should know considering heavier vs lighter rackets, before I buy a lighter racket? (I cant demo a racket in this forgotten 3rd world country )

P.S. I searched the web and couldn't get a satisfying answer

[johnyandell]

Think you are correct.

[littlelobbers]

John,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to a post that I made after a tough loss. I just needed to vent somewhere. So, thanks again for having this great resource available and for attending to it so diligently. I had won the first set 7-5 and was down 4-5 in the second with a break point when my opponent hit his first serve which I played and he made an error off of my return. After the point and I had leveled the set he started yelling at me that serve was out and he heard me call it out (grunt). I changed my call then I lost the game and set. The excuse: I lost the match because he made me change my call. The reason: I lost that point because I did not sand by my call and I lost the match because I continued to play in the past. Am I correct?

I spoke with a former Olympic athlete (skiing) today, and she said “you must practice visualizing losing so that you have an idea of how it feels. Also you must play matches (ski) where you are in a losing situation so that you can overcome your emotions and focus on visualizing your technique.” This made sense to me even though, I always thought that winners just focused on visualizing winning. But, if that were the only thing that they focused on they could be crushed by defeat.

[tennisplayer]

That is a great answer, John - I've never heard it stated so simply and clearly before. Thanks!