Have a Question for Me?

[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]

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!

[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]

Yeah you are asking some great questions and honestly I am not sure that I know the answers.

What I notice is that lower level players who try to close the racket face or wiper and mechanically emulate the pros have sporadic results.

If you are hitting 100mph groundstrokes with shoulder high contact heights and extreme backhand grips, well then, you probably close the face naturally just feeling what is necessary to control the ball. Or add the wiper.

What I say is, start where you are. Can you with your grip control the contact height, hit the ball relatively flat and deep and do that consistently? Can you loop it a bit and add more spin?

If your level is such that you cannot, then you may need to move more on top and visualize that closed face and/or wiper. You would probably enjoy Kerry Mitchell's grip articles because he deals with this issue of what to visualize when with the face.

Personally what I feel is exaggerating the upswing on the deep high balls--who knows, maybe I am closing the face. And wipering on the low short angles. It's very hard though I think for the average player to do this successfully (wiper) on high heavy balls. See last month's Your Strokes for the pitfalls there...

Then again I also feel that, for most players, many balls that people try for exotic topspin variations should really be hit with slice.

It always comes down to your ball. It's not a matter of technique for its own sake--it's how can you produce the quality of shot you need to accomplish certain goals within points.

[radionise]

Hello John,

When gripping the racquet for forehand groundstrokes, which fingers should exert more pressure on the handle than the rest?

Thanks

[johnyandell]

I think they should all be as light as possible. If you have to think about that you will definitely get too tense.

[bman]

If a pretty good player has almost no leg kickback on the serve, what is usually the cause? Minimal cartwheel action?

[johnyandell]

I think it's in the legs. Either the knee bend isn't that keep. The toss is too far back which prevents use of the legs. Or it can be balance related. Take a look at the Greenwald article in Your Strokes. Sometimes a player just needs to focus on the kick back with a drill like the hoppity hop.

[bman]

In "tennis myths," you talk about the "myth of the pinpoint stance" and how the pinpoint stance fails to engage the back leg as is commonly thought. But in "The Serve Windup," Brian Gordon suggests that the closer the feet are together, the greater the vertical push element of the serve. Are these two analyses at odds?

[BrianGordon]

Bman-

Happened to see this - here are my thoughts. I don't see that our statements are at odds. The feet closer together will create a more vertical net ground force if the back leg pushes.

There are, however, many variations of the pinpoint some utilizing much more involvement of the back leg in pushing on the ground than others. The extent of the back leg push often seems to be associated with the method of bringing that foot forward.

Recently, I relocated to Florida where I work with Rick Macci at his academy. Last week he pointed out to a player that bringing the foot/leg forward by dragging the foot on or near the ground tended to mitigate drive of the back leg - actively stepping into the pinpoint tended to facilitate more back leg involvement.

I think this observation was great and fits with the mechanics I described in the article. Of course it is a generality and exceptions can be found since nothing about dragging the foot would necessarily cause that leg not to push (other than the quality of the drive I described in the article).

So... it has been awhile since I read John's account but suggest he was probably focusing more on specific variations of the pinpoint seen by many players at all levels - variations where the back leg basically just goes along for the ride.

Now, I better quickly exit the JY zone before I get in trouble for trespassing.

[bman]

Thanks for the reply. With regard to your last point about JY and his article, the only thing I might point out is that he used Rusedski, Phillipoussis, and Hewitt for his examples--not exactly a bunch of scrubs!

I think my unscientific observation from personal experience is that bringing the foot forward may increase vertical push just a tiny bit, but I don't think the good necessarily outweighs the possible negatives from adding one more complicating factor to the serve. Particularly if one is trying to teach a relatively low level player to to serve, I think the damage it does (hips often sliding open, for example) tends to outweigh the possible benefits.

[johnyandell]

No I appreciate it BG.

And Bman responding to your posts I think that my own experience in working with players showed me that--at least for men--that the platform had many advantages. I still think it is interesting to note how the feet leave the court--and the timing between them--and I am not convinced just because the back leg is pushing down on the ground that all that is eventually translated into the motion. And I agree about the hip problem especially in the extreme pinpoint when the foot comes way around. The good serves of whichever stance just aren't wide open at contact.

Having said that I am also convinced that Brian is right and there are many variations of the pinpoint. One of the interesting things is that the top women almost all seem to use it. And I have to think there must be some reason. (Henin is the exception.) But I do believe that some tall super athletic woman will break that mold and develop a monster platform serve along the lines of Federer or even Pete.

In the meantime I think there must be other elements at play in the pinpoint--something in that motion that somehow works for some players. A few coaches have noted this to me with their women players. A few years ago I spent a day changing a top women's college player to a platform and it seemed to be obviously superior. But maybe not. For those or other reasons when I saw her a year later she was right back to the pinpoint.

The same thing happened in my work with Jeff Greenwald.

Again it's the cloning thing. We'll never have a player do both unless we clone him. Still I wonder what Safin or even a player like Davydenko would do if they changed.

I guess I am a little less hardcore than I was when I wrote that article. I still always recommend the platform, but am willing to accept mild versions of the pinpoint--especially with female players.

So the bottom line is probably every player needs to experiment for himself.

[bman]

So Greenwald went back to the pinpoint? That's an interesting update...I just read his Your Strokes a few days ago.

[johnyandell]

Read the article he wrote about the national 40s win: in mental game section, integrating technical and mental. The changes in his serve were critical in his opinion.

[chuck62]

McEnroe Instructional Series

John,

How much of the instructional series you did with McEnroe back in the 80s is on this site ? If not here, where else can I find it ?