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[johnyandell]

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[julian1]

Life is NOT a piece of cake

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Clicking the last one does NOT help
It is NOT biggy,somehow an interface got changed during the last month

[johnyandell]

You should have delete as an option.

[pmata71]

Changing of grip question

Now that I've come back to tennis after several month layoff, I have decided to go back to my 1hbh and I have a question regarding the grip change between forehand and backhand...

I play with a semiwestern forehand, where my index knuckle is between bevel 3 and 4 (closer to 4 though). My grip for my 1hbh would be with my index knuckle on bevel 1 except I find it easier to just rotate the racquet slightly forward so my knuckle is on bevel 5 (I end up hitting with the same face of the racquet for both forehand and backhand). Is it ok to do this or is there a reason I should be rotating all the way back to my knuckle on bevel #1? If so what would be the benefit? Thanks in advance.

[johnyandell]

Great question. There was a Spanish player called Alberto Berasategui who did that.

I guess it doesn't really matter how you get there--might get a little faster string wear. My only thought is if there is some reason I am not thinking of why 99% of all players do it the other way.

Seems that you have a little more overall movement abd you would have to go a little further of course to get to a slice grip.

But if you are making or timing your turns correctly not sure it's a big problem.

Anyone else got a thought on this??

[stotty]

A guy at my club uses an extreme full western grip for both his forehand and backhands...and hits his backhand with the same face of the racket as his forehand. He plays well with it but was constantly made fun of and derided by others until Berasategui came along to justify such an unorthodox technique.

We've all tried to imitate him at our club but none of us can do it. He is self-taught and a very good player. Needless to say Berasategui continues to be his idol.

[pmata71]

Quite frankly I wonder...why EVERYONE else isn't doing it the way I do It doesn't make sense to me having to twist your hand all the way back to bevel 1 when you can just slide it forward just one bevel the other way.

I was taking a lesson on Friday, and after asking the coach, he told me that I should be turning the racquet and putting my knuckle on top, but that if this works for me, he couldn't think of a reason to tell me not to do it. He then went on to tell me that most every other coach would tell me that I had to switch the other way. So I thought I'd ask here. I mean there has to be some reason why all the pros do it that way right?

[johnyandell]

It is more movement with the racket, but as I said hard to say it's wrong if the other elements work. Doubt you will start a world trend but who knows?

[were]

image during play

John, while playing should you have the images in your head as you play and be lining up with them or should you be doing the stroke out of muscle memory?

[johnyandell]

That's a good question! Allen Fox describes the actual tennis as a "reaction," based on muscle memory, practice, etc.

But Billie Jean King told me she visualized literally everything she did before she did it. Other great players may do this spontaneously or subsconsciously.

I think for the average player the idea is not to think in words, but to visualize and feel. So yeah, I think the best plan is to have carefully worked out (but always evolving) image keys for all your shots, placements etc. These positive images also contribute to the mental game!

[don_budge]

Sorry to bother you...again.

"Who's online" is actually a very interesting feature of the site. I often take a look to see who's online and see what they are reading. So many times I have seen that so and so is reading this post from an old thread...so I go to that post and start reading myself. It's fascinating to read interesting posts that have been written in the past and the quality of the discussions that ensued. Tennisplayer has quite a history...to say nothing of it's future!

Now I am even more curious as to who the "guests" are.

When you changed the timeout setting somehow it is no longer possible to see what the long list of "guests", whoever they are, are reading in the "Who's Online" option. I always thought this was an interesting feature of your forum. Is it possible to restore that that tiny facet of seemingly inconsequential information? Now all that you see is "Viewing Index" without knowing specifically the thread that they are reviewing. No biggy...for sure I am the only one who could possibly be remotely interested.

[johnyandell]

We changed that on purpose because, thanks to you, we discovered a large number of unauthorized people and bots crawling over the site. All the financial info is stored by verisign on their servers so there was no threat there, but still we want to keep the site and the forum for subscribers.

[were]

visual tennis

I have read visual tennis from front to back and nothing has worked for me. I may actually be worse than before. I try to visualize but that doesn't work. Nothing does. Any help.

[johnyandell]

Uh, you'd have to be more specific. Strokes, strategy, mental game? Sounds like a negative self-talk loop!

[were]

My strokes are worse they always break down and are very inefficient with no power and a bad trajectory.