Poll: which article would you like to see written/filmed the most?

[GeoffWilliams]

1. An atp forehand type III by Brian Gordon

2. Any piece by Allen Fox

3. A Jeff Greenwald piece

4. How to hit a back hand top spin lob by Geoff Williams/with video

5. Your strokes piece by John Yandell

6. Other

[gordonp]

All the suggestions are great.

Thinking a bit outside the box, there are two former greats now heavily involved in the teaching side of the game---Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe.

Lendl never said much during his interviews except that his mom was a former tennis champion. Since both have academies perhaps they would be willing to contribute an article. I know there are still a few out there who still like to study the McEnroe forehand.


Hope the suggestions were okay. Thanks for your work Geoff. Perhaps this is a suggestion for John Yandell.

I'd also like to see a story on the top spin backhand lob for both two handers and one handers.

[vrc10s]

Anything by Brian or Jeff is always good. Lets leave John away from anything extra, so that he can concentrate on his new Teaching System articles!!

[lobndropshot]

6. An article on the overhead.

[johnyandell]

L and D,


If you haven't seen Scott's:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/classiclessons/scott_murphy/scott_murphy_overhead_images/scott_murphy_overhead.html

Kerry's is also great:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/classiclessons/kerry_mitchell/kerry_mitchell_the_overhead/kerry_mitchell_the_overhead.html

[lobndropshot]

Checked them out after I posted my comment. Good stuff!

[don_budge]

don_budge interviews john_mcenroe...

1. An atp forehand type III by Brian Gordon
2. Any piece by Allen Fox
3. A Jeff Greenwald piece
4. How to hit a back hand top spin lob by Geoff Williams/with video
5. Your strokes piece by John Yandell
6. Other

6. An article where don_budge, a fledgling low keyed and mild mannered reporter (remember Clark Kent) who was nicknamed "Nasty" by his college fraternity in 1976, is sent first to the John McEnroe Academy to spend a week with Johnny and write an article about the John McEnroe continental grip based game and about John's Academy and an inside look at the "mad" genius that is McEnroe. By coincidence don_budge aka Nasty witnessed McEnroe at his breaking out party in the final qualifying round for the 1976 U.S. Open playing Zan Guerry only to lose that match on a replayed double match point. It was six all in the third, four all in the tiebreak and the 9 point tiebreak was being played that year. Tennis history!

An article unbelievably vast in depth and intuition. Pulitzer potential! Painting a lucid, poignant portrait of the legend of John McEnroe. Incorporating the wonderful music videos of he and Lendl from the creations of John Yandell plus the original "My Thoughts on the John McEnroe Forehand and Backhand"...rated 5 stars each by some generous soul.

Second? It's a surprise.

[bottle]

Do you expect us people at Tennis Player to pay for airfare or boatfare?

[gordonp]

Do you expect us people at Tennis Player to pay for airfare or boatfare?

Come on Bottle. Clark Kent is superman. He can fly.

[stotty]

Footwork

6) Footwork. Doug Eng seems to know all the footwork patterns and combinations there are. I'd like an article that deals not only with footwork, but also ways to incorporate in to coaching. I think Doug might be up for writing such an article. Get JY on to it, Geoff.

[GeoffWilliams]

That would be interesting. He does what he wants to do. No one can change that! Working fine so far. I'd like to see the open stepping fh, the advanced split step, the high up split step, tango stepping in to volley, recovery hammer down, the double pivot off fh ala Murray, return lunge steps off wide stances, bh recovery off wide shots, back pedalling for oh shots, unit turn basic steps at baseline and net, floating steps, cross over stepping, shuffle steps, rear jam step, side stepping, baby stepping to hit run around fh, what occurs when you use neutral stances, closed stances, open, off both one and two handers, attack stepping for volleys, weight transfer steps to rip the ball, defense stepping, back up stepping, transitional stepping, sitter attack steps, short court steps, all filmed and demonstrated in slo mo. Lull-Jam-Finish stepping, and the energy you use internally for each mode. But once again, JY does not listen to me!

Edberg had a very low stance split stepping into net, Murray a very high up split, ala Chang/Hewitt, and Djokovic a very wide stance on serve returns, a shoulder width and a half, and it all has to do with weight division, balance, weight transfer for the appropriate moment/shot. The lower body determines footwork, and the upper body determines shot type. Energy is very important in footwork, forward energy, even while moving backwards. Ie, the scissor kick on the back pedaling oh, is to transfer the snap back forwards. That's why Haas recently beat Djokovic. His footwork/energy was so much more energetic and forward/zone like.

The way in which a player distributes his weight into the shot is a large part of what type of player we become.

[GeoffWilliams]

Well, two of the requests were answered in this months' issue, without precognizance: the fh piece, and the Bailey footwork piece. Bailey piece was not specific enough, though, although it's hard to beat the simple perfection of the Macci video. Short, to the point, right on target, and exactly like the shot itself: shorter pathway/more rpm-pop. The single best tennis video I have ever seen! Wow.

[rkay_in_sd]

First time poster, long time lurker. I'd like to see an article on shots where pros purposefully jump to change the height of the contact zone, i.e the "mule kick" two handed backhand, the jumping one handed backhand (I saw Gasquet do this at Indian Wells), the scissor kick forehand (seen here: http://youtu.be/D4oJcU3lezg), and King Federer's "mule kick" forehand finishing shot (as seen here: http://youtu.be/91oj4kwcgxU).

I've seen variations of these used quite frequently on the Tour, but I have yet to come across a comprehensive analysis of each, including when to use them, how to execute them, etc. Perhaps there is one already on this site, and if so, please point me in that direction. If not, I'd like to see it done.

[GeoffWilliams]

That is an interesting idea.