Groundhog Day (trying to get things right day after day)

[bottle]

I've been thinking more about Roger's forehand (I can hear the groans of the TennisPlayer.Net editor from California to North Carolina). The coaches who say they believe in hitting through the ball are the ones most apt to prevent ordinary players such as myself from playing even remotely like Roger.

Hitting like Roger, to me, means generating a maximum of racket head speed to produce a combination of topspin and sidespin similar to a good serve.
At 65, I don't want to hit this shot all the time, but I do want to hit it some of the time. Interestingly, it's more consistent than medium, straight-up
topspin, which I also find useful, or punchy-line-drive-with-mild-topspin.
The first employs passive, feely arm and the second active arm as part of the propulsion; but, they both rely on an exaggerated straight line hitting interval.
A big danger therefore lies in the way that pitch notoriously changes as the elbow moves forward from the body. One can compensate with a slow, finessed, in-place racket roll similar to feathering an oar, or one can start with closed racket face and wistfully rely on one's uncanny ability always to set up the exact same distance from the ball.

When one emulates Roger, one enters a different realm. Nobody can ever know exactly where another player stops his finesse and starts his power, but consider this. If, when the racket starts back, you bend your upper body to the right and your butt to the left, you've retained balance. If, as the racket then folds, you straighten the right leg, the hips can ply into the ball, the human head can retreat from the ball, and the racket tip can topple under the ball. This means good architecture with hand and arm firmly behind the ball yet with everything in close for added strength. All this can be achieved in one natural (if perfectly understood) motion.

Now, if you didn't let your hand go into the cavern formed by your overhanging shoulders...and wisely relegated the idea of hitting inside out to golf...and set up out in the slot like Roger...you have the chance to be a bear.

Yes, a bear doesn't throw a straight right. He whaps right to left using his pec and bicep (whether there is separate movement at the elbow or not).
Combine this with heavy wiping rotation from hand, forearm and shoulder
for significant racket head speed while hitting through the ball just a little.
Mostly, you're deflecting or crossing the hitting line, which produces 45-degree combination spin.

[lukman41985]

bottle,
i wish i knew what was going on in your head. it always sounds like your onto something, but i never have a clue what you're saying buddy. but i love how all your analysis is stream-of-consciousness. reminds me of how fleeting this game can be.

[bottle]

From the Eery Weird Zone

I don't mind that. One concrete thing you maybe could take away, though, is a recurrent image in all the filmstrips of Roger: the butt of his racket points at the ball with the strings trailing far behind.

A longtime question I've had is how the strings get from there to where they can effectively crank rather than swat too much through the ball. Maybe you would need to build a compete car along with its windshield, and then you'd have your wiper; or, maybe the challenge is more simple. I tried to change racket position with arm and then with some body rotation and then with both.

Finally, I decided the racket changed in a more underhanded way caused by
longitudinal body action.

Lower body goes one way, upper body the other. This whole motion pretty much puts the racket tip under a well-supported hand.

Okay, it was a brainstorm, after which I saw some crisper shots. That was the occasion of my "Groundhog Day" entry. Yes, I usually pay for my enthusiasm, but all in all prefer to have it.

[kenknight]

Bottle, in the last post, you stated that Roger's racquet trailed behind his hand and the stringbed was facing up and down. That happens in a lot of pro shots.

Then the pros supinate to bring the racquet into a normal hitting motion. Doing this provides natural topspin, and when taken from the "stringbed up and down" part adds length and acceleration to the swing.

The bear analogy is amusing. I'll try it out. Like lukman said it's a little confusing, but it does always sound like you're on to something, doesn't it? That's good.

[bottle]

Ultimately, as the pro at my club once said, "It's not what you actually do.
It's what you think you do."

[shootermcmarc0]

i wish i had great extension on my shots like he does. his forehand is always making perfect arcs and circles, its really nice to watch.

[bottle]

Part of it is the mild grip, isn't it? The arm has to be longer than for more westernized grips just to ahieve ballpark desired pitch at contact most of the time.

Personally, I think the way Roger's racket approaches the ball, while similar,
looks different from any other prominent player.

All 27 basic variations of Roger's FH to the side, I'm interested in a sometime
look to his hand and wrist right after contact, too.

This would be where hand and wrist form a slight convexity on the left side
(if you look down at your arm trying to imitate it)-- just one more small detail to explore if you are of the mind.

[johnyandell]

Convexity? How about deliberate obfuscation? I guess these posts could in someway be related to reality...but like it may have been said before, the beauty of what you believe and see is that it is yours alone and as true as you want it to be, and in America they can't put you in prison for that yet--so long as you stick to tennis anyway...

Nobody with an easternish grip hits thru the same way as Big Feddie. Look in the Federer FH articles or the high speed forehand clip in the Stroke Archive. you see the arm position after contact.

[bottle]

As you yourself have indicated in those articles, there are 27 BASIC variations. There are variations of the variations, too, and film sequences
probably made by YOU in which Roger hardly hits through the ball at all.
Challenge me enough and I'll identify them. Roger, not I, is the big obfuscator, and I'm not a supinator.

To continue in my more chracteristically mature and naturally serene, eerie
weird zone manner (you must concede, I finally have arrived at the first dictionary spelling of "eerie"), here's another strange thing. Starting from the proposition that one can lead movement with the head, imagine two videos on a split screen. As Andre and Roger run for their next forehand, gradually bringing their left shoulder around, both are slightly bent over.

As Andre approaches the ball, he knows he's in perfect hitting position.
Why change anything? Roger, though, straightens up and then bends over again as his racket goes back, and I think this is characteristic.

[johnyandell]

You're right--he can come across faster and sooner than most anybody AND nobody hits thru the ball like he does. It's not either or, it's both and everything in between. Not sure about the bend over thing. I'll try to check it out next time I'm working on those two players.