Short Angle: A Tennis Book, Simon and Schuster 2016, 504 Pages

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You guys need to try something called Digital Dragon Naturally Speaking for Mac, version 4. I just got it the other day and it is amazing. I can run my computer with my voice. Its great, and it saves so much more time. And, its accuracy is amazing.

Is that sort of like what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was working on in the gulag?

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Innovation

Thanks, hockeyscout, for all significant innovation. All significant innovators of course get trounced upon. But somebody in this family has a Mac and will be getting voiceware for her birthday (I just ordered it).

As for my new and improved short angle, I just made a decision to advance repeatability.

I go for contact in the second phase of (seamless) racket rise.

The first phase consists of shoulder rotating down. Yes, the shoulder banks down as the racket rises up.

The second phase consists of shoulder banking up. The racket meanwhile continues to rise on the same line.

One can hit short angle in either phase but with more assurance in the second phase since racket in that case has had a longer runway before the ball.

In contemplating the aeronautical term "banking" as used by Welby Van Horn, one could in my view think of right-hander's head shifting to left-- a mistake for the perfect short angle I envision. There would be too much of a crapshoot factor.

In fact, a 30-degree slant of upper body from the hips ("Keep hips away from ball!") creates all the descent and rise of hitting shoulder that I want at least before and during contact. After contact, who cares if head goes awry although a balanced landing would be nice.

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Tweak

It must be admitted, that, on deep McEnruefuls and short angled McEnruefuls both, if one is administering topspin in the second half of seamless racket rise, the ball will go too high unless one has more heavily westernized one's grip first.

First half of seamless rise in a McEnrueful: Shoulder goes down while racket goes up.

Second half of seamless rise in a McEnrueful: Shoulder goes up while racket goes up.

This phenomenon can add to one's knowledge of what a tennis racket does the farther out front it is.

One may have only thought that pitch naturally opens the farther forward the racket is from the body core.

That is true but also is true in a solid swing from the core if that swing is down and up as opposed to level and purely round-a-bout.

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X-Shot: The Next Notch Forward?

Actual play is causing me to prefer first phase contact.

First phase is where the shoulder goes down as the strings go up. Second phase is where both go up.

All of these recent shot are predicated on setting straight wrist opposite navel before the shoulders, set on their 30-degree body angle, pivot.

Next try setting wrist farther forward opposite front leg in a neutral step-out.

One can memorize some contact point for use without the handy reference of a leg in open version.

Try different grips but keep the body-arm connection fixed through body pivot.

To honor feel of the newly established stroke, keep free movement of the arm the same length as in the previous shots. That means a shorter backswing.

Keep the left feeler high enough for right feeler to pass under it.

Reader, don't pivot until you've made this X.

Are you ready to add surgical brush from forearm roll to conclude independent motion from arm?

Perhaps or perhaps not.

In all short angle experiments, one needs to make one's mistakes into the mistake that oversteers the ball beyond the sideline and loses the point.

The opposite mistake of dumping ball in the middle of the service box is simply unacceptable in play OR practice.

This is an all out shot for which one will likely pay a price before achieving mastery.

[klacr]

This is an all out shot for which one will likely pay a price before achieving mastery.

Before success and mastery always comes failure. Epic, legendary, bone chilling failure.


Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

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Summing

Oscar Wegner uses the word "summing" more than teaching pros who become steeped in left brain kinetic chain methodology the instant they try to explain racket head speed.

Some of both phenomena probably happen in any good stroke, but "summing" is the one less discussed and therefore receives more attention from me.

The summing I see in my new X-shot combines downward swinging of fixed shoulder to send strings upward with forearm roll which also sends strings upward at the exact same time.

Simple logic says that S where S is solid body racket head speed + F where F is forearm roll racket head speed is greater than (>) either S or F.

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Progress Report

This shot is coming along. The forearm roll combined with late body turn gives-- dare I say it-- a bit of body to the spinny shot. Slap-shot rhythm combined with determination to keep things out front means that dropping arm in bottom leg of (>) symbol brings racket from outside in toward body, which happens also to be somewhat in the desired direction short and crosscourt.

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How Moosh Broosh

Translated from the language of dream, that would mean "How Much Brush?"

We've seen before, in video of Tom Avery's short angle, that hand must locate pretty far forward before Tom can roll his forearm.

Notice however that nobody told us, not even Tom, that the roll is from the forearm.

No, we had to smoke this out for a week by ourselves until we (I) realized that the vertical incision of frame knifing up came not from closing wrist. It didn't come from roll from a double-jointed Roger Federer's shoulder either.

A person with less range of wrist layback than Roger (the majority of human beings) can only roll from the shoulder if he wants to destroy the stability of his short angle once and for all.

Let us postulate here: The forearm must be relaxed. There might therefore be a HINT of a mondo but only a miniscule amount.

Remember, reader (if you have any power of retention for verbal instruction of my sort) that we spent another week of only hitting poptop, i.e., topspin produced by body work only egging the frame with mild rise of strings because rear shoulder was going down.

We tried then to combine three sources of topspin: 1) already closed racket face 2) rolling forearm 3) hitting shoulder's quick descent.

So how much brush from the forearm? Not much and certainly not violent. Less is more. Relax!

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Lining up the Vectors

We now try to line up the vectors of our three topspin-producing means and add another for a total of four.

These (simultaneously applied) are 1) edge of racket in the lead, 2) roll from the forearm 3) lowering of the shoulder to raise the strings 4) lowering of rear knee to raise the strings more.

Nothing is ever going to be perfect but the closer that every source of a rise approximates the racket pitch the better, i.e., upward-forward rise of 2), 3) and 4) should be close to angle of a ruler placed flat across the side frames of one's racket.

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Tweak

Lowering of rear knee should occur during the slap of slap-shot (the lower leg of >) not during the actual brush of the ball.

Does this alter-- lessen-- the amount of independent arm motion from shoulder needed during the lower leg of (>)?

Possibly.

Racket butt and right knee never collide or touch but do come close to one another.

Does this make slap less happy and more feely?

Yes.

This structure will be good for kinetic chain addicts.

The hips will turn "marginally ahead of the shoulders" in the words of late baseball icon Ted Williams and there can be a replacement step of a few inches to side or not after the shoulders have turned through the ball.

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Three Playing Levels Where Short Angle Meant A Difference

1) My youngest brother reaches the open final of a country club tournament in Weston, Connecticut.

2) A lefty in his mid-seventies beats the Front Royal City open champion in over thirty division in Woodstock, Virginia.

3) Steve Navarro in this forum describes Novak Djokovic's successful use of short angle against Rafa Nadal.

These short angles are not just any short angles. They are as sharp and fast and spinny as full control will allow.

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Tweak

We've been using the symbol (>) very much in our pursuit of the perfect short angle, the only kind of good short angle there is.

In logic pre-dating computers and on a computer keyboard both, the symbol (>) means "greater than."

To pun on the symbol's meaning, we (I) seek the acute crosscourt forehand short angle that is better than any other sort of like the Tina Turner song about best of all the rest.

How we settled on a >-shaped backswing does not matter. Does it work?

I am right-handed and have tried to be consistent in presenting side view (from ass side naturally but with no self-hatred implied).

But I've also urged you, reader, to keep the (>) out front. Does this mean the symbol's top leg goes from left to right and the bottom leg from right to left?

That is somewhat true but more than I wish to say. I retreat from that to the more simple upward slash that describes the backswing for every staple McEnrueful I'll ever hit.

The slash is short. And goes slightly upward. And goes slightly backward. And goes slightly outward toward the right side fence.

In the arm swing/drop that initiates the shot, the arm comes somewhat into the core because of the drop part.

I wish to do this also with (>), my short angle backswing.

The first difference however is top leg of (>) going down instead of up. The elbow of the symbol can locate directly below a normal slash backswing.

Racket thus goes back the same small amount as in a normal McEnrueful, just locating lower for the short angle version.

The second difference is lowering of right knee as racket drops a second time. This gets the racket tip incredibly low and close to one's core.

This move cannot be fast.

Why not? Because it moves one's eyes. And one will lose precision if this part of the stroke isn't slow and easy, as Tina Turner recommends in another song.

In addition, if one has bought time for the smoothness, one can apply extra body angle as right knee sinks down.

One needs a straight strong spine for this with bend from hips only, but could look as bowed over as the late Ellsworth Vines hitting his famous forehand.

But to what advantage? Well, the more one is bent over, the sharper the racket rise as shoulder plunges down. Requirement: keeping one's head and eyes absolutely still.

Forehand roll (SIM) adds to the steepness of one's brush.

Note: What started as a joke-- the beginning of this thread-- became very serious, didn't it? So maybe the time has come to lighten up again. Yes. Let the amnesia of repetition make this shot light and full of pep.

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Does writing a 1200-page book called SHORT ANGLE enable one to hit FHCC short angles?

Probably. The content of the book won't matter. The attention one gives to such a specific challenge will.

Sort of like Rita Hayworth at 26:

For instance, take a chick like me
They call me Terpsichore
I'm the goddess of song and dance
I put the ants in the dancers' pants.

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A Tennis Coach's First Job

Put ants in the dancer's pants.

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Luke Jensen One-Two from Deuce Court in Service Return Doubles

Am talking about two shots. The first is a topspin crosscourt angle to short in the alley if a forehand, or a chop if a backhand to the exact same place.

The second of the two shot combination is a volley to the exact same place. If one's partner is in on the plot, he or she too can volley to the exact same place or choose some other direction to hit the winner.