Help for Luis

[EdWeiss]

Luis has been a student for a number of years with the charitable organization, Norwalk Grassroots Tennis & Education (NGT&E), that I have been involved in. He loves tennis and has benefitted a great deal from our program - kids from backgrounds like his would generally not have the opportunity to play tennis. His grades have steadily improved. He will be a senior in high school this fall. He plays No. 1 for his high school in a town where football, baseball and soccer are what people care about. A number of the surrounding towns are wealthier and have very good teams so while he won a few matches at the No. 1 position, he had some rough matches as well. Interestingly, Luis is a natural left-hander but plays right-handed.

I have posted below videos of forehands and backhands. I shot them at 240 fps but for some reason when I uploaded them to YouTube it went to regular speed.

I asked Luis to write some words about his fame and here they are:

"My goals in tennis are to improve to a more advanced level to gain College interest. My strengths, as I see them, are that I'm quick and somewhat explosive to get to almost every ball available. Another strength would also be my topspin in my opinion. A majority of the time I enjoy to use topspin at different levels. A weakness in my game would be my backhand. I had been playing with a one handed for about 2 1/2 years from what I remember. It's in large part self taught. But after transferring from a two handed backhand to a one handed backhand, I noticed a big drop in my game. I'm not as confident with my backhand as I should be. My timing is normally a bit off. But I believe it could get so much better. I love tennis, it's an escape for me whenever I feel bad. I really wish to play hard, and give great competition and play in college. Thanks for your interest."

Forehand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFtNr7wVxsM

Backhand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdxtYVb04F4

Backhand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdpQHkYJ_-M

[eaglesburg]

Luis has been a student for a number of years with the charitable organization, Norwalk Grassroots Tennis & Education (NGT&E), that I have been involved in. He loves tennis and has benefitted a great deal from our program - kids from backgrounds like his would generally not have the opportunity to play tennis. His grades have steadily improved. He will be a senior in high school this fall. He plays No. 1 for his high school in a town where football, baseball and soccer are what people care about. A number of the surrounding towns are wealthier and have very good teams so while he won a few matches at the No. 1 position, he had some rough matches as well. Interestingly, Luis is a natural left-hander but plays right-handed.

I have posted below videos of forehands and backhands. I shot them at 240 fps but for some reason when I uploaded them to YouTube it went to regular speed.

I asked Luis to write some words about his fame and here they are:

"My goals in tennis are to improve to a more advanced level to gain College interest. My strengths, as I see them, are that I'm quick and somewhat explosive to get to almost every ball available. Another strength would also be my topspin in my opinion. A majority of the time I enjoy to use topspin at different levels. A weakness in my game would be my backhand. I had been playing with a one handed for about 2 1/2 years from what I remember. It's in large part self taught. But after transferring from a two handed backhand to a one handed backhand, I noticed a big drop in my game. I'm not as confident with my backhand as I should be. My timing is normally a bit off. But I believe it could get so much better. I love tennis, it's an escape for me whenever I feel bad. I really wish to play hard, and give great competition and play in college. Thanks for your interest."

Forehand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFtNr7wVxsM

Backhand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdxtYVb04F4

Backhand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdpQHkYJ_-M

Did you shoot using an iPhone? If so, to make it upload in 240 fps:
Open the video in "Photos" app. Press edit. There should be two bars at the bottom. Adjust the bar that is on top to make the entire video in slow mo. Then proceed to upload to youtube directly from the photos app.

[EdWeiss]

Thanks - I just tried that but when I try to go straight from the iPhone Camera straight to publish to YouTube it goes through the entire Publishing to YouTube function until the right near the very end but then gets hung up - went to Apple Store last Friday to see if they could resolve and they did not have any solutions. I used YouTube Capture App. to upload to YouTube but when I do that it converts to regular speed. BTW, I am a technology neophyte (not that I had to tell you that!). Thanks again.

[stotty]

The videos are not playing at all for me. All three videos have a black screen and nothing else.

[bottle]

Nice balance at the end of his backhand. I'm impressed. Am I wrong in thinking that this is the more sensible, more attainable one hander than that of the hotshots who roll way over? I can see how he would be envious of the immediate power that the big guns seem to promise, but like him, I'm patiently waiting for my shot in my view like this to gradually get better and better.

Okay, now I'm looking again and seeing some bigger finishes. I just happen to be a person who distrusts them. I would never want to preach to Luis, but would simply tell him that I personally have had some luck in lowering my expectation and going on line and watching videos of the Petr Korda backhand which I call "The PetraKordian." Of course I'm 76 years old so should be lowering expectation. But exposure to Korda would be interesting if nothing else for any age.