Topspin

I feel like I'm getting closer. Yesterday I started flicking my racquet on the forehand, hand very loose, and the balls started dipping in. This should greatly improve my percentages. I think I was hitting my forehands too flat most of the time. Another mental note: keep thinking of the imaginary line, the axis, coming out of my chest, that defines the contact point, and keep watching the contact.

Serve again

When I was practicing serve this morning, I had the image of Safin in my head and how his whole upper body is at 45 degrees, rotating around its axis. It helped me to think about the symmetry of the position around the center of the body, and then the rotation of the upper torso going into the serve.

Lesson Seven

I tried my new overhead technique that mirrors the forehand: arms go up together while tracking the ball and moving sideways, then they separate and the left arm kind of points at the ball then moves down, and the racquet hand hits the ball. Feels a lot better than trying to point to the ball.

Another observation: Dan gave me some backhand lobs that I couldn't hit at all, then lowered them to high backhand volleys. Because I wasn't thinking of making the volleys, but rather a relaxed slice, I hit some nice feeling volleys. I need to somehow translate this into volleying. Also, when volleying, I noticed that I have this feeling as if I'm toppling towards the ball. What I need to do is to keep a stable base, so on the backhand, I need to see the right foot in my periferal vision, moving in front of me to create a wide base.

More backhand

Backhand worked better today when I thought of having my back straight and my chest sort of going down into my knew as I hit. Hard to explain.

Frustration

Hit backhands this morning. Pure frustration. I feel like I'm back to square one. Erratic, late, frequently off center. Figured out that slices work better if I step into them.

On the bright side, my forehand is a rocket. If I load my right leg, I can hit the hardest forehands in my life, and direct them down the line or cross-court with just a slight flick of the racquet. Maybe if I need give my backhand a year to improve this much.

Overhead and backhand

Couple of quick notes after watching a bit of the Wimbledon final (Federer-Roddick):

• On a warmup, I watched Federer hit overheads. I was surprised to see that the setup is the same as for the forehand I described earlier: he held the racquet with the left hand and turned his shoulders, arms, and body as a unit, then released the left hand as the racquet arm started going forward. No pointing with the left arm towards the ball; instead, it's a forehand that is turned up.
• On a backhand, he has a smooth elliptical move: as he tracks down the ball, he turned arms connected at the racquet and body as a unit, with the racquet going in an upward arc, slightly above his head, then going down and low over the court towards the ball. He steps into the shot with his right foot, and finishes with little or no weight on the left foot. Unlike the forehand where he pushes off with the right foot, it almost looks like he's absorbing the body's momentum into the bent knee of the right leg. When I started consciously bending the right knee as I move into the shots, backhands came out better.
  

Backhand arc

I watched a video of Federer's backhand yesterday. I noticed that from the point on this photo to the moment of the hit, the racquet head traced an arc where all I could see was a blur. Looked like a propeller blade, spinning in the plane of the path of the ball. It's something that is helpful to think about when hitting the ball.

Backhand

Did some more backhand drills. My new mental model seems to work: the preparation and the stroke are one smooth elliptical move. As soon as I see the ball leaving the machine, I turn sideways and bring both hands up and back, then as the ball comes down, I release the racquet and move through the lower part of the loop, letting the racquet head trace an ellipse. My percentage improved dramatically. I now realize that I was always late on my backhand because I thought of preparation as a distinct activity that in my mind was only tenuosly connected with the ball path. Now it's getting to a point of a reflex: see the ball move towards me, start the elliptical movement.

The ball and I are one

I had a Zen-sounding epiphany in the shower this morning, after another drill session. I thought back to when Marina and I took cha-cha lessons. It was all broken down into discrete steps: 1-2-3, 1-2. When the instructors themselves showed what it could be, it was one smooth flow of movements. I realized it's the same when hitting a ball. I used to think of a ball as an object I need to hit, so I need to watch it, prepare and set up, hit and follow through. But as I'm practicing the forehand, it feels more and more as a continuous elliptical movement: ball goes over the net, hands move up and the body turns, ball moves down, hands separate and the left arm smoothly starts to move to the left, and so on. I had an image of strings and pulleys connecting me with the ball: it and I are truly one, and as it moves, I move. I don't react, it's all a smooth connected movement. Imagine a yo-yo: as it rolls down the string, you start to slowly move the hand up to get the momentum that will pull it back, rather than waiting for it to hit the end of the string. I can't explain this, but it feels like a single movie: you can move the slider back and forth, and the ball and the body all move in unison.

Another thing to remember: on the backhand, prepare with the weight on the left foot, then push off it. Serve: release the ball at eye level and agressively move the racquet hand back to counterbalance the ball hand moving up.

Depth perception

The author of the tennis.com article I mentioned in the previous post also talked about the fact that you can improve your depth perception of the oncoming ball if you look at it sideways. For example, on a forehand, you look at the ball with your face at 45 degrees to the net, sort of askance. Then, you keep the head in that same position as you hit through the ball. I'm not yet convinced that looking sideways at an object improves depth perception, although intuitively it feels right (you basically add 0.7 of the distance between your eyes to the parallax).

Forehand dance

I read an article on tennis.com with a forehand analysis. It's difficult to summarize; the point that stuck in my head is that if I connect my hands in front of me, they will form a triangle. The imaginary line coming out of my chest through the pinnacle of the triangle is the line around which I need to organize my balance. When I prepare for the forehand, the point is not to put the hand across my body, but to connect two hands and turn my body as a unit. Now, the important part: as I take the right hand back, the left hand moves forward to balance the movement. It starts to feel like a smooth dance movement: as the ball comes up over the net, swivel my body to the right and move my hands up; as it comes down, separate the hands move the hands down, with the left arm starting to move back. Hits feel a lot more balanced this way. I really like the smooth, unbroken rhythm of this movement.

Forehand vs. backhand: getting analytical

Arghh, Blogger lost my draft of this post! I still want to write this up. Ok, here it goes.

Hit with a ball machine this moring, forehands and backhands. Forehands were good, and I have a feel for why they work when they work. Backhands, not. So let's get analytical and understand in detail what matters in a backhand.

In the forehand, here are the things I think matter. On set up, I take the racquet back in the plane of the ball. To do that, I need to be sideways to the net, and putting my left arm across, perpendicular to the path of the ball helps me do that. Is any of that useful in the backhand? If I take the racquet back in the plane of the ball, I then just let the gravity and maybe the left hand switch the momentum. I don't know that there's an equivalent to putting the left arm across my body, other than really honestly turning sideways to the net. The crucial difference is that on the forehand, the body rotates into the ball, and on the backhand I know that's a sure way to screw it up: the body must stay sideways, and the left arm counteracts the rotation. So what's the takeaway? I guess turning sideways, first. Second, on the forehand the left arm first supports the racquet and helps me take it back. On the backhand, maybe the equivalent is that the left arm agressively goes behind while supporting the racquet. What about the left elbow? Is it high or low? Need to watch some clips. Should probalby be reasonably high (just like on the forehand take back some players lead with the elbow).

Next, body position. I do know that I tend to lean into the backhand with a straight body. If I just do the same zig-zag thing as on the forehand, I can be more balanced, with knees bent, back straight and bent at the waist, and shoulders balanced over knees. This makes sense. Weight distribution? Forehand, it's all right foot. Don't think it translates this directly. Although many images I see have the player's right foot about to step onto the heel, which means that the weight must be on the left foot. Pushing off the left foot doesn't do any good because you don't want body rotation. So maybe it's just landing into the right leg and bending its knee.

As I start to hit, I definitely want the racquet head to drop down low, same as on the forehand, and whip around, presereving the momentum. I don't know if it's the mirror image of the forehand switch from 2 pm to 7:30 pm, but I do know that just before impact the racquet is pointing somewhere to the corner of the back fence and right side fence.

As the racquet moves into the ball, it is almost parallel to the ground, much like in the forehand. The arm should be straight, with the wrist laid back and in the power position, fundamentally the same as for the forehand, the butt of the racquet pointing to the ball. More tomorrow.

Lesson Six

Hit again with Dan last night. I'm reasonably satisfied with the forehand. Backhand was erratic until I remembered to keep the arm straight at impact. Volleys were rusty again; then Dan asked me to use less arm and more body momentum: on the backhand volley, prepare by stepping to the left with the left foot, then move forward through the ball, without swinging the arm too much. Last time it also helped when my grip was relaxed and I released the racquet at impact on the volley, letting the racquet do the work. Serve worked OK; I'm getting more relaxed and the mechanics of the movement seem to be cleaner; Dan commented that the pop on my serves went up about 5% from what I had before. I'm still hitting serves down the middle most of the time; takes me some concentration to have it go wide; down the T is still the biggest chalenge. Here's Federer's backhand--the arm is straight: