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

[bottle]

Algebra

I used to think short angle was about geometry, but now I think it is about algebra, figuring out the unknowns.

In my earlier studies of Tom Avery's short angle, I could see that his elbow stayed pointing down during his flick.

His flick therefore came from a roll of his forearm with his wrist only slightly laid back.

What is the news here? That that formula can work (Tom is a good player).

In a Roger Federer forehand the wrist is laid way back-- at a 90-degree angle to the arm. In an imitation Roger Federer forehand with lesser layback the full arm roll probably pushes through the ball a bit, which is bad, but one can still get close enough to hit a fairly good shot.

For good short angle though-- 100 per cent consistent and therefore "The Pro Shot"-- I suspect that most players should do like Tom and just use the forearm. And save full arm roll for their Federfore.

[bottle]

Different Vectors

Now I want to support this weaker roll through proper alignment of different vectors.

Fanciful of me? No doubt. But this I wish to try.

No down and up on backswing when I can just go up.

Next, the arm comes down and therefore somewhat into the body while the slanted flat spined back rotates at the same time. Shoulder stops for the flick.

Note: I am comfortable with my tennis strokes except for this one. And remain unconvinced that the tennis players I know have mastered this short angle, i.e., can hit it every time. If that were true they would hit it more often.

To try for more result, therefore, I place thumb, still bent, on panel one or Top Dead Center (TDC) to use old fashioned car talk, thus readjusting whole grip toward the wild west.

The question then becomes how far should the independent arm fall down like a paper cutter? Far enough forward so that racket clears the front foot in a neutral stance step-out. This blended motion will lift the racket just a little and will lift the back heel.

Nothing more should have to be added to place the racket square and in perfect aim place for the flick.

If one still is not there, however, why not adjust grip to the right even more?

Whatever the grip, I prefer a slightly bent arm throughout.

[faultsnaces]

For all the discussion of dropping the rear leg, it really looks to me like he is manipulating the spin level by dropping the racket head lower - and he's really popping his whole body up through the shot. I don't see the pros do that (esp Joker, who he highlights as a model for this shot), and it's never worked for me (but then again, I'm perennially struggling at the 4.0 level)....

-frank

[bottle]

For all the discussion of dropping the rear leg, it really looks to me like he is manipulating the spin level by dropping the racket head lower - and he's really popping his whole body up through the shot. I don't see the pros do that (esp Joker, who he highlights as a model for this shot), and it's never worked for me (but then again, I'm perennially struggling at the 4.0 level)....

-frank

Thanks for entering in. I tend to agree that one ought to stay low like the best pros, not "pop" whole body up through the shot to use your good verb.

With Tom Avery, though, at least to my eyes, the pop-up doesn't happen until the ball is gone. I see flick first, then a banking right shoulder and jump and kickback but all from the ball onward (or rather upward).

This is not for me any more than for you, I suspect. Neither is Tom's Braden-type sit and step. I guess this method used to be called "sit and hit" as in Braden's first big book with Bill Bruns TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE where Braden's staff of teaching pros would put a chair out on the court for purposes of learning/teaching the thing.

If you check out other Tom Avery forehands, you see that they all contain the same going down of body and dropping arm and hitting step all at once.

But if like me you long ago rejected that idea as nothing to apply to one's normal forehands, one should now reject it for the short angle too. Most players using neutral step-out still have hand relatively high as foot lands.

The fun though is to try absolutely anything to make one's short angle into "The Pro Shot." Why should only pros get to enjoy that consistency? To focus best, I now am limiting all thought to crosscourt short angle. I'll think later about reverse short angle if at all.

Future areas for exploration: A wide forward just slightly down and up swing with composite grip to alter pitch less before the flick; a 3/3 grip or more in which racket falls to more than a foot under the ball and comes up a little before the flick.

Wildest of untried ideas: Racket tip pointed toward net but with a longer takeback.

My brother hits short angles without even thinking about it. Me, I will only pull them off after a LOT of thought. If coming around wide like a baseball hitter the frame setting alters less. If coming down and up closer to body, one opens the strings sooner to square but achieves less acuteness of angle unless one hits the ball TOO FAR out front.

The feel I want but can't try on this rainy day is step-out first, then lowering of rear shoulder as part of a golfy use of rotating hips shifting forward with arm just naturally falling from gravity at the same time.

[bottle]

Joker Runs to a Short Ball

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/novak_djokovic/nd_forehand/nd_fh_short/nd_fh_short.html?NDFHShortCourtLevelFront.mov

What can we learn from this video? The world.

1) Abbreviate everything.

2) Use the running in producing the shot.

3) When rushed this much, take the percentage shot down the line.

4) Don't take racket back.

5) Keep racket out front.

6) Hit open to enable subsequent gravity step.

7) Mondo racket tip extremely low.

8) Despite all the abbreviation, push through contact with upper body and elbow both (two different push systems).

9) Be a little earlier (or closer) to hit a sharp crosscourt.

[bottle]

Joker: What Abbreviated, What Not

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/novak_djokovic/nd_forehand/nd_fh_short/nd_fh_short.html?NDFHShortCourtLevelFront.mov

Abbreviated:

Amount of shoulders turn in both directions
Amount of backswing
Height of backswing.

Maximized: Closing of racket at top of cycle (wrist layback or layup taken then) and mondo at bottom (but just the backward forearm roll half).

Eliminated: Romantic, Cartesian notions of kinetic chain, e.g., the shoulders stop to make the arm accelerate. No, in fact the magic comes from forearm roll with both shoulders and elbow providing simultaneous-- and independent of each other-- buttery push.

Or, to go right brain for more unified outlook: One shoves a precise amount on a slightly stuck cellar door through contact while brushing up.

[bottle]

Misanthropes, Get Lost

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/novak_djokovic/nd_forehand/nd_fh_short/nd_fh_short.html?NDFHShortCourtLevelFront.mov

When one thinks about it, Joker's behavior here offers a more economical model than Tom Avery's (though good) and why not?

Just because someone is the number one player in the world is no reason to say, "Genius, genius, don't try this at home-- certainly doesn't apply to me."

Rather, I suggest that one think of a swamp buggy in the Everglades. The fan is set at right angles to the square bow of the boat, but if the bow were sharp the right angles still would apply.

Okay, so Joker uses his racket and left arm like batons to sprint to the short ball faster.

The half-mondo he uses (just backward forearm roll-- wrist layback has already been achieved) makes his racket into a sideways spinning fan blade and happens in response to his foot speed, not to rotation of anything in his core.

That frees up his abbreviated shoulders turn to be available for one-half of a mild push.

The other half is his elbow, also freed up by one's not having to twist it as in a Federfore. Or to lift it or do anything with it before one is ready.

A mild cellar door push from shoulders and elbow thus is available in the precise amount one wants.

The news to those who haven't thought enough about this-- everybody-- is the amount of tract that Joker uses in addition to his simplicity and abbreviations.

One lays up wrist somewhere around waist level. This prepares for the deep sideways loop. Separation is sufficient to allow space for this. The forearm pre-loads through racket tip almost reaching right leg.

The shot can be hit down the line, reverse angle, or short angle crosscourt.

[bottle]

~

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/novak_djokovic/nd_forehand/nd_fh_short/nd_fh_short.html?NDFHShortCourtLevelRear.mov

A little different, but not much.

[bottle]

Swamp Buggy Forehand

This shot as dance move is very precise. The hardest part for somebody who has been flipping a lot may be re-learning how to lay the wrist back early. That creates purity of sideways loop out front with racket fanning inward then toward the right foot. A secret may be to concentrate on the racket work first and core body second. In addition, the idea of reducing amount of shoulders turn in both directions surely is provocative given all the emphasis in modern tennis on keeping these two amounts as great as possible.

But we want good orchestration in our tennis game-- hard shots but spinny shots without much weight behind them too.

Djokovic is my model right now for these "little" shots and I don't regret it. I hadn't planned to use them as deep service returns last night but found myself doing that along with hitting a few unprecedented short angles.

[bottle]

The Bobble that isn't a Bobble

You get a short ball. Hit your normal shot (normal but not for me) including short angles.

But now you get a truly short ball. Sprint full out. The bobble that isn't a bobble helps you run. Since a sprinter running goes full bore and uses everything he's got including his hands, your right hand will go up, but this isn't just athleticism, it's a siting mechanism.

Oh yep, I almost forgot, tennis isn't just fanatical movement, it's half discipline, i.e., chess.

Set the racket again, lower, to form your weird sideways unrolled then rolled loop to generate topspin.

This loop is effective, i.e., compressed and well-shaped and small.

Do this or not. I don't care. It's Christmas but I'm not Santy. I'm out for me.

[don_budge]

The Novak Djokovic short angle…2014 French Open Finals

On Eurosport this evening they are recapping all of the Grand Slam Finals of the year. At the French Open it is Novak Djokovic versus Rafael Nadal. It is interesting to watch Djokovic make use of the short angle on his forehand after reading your posts here.

Tactically it looks as if he puts it to pretty good use. He really pulls Nadal way off of the court at times…but unfortunately he isn't able to use it to fruition…or capitalize on it enough. He missed a couple of bunnies for backhand volleys.

bottle…I have a question for you regarding English spelling. When my computer spell checks any word that has for me traditionally ended in "ze"…for instance the word "capitalize" it now substitutes "capitalise". What gives? Is this some new "New World Order" decree?

[bottle]

A Partial Short Angle Replacement

My brother-in-law, a professional linguist, thought I was terribly arrogant when I told him that I have turned off the word-check on my computer as far as possible.

But your story, Steve, shows that I have been right all along. A computer is only as good as the person who programs it.

As to Novak Djokovic and his short angles, I think I've figured them out pretty well but just decided-- during self-feed today-- that there is an equally good alternate route for me to discover my own ideal short angles.

That would significantly have to do with physical limitation, advancing age and natural ability that maybe is only fair?

I'm surprised I didn't think of this before. Probably been stewing too much in my own juices. Interacting with other people can sometimes better bust some idea loose but not always.

Here it is, my discovery of today. I mean I'll get to it pretty soon. A late crew coach I knew said that when you do finally make the big discovery you sought for years and years, you should have the good grace to accept it and go with it.

With an attitude like that you would think he was the best crew coach in the world but more doctrinaire ones did better.

My big revelation comes from clear success with my McEnrueful, which in turn is evolution from my Ziegenfuss.

The Ziegenfuss ("goat's foot") was a forehand in which arm formed a picturesque loop that then devolved into an arm swing that then melded into a shoulders pivot.

"Shoulders pivot?" What can that portend? Fast moving sap from the ground up as John Updike said? A stream of electrons rising from the ground to form lightning pissed down from Zeus?

I side with the two Czechs Martina Navratilova and Ivan Lendl, who both argued in separate books that a tennis player will be harmed if he thinks overly much about kinetic chain while trying to play tennis or to build a tennis game.

And Navratilova in particular interests me when she uses her privileged position of tennis commentator and not tennis commentato to tell her tennis playing audience, "Get out of your comfort zone."

Nobody else on the airwaves says that. If you hit the ball into the net, she says, swing exactly the same way next time but with a different grip.

Okay, so the McEnrueful has been working well for me. It eschews loop altogether, thinking that loop is stupid holdover from the bolo punch of the old Cuban boxer Kid Gavilan.

His bolo punches were for show. He used short jabs, crosses and hooks taken straight back to knock his opponents out. If he took hand back at all.

In pursuit of similar method in tennis, not keeping opposite hand on racket helps a lot. How can anyone have time for such an excessive and time-wasting flourish? As opposite hand instead points across to help wind the shoulders, slightly bent hitting arm can rise on say a 45 degree angle con brio.

I've described this a lot, maybe too much-- if so I apologize. The thing is, the arm coming down like a paper cutter settles handle with wrist straight (not laid back) opposite the navel. And upper body is tilted from the hips like that of Rory McIlroy hitting a golf ball.

The arm paper cutting down transitions into powerful swivel of the shoulders.

I think of someone throwing a hammer, a track and field maneuver about which I know nothing. As rear shoulder banks down the racket goes up.

If one has used composite grip, the racket will go through ball with natural core lift as opposed to independent arm lift.

But the going through will predominate over the lift because of the grip-- composite (half way between eastern forehand and continental). The ball will have enough topspin for control but will stay low after the bounce.

Okay, we hit one and it didn't go into the net. Yet we do want to see a different result, a ball that kicks up.

So we hit the same shot with the modified eastern that puts both heel and big knuckle on flat panel parallel with the strings. (N.B., some old tennis writers call this position a semiwestern. Modern commentatoes are apt to call it a modified eastern.)

Hitting ball the same way but with top edge of racket in the lead produces the "pop-top" that the Gullickson twins used to talk about-- a combination of speed, top, penetration and hop.

This shot requires a very good and vigorous hit on the ball but should prove useful at any time. For short angles it's at least as simple and economical as the most extreme examples provided by Novak Djokovic. Personally, I get more weight, speed and hop on the ball than I did with the Novak formula (as smoked out by myself of course). What more can I say?

But if I get bored with these shots or simply want to show off, I can hit some bolo punches, i.e., the Federfore/ATP3, utilizing dog pat, mondo, wiper and all other well known elements.

Thanks, Steve. Very good quality of listening there.

[bottle]

McEnrueful Proliferates

"Connect the dots..." Steve Navarro says. Other teaching pros don't often say that. Neither do commentatoes and "knowledgeable" players. Even Vic Braden used to say "Just hit the same old boring shot."

No no no and no-- forget the anti-invention bias built into tennis. It's conventional and again, BORING.

But here is common tennis thought from Jim Courier that a person CAN believe: "Don't expect logic from top players."

But logic figures even if it doesn't prevail in all human endeavor, does it not? So just stop staring at top players to find it. Stare at bottom players. It's there.

Seek and ye shall find. Not what you sought but something. Body spin, I would think, is a good alternative to ATP (Association of Touring Professionals) technique for very old persons, very young persons, and ATP players with frail arms.

The McEnrueful begins with a scatter backswing so short and elegant and sensible that any player in the world should be able to calibrate its speed and smoothness to his or her footwork to the ball.

That is timing of the backswing, which is more intimately related to subsequent motion in forms of forehand other than the McEnrueful.

The McEnrueful, sorry that it is not a John McEnroe forehand, depends exclusively on downward and forward fall of the arm to time what is about to come.

For better or worse, I have likened this fall to that of a paper cutter-- a bit difficult to visualize in view of the forward component. Also to a slap-shot in hockey-- imperfect analogy again due to the violence implied. Oscar Wegner would call it "feeling for the ball." There nevertheless is some kinetic force involved.

In the split-instant that straight-wristed arm finishes centering handle in front of the navel the body pivots to drive the ball.

"Connection of dots..." combines 30-degree body tilt of Rory McIlroy the golfer with an all-grip system, specifically stronger or more westernized grips for the shortest of short angles.

Along with improved short angle possibility, a whole new set of forehands emerges with introduction of this system. Composite grip forehands bounce low, classical eastern grip forehands go a bit faster, Roger's or any grip to west of Roger's affords higher bounce on opponents' side.

Something new gleams-- one lesson of Christmas.

Because of the centered handle, the hitting shoulder rotating down makes the strings go up.

As shoulder then rotates up strings go up more, thus opening possibility for higher contact points, particularly if one first got oneself low on one's knees.

Stronger i.e. more westernized grip causes top edge of frame to lead thus effecting more acuteness if short angle crosscourt is the goal.

[hockeyscout]

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.

[bottle]

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.

As soon as I can hit 100 crosscourt short angles out of 100 attempts.