Racqueteering

I'm watching Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. Frank Deford, a veteran sports reporter, loves telling stories of unusual people in athletics. In this segment, it's about a nun who is 77 who participates in triathlons. Of course, it's the juxtaposition of the two that make it fascinating. On the one hand, without the sports, Deford isn't interested. On the other, the religion makes it an unusual combination. She's been doing this for 30 years, which sounds like a long time, until you realize that she started in her late 40s.

I realize that while some people enjoy these personal sports, it doesn't work so well for me. I tried running last year, and I'll probably get back into it, but I dislike it's lack of competition, and more importantly, it's lack of strategy. I mean, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it can be hard to use smarts to win.

This is why I love tennis. As a racquet sport, there's so much to learning tennis, and after some 25 years of playing, I still am learning something about the sport. For example, since I got more into tennis recently, I've been working on both my serve and backhand.

I had read something in Tennis a long time ago. It claimed Mats Wilander essentially hit a one-handed backhand using the second (non-dominant) hand as support. I had basically believed this for a long time, and while I think it helped (in particular, I can hit an OK one-handed backhand), I was more than surprised to realize that most teachers teach the two-handed backhand as a left-handed (for a rightie) forehand with the right hand as support (it's more than that really), and started to rethink my backhand as more of a forehand.

And this was years after learning to hit a backhand. I'll say it isn't quite where I want it, but it is better.

Or, my forehand. I've always used a wristy flick to get topspin on my forehand. It does the job, but isn't particularly powerful. So I began to watch modern players hit their forehand in slow motion on YouTube. There was Djokovic with his hitchy forehand. I tried that for a bit, but have since moved to the simpler Federer style forehand, which was more arm (there's still wrist) and follow through. It's not quite where I want it either, but it's made me rethink my forehand as well.

Watch any modern player (Federer will do), and you see just how severe the forehand stroke is. Traditional play (by which I mean, players from the 60s) told you to take the racquet straight back and swing straight forward. These days, players hit open stances, and the follow through is so severe that the racquet ends up up beside your left arm! Furthermore, you often see the racquet start up high pointed upwards (see Sharapova), which gives additional swing time to get the racquet to its proper speed.

Perhaps the biggest change has been learning to hit a topspin serve, which I realized requires wrist pronation, perhaps the single hardest movement to learn in all of tennis. It doesn't have much pace yet, but I'm still trying to get the spin needed. The sad thing is that most people I play with barely notice the spin (though I can tell by the trajectory of the ball).

Most people say, with tennis or any sports, that you need to not think at all. I think about the strokes all the time. My slice backhand is off, I'm sure. I cut too much underneath the ball, and don't hit it flat enough.

With running, on the other hand, I pretty much run. I'm sure there's stuff to think about. I think I get less runner's high and a little more pain, but it helps with endurance, so I'll try to keep it up. Still, it's been cold, so I don't do it much now.

My point, if there is one, that people are always rethinking tennis, trying to figure out how to hit the ball better. It's sad that the result of re-inventing the groundstroke to deal with oversized racquets has lead to the disappearance of serve and volley play (people now hit such amazing shots from such desperate positions that many people don't volley much).

And, I for one, like the lessons that tennis provides.