Sliced and Diced

I really should have called this entry "Wrong Footed".

Oh before I tell you what that's all about, I was watching this old, old match between Bjorn Borg and Rod Laver. Most people recall that Laver played in the 60s. But his career lasted long enough that he was still playing in the mid 1970s, and Borg started getting attention in 1973. So there was still some overlap between the two men, and they did play one another.

During the match, Pat Summerall, veteran sportscaster gets to play the tennis noob. Once upon a time, tennis commentators, especially on CBS, felt their audience had no clue about tennis, so they had to explain every little thing. The other pro commentator sounded like Pancho Gonzalez.

Summerall asked the "dumb" question "What does it mean to wrongfoot someone?". Pancho dutifully replied that it meant to hit the ball behind them as they are trying to go to cover the open court.

I can only imagine how this would sound if this were college football. What is a flea flicker? What is offsides? What is false start? What is holding? You could go on and on and on, because there are a ton of rules in football. Tennis, by comparison, is pretty simple, or at least, far less numerous.

Anyway, lately, my slice backhand has been rather poor. I come too much underneath the ball, and it lacks pace.

Now, when I worry about a stroke, I generally think from the waist and up. It didn't occur to me until very recently (today) that maybe my legs were the problem. As I was trying out my 1HBH, I knew I had to cross my front (right leg) in front of my left leg creating a closed stance.

I had not thought that this stance would be needed for the slice backhand too. I suspect that I was hitting my 1H sliced backhand with a neutral or even an open stance.

Something I can try the next time I get out on the court.