Finding Phelps

You know what it's incredibly hard to do? You'd think with all the fuss NBC makes about Phelps they might actually put it up on their website. When Michael Phelps swims.

I want to know when the heats are, when the semifinals are, and when it's on TV.

Oh I know. NBC would prefer I sit in front of the television waiting all day to find when it is rather than tell me exactly when I should watch. It's sad, but true.

But you would think it would be so easy to do this. I have found a site, but it suggests that the heat I saw televised at noon was not live, which is fine. It doesn't have to be live.

One of these days, some site is going to figure it out, and let you know exactly when your favorite athlete is on, and then get that to you. In the meanwhile, we have to deal with this mess.

Which, by the way, a ton of sites that spew spam and such are perfectly willing to hijack whenever you try to locate the schedule of when Michael Phelps swims.

Stop being idiots and do the right thing.

Lessons

When I was 13 or so, my mother enrolled in me in local tennis lessons. They were held for two weeks, five days a week, for an hour each. In those days, it was probably quite cheap to get lessons. I'm sure it was about 20 dollars each for my brother and me to get lessons.

They were group lessons. The first year we were taught by some guy named Jay, I think. He had learned tennis at the Dennis Van der Meer camp. He was the guy who gained some notoriety coaching Billie Jean during her match against Bobby Riggs and became a contributor to Tennis Magazine. He thought he had boiled down playing tennis to a certain few key steps and if only you'd practice that, you'd get good.

In hindsight, he taught in something of a classic style. My first racquet for that class was an old wooden racquet that my dad had bought used, and we had another one that seemed like a cheap K-mart brand.

At the time, the two-hander was still something of a novelty. Despite some very high profile two-handers, Chris Evert, Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, and some lesser players like Harold Solomon, it was still slowly making its way to tennis instruction. So I was taught to hit a one-handed shot. My brother read an article on Gene Mayer and how he hit his two-hander on both sides, and adopted that style for some time.

The following summer, we took lessons from Dave and Arnel. They were, at one point, on the tennis team, but had recently gone to college, and saw this as a summer job, teaching kids to play tennis. Dave was a good looking guy sort of the Mark Hamill type and Arnel seemed Filipino, and was there to assist and hang out.

I don't recall if we took lessons after that. Basically, after the first year, I was pretty much self-taught, which turned out OK in hindsight, but not great.

Although I learned tennis in the early 80s, I was trying to learn what was termed then and now as "modern" tennis, which meant a loopy forehand, open-stance shots, and so forth. I remember playing videotapes of Mats Wilander and Bjorn Borg (in an exhibition, no less) trying to imitate their shots, and later on, trying to imitate early Agassi. I tried the Lendl forehand.

What I didn't realize then was how faithful I was to their shots, which was, in hindsight, not very. Early on, I learned to hit pretty good topspin on my forehand, but switched to a two-hander, and could never get good topspin on that shot. I would hit a slice backhand too.

One thing that was a little unusual was that I liked coming to net and hitting drop shots, even early on. It didn't hurt that John McEnroe was on top, and had deft shots.

For many years afterwards, I took no more lessons. I wasn't sure who I'd take them from, and they would have been pricey had I looked.

A coworker of mine whose wife had just joined him after finishing her degree wanted to learn tennis with his wife, and they had signed up for lessons in DC at the site of the Legg Mason Tennis Classic where they have a semi-public court, where there's no membership, but you pay for the use of the courts.

I took lessons with Dale who looked a bit like Ron Paul. Dale taught a kind of tennis as exercise style for advanced players. He offered very little instruction. The idea was to go and do drills and essentially get in shape to play tennis. My tennis only improved incidentally, mostly through just playing.

Around Thanksgiving of last year, I took a lesson from Joel. He taught in this holistic manner. Throw the racquet at the ball he would opine. He would suggest that the racquet wanted to move in a certain way, and you had to be free and relaxed.

I didn't take another private lesson until January when I decided to take one at Cabin John with a guy named Mike. Mike was a youngish Asian dude in his early 20s. He was a bit more technical about what he wanted me to do, rotating my shoulders more, etc. He seemed a touch dispassionate, I seem to recall.

Then I didn't take lessons for a while, a few months. I heard about these high schoolers that would teach lessons at about half the cost of normal lessons at public courts. So I took three or so lessons from a guy named Sharat, who was finishing up his junior year in high school.

He was a pretty chatty dude, talking about how to hit the ball. He favored teaching you to play mini-tennis, suggesting that good technique comes from being able to hit the ball well when you are hitting in slow motion. If you have bad technique hitting slowly, you'd have bad technique hitting quickly. He was reasonably good, but still I felt something missing.

By this point, I was reading Fuzzy Yellow Balls and Essential Tennis. I knew Ian said, on his website, that he had private lessons. Although he was a bit of a hike from where I lived, it was still under an hour to get there. I wasn't sure what to expect, but so far, he's given the best lessons so far.

He's able to offer advice in the "modern style" dealing mostly with using the core more to his shots. He's able to observe strokes then offer a simple idea here or there to focus on one problem at a time. I've tried teaching tennis, and I find that I get nitpicky on all sorts of things. In the end, the person doesn't listen so much. Some of the advice I've heard before, but I didn't know to apply it to my own game.

A lot of tennis is surprisingly non-intuitive. For example, most people think of tennis as an arm sport. Apparently, if you play other sports like baseball or if you box, you find that you need to use more of your body if you want to get good power. The arm can get pretty strong on its own, but it can do even more if you coordinate it with your body.

There's plenty of players that don't turn their bodies when hitting shots. This turn helps add power to shots, but it takes a bit of coordination to do. I've been working on that more, since I used to not do it. I'm sure there are still issues with how I hit shots.

With volleys, I used to never cross-step to reach a volley nor turn sideways to hit. I'd frame the ball but never knew how I was doing it. I'd use too much hand motion trying to hit a ball and get no pace when I hit shots.

I understand these aren't intellectual endeavors but physical ones. And they're costly to learn these lessons, but they are rewarding too. Intellectual tasks require discovering the unknown often with little assistance except your own intellect. Learning tennis is trying to solve a problem to which some people have solutions to (at a price, to be fair).

Few things in life have answers as pat as tennis. Although it's taken some work to find someone to offer good lessons, it's been worth it so far!

Nicknames?

Nicknames were given to people to make their names easier to pronounce and to create a familiarity with them. Thus, David is Dave, Robert is Bob or Rob, and so forth. All of a sudden, people seem to prefer the lengthy names.

I know a guy named Anthony who prefers to go by Anthony, not Tony. A guy who prefers David over Dave. A guy who prefers Michael over Mike. Indeed, as Michael Phelps's mother was cheering him on, it wasn't with exhortations of Mike, but Michael.

Why the trend? I couldn't say, but it's something I've noticed.

Phelps

Michael Phelps is in his second Olympics. This is the time that people pay attention to sports like swimming and gymnastics and all sorts of other sports they would otherwise not pay attention too in the intervening four years.

People in this area pay some attention to Phelps because he's a Baltimore boy, and so his name has had some resonance, even before his success in the previous Olympics. Indeed, his name was more popular than his face. For a long time, I had no idea what he looked like.

Phelps is going for a Mark Spitz like record of some 8 gold medals. He's already won one gold medal in the 400 individual medley.

What's unknown to most people, me included, is the kind of person he is. Turns out, like many an American, he is the son of divorced parents when he was 9 years old. His mother is a principal at a middle school.

But it's difficult to determine what drives an individual. This is not Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, where fans follow his every accomplishment. They only pay attention at the Olympics, and Phelps gears himself to perform at his absolute best during the Olympics, as do many other swimmers.

While people discuss the lives of Brett Favre to death (and really, only his professional life), there's little known (to me) about one of the most accomplished American swimmer ever.

Admittedly, there are so many people out there, and we can hardly know them all, so why should Phelps be any different from anyone else. Why should we spend any more time figuring out who Phelps is? Perhaps like anything else, the answer is, why not?

Of course, the people who telecast the Olympics realize the games are for casual observers, and do as much to promote personalities as possible, realizing you have neither the time or inclination to do the research yourself, and then hope you have a long memory and remember them the next time the Olympics run.

Thus, this is Phelps's second Olympics at 23, and he was merely 19 the previous time in Athens. He could have an outside shot of competing at 27. I don't following swimming enough to know how long careers last (the odd exception is Dara Torres, who at 41, is swimming as fast as she ever has).

Cincy Semis: Djokovic vs Nadal

The Wimbledon men's final, arguably the best played men's final in history, lead many a commentator to say it was a transition from Federer who had long dominated men's tennis to Nadal, the heir apparent. Nadal has had an incredible two months, winning several of the clay court tournaments leading to the French, then powering his way to a French title without a drop of a set, then winning a grass court tournament for the first time ever (Queen's) and taking Wimbledon.

Everyone figured that hard courts would be Nadal's last hurdle. It's rare for a clay court player like Nadal to find his second best surface to be grass. Nearly every great clay court player, except Borg, played much better on hard courts than grass. The high bouncing ball typically favors a clay courter's style. Nadal, however, has managed to tame the low bounces at Wimbledon, partly because Wimbledon has altered the surface to make it play more like a slower surface.

In Toronto, at the Roger's Cup, Federer hoped to recover and play a good tournament, but found himself knocked out by Gilles Simon. Djokovic was also looking to come back, but played a game Andy Murray, who beat Djokovic. Murray had chances against Nadal, but Nadal won and then had an easy final.

In Cincy, Federer managed to win against Robby Ginepri, but it took three sets, then he lost to Ivo Karlovic, losing two tiebreaks to the 6'10" Croatian. Again, it looked like Nadal might roll on.

While everyone was claiming Federer was sliding a slippery slope, his long dominance coming to an end. Throughout, Djokovic was the forgotten man. He'd play Nadal tough on clay, but lose. He played him tough on grass, but lost there too. He had an early loss to Marat Safin at Wimbledon. Then, he lost to an aggressive Andy Murray, whose Wimbledon semifinals seemed to rejuvenate his attitude.

Still, Novak is way too good a player to stay down for too long, and as he made his way to meet Nadal, the key was how Djokovic would play against the soon-to-be number 1 player, Rafa Nadal. Hard courts is Djokovic's best surface and Rafa's worst surface, and only worst because other players can use their power on hard courts and give Rafa trouble.

Djokovic prefers the high bouncing balls on the hard courts. With his superior serve, he can win cheap points on hard courts, and then power his shots. Djokovic clearly hits harder than Rafa, and the hard courts rewards his power. Rafa is steadier, can create more angles.

So this match would be a bellwether letting fans know how far Djokovic had fallen. Commentators had said his serve had been off, but the last two matches, he was back to serving the way he was used to. This is the one area Nadal has a weakness. He has a good serve, but it's not a huge weapon.

Still, it was a surprise when Djokovic came out of the gates roaring. Novak took a page out of Federer's playbook, hitting down the line forehands for winners. Nadal is vulnerable to hard hit shots to his forehand, often rushing the shot and unable to get it back in play. Djokovic then began attacking Nadal, and even when Nadal could push Djokovic around, Novak would dig balls and put it in play, before striking with a hard shot. Novak punished Nadal's second serve like no other player.

Despite one close game where Nadal nearly went up 0-40 on Djokovic's serve, only to push an awkward volley a little deep instead, Djokovic rolled, He powered to two breaks of serve and it looked as if Nadal wasn't covering the court well nor dictating play.

Nadal finally held serve, but Djokovic held for the 6-1 win.

Despite the competitive nature of their matches, few of Nadal and Djokovic's matches have gone three sets. Usually, one wins in straight sets. The one recent exception was Hamburg where Djokovic lost in three sets to Nadal. In Queen's, it was a straight set win. The French was straight sets too. So it boded well for Novak that he won the first set.

The second set saw Nadal fighting tougher. The winners Novak hit in the first set were being replaced by errors. Nadal was fighting more and winning his serves more easily. However, at 5-all, Djokovic began playing more aggressively, and eventually broke. He followed it up with a good service game and won the match, 6-1, 7-5.

Nadal may appear to be the next great player, but when Djokovic is on, he can give Nadal as much trouble as anyone. Djokovic can hit flatter shots and harder serves and be aggressive on returns. He's also less likely than Federer to his wild shots.

Recall that Nadal was in danger of dropping his number 2 ranking to Djokovic several times, and nearly did so. Djokovic seems undeterred feeling it's only a matter of time before he can give Nadal trouble on surfaces that aren't clay (and he gave Nadal all he could handle at Hamburg).

The next round will be interesting because Djokovic recently lost to Murray. Murray has been playing a lot better lately. Unlike Henman, the prototypical serve and volleyer whose groundstrokes were good enough to compete against modern players, Murray is more of a groundstroker. He's got a great backhand, and is learning to play more aggressively instead of hanging way back. Like Djokovic, Murray has great touch hitting drop shots.

So the final should be a statement game for Djokovic showing whether he's back to the form that lead him to a win at the Australian Open.

Tron

Tron came out, when, in 1980? It was one of the earliest all CG films (almost all, because they interweaved it with live action).

Now, the movie isn't particularly good, even if it has an interesting concept, predating the Matrix-like cyberworld by quite a few years (most people like to point to the bleaker Blade Runner which not only looks a lot better, but has a more interesting story and better acting, as the inspiration for the cyberpunk SF movement, usually attributed to William Gibson's Neuromancer).

What is fascinating is this trailer of its day, which is typical of trailers. If you see the original Star Wars trailer, you get a similar voiceover, and not of a guy saying "In a world...".

As the years have passed, trailers are edited better (if much like every other trailer), and the voiceover has often disappeared in favor of quick cuts.

A new Tron is expected to come out nearly 30 years after the original including Jeff Bridges who is still acting (how old is this guy?).

Staying on Message

The American electorate has been criticized for not always being that bright. For example, recently, pundits have accused Obama as being light on substance. Sure, he's got rhetoric, the grand speeches, but what more does he have after that.

This is what the spin doctors rely on.

You are frickin' lazy.

Do you know why the major networks only ever cover 3-4 candidates during the primaries? Because even if 10 candidates are running, they know that you won't spend 5 minutes figuring out who is who. You want the media to winnow out the less important candidates, and they want to oblige you, because they know you're not patient enough to do your own research.

Now, sometimes there is a groundswell of support for a candidate, like Ron Paul, who otherwise doesn't register a blip on the collective conscience. The web savvy, which probably number less than a percent of the public, think that Ron Paul produced an honest difference from all the George Bush wannabes. And he did. But the media is still the way this information is disseminated. Even Fox, the Republican apologist attack dog channel, wouldn't touch Paul, because his libertarian leanings, despite being praised by Reagan, was not neocon, and Fox is neocon.

It's amusing, indeed, how the modern Republican party bears the imprint of Bush, and that's Bush, Sr., more than Ronald Reagan, yet, hail Reagan as the conservative who could do no wrong.

But I digress.

The point is that Obama has recently been accused of lacking substance, and the echo chamber of America may or may not let this meme persist and have an impact on voting. Note that when people say this, they don't mention whether McCain is a man with big ideas, whether he has substance or not. After all, it's always been about attacking your opponent, and the Republicans are better at it, meaning more ruthless, more willing to send any kind of innuendo. The Democrats aren't ready to stoop so low to paint McCain in a negative light.

Perhaps they could simply mention that all those Republican faithful rejected McCain back in 2000, preferring Bush by a whopping majority. Maybe they can trot out the Bush campaign book on how to defeat McCain. Heck, it can be done by innuendo. Bush said this about McCain. The idea is to rattle the opinion of the Bush faithful, that they shouldn't trust McCain.

There is, alas, a sense that elections are like sporting events, something one wins. Not wins by lofty means showing the capability to lead, but by casting doubt about the opponent. This has, as recent history shows, always been more effective.

When Kerry ran against Bush, there were a few factors in Bush's favor. One, the label of flip-flopper seemed to stick to Kerry, and it made some voters nervous. Second, and perhaps more importantly, there was a huge grassroots campaign built around gay marriage. Conservatives who were traditionally not voting were convinced if they failed to vote, that gay marriage would become the norm. Such folks, who claim they treasure Jesus and love, found themselves scared that the world would collapse if they failed to take action on something that was, for the most part, illegal in the states that brought it up.

In essence, they were voting to say the law is correct. And while they were at it, they voted for Bush.

Ultimately, we get this kind of mess because the average citizen finds it too time-consuming to find out what these candidates stand for. They let TV programs let them decide, and repeat innuendos which they've never verified.

Recently, McCain made a gaffe on the timeline of the surge. He claimed that the surge produced something called the Anbar Awakening (also called the Sunni Awakening), when the order was reversed. This kind of gaffe shows McCain's confusion about what's going on in Iraq.

That could be seen as serious, maybe on par with Ford saying there was no Communist influence over Poland during a debate with Jimmy Carter in 1976.

But, here's the issue. The average American knows almost nothing about Iraq. Here's the few things they know. Troops are there. People are being killed. There's something about a surge. They have no idea what is going on there. Why is there fighting? They presume that it's just a bunch of terrorists (even though Bush has claimed they have freedom now). Maybe they know about Abu Gharib, the prisoners at Guantanmo, or some such.

Their knowledge of Iraq is often paltry. Keeping up with what's going on is unimportant because it's complex and hard to follow. What's Sunni? What's Shiite? Doesn't make sense.

So if McCain got the timeline wrong, no one will care, because they don't follow the timeline either! Now, maybe if you can impress on the public that this is like a military leader not knowing who their friends and enemies are, not knowing where the troops are located, then it would seem like something people could follow!

If, on the other hand, Americans were devoting a decent chunk of time trying to keep up, then maybe such gaffes would be considered disastrous. But they are more likely to care about who wins American Idol than the progress of some war they don't have to worry about on a day-to-day basis. If it happens over there, then it's out of sight, and out of mind.

Many a political science major laments how little Americans care about politics. It's actually lead to a fair bit of stability. How often do you see Americans really protest about anything? The more they care about sports and trivia, the less they question the government's action, the more the government does what it does.

And that's a sad state of affairs.

A Modern India

In my only trip to India, I ate dinner at some ritzy restaurant in Mumbai with my friend and her friend. Her friend was a "worldly" sort, even in India, having traveled throughout the subcontinent (many folks, I'm sure, don't wander particular far from where they grew up). She once read a book written by someone foreign, New Zealand or Australia, or some place, and remarked at the insights that person had had, much like de Tocqueville who described American optimism from his French eyes.

She remarked that the question "What is India?" has no easy answer because it is so large and so diverse that there is no single answer to that. The answer is complicated by many factors including a country that is more like Europe, with each state typically having its own language and script and politics. There's religion with Muslims, Hindus, Christians living with one another. There's those that liked the British.

India has a huge diaspora, with Indians living throughout the world, in Africa, in Singapore and Malaysia, and increasing in the US and England. This view of the West contests with local conservative traditions that emphasize family values far more than red state United States.

In conversations I've had with Indians, I'm almost dumbstruck by the basic comment of "It's not like that in India any more". Well, that's not exactly it. For example, it's fairly common for Americans to get divorced. Indeed, I can just go through our relatively small company and probably count at least half a dozen (if not more) folks that either have parents that are divorced or are themselves divorced (and possibly remarried). It might be 10%, but that's a lot (and it may be higher).

My friend from Mumbai felt that divorce was pretty common, and that it was no longer the stigma that it once was. There are several things I wanted to point out, which I don't have answers to.

First, she hangs around a certain crowd, perhaps Western educated, perhaps single in their 30s as she is, and this crowd may not be representative of the entire population of India. As her friend pointed out, India is large and diverse, and while certain things may be true of one group, it may not be true in general. Now, I'm no expert in India, and I should defer, perhaps, but I doubt she's completely explored the situation either. Certainly, her experiences, like mine, would be completely anecdotal. She wouldn't have numbers to back her claims (and neither do I).

Second, there's a tendency I see among Indians I do ask to tell you that certain things widely accepted in the West but possibly not widely accepted in India do exist. For example, I looked around this company, and I didn't spot one women wearing trousers or Western style clothing. I'm sure they exist, but the point is, if I see a dozen women and all wear a traditional style of clothing at work, then it suggests to me that Western clothing is not common.

I think people think of that one rare exception, and being an exception, it sticks out that much more, or they think of those people that studied in the West, and use that as their baseline of comparison. I think if they were to merely count, they would find the numbers are really paltry.

So why do they answer this way? It might be more subversive. Perhaps I'm making a comment implying India is somehow inferior for not adopting certain Western practices, and the person listening to this, trying to please, says, no, no, it's not that way, and says something to please the other person, whether it's entirely true or not. As long as there's one or two people that satisfy it, they feel comfortable saying it as if it were the complete truth.

Now, again, I could be quite mistaken about my views. My answers are not made through deep research. They are anecdotal in nature. But I feel, say, somewhat more confident making pronouncements about Americans because they seem more homogeneous (and that's probably wrong too).

So I wonder if there's a strong traditional behavior where Indians say things you want to here, because to be blunt, to disagree with you might be perceived as offensive (among people of equal station, I can see debate and dispute occurring, so this view is not completely true, and Indians do love a good debate).

Aces Wild

I was going to my usual Starbucks when I was asked if I had seen the latest Batman movie. Who hadn't, right? It's been in theaters since Thursday evening (really Friday morning), and it was Monday morning? The movie drew in huge numbers.

But I hadn't seen it.

It was instructive to tell what happened next. Another customer comes in, and he says he wants to see it too, but he still has to work in watching Hancock and Hellboy. Now, I have to tell you that Starbucks has transcended the latte sipping, book reading, art loving, hippie generation crowd, and crossed over into mainstream America. Red-state, pickup truck, Bush voting, pro-military America. Heck, the American dream is to have a little wealth. What better way than to have expensive coffee? This is the 21st century version of hanging out at the barber's to talk.

And then I came to work, with folks trying to repair the elevator, holding large copper tubes, and while they didn't mention the movie by name, you knew it was Batman. One claimed the weekend take was 155 million dollars.

So how does this action movie generate so much buzz? First, the critics have loved it. This attracts a certain group of people that actually listen to critics and find their opinions valuable. A lot of so-called liberal elite, the kind that likes shopping at farmer's markets, Whole Foods, believes in recycling, and most importantly, uses the Internet to make informed decisions. These folks often look at what critics say and watch it. Thus, Pan's Labyrinth, which should have been an obscure Spanish/Mexican fantasy film, was a bit of a crossover hit (and lead del Toro to a gig with Hellboy 2).

But, it also appeals to the less discriminating folks merely because it's a superhero action movie in a summer filled with them. And all things considered, Hellboy 2 has a pedigree by virtue of its director, del Toro, and Dark Knight is directed by former indie director, Christopher Nolan, who's previous film of note was the brainy thriller, Memento. Who knew he had the directorial chops to create the gothic look of Batman?

Only Hancock, the Will Smith action vehicle, has tanked with the critics, and even then, it will draw a crowd because it's Will Smith, and because it's action. Will Smith has essentially taken the Denzel Washington role. African American lead actors realize their core audience are African American males who finally get to see a powerful African American male play lead, and there's enough crossover appeal that whitie and brownie will both watch in numbers. I recall, a while back, in this godawful movie Romeo Must Die which starred Hong Kong action hero, Jet Li, that the local African American radio station had a talk about the movie, and didn't even mention Jet Li. Instead, the remaining African Americans were mentioned: Aaliyah, DMZ, Delroy Lindo, and so forth.

The Dark Knight crosses through all that much like a Shakespearean play, that appeals to high-brow and low-brow alike, mixing action with good acting.

Oh yeah, you know what?

Heath Ledger.

It doesn't hurt a film when one of the leads has died, and he's been lauded for this role. Too bad, because Ledger was starting to become an actor of note, branching away from pretty boy roles to take roles that were more interesting, and casting a bit against type. With stints in Brothers Grimm and Brokeback Mountain, few doubted he had the acting acumen to pull off this character.

Tabloids had detailed his death, first thought of as a Kurt Cobain suicide or River Phoenix drug overdose, when the result was some odd combination of everything, that an actor like Ledger would suffer from anxiety, and needs meds to control that. This kept it interesting for the Hollywood tabloid readers who followed this with morbid curiosity.

This produced a kind of perfect storm of fans watching the film, from arty type, to action type, to women that were curious about Ledger's role especially in a (kind of) posthumous role.

Nolan rolled the dice, and it came up jokers (to mix metaphors and gambling terminology as bad as Homer Simpson).

Best Tennis Match Ever?

Now that Wimbledon 2008 is a little over a week old and various pros have pronounced the Wimbledon men's final as the best ever, enough time has passed to ask whether it was the best or not.

That depends on how you define "best". Were there great strokes hit in the match? Yes. Was it tension filled? Yes. Were both players pushed to the limit? Yes.

This match went the distance, five sets, 9-7 in the fifth, with the match ending as the light was fading.

Still, there was something that was a little vaguely dissatisfying, and most of that had to do with Federer's own play. Nadal is so good off the ground that Federer only had one effective shot which was his inside out forehand, which he hit for numerous winners. Otherwise, if he got into an angle rally, Nadal was better there and Federer would struggle to even keep up.

It's not like the classic serve-and-volleyer against a baseliner where the serve-and-volleyer kept pressuring the baseliner to hit passing shot after passing shot. That scenario assumes that the serve and volleyer can make it to net, and that the passer has an opportunity to pass. It's somewhat equal.

Federer couldn't even completely rely on coming to net and hoping Nadal would hit a bad pass, though Federer did come to net, and Nadal did whiff occasionally. Federer went to the strategy that worked best for him. Prevent Nadal from hitting his angles, and hope to open the court and hit winners.

That's a tough strategy to keep up, especially when you aren't pressuring your opponent on his serve. Federer came up with big serves, but Nadal held serve by his superior groundstrokes. It was a strategy that relied on Federer being on his game throughout.

And, he was somewhat close. The first two sets had Federer with numerous break chances. It would be one thing if Nadal hit great winners to save his serve, which he did occasionally, but more often, Federer would whiff a second serve return. He didn't seem to be able to hit solid returns, perhaps credit to Nadal's improving serve that didn't produce aces, but didn't give Federer chances to hit winners back either.

Indeed, the match flowed based on Federer's mood. If he was on form as he was early in the second set, he was winning games easily, and putting pressure on Nadal. If he was off, as in most of the first set, late in the second, and early in the third set, he was getting in 0-30 holes and having to do a Sampras (i.e., hit aces) to get out of messes. Sampras didn't seem to mind that aces require the least interaction with his opponent. If he could serve all aces to win a tournament, so what? So what if he was so good at the one part of the game he could control.

Federer is a good server, but he's not Sampras. He relies on his groundstrokes and occasionally a volley to win points. He returns pretty well. He is mentally strong, except when it comes to Nadal, where he goes for his shots, and if they land in, he looks great, and if it clips the net or goes wide, it looks like he's a beginner. Would he need such an extreme strategy if he were playing anyone besides Nadal?

Sampras had the luxury that he could keep up in a rally with Agassi, at least, for a few points at a time. You never felt that Agassi could dominate him like Lendl would often dominate McEnroe from the backcourt, like Nadal dominates Federer if the rally heads a certain direction. Federer plays strokes to prevent Nadal from whaling away on his shots, not because he thinks he can outhit Nadal. The best way for him to outhit Nadal is if he doesn't touch the ball at all.

And at times, his timing is so on, that even Nadal can't compete, but this is only if the star align. Sometimes, as in the French Open, where the balls bounce higher and where it's harder to hit winners, Federer can get overwhelmed. Federer once had a dominant set, but then Nadal got back into his game, and then Fed can't keep up.

I wonder if the Seles-Graf match might not have been better. Both were a little more evenly matched. If Graf struggled it was because she couldn't easily attack with her sliced backhand. She defended reasonably well off that side and ran around it quite well to attack with her forehand, a strategy that Federer often takes too.

If you measure greatness by the drama, then yes, this was up there. Federer was trying to pull one out of the magic hat, avoid a break of his own serve, and take his chances in the tiebreak. The first tiebreak went well with a good lead. The second was lucky when Nadal showed hints of nerves and let Federer back into the tiebreak. The fifth set would have gone to a tiebreak too, except Wimbledon doesn't have tiebreaks in the fifth.

Federer claimed that the light was an issue for him, but his inability to break was an even bigger issue. Nadal could at least say that Federer hits a bigger serve, which he does.

Some of the shots that the players came up with were amazing, something that you couldn't quite say about the Williams sisters. As much as they bludgeon the ball, they don't come up with crazy angles, or creative ideas. They blast the ball up the middle and wait for one or the other to hit into the net.

In the end, it's up there, more for drama, then a completely even battle between two players hitting greater and greater shots, but more the ups-and-downs of one player trying to hit risky great shots versus one who hits a safe great shot (Nadal).

This means, it could have been better, but certainly no more dramatic than it turned out to be.

Wet Summer Nights

Wimbledon is played in the summer in London. It's more proper name is the All England Lawn Tennis Championships and Wimbledon is merely an area of London where it's played. Summer in London usually means rain, and therefore Wimbledon is often associated with rain. This year, it was remarkably rain-free, but quite windy.

David wanted to get out of the apartment. It was probably too late to reserve a racquetball court, and the game's intense, so he asked me if I wanted to play tennis, something he doesn't enjoy nearly as much as racquetball. He said he heard thunder, but I thought the storm front was moving away, so I agreed to play.

As I was driving, I noticed it was still drizzling, and pondered whether the courts, which were further north were somehow spared the rain. As I got closer, I had still received no call letting me know it was raining and we should call this off. I figured if it was drizzling a little, it would be fine to play. Hard courts, for the most part, aren't that slippery. I've only ever played on one court that was so slippery that I couldn't deal with it, and even then I just slipped and slid as it rained.

So David was nowhere near his car. He had made his way to the courts and was practicing his serve. The weather was warm enough, so we weren't likely to catch a cold or anything. It wasn't the kind of miserable cold of fall, but the mild warm of summer.

So we decided to play, despite the rain, as it came down heavier. We were both a bit lucky. David had recently shed his glasses, and was wearing contacts. I brought out a cap, that shaded me from the rain, so my glasses wouldn't get drenched and we started to hit around.

Of course, I thought we were crazy to be out hitting in the rain, but if David didn't mind, then I didn't mind.

Then, the oddest thing happened. Two girls rushed onto the courts that were next to our courts and situated a little lower. Somehow, they got it into their heads that they wanted to play tennis in the rain too. Odd thoughts of wet t-shirt contests ran through my head.

We decided to play a set. I was putting my new serve into action. The water had a deadening effect on the water, but it was nice to see the water spray off as I spun a serve. I won the set, 6-1, my thought was to finish the set quickly so we could get out. The girls apparently decided to hang around.

We left for a drink at a nearby McDonald's, some women were mopping the floor down. It would be amusing for pro tennis players to play in the rain, but I suspect, as children or teens, they must have done it a few times.

So Wimbledon, US Open, you can have your rain delays. As long as it's not a torrential downpour, I don't mind a few drops if I can get a few shots in.

Grass is Greener

Two or three years ago, only a few years after Pete Sampras had pretty much retired and had been anointed as one of the best ever tennis players, or nearly so, the tennis cognoscenti were ready to anoint the new "best ever". That man was Roger Federer. People marveled at the seemingly effortless way he won his matches. Here was someone that seemed just as facile hitting groundstrokes as he was hitting volleys. People note how he seems to float to shots.

To back up their claims, Federer proceeded to win five Wimbledons in a row. He also won three Australian Opens, and four US Opens. Prominently missing on his resume was any French Open wins. Mostly that's because Rafael Nadal has proven to be the king of clay. Nadal won 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, the last three in the finals over Roger Federer. In 2005, Nadal also beat Federer, but that time in the semifinals en route to his first French Open title. In 2004, Federer lost in the third round to Gustavo Kuerten, himself a former French Open winner.

Nadal has turned out to be a thorn in Federer's side. Like Sampras and Agassi, Nadal and Federer are each other's top rivals, and coincidentally, both clothed by Nike, a company that made shoes for a long time, and wasn't on the clothing radar the last time there was a five time Wimbledon champ (1980, for those who are curious).

Nadal's muscular style has often put off aesthete's who don't particular care for his bullish style. On clay, he stands ten, twelve feet behind the baseline, and muscles up heavy topspin shots one after the other like some ball machine put in overdrive. Attack him, and he can place winners past you on the line. Federer experienced this first hand when his own game was like a malfunctioning robot. On the few times his hard shots made its way on the court and put pressure on Rafa, Rafa would, in his contortions, muster another pass, with Roger unable to even put a racquet on it.

Roger brushed aside notions that he was on a decline. He could get back to grass, to his favorite surface. However, it was quickly becoming Rafa's second favorite surface. Normally clay courters find hard courts more to their liking. If the speed is a bit quick, it's compensated by high bounces, which clay courters like. Wilander and Lendl both found playing on hard courts better for their games than grass, though Lendl, to his credit, made the Wimbledon semis five times and then the finals twice.

As if to show that he wasn't fading with age, Roger won Halle the week after the French without dropping his serve. But Nadal also won Queen's, another grass court event, and his first, beating a tougher field including Andy Roddick, and Novak Djokovic.

Roger then came into Wimbledon and lost serve only twice, while not dropping a set. Rafa, however, also played well, dropping only one set to Latvian, Ernests Gulbis in the second round. He mowed down his opponents, and struggled a little against surprise semifinalist, 32 year old German, Rainer Schuettler, who had last been at a Grand Slam final in 2003. While no one expected him to pressure Nadal, he almost won a set, until Rafa broke back and took the second set to a tiebreak which he comfortably won.

As the finals approached, Rafa looked the better player, despite Roger's generally good play. Roger doesn't generally overpower his opponents. He gets to balls you don't think he can get to, and places it well. Rafa seems to hit winners, even when his opponents are scant feet away from the ball. To be sure, Rafa was a machine at the French, but he was more vulnerable to making more errors. Still, despite lacking a huge serve, everyone seemed to find it challenging to break Rafa.

Roger opened this year's Wimbledon falling back a break to Nadal. Despite numerous opportunities to break back in the first set, Nadal held and won the first set 6-4. It was clear, however, that Roger was in more of his element at Wimbledon. He was making more shots, his slice shots were more effective, he was hitting more winners. Still, Roger, for all his talent, tosses a lot of errors, including mishits on his backhand, and slaps into the net. Some of that is Rafa's skill in forcing you to hit one, two, three more shots than you wanted.

In the second set, Roger started serving better, and broke Nadal for a 4-2 lead, but much like Hamburg, where Roger took big leads, Nadal kept playing his usual relentless style. Unlike Sampras who seemed to ace at will, Roger would ace occasionally, but often be forced to hit groundstrokes. Rafa broke Roger, then broke him again, and took the second set.

Roger would now have to dig deep to win Wimbledon, down two sets to love. In the second set, he still had numerous chances to break back, but was unable to do so.

In the third set, a critical game. Serving at 3-all, Roger fell to 0-40. If Rafa wins any of these break points, the match is over in straight sets. Miraculously, he saves all three and wins the game. He had just come off a game where he nearly broke Rafa, when Rafa challenged a call that he thought was out in a rally, and stopped the rally. It was out by a little, and that brought it to deuce and he eventually won the game.

At 4-all, Roger had game points, but eventually, Rafa brought it back to deuce before the rains fell. After coming back, Roger served two aces to take it to 5-4. This proceeded into tiebreak where Roger took a minibreak and two good serves of his own to have a good lead heading into the fourth. The rain delay appears to be good for Roger's serves and groundstrokes.

In the fourth set, neither player loses serve. They go into another tiebreak, and Rafa gets up 5-2, and again, Roger looks like he's out of it. However, a bad point by Rafa followed by a double fault and Roger closes in. On a championship point, Rafa approaches net, and Roger passes him. He eventually wins a tight, tight fourth set, to push it into a fifth set.

This ought to deflate someone like Nadal, but he's shown, over the years, that he can stay in matches, and his play doesn't flag. Federer is showing some signs that he can get down on himself. They both hold serve, though Roger struggles a bit more with his, and seems to have few opportunities to bother Rafa. He doesn't seem to be able to hit winners off Rafa's serve, and if they get into a rally, then Rafa has a decent chance of winning them.

With Roger serving up, he only needs a break to win it all, but Nadal refuses to buckle, and Roger continues to make mistakes. Finally, at 7-all, Roger falls back on his serve, and despite a game try, Rafa breaks, forcing Roger to do something that he's done only once the entire match, which is break Rafa.

Rafa gets up championship point, and Roger his an amazing backhand return, but Rafa refuses to get deterred and eventually Roger hits one in the net, and Rafa is the new Wimbledon champ.

I had said, prior to the match, that if Roger lost, it would be devastating to him. I'm not so sure now. Sure, this hurt, but I think Roger has to feel that if he had a few points swing his way, he's be a straight set winner. He had to fight like the dickens to tie the match up, and as the match wore longer, it did seem Roger had few answers for Rafa's play. Rafa wasn't exactly acing Roger, but Roger seemed unable to attack Rafa's serve.

Also, while Rafa made errors, Roger made a lot more inexplicable errors. He shanked backhands, he took swinging volleys long, he slapped shots in the net, he dumped second serves into the net. Credit Roger for never playing bad for two long and for nearly pulling off what would have been an amazing final. Really, the only thing that would have made this final better is for Roger to have won, and I say that not so much as a Federer fan, but as someone who finds coming back from the precipice real excitement.

There were a couple of fantastic shots being made out there.

Now, they head into the hardcourt season, and the hardcourts have always meant more trouble for Nadal. While he's made progress on grass, there are more players that can create problems for him on hard courts, including James Blake, Andy Roddick, Novak Djokovic, and of course, Roger Federer. Even Marat Safin is capable of creating issues for Rafa.

Still, with his progress so definably upwards, could anyone doubt that maybe Rafa could get better on hard courts? Federer could improve, but really, it seems that he just has to keep his errors down. It's as if Federer knows he can hit great shots but with some reasonable chance at missing any shot. He used his inside out forehand to great effect throughout, that it seemed silly that he would sometimes hit behind Nadal whose two-handed backhand was often deadly.

Not sure what Roger plans to do now. He has a strategy that works sometimes with Rafa, mainly hitting neutral shots down the middle until he gets an opening, but he lacks the consistent bullying that Rafa can force his opponent into, much more than Agassi. Where Agassi would often hit winners, he lacked Rafa's ability to hit hard penetrating shots that leave opponents barely getting to the ball, and struggling to get it back, as he sends another body blow to the other corner.

Djokovic might have some more tools. Unlike Federer, Djokovic doesn't miss nearly as much, but he also lacks some of the surprising shots that Federer can make out of nowhere. Djokovic probably needs a more punishing backhand, one that can pressure opponents more than it does now.

So Rafa ends with the French-Wimbledon double, a feat few thought was possible, and more thought Roger would do it than Rafa. It's been 28 years since it was last done by Bjorn Borg when he did it for his third time in 1980 (and had he beaten McEnroe in 1981 at Wimbledon, he would have done it a fourth time).

Roger, who had so confidently said nothing was wrong with his game, might be right, but nothing is wrong with Rafa's game either, and that itself might be a problem for Roger, even at his best.

Asian Lady

Ever since my tennis bug bit me again last year, and I got back into tennis, I've started into tennis in all sorts of ways. Recently, I talked to a co-op named Anthony. His dad decided to buy a new tennis racquet for him, the Nadal Babolat racquet. Rather than buy this online, he bought it in Rockville, at a placed called Tennis Topia. I had never heard of the place, even though I had been in the general vicinity a few times.

Tennis Topia is located on the back side of REI, which does face Rockville Pike. I recently broke a string, something I haven't done in a long, long time partly because I'm using Luxilons and these things are amazing when it comes to durability. I recently tried a hybrid, using synthetics on the mains, and Luxilons on the crosses. Some pros (like Federer) do that so they can feel and durability.

I would have gotten it strung at the person I like to get it done with, who works in College Park at 3-Stripe. He strings tons of racquets, and is quick. If he's there, he does it right away. Being a guy maybe a few years out of college, he's a one-man show, like most stringers I've seen.

The stringer at Tennis Topia is an Asian woman, and her style is quite different. Tennis Topia does enough business that several high school student types work there, and this woman utilizes them like surgeons utilize their assistants or chefs utilize their line chefs. In particular, they do some prep work (cutting the strings off old racquets, getting strings out of the package, and if only half are used, putting the strings back in the package, making accurate notes of what strings are being used).

She wants things orderly and prompt. The high school students seem a bit nervous, as she tells them what she wants done. I had asked her about whether she'd string my racquet in two pieces. I knew that racquets could be strung this way, with one string for the mains and one string for the crosses. You can also string as one-piece. Some racquets (mine in particular) apparently require two pieces otherwise you can damage the racquet. I found this out talking to Tom, the stringer at 3-Stripe.

Fortunately, Asian Lady also knew this. I talked to a guy who suggested I try the Ace Luxilon, which is apparently a softer string. The woman suggested that I use something else in the crosses (I think). She put in Gamma TNT 17's. We'll see how long they last (reviews suggest, not that long!). Anyway, we'll see how they feel. If the break too rapidly, I may simply go with the Ace all the way through.

Anyway, I have to thank her for stringing the racquet as I waited. I was told I'd have to wait til Monday to get the racquet strung, in which case, I would have headed down to College Park and had it strung there instead on Sunday.

Did I mention she has a sweet Babolat stringer? It looks like something out of Wall-E (mostly, it looks a little like Eve).

I have to imagine the students that work there will get some lesson about precision and keeping orderly. They may not find it a pleasant experience (fortunately, she's not a particularly rude person), I think they'll learn something about keeping orderly, and that seems like a good lesson to learn.

Stud

There's a noun applied to men that are considered sexy: stud. He's such a stud! In fact, it's so overused that people may have forgotten where the term first originated.

It has to do with horses.

Horseracing is an unusual sport. Only the very rich can afford to horserace, as horses are worth in the millions of dollars that can race well. The idea is to breed fast horses so they can be raced. People claim that genetic engineering for superior humans is immoral, but they've been breeding horses as long as there was horseracing. People breed all sorts of animals, especially if there's money involved.

A horse may have value by winning races, but a horse can also have value as a sire, being put out to stud, basically having sex with mares. Thus, Big Brown, the winner of two of the three events in the Triple Crown may find more value as a stud, if the offsprings are fast horses.

To put a horse to stud, is essentially making a male whore out of him, and having him bed as many female horses, the horse equivalent to Wilt Chamberlain, the star basketball player who claimed to have slept with 20000 women.

So next time you say someone is a stud, or you declare yourself a stud, take a second to remember where the term came from and what it means.

Luck and Fortune

They were showing Joy Luck Club this evening. I probably hadn't seen this in quite a while. It's about 15 years old, covering the stories of four Chinese mothers and their daughters in the US. It's basically a tear-jerker of a film, about the suffering of mothers, and the wishes they bestow on their daughters for a better life.

This film was directed by Wayne Wang. As perhaps with many directors of Chinese descent, it's not particularly profitable to make films about the Asian American experience. As well know as M. Night Shyamalan and his films are, they've never really chronicled the Indian American experience. Ang Lee grew up in Taiwan, so he would not properly be considered Asian American, even though he studied film in the US. He's made one film that is vaguely Asian American, which is The Wedding Banquet.

There was some commentary afterwards, where a Chinese American man laments Chinese men were generally not portrayed as well as white men, which he felt perpetuates some stereotypes. Having said that, I'm sure Amy Tan thought, at the very least, she was covering stories that were not generally told. Her books were bestsellers in their day, and so allowed readers to find out more the Asian American experience.

One key part of the story is luck. It's interesting how luck plays an important role in the more ancient societies. Both Chinese and Indian societies rely on the importance of luck and fortune, to the point that there are experts in the society that determine luck.

For example, Americans generally pick wedding dates hoping the weather is nice, and the desired location is available. Indian wedding dates (and presumably Chinese weddings at some point in the past) are picked with the assistance of fortune tellers who indicate which dates are auspicious and which times are auspicious. Apparently, such help is even taken to naming of children, at least, from those who believe in the luck of a well-chosen name.

Now, when I say Indian, I should be more specific, and say that this refers to Hindus, though I suspect, at least from the choice of wedding dates, that Hindu traditions rub off onto Christians and Muslims who may also pick their dates based on auspicious times.

Indeed, males are generally given a name, and lack a family name, instead, taking on the name of the father. Sometimes, names refer to locations. Sometimes to a caste designation. Lest this seem unusual, think about names like Anderson, Johnson, Thompson, etc. These names suggest that even Europeans followed the tradition of giving a boy a name, plus his father's name, and only, after time, did a name like Anderson become a family name.

This isn't to say Americans don't believe in some luck. Some are superstitious against bad luck, whether this be avoiding black cats, not walking under ladders, and so forth. Many athletes, especially baseball players, have a lot of weird habits that come from thinking that they will have good luck in a game. Though rather than having good luck, they are trying to avoid bad luck.

There are certainly well wishes of "Good luck", even if, on most occasions, the person would rather not have luck, but good preparation. Thus, if you take an exam, should you be wished luck? Should not your study and knowledge preclude the need for luck? Should you not wish, instead, for a fair exam? But since such exhortations are particularly difficult to phrase, a simple "good luck" is given, for lack of anything more reasonable to say in its place.

There is also the "deals with God", where people say "if I get some thing I want, then I promise to do X for God". Thus, if I get into Stanford University, I promise that I'll go to church more often. It seems every faith has these kinds of luck deals. In India, a similar deal might involve shaving one's head if one gets admission into an IIT, a prestigious university with very selective standards.

Some people take their chances with things like lotteries, mostly because they don't realize just how bad their odds are at winning lotteries. They figure their chances are zero if they don't attend, and not zero otherwise.

There are also people who believe in various conspiracy theories. This isn't so much about luck, but about speculating some weird theories that isn't given real evidence, but only because they feel certain things seem suspicious. It feeds the need of some to find that there are grand plans behind certain things.

Is it considered progress in society where notions of luck are considered quaint or not even thought of at all? Or is simply a cultural difference?

Artificial Relationships

People can probably find all manners of excuses to have some connection with other people. For example, so-and-so went to the same college as you did. And, yet others will find that completely artificial, and more than that, a disincentive to meet the person.

For example, suppose you're visiting a country. Say, India or China. You're a foreigner there, and someone local says "I know another American". Is your inclination to think "Wow, someone I can relate to!" or is it "So? Why should I talk to them? So what if we come from the same country".

Much of that, I suspect, has to do with how introverted you are. The more extroverted you are, the more likely you might talk to anyone. So such commonalities might simply be that excuse to talk.

The funny thing is that people seem to prefer meeting others in situations that force folks to work with one another. This could be a job setting. And even then, it has to be pretty close proximity. There are people literally 20 seconds away that we almost never talk to, because they belong to a different group. It has nothing to do with them or us being mean, but that any tiny barrier can cause a person not to talk to the next person.

Indeed, more people are introverted, and getting them to talk to others is something they simply don't like. I can see that, even if offered millions to be really outgoing, they may choose not to do it because they are so painfully shy and it would create distress.

Anyway, the point of this was to find relationships based on some commonality that may or may not make sense where being an alumni was number 1 on that list of things that people may or may not feel kinship.

Silliness of Racquet Selectors

In general, I love Tennis Warehouse. They have a huge supply of racquets and other accessories (could do better with their variety of vibration dampeners, but I digress). They have a great forum where many people participate.

The one thing that's totally bogus is selecting a racquet. The reason? This is a mistake people make all the time. They pick the parameters that are easy for them to make a decision on, but is otherwise useless to the average person picking a racquet.

For example, they want you to specify the racquet length, width, weight, and balance. That's not how people pick racquets. They think "I want to serve like Roddick, hit groundstrokes like Nadal, volley like Federer, what racquet do you have that does all that?". They have no idea how to translate all that into something you can put data in for. Do you think the average person knows what weight they want for a racquet? How it should be balanced?

It should be like going to an ophthalmologist, except there are lots of variables to tweak. While the ophthalmologist has easy ways to modify variables, it's hard for someone to pick racquets this way, even if the variable is, say, racquet type.

The reason the racquet selector is picked that way is because they have numbers for those things. Thus, you can write a program or some simple database query to get what you want. But the results are meaningless.

One problem is that one size doesn't fit all. A racquet that feels like a great serving racquet to one person might feel off to another. One person might say a racquet is too light while another says it's too heavy. The problem is the average person has no convenient way to find what they like, and so they have no convenient way to use these selectors to do anything.

Fortunately, places like Tennis Warehouse have alternatives. They both have customer reviews and a forum where players discuss these things, so from that, you can at least make an educated guess (short of getting a loaner) of what you want.

Intelligent Lights

You know, the biggest innovation in traffic lights are the sensors in the ground that detect if a car is around. Surprisingly, there's not been anything new that I can see.

This is what I want. It would be nice to have a camera aimed at the traffic, and estimate how much traffic has arrived, and to adjust the lights based on approaching traffic and crowdedness rather than a simple algorithm based on time. Admittedly, there might be some kind of equilibrium that you reach by using timed lights.

But whatever. It seems like we should be able to get more intelligent light changing that makes people wait less on average.

Forehand Woes

I've been trying to retool my forehand for several months now. Ever since I got a camcorder, I've been able to tape my strokes and realize I have a particular hitch. No matter what I do, my body seems convinced it needs to have this hitch. I've tried to come up with all sorts of ideas to deal with it, to very little success.

In particular, I created a weird device made of a tennis elbow brace and shoestrings. That didn't work. I had chairs set up so I could shadow stroke. While I shadow stroke fine, the brain does something different when I have to hit a real ball. I was thinking of putting a large lightweight stick so I could see what I was doing, or a string with a weight on the bottom.

But, I just thought of another idea, which is free, if a bit awkward.

A two-handed forehand. I mean, of the Bartoli, Santoro variety using the non-dominant hand on top (i.e, a crossover forehand). The second hand can prevent the racquet from twisting. I'm looking forward to giving that a try.

Shock Block

Back to a tennis post.

I've used all sorts of vibration dampeners lately. I used to never use it because I liked feeling vibrations. I'd get some idea if I hit the ball wrong by the vibrations. Even so, over time, it's nice not to feel it either.

The most common kind of dampener is a tiny logo. These are also the "worst" of the dampeners. They do their job fine, but they aren't the best. The best ones are made by Gamma called Shockbuster. These deaden vibrations like no one's business. I don't use this.

Why not?

The Shockbuster has two plastic tubes filled with some sticky gel. No matter what, you are going to hit the tubes, and eventually, they rupture and slowly leak. So, despite being a great dampener, I ditched it.

I then took Adam's suggestion to use the Head Vibrasorb and a similar competitor called the Forten worm. The problem, for me, with these is that they don't stretch out well enough over the strings. Furthermore, if you hit the dampeners, they can become dislodged.

The dampeners I like best are either the Prince NXT Silencer or, lately, the Wilson ShockTrap. Both of these are a bit hard to put on, but once they are on, they don't fall off easily.

So my recommendation is the Wilson ShockTrap (again, a good knock can cause it to partly dislodge).

I've yet to try the Agassi rubberband which would, at the very least, be the cheapest option, and if it worked well, I'd be thrilled. I just need to remember to go to Office Depot and buy one of those supersize rubberbands.