TennisOne Lessons
by Jim McLennan, Senior Editor, TennisONE
To see other articles in the Stow Series, go to:
Part 1,
Part 2, Part 4, Part
5, Stow Reprint
With Tom Stow, everything was about the quality of the hit--bringing your
weight against the ball, hitting the ball squarely, and getting the absolute
maximum power from a relatively easy and slow swing. My constant project
as a Stow pupil was to "swing slower and hit harder." Tennis
is a game of control and accuracy, not a game of maximum power. And to swing
easily yet hit hard, is the feeling of maximizing the power from a simple
swing, and this simplicity lends control. This largely accounts
for the classical style of players like Rosewall or Ashe (and now Sampras):
their hits were big but their swings were never wild.
The trick for the writer is to capture the feel of the squarely hit ball,
and convey it with words and graphics. As difficult as it was for me to
learn to hit the ball to Tom's exacting specifications, this descriptive
effort is equally difficult, but here goes.
To feel the absolutely squarest hit, it is important to create a head-on
collision, where the momentum of the ball adds the greatest possible force
to the resulting hit. In a word, this is the feeling of a "conk,"
which is short for concussion, and which always occurs when the ball is
struck as described above. A heavily spun topspin (brushed upwards) shot
will muffle the conk and often lead to pronounced mis-hits. What I am talking
about is a very subtle topspin, perhaps 10 percent topspin, but a very square
collision.
Stow taught his professional students to take the ball early (on the rise
or at the top of the bounce), especially on the approach shots, where you
want to move in on short balls and hit a penetrating shot to rob your opponent
of reaction time. However, for learning to hit groundstrokes from behind
the baseline, it's not as important to take the ball early. In addition,
for intermediate students of the game, you must you must first learn to
get a feel for the conk before worrying about taking the ball early.
So here's what I suggest you practice. Stand on the baseline and have a
friend stand on the service line nearest you and toss some balls underhanded
so you can hit them easily. Let the ball drop into your hitting zone at
roughly waist height, and this will probably mean the balls will just start
descending as you make contact (see Figure 1).
Now as you evaluate the diagram, notice two things: 1) the racquet must
be placed very slightly "open" to maximize this collision. Closing
the face would increase the spin resulting from the collision. Closing the
face too much would smother the ball, and just as would opening the face
too much cause excessive backspin. 2) the plane of the racquet swing must
be slight rising as the plane of the ball is slightly falling. The result
will be a head-on collision and a conk.
In the photos below, I am demonstrating this open-faced topspin shot. In
the first photo, note the fundamentals: 1) pivot and shoulder turn; 2) transfer
of weight to the back foot; 3) most importantly for this stroke--the racquet
is taken mostly straight back (although slightly elevated as I have done
is just fine). Although the next photo doesn't show it, before my racquet
moves forward, I've dropped the racquet head so that it is slightly below
the level of the ball approaching. Then I've moved the racquet forward in
a slightly ascending plane to create a square collision with the slightly
descending flight of the ball. In the second photo, I am at the point of
contact. My weight has been transferred to the front foot, and you can see
open-faced racquet, which I've slightly exaggerated. Again, one might think
the ball would sail high over the back of the baseline with this open-faced
shot. But if the plane of your swing is slightly ascending and you
swing levelly through the ball, you will start conking the ball.
You'll hit with about 10 percent topspin, enough topspin to give you control,
but most importantly, you'll hit it with enough penetrating force to qualify
as a Tom Stow student of the All Court Forcing Game.
Today's premier topspinners (Chang, Muster, Sanchez, Vicario, Sabatini)
usually hit their strokes with a very low-to-high swing to generate exaggerated
topspin. While this technique certainly works, it can rob the player's shots
of penetrating forcing power (produced by the relatively flat shots of an
Agassi, Graf or Connors). When these exaggerated topspin shots are
slightly mis-hit, they create a sound that Buddy Crovetto, a renown Louisiana
golf and tennis pro, called "cssicks," a sharp contrast from the
"conk."
So even if you already swing low-to-high and hit with a closed-faced racquet,
give this open-faced topspin shot a try. On your first attempts, the ball
will go incredibly high, not because the racquet face was open, but because
the swing was still too low-to-high. Again, this is all about head-on collisions.
Level out the back-swing and follow-through, work to swing through
the hit rather than sharply up. You should immediately feel a more solid
contact, and when the solidness becomes familiar (and note I believe
that the vast majority of players never really learn to feel this simple
hit) then you will understand how to swing slower and truly hit harder.