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

[bottle]

An Alternative

This shot goes faster if that is what you want (https://www.tennisplayer.net/tp_player/james-blake/).

[bottle]

Persistence

The late Doris Lloyd (John Lloyd's mother) was the master (or should that be mistress, not sure) of the short angled ball in doubles. I actually thought she must have invented the shot. Out of the blue she would throw in a short, angled ball into the tramline, catching her opponents napping and taking them out of their rhythm. Later, when she became a tennis coach to all the midweek ladies at the club, she would teach the shot incessantly until one by one each became accomplished at executing the shot.

Her husband, Dennis Lloyd, was the inventor and master of the drag volley....but that's another story.
__________________
Stotty

Persistence is the story here. Some shots require more persistence than others-- kick serve, perhaps, but short angled ball in doubles is right up there and the shot that absolutely requires the most persistence to master in my book.

Bent arm vs. straight arm seems a theme that runs through this thread. My recent experiments with both my Keystone Pipeline and James Blake imitation shots combined with a Federer-like forehand grip place the elbow at the precise compass setting where any arm bend whether dynamic or not will get the racket face farther around before the vertical wipe.

This means that even when one's stance isn't perfect one can bend arm more or keep it bent there to hit one's cutely angled aim point.

[stotty]

One thing Benoit Paire and Doris Lloyd have in the common is their love of the drop shot and the short angle ball. The shots are closely linked. Benoit’s mastery of both is surpassed by no one, past or present. Doris’s mastery wasn’t bad either.

Like Doris, when Benoit executes he keeps his arm fixed. The angle of his elbow hardly moves one iota from the beginning of the stroke through contact and a tad beyond. His arm then extends to complete a short follow through.

I think Benoit holds the secret: Keep the arm fixed through contact and just steer the shot from the shoulder…like a volley. The less moving parts the better. This is the only way to do it if one is to repeat the shot over and over and be able to place the ball on a dime. And Benoit can put the ball on a dime.

The short angle ball Benoit hits at 30-30 in the first game of his match against Djokovic yesterday at the ATP, Cincinnati was the finest I have ever seen. Some might called that one a drop shot; I call it a short angle. It was immaculate.

[bottle]

Reduce moving parts. Aye-aye, sir.

[bottle]

Keystone but from the Shoulder only

First game, I serve. Second game I start in ad court while my new partner serves. Third game I cross the net and receive serve in deuce court. That is when I try the new shot. Carousel is optimal form to try any new shot.

In using the shape and timing of my Keystone, I shall subdue or eliminate the two linked shoulder turns I developed for that shot.

But bent elbow will be solid moving and twisting the arm above and below it and creating a straight wrist mondo too.

I have no idea what will happen but know the result will be perfectly okay.

[bottle]

First try the ball went straight up in the air. Self-feed to follow to work out the kinks.

[bottle]

Opposites in Topspin Producing Versions of SA

Straight arm vs. bent arm.

Twisting forearm vs. twisting whole arm vs. both.

Full mondoes (wrist layback and arm twist) vs. half-mondo (one or the other).

Mondo vs. no mondo.

Loose vs. firm grip.

Cynics are welcome to think that because I continue to write about this stroke I haven't found it. Others among the actual players I compete with assert that I have mastered it ("so don't use it") with one calling it my "(s)kill shot."

The truth is in between. The fully realized shot is like an old radio beam in which some clear strong voice comes through with clarity but not all the time. One might hit a cluster of three of these shots but then miss the fourth-- neither bad nor up to personal standard.

Or one might miss every attempt-- definitely not up to standard.

In view of this uncertainty should one just attempt drop-shots and dinks and super dinks (all underspun) and a few lollies? Perhaps. ("Lolly" as defined by Peter Burwash: Closed racket comes directly level or slightly downward to high ball and you swing through to smack it.)

But I prefer the topspin version of my youngest brother before he became a national windsurfing champion. His short angled ball, traveling fast, would hit his acute target next bounce high off the fence.

[bottle]

Keystone Chop

I'm not here in this thread to be doctrinaire:

1) Using composite grip, key racket tip down

2) Raise racket as shoulders go back

3) Plunge racket as shoulders go forward.

I have never attempted this shot, which is worth at least one try.

[bottle]

Worth one try, but in two hours of tennis doubles I forgot to try it. Next time.

[bottle]

The New York Times tells us, "The study of ignorance-- or agnotology...is in its infancy." Tennis especially, it seems to me, is full of false certainty. The strategic manufacture of focused ignorance leads to heightened curiosity and right questions (which lead to even better questions). Got to start somewhere. So which is better for hitting a short angle, reader, long or bent arm?

[bottle]

Here's a pretty good crosscourt short angle. She's certainly not in a hurry to take the racket back, is she? (https://www.tennisplayer.net/tp_player/martina-hingis/)

[bottle]

And she keeps her elbow down, too, till even after the ball is gone, which means she rolled the racket up from the forearm only, and she's not a lousy tennis player even now, and I'll bet this shot is pretty useful when she's playing deuce court in major final doubles, right?

[bottle]

Oh, arm bending occurred right on the ball. So was there roll from the forearm too or just that bending of the arm? Hooray for ignorance! It makes me ask these questions. How now can I turn my ignorance to profit?

[bottle]

More study of the video says arm bend first (to cover contact), roll from forearm second (after contact), roll from whole arm after that. I always did believe-- or rather learned from rowing-- that athletic movement is conditioned by athletic movement that happens later in the sequence.

[bottle]

And some body rotation occurs, but not a lot, certainly less than in one of the Martina Hingis full forehands.