The Value of the Winshield-Wiper

The usually taught forward stroking in tennis is touted as a great combination of power and control. This is an illusion, since the impact time is thus minimized. Longer contact means greater control.

Stepping into the ball further minimizes the contact time.

Linear movements are also less powerful, less natural and more complicated for the upper body than circular ones. That which is unnatural gives too much importance to all the physical elements involved. In tennis, stepping in and following the line of the ball sticks your attention on the impact area, destroying the fluidity of the stroke. It is much better and efficient, rather than forcing a certain move, to trust your feel and instinct to produce decent control in a relax manner, as shown by little kids that, lacking the power of an adult, bring the racquet up and around when they stroke.

Furthermore, circular movements, properly executed, result in a longer contact with the ball, giving you more feel and less dependence on timing to control the intended shot. A windshield-wiper motion, as if you were caressing or massaging a vertical surface, as of a wall, maximizes these elements. During the execution of the windshield-wiper stroke the racquet angle remains constant, a feature that helps you feel in which direction you are aiming your shot.

Imagine a pane of glass in which a large clock is painted. For the forehand windshield-wiper you sweep (for a right-hander) from about 5 o’clock to the 10 o’clock mark, for the backhand from 7 to 2, for the forehand volley from 2 to 4 or 3 to 5, according to the height of the ball, backhand volley from 10 to 8 or 9 to 7, slice backhand from 10 to 6, second serve from 9 to the contact at 10, continuing up to 12, while turning the hand outward (pronation) to your right and then letting it drop gently past 3 and 6 before catching the racquet’s throat on the other hand. First serve, well … you may break the glass.

On the Tennis Into the Future series of 4 DVDs there is a lot more information on developments happening and about to happen in modern tennis. Avail yourself of these extraordinary DVDs, come to my clinics and cruises, and you’ll witness some extraordinary improvements in your game.

Switching Court Surfaces

Many players have switched to indoor courts for the winter. These are usually hard courts or carpet. Hard courts can vary in speed according to the composite they were built with. Adding more fine sand to the mix, for example, makes the surface slower.

Carpets at different clubs could differ on texture.

There are differences within the same type clay courts too, depending on how damp the court is. Some indoor court clay surfaces seem like a rock.

Players usually have difficulty adjusting to different court surfaces.

Changing from one type surface to another will require that you make adjustments both on timing the ball and in your swing.

The most efficient thing to do is to stalk the ball after the bounce, with the racquet still on both hands, as long as possible. This will help you adjust the timing of your stroke to the later part of the flight, when the ball is near you and quite visible.

Your backswing may this way be minimized. You may lose ball speed. It is far better to lose some power early in your adjustment than missing and losing confidence.

If you switched from clay to hard you seem to have cut your time markedly. The tendency, thereof, when changing from clay to hard courts is to rush.

But, if you rush, on any surface, you’ll be in trouble.

Especially on hard courts. Take your racquet back early and you’d be caught with your racquet behind your body, or you’ll have to force it forward too fast, losing control.

That is why I recommend to shorten the preparation on hard courts. Keep the racquet in front longer, let the ball come closer to you than usual, then go back and forth with your swing. Make sure you accelerate with the ball on your strings, and rather than following the ball with your racquet, swing up and across the body, you’ll brush it, and you’ll have more contact time and more control.

Overall, let your body tell you how it wants to move on the surface you are playing at. To force your footwork in unnatural ways is the main cause of leg, hip and lower back injuries in tennis.

Be a natural. In this sense, copy the pros.

Tactics

A few months ago I was in Finland coaching a few top coaches and some real good players.

I showed the coaches the Wardlaw directionals, and they liked them and agreed that that was the safest way to play.

Then I showed them how a player trained with my modern tennis system can go into a new dimension, changing directions without sacrificing power nor control. I started drilling one of their top players with the drills from the “Drills for Development” Chapter from my 1989 and 1992 books where the coach feeds from one side of the court rather than from the center and the player directs his shots to an increasingly smaller area close to the line on the open court. (http://www.tennisteacher.com/members/book/chapter16.html)

Teaching mainly the Wardlaw directionals, players don’t miss but they drill mostly to hit in the same direction the ball came from, that is back to the opponent, while not moving them much.

It you feed balls to the player from a position to one side of the court and the player hits to the opposite side, which is open, the players gets very familiar and confident at changing the direction of their hit and to move the other player around. If you drill him to hit back to the other player, the habit stays with him. It’s all a matter of familiarity, and with my system of finding the ball and hitting across (including on down the line shots), control and power can be both gradually increased and emphasized.

Furthermore, Included in these drills should be hitting behind the other player, but increasing the angle, not Wardlaw directionals per se but taken a step further.

When the player becomes wise that you are hitting to the open court and starts anticipating and covering that area well (like Rafael Nadal), you FAKE you are hitting to the opening and hit behind the player, increasing the angle, and puting them in an extreme emergency. I taught Guga Kuerten both of these aspects when he was very young, drilling him over and over, and he was from there on super confident on changing directions. I taught the same technique to Vincent Spadea when he was 16 years old, and he used it successfully against Andre Agassi, including beating him once at the Australian Open, and besting James Blake five times in a row.

Witness the recent Shangai final between Rafael Nadal and Nikolay Davydenko. Davydenko used these tactics profusely and won in two sets. I also recommended to Mirka (Federer), in a letter I personally gave to her in Palma de Mallorca two years ago, to do this with Nadal. At one point in the 1997 Hamburg final Roger Federer applied that flawlessly against Nadal and won 11 out of the last 12 games. He then proceeded to take Nadal to the extreme in the French Open final. Had he not hesitated and mishit in the final stages of the match he would have won that final against the best clay court player of all time.

Greatest Tip Ever

There are two things that come into play that give power to your shot. One is momentum and the other is acceleration. Momentum is the force from the forward speed of the racquet, while you can increase that force considerably by accelerating the racquet.

I have been de-emphasizing momentum so people pay more attention to acceleration.

Why? This is because minimizing the backswing, or taking the racquet slowly up to the ball (or close enough), helps find it and control the shot. That usually corrects unforced errors.

Now, when you become a master at this and your attention stays in front and not behind you, you can make your swing bigger and bigger.

What I usually say to a student, after he or she masters the control of the ball, is to hit the ball harder, then harder, but GRADUALLY, so they take the racquet back without THINKING of the backswing. As a result, the backswing becomes bigger, but the player is not thinking about it. His whole attention stays in front and then on the finish of the stroke.

If the person has learned a good finish across the body, this action of delaying the backswing actually increases the finish.

Witness the story of Andre Agassi Wimbledon win in 1992. Before Wimbledon Agassi was practicing with John McEnroe in Paris. Agassi asked McEnroe: “how do you play on grass”, to which McEnroe replied: “on grass courts, no backswing”.

Does this mean that Andre Agassi did not have a backswing at Wimbledon? Not quite, but his attention to keeping the racquet in front delayed his backswing to where his whole attention became instinctive, practically instantaneous, and he Zoned in (seeing the ball slower than usual). Which prompted, in later years, Agassi’s seemingly illogical statement: “I hit the ball when it stops”.

Thank you, John McEnroe, for this tip. I consider it the greatest tennis tip ever. Sorry it cost you your 1992 Wimbledon (McEnroe lost to an inspired Agassi in the semifinals, in what was deemed to be, by that stage of the tournament, McEnroe’s year to win).

Why is this process so successful in teaching? Because your backswing becomes instinctive, produced by your desire to power the ball, not a product of stuck pictures in your mind!