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Category: Commentary

  • From one-handed to two-handed and probably not back.

    Those of you who’ve read Tennis thing know I started out tennis with a two-handed backhand. My coach Caesar said, “I don’t care what you do after you’ve played for a year but I’d like you to start out hitting your backhand two-handed.”

    I was game but I soon found the two-hander less than pleasant. During my third or fourth lesson I asked if I could try to hit my backhands with one hand. Caesar patiently showed me the basics (he plays a one-hander) and I soon found the whole deal more intuitive and less physically challenging. The one-hander also helped to create a more effective shot. What’s not to like?

    “You hit a natural slice, mate. And, we’re going to build on it. We’ll add the topspin backhand when the time comes.”

    Justine Henin…accept no imitations.

    I was all in and began to informally curate a collection of the best one-handers I could find. My favorites, then and now, belong to Gregor Dimitrov, Stan Wawrinka, Roger Federer and the owner of the one-handed backhand of the gods, Justine Henin. If aesthetics matter, and they always do, there’s no comparison between the one and two-hander. As a wise person on the internet once said, “The two-hander has all the elegance of a monkey wrench.”

    Then, a couple things happened in a relatively close span of time. I managed to hurt my right wrist somehow. This happened about the same time as I began to learn and practice the topspin one-hander and exactly the same time I was hitting against the wall, a lot. The cherry on the sundae was Stew From Brisbane, my sometimes hitting partner whom I know from Brookside in Pasadena.

    To me, Federer’s backhand is second only to Henin’s.

    Stew’s 60, three years younger and leaner than me. He’s played for no less than 50 years and is a very solid player. Stew also likes to hit hard pretty much from the jump, which is not my style. He means no harm and I really like him. But, his shots to my backhand, especially the deep and high balls, ate my fledgling one-hander alive in addition to taxing my already-tender wrist.

    I did a little soul searching while I had a week off from my lessons with Caesar. By the time we were back at it I had decided to make the big switch to the two-hander.

    Before I did I conferred with the MIB himself back in Michigan. “Paulie,” MIB said. “I’ve tried going two-handed at least twice but I always go back.” Various internet gurus cautioned against making the switch especially for players who are older (40+, ha!) and who took up the game later in life.

    One guess who that describes…

    But, I did it anyway and it’s been fairly brutal. For me, the two-hander is an exceptionally difficult shot. Yes, high balls are somewhat easier but in total it’s a far harder shot from a purely physical standpoint. Sometimes, when I’m tired and the ball’s out wide, I will resort to my one-handed slice. Caesar always catches me and says the same thing. “Hitting your slice is Ok but start two-handed and go one-handed as your stroke begins going forward.”

    As if I have time to do all that.

    When my baseball career was on life support I made a last ditch effort to teach myself to hit left-handed. It wasn’t a bad idea. A lefty has a little bit of a head start to first and I thought it made me look like the kind of player who would try anything to be more versatile. It changed the way I saw the ball and I found power where I didn’t from the other side of the plate and lacked power where I had it as a right-handed hitter. It was weird, just like the two-handed backhand.

    Today is the first time I’ve put the sequence of the change and the factors that informed my switch together in my head. Don’t ask me why it’s taken me so long to see the threads. But, now that I have I think I will stick it out with the two-hander for now. I keep hoping for a breakthrough. Maybe next week or next month. Anything is possible.

  • Notes on a tennis coach

    I like taking tennis lessons from different coaches. My first coach will be my last coach, lord willing. Caesar Schwarz shepherded me into tennis and he continually guides and influences the development of my game, such that it is. He is both a fine teacher and a superb player.

    But, there have been others. Most have been good, one truly excellent. The best coaches read their students and think constantly of how best to impart what they know about tennis and maybe life.

    That’s obvious and sounds simple, but simple is not always easy. Today I was sitting on court waiting for my Monday hitting partner when the teaching pro on the other court started chatting with me. His student, who I’m guessing was eleven or twelve, was taking a quick breather. The kid looked good when he was working on his volleys. His backhand slice was especially tidy and well-controlled.

    The coach was a tennis player, through and through. Young, strong, tan, fit. He was dressed casually but not sloppily. Though the day was pure SoCal winter perfection, he wrapped a white towel over his head to protect from the sun. Only a real tennis player could pull that look off. I asked him if he usually taught there (a park in the Conejo Valley). “Nah, I usually teach at private courts. There are tons of good juniors out there. He’s not one of them,” he said with a wink and a tilt of the head.

    I felt bad for the boy with the nice slice volley. His coach, right or wrong, had betrayed him to a total stranger. I thought to myself that the coach just hadn’t been around enough to know when to hold his tongue, no matter if he was wrong or right.

    Later on I heard the coach talking about footwork to his next student. I didn’t get all of what he said but it was something about a Russian player he played against.

    “The Russians really teach footwork and a smart student will never forget. Once you have good footwork you can rely on it for the rest of your tennis life. You’ll never lose it.”

    I kinda wish I had heard the pro say that before I heard him diss his student. I might have tried to get a lesson from him.

    Tt

  • The smaller the ball the better the (sports) writing.

    I’m not sure who said that but I am fairly sure it’s true. The best sports writing is about golf, of this I think there’s little doubt. The reason for that is simple. Golf writing is either about hero worship, which never gets old, or tragedy, which also never gets old or both.

    Think about the boredom of writing about ordinary good golf:

    “And then our hero hit another ball into the middle of the fairway. Then he hit another ball into the middle of the green. Then he made another putt.”

    Now try this: “Our hero was nervous as he stood on the 10th tee, a tricky dogleg left. Memories of snap hooks into the woods bedeviled his mind as the wind swirled from right to left. He was already three shots behind the leaders with the hardest holes on the course still to be played. He hit a towering drive that was no more than ten feet left of his target line, but the wind freshened right at contact and the ball drifted left of the tree line before it vanished from view. Ten minutes later after having to strip down to his underwear in order to play his second shot from a pool of swamp water, the resulting ball miraculously caroming off a greenside tree into the center of the green, our hero unceremoniously sunk a ten-footer for birdie.”

    A tennis ball is a bit larger than a golf ball and my early reading suggests that writing on tennis is Ok, but surely not to the level of good golf writing. One problem, I think, is the nature of the action. Too little describable time passes between tennis shots to delve into a player’s mindset. But now I am getting caught on a tangent.

    I’m reading these three tennis books. In a couple weeks, I’ll review them. Technical Tennis is the most interesting, surprisingly, though the writing of David Foster Wallace’s String Theory is undeniably excellent and the story of Pancho Segura’s life in Little Pancho is as improbable as it is true.

    Tt