Make Your Strokes Al Dente
I find it useful to ask students if they prefer to eat their spaghetti right out of the box, or if they prefer to eat it cooked—al dente.
This image helps two types of students: those who hit very stiff strokes, and those who love to finish a stroke with a quick flick of the wrist.
For players who arm the ball, thinking of cooked pasta helps them move through the kinetic chain for more fluid strokes. For those with floppy strokes, the phrase “al dente” helps focus awareness on controlling the stroke (a simple way to understand al dente is to think of the pasta as being cooked firm rather than completely water-logged).
Although good teaching suggests looking at the entire stroke when making changes, sometimes looking at only one part magnifies mistakes and can lead to easier corrections.
When I watch senior players try to copy the forehand topspin strokes used by most pros today, I often recall how badly I damaged my arm because of mistakes I made years ago. Older players frequently use a Continental Grip, which can cause pain when hitting a contact point in front of you. So I often see someone practicing this shot with an open stance, not taking the racket back in a unit turn, but taking the full impact of the ball with mostly the wrist as they flick it over and down. The instructional photographs used in trying to describe top-spin in some of the tennis magazines in the 1960s usually showed some weird contortions of the wrist in this position. The key is the hitting up rather than turning over the wrist.
So, keeping the al dente concept in mind, hitting a modern top-spin forehand starts with the racket low, moving forward while maintaining the strings parallel to the net, and finishing with the strings still in a plane with the net as you roll your wrist into the recovery position.
Thinking al dente helps keep the stroke controlled throughout, with no wiggle-waggle from over-cooking. You might think of the motion of a forehand top-spin as being similar to that of a windshield wiper. Having the wiper do a quick flick or bounce on the windshield after each rotation would not be a desirable goal.
Many studies have shown that keeping the strings parallel to the net works for under-spin, as well as for top-spin, although I have unsuccessfully tried to demonstrate this for myself.
It was great watching Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka in their Davis Cup doubles victory. We had a chance to watch two great one-handed backhands, with different finishes to the stroke. Federer finished with a wrist flick, while Wawrinka kept a firm wrist throughout. Despite their differences, both players’ wrists moved only after the ball had left their rackets. They both hit their flat backhands with a rotating shoulder, and their top-spin backhands with a rising socket.
I want to digress briefly to look at the question of gross versus fine motor skills. I suspect that players often rely on their wrists when hitting because it gives them a smaller area, and fewer things to worry about. Hitting a well-developed stroke requires a sequence of controlled steps—a kinetic chain. A casual player may not wish to devote time to learning these skills.
With some children and older beginners, I have to watch that they do not sneak their forefinger behind the handle in an attempt to approximate a mini-Eastern forehand. This is an extreme example of the uncooked pasta mistake, since that forefinger has no flex at all.
Hopefully, we can use these pasta images to work on the flow, the sequence and the kinetic chain of our strokes.
Best wishes for the New Year. Mangia, bon appetite!