Lawn Tennis and How to Play It

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 234, 22 December 1927, Page 9

Lawn Tennis and How to Play It

By RENE LACOSTE (Exclusive to THE SUE) XI SPEED AND SPIN IN THE FOREHAND DRIVE All the experts use for ihe forehand * w * ns ' whi ? h very similar to that of the service, but most of them Johnston is one of the exceptions—use less back swing, sacrificing lorce. to some extent, for the sake of getting better control and more perfect timing’. I 1 or a beginner, it is always better to learn first to use a shorter swing, which, of course, can be increased later if necessary. The swing starts, in either case, with the preparatory swing which brings the racquet away from the idle hand and upwards and backwards behind the player s back. Suzanne Lenglen makes a noticeable pause at the end of this part of the swing in order to get control; most players however get this, not by a. pause, but by shortening the back swing. They bring the racquet head only slightly back, downward to the left, with bent elbow and wrist. Then they start the upward and forward swing of the stroke.

If the stroke is to be a straight one, the swing in the action of striking must be horizontal, played with a straight arm. If you want to play with good style, you must always strike the ball at the same distance from your body: that is to say, as far as you can reach with the arm nearly straight. Be careful, too, not to strike either too soon or too late; you should strike, as most of the experts do, just before the ball comes on a line with your body.

In serving, you will have appreciated the difficulty of timing your stroke. In play, when the ball is moving, this difficulty is still greater. The great thing in overcoming it, of course, is to watch the ball: then you must calculate how long it will take to reach the point at which you must strike it. KEEP RACKET VERTICAL The racket should be kept vertical, spin being imparted, not by an alteration of the plane of the striking surface, but by the upward or downward direction of the racket as it meets the ball and by the direction of the follow-through. Speed in the forehand stroke, like speed in the service, comes from the rate at which the racket is brought to meet the ball. Johnston, for instance, who is of all living players, the one who gets the best momentum into a really heavy racket, uses a very long, full swing, and steadily increases speed until he hits the ball with a peculiar flick of the wrist. Most players, however, lack sufficient confidence in their timing to use so long a as Johnston’s and rely, like Williams, more on body and shoulder rotation, or, like Cochet, on shifting forward the weight of the body.

Speed, in fact, is best obtained from a combination of momentum of the racket, body rotation and the proper use of weight, together with the wrist action which is used noticeably by Washer and Cochet and to an even more marked degree by Johnston and Tilden. When the stroke begins, the weight of the body is on the right foot. Just before the impact it passes on to the left or forward foot, at the same moment that the shoulder comes well forward. You must not neglect this shifting of the weight, for if you rely as Williams does, mainly on body rotation, you will get speed but lose control of direction. THE FOLLOW THROUGH The follow-through, also, is vitally important. Most authorities say that in the follow-through you should keep the arm even straighter than in the stroke itself. I am afraid I do not agree with this counsel. I would say of the follow-through in the forehand stroke that, instead of trying to reach out further than you did in the stroke itself, you should grip your racket tight to counteract the throwback of the strings as they hit the ball: then advance the shoulder; and finally throw yourself forward in the drection of your run. If your followthrough is good, you should, like Cochet, almost fall on your face at the end of it.

I have already explained how the various spins are affected by the way you grip your racket. To impart top spin to a forehand stroke, start the stroke as for a straight drive but strike upward. Generally speaking, the back swing should come lower and the follow-through higher than in a horizontal drive. Most players, Washer, Kinsey and Soumarakof, for example, increase their top spin by turning the racket surface with a movement of the wrist, but it is unwise to rely on this wrist action to do more than increase the top spin already imparted by the choice of stroke. . The chop stroke is quite distinct from the undercut drive, being rather an American slice service played at various heights; on a ball in play. The stroke starts very high over the body, meets the ball ahead of the body, pushing rather than striking it, and finishes very low in front of the body. As Miss Ryan and IT. Kinsey play it, it can be a very useul stroke, but it is never as reliable as a good drive and should only be learnt as a variation. Most beginners find difficulty in varying the direction of their forehand strokes, playing well only to one side o£ die court. They try changing their swing and using different wrist action, but they remain helpless when they want to drive to the other side of the court. They do not realise that the change to he made is not in the stroke action, but in the position of the feet. For a drive across the court, the feet must be turned so that the body faces more towards the net and the ball must be struck a little earlier, more in front of the body. Next Week: The Backhand Stroke.