MORE POWER TO YOU

By Lawrence Tabak.

Illustrations by Stuart Bradford.

Tennis is a sport currently fixated on power. It’s not enough to watch a great serve on television — spectators expect to have it reported in miles per hour. Young players learning the game seem to master ferocious ground strokes before they’ve memorized their multiplication tables. Those of us reared on wood rackets, delicate slice backhands, and the value of touch often are left agog as the younger generation bashes balls past us left and right. So we asked some of the top experts in the country: "If we can’t beat ’em, can we join ’em?"

We started by asking whether adding power to a mature game is a realistic goal, or is it just a fanciful notion, an impossible quest for a sports Fountain of Youth. After all, shouldn’t players be hitting softer as they get older rather than harder?

World-famous tennis guru and teacher-of-teachers Dennis Van der Meer is quick to get to the heart of the issue.

"Sure, most older players can hit harder," he says. "But without the proper technique, more power may mean more errors."

The first step, he says, is to assess the player who is interested in putting more zip on their shots. Dennis Munroe, tennis director at Eagle’s Landing Country Club near Atlanta, notes that "power is basically racket head speed." So the question becomes, is this a player who has the potential to generate more racket head speed?

"Some players have what we can call a hot arm," Van der Meer says. "For serving potential, I’ll often ask a student to throw a ball from the baseline over the net. If he or she can zing it into the far backstop, I know we’ve got a lot to work with. If the throw doesn’t get to the net, we might either have little hope or a lot of fundamental skill work ahead."

Nony Michulka has worked with a lot of recreational players at Canyon Creek Country Club near Dallas, where she is director of tennis. She seconds this notion. "A lot depends on the student’s strength and athleticism. Adult players with strong sports backgrounds are going to have a head start. Still, we’re talking degrees. A great athlete might be able to add 50 percent to their service velocities with better technique and lots of work. Other players may be able to add 10 percent."

Still, 10 percent might be just what a player needs to step up his or her game a level. So where should the project begin?

GETTING STARTED
Rick Workman, tennis director at East Lake Woodlands Country Club near Clearwater, Florida, believes in doing the easiest work first.

"Start with equipment," he advises. "Newer rackets have advanced technology that clearly adds power over older rackets. At the risk of oversimplifying, go for a larger head, wider frame, longer length, and looser strings."

Michulka adds that even relatively new frames can be underperforming if they have old, dull strings or have hit too many balls, which can gradually fatigue even today’s space-age materials.

The next stage gets a bit tougher. Ever wonder how that bite-size 70-pound 11-year-old at the club can hit cannon-like forehands? It’s called technique. Think of a tennis stroke as a whip. With the proper flick, it is possible to get the tip of that whip to actually break the sound barrier. An efficient tennis stroke also uses a kenetic chain to build up energy that ends up moving the racket at a high rate of speed at the moment of contact. But rather than get mired in the technical, it’s best to seek professional help at this stage.

"We see a lot of players who get decent racket head speed on service swings," says Phil Lancaster, head tennis professional at Canyon Creek Country Club. "The problem is that they get maximum speed after the point of contact." Clearly, this is akin to trying to steer a golf drive with body English. "Players have to learn that the power phase of the swing occurs in the backswing."

Munroe sees the same thing at Eagle’s Landing in Georgia. "Many club players only have a foot or so before they hit a serve. They need to learn to have more flex, to extend the racket farther behind them, so there is more room to accelerate."

BREAKING BAD HABITS
Another factor that Florida’s Workman emphasizes is fighting against some of the tendencies of players who are trying to boost power.

"The first thing players do when attempting to add power is to try to muscle the ball, which typically starts with putting a death grip on the racket," he says. "If you clutch and tighten up you’re doomed to frustration."

Since racket head acceleration requires flexibility, players need to stay loose and relaxed. Workman suggests that players keep a loose grip as they wind up for a serve and only grasp tightly at the moment of contact. Signs that a player is "muscling" the ball? A compact, pushy swing, a stroke that seems to be all arm and no body, or a hand and forearm that show signs of fatigue by the end of an hour of play.

Whether it’s a forehand, backhand, or serve, more power means the racket must be moving faster at contact. Optimum power requires optimum technique. It begins with proper torso rotation, which can be thought of as winding a spring. The racket must transcribe a path that allows it to build up speed — most modern players use an elliptical backswing on forehands to allow for continuous racket movement. Weight transfer, which involves rotation as well as forward movement, must be timed just right, and the contact point has to be in front of the body to allow all of these factors time to work their way down to the head of the racket. The result can be an explosive shot.

THE ESSENTIALS
Which brings us back to Van der Meer’s original point about the benefits — and potential liabilities — of more power.

"Every player who has even a modest amount of power needs to learn how to hit with spin," he says. "A slice serve is just essential. It’s not difficult to learn, it allows a player to control power, and it can be very effective even at lower speeds in pulling a player off the court. On ground strokes, power without spin, preferably topspin, might be of little value, if the added power simply results in additional errors."

Experienced teaching professionals occasionally can find a "quick fix" for players seeking more power, especially for those who haven’t had much professional coaching. Typically these will be players with a great throwing motion who haven’t yet incorporated this skill into their tennis serves. But even these players will need plenty of practice to harness this newfound energy.

Tennis enthusiasts with the motivation almost always can add power with training and practice. But Michulka cautions that emulating that little kid with the big shots might be dangerous. While that perfect technique and exquisite timing is worth admiring, she notes that the average club player might not be able to replicate an important piece of the formula, which results in those envy-producing, reliable bullets. What’s the missing piece? "Three hours of hitting a day."

Lawrence Tabak rues the new radar gun recently acquired by his club, which locks up on two digits on his serve, even though it provides three digits for almost every kid on the local high school squad.