ETI 018 | The Heavy Ball

You almost have it right but I want to offer something I’ve felt or experienced which leads me to another theory. I believe the ball itself actually absorbs and retains energy. In other words a ball that is hit hard by a very strong person is going to go over the net with that person’s strength transferred to the ball and that ball has more pent up energy than a ball smacked very fast by a small weaker person. When the haevy ball hits the ground or the opponents raquet on a volley, the energy releases and is transfered to an explosive bounce back in the other direction.
I developed this theory partially when I started to notice that a guy who’s heavy spin hit my raquet got some of his own spin back when I returned his shot.
Bottom line, I think the ball actually absorbs and retains energy and that energy is created by the strength and power of the hitter.
Just look at a real powerful man swinging very slowly at a golf ball the travels 300 yards where the clubhead speed of a small guy might be much faster, their is no power.

I had a good day today and noticed that I was hitting the ball hard but with less effort both on forehand and backhand.
I was wondering why was I suddenly hitting the way I did 15 years ago, with little effort but lots of zip and came to the conclusion that it was because I was totally focused on the ball and did not look where I wanted the ball to go.

I think as usual that you make a very good point. People tell me that I tend to hit a heavy ball and yet I know I don’t swing that hard. I do try to provide some momentum on my followthru but I am not sure myself if this is what makes my returns “heavy” or not. Yet what you say makes all kinds of good sense. Best, Bud Light

Can you swing slow and hit hard? If all you do is swinging the racquet by your arm, no way. But if you know the physics of a tennis hit, it is possible.
Just create rotation in a body that possesses a significant momentum of inertia (your body) and transfer this rotation to a body that possesses a much smaller momentum of inertia (the racquet). A slow rotation of your body creates a fast rotation of your racquet according to the law of preservation of an angular momentum. A fast racquet makes a fast ball. A light fast ball possesses a significant momentum, equivalent to that of a heavyt slow ball. So the player on the receiving side feels hitting a heavy ball.

There’s heavy and then there’s real heavy. Real heavy balls have lots of spin as well as ball speed. The spin contains addition rotational momentum that must be overcome AND controlled to make a decent return. To further complicate things, a heavy top spin ball must have the topspin momentum completely reversed to be returned with a topspin ground stroke. There’s other issues with flat and slice returns. If that isn’t complicated enough, small variations of spin intensity and rotational axis can be hard to read and deal with consistently.

This is where the term/feature of ‘pocketing’ comes into play. String sets and tensions that give a good pocketing feel help grab and control the heavy balls to allow quality heavy ball returns.

Hi Jim ,

Momentum is mass times velocity, right? Since the mass of the tennis ball stays the same, saying that a shot has more momentum is the same as saying it’s faster, isn’t it? The same thing would be true when you talk about the momentum of the racket head, I think.

I think you’re right about the psychological factor, because I can’t see any other variables in a moving tennis ball other than

1)trajectory
2)speed (before and after bounce)
3)spin

Would love to hear more about this from someone with a physics background.

Anyway, thanks Jim!

Hi Jim,

Yes I do think about the percussion aspect of my hitting because there is nuance and within that there is information , it’s feedback that comes down the racquet the same as it does through the drum stick.

In a slightly abstract parallel I started to think of the tennis ball as being the tip of the drum stick and the string bed as being the “drum head”.

The most “bounce back” is found in the middle of the head where the trampoline effect is optimal but out nearer the edge of the head is where a lot of control is to be found and where the most delicate “buzz rolls” are played or subtle ghost notes and so on.

Because of the lesser trampoline effect nearer the edge you can get the stick to dance tirelessly with absolute control.

I’m still assimilating all of this, it’s early days so it may only have limited mileage but when serving in tennis recently, I softened my grip right off as I started to hit up on the ball to create topspin and I found that just slightly higher up the string bed, nearer the top edge, came a whole lot more accuracy.

I have been told by a couple of opponents that the ball is now more awkward and consistently heavy to deal with. I have also begun to try this with my ground shots and found a similar result.

To my mind the so called “Sweet spot” on the racquet as on the snare drum may vary according to what it is you require of your racquet but I find that a brutally struck tennis ball usually returns very disappointing results

The soft grip seems to be partly the key as with the drum stick it facilitates what drummers know as the fulcrum effect which means that the stick does all the work not the wrist.

If you want to see this in action then watch the late Buddy Rich in full flight, that’s the fulcrum effect!!

Maybe this sounds too far fetched to some but a free moving drum stick or racquet is better behaved than one which is gripped too firmly.

I have just out of interest put a link here to an expert breaking down Buddy’s stick technique and the relevance of all of this to me, is not that far removed as it may seem.

Kind regards Jim

Danny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0jLlUAXSA0&feature=related

Jim,

Heavy ball analysis is nice.
Roger and Rafa hit very heavy balls and balls jump off the court.
Back in 80s Ivan Lendl hit a very heavy ball but that was a kind of ball shot through the court.
How do you compare the heaviness here ?

Thanks!!

Heavy balls are definitely not an illusion. I have known individuals who hit a heavy ball consistently. I believe that you get a heavy ball by contacting the ball early in your stoke with an extremely light grip. Additionally, you hit the ball on the bottom portion of the racquet, not the sweet spot. Since your hand is pronating at contact, the bottom portion of the racquet is actually pivoting away from the ball so there is little or no collision with the ball. Additionally, although the racquet is not moving very fast early in the stroke, it is accelerating very quickly. This allows you to impart more energy to the ball and to impart it over a slightly longer period of contact. This is quite easy to do on the serve, but much more difficult to do on groundstrokes. If you get the timing perfectly it feels as though you sling the ball in rather than hit it

I had the privilege to hit with my all-time favorite tennis Pete Sampras in 1994 in Philadelphia, PA. It was during the tournament in Philadelphia that Pete always played because it was the place where he won his first professional tournament. Later that summer, Pete won his first Grand Slam title at the US Open in 1990.

I was able to hit with Pete, as they were doing a commercial for ESPN, and Pete was already there for the tournament, and they asked Pete, Malavia Washington and the Jensen brothers to participate. When Pete showed up at the Riverside Club in Bala Cynwid in Philadelphia, they asked me and another teaching pro if we would return balls to Pete as they filmed him.

I realized after hitting with him just how heavy Pete’s ball was, compared with other pros, like Malavia Washington, who I also hit with that week. Pete used a very heavy racquet, the Wilson Pro Staff, and also put lead tape on it. He used it during his entire career, and this worked well because it meant that the collision with Pete’s racquet was so heavy in meeting the ball that it was more effective than that of others on the tour.

By comparison, it’s like a train going down the track and having a colllision with a tractor trailer truck. The train is going to win every time because of the solid mass. When you take into consideration Pete’s heavy racquet meeting the tennis ball, the end result is the ball coming off the racquet much heavier than that of any other players on tour.

I had the opportunity to work at the Don Budge Tennis Camp back in 1972. On the first day of camp, I was feeding balls to Don Budge so he could demonstrate his incredible drive backhand to all of his campers. He was 57 years old at the time, and he was still competing in senior events. When I attempted to volley his shots, it felt like a flying brick had hit my racket! His swing was incredibly smooth and effortless, and yet the tennis ball felt extremely heavy. I believe your analysis as to the importance of perception is quite sound.

Sincerely,

Norman Ashbrooke

Hey Jim, good tips on the heavy ball! We in Europe playing on clay courts are very big on trying to achieve a heavy ball on groundstrokes.

I see the key in focusing all your energy – from your whole body! – into the ball which of course you hit with pace and spin as you mentioned.

The ball is not heavy when one hits it with the arm and doesn’t know how to connect the arm with the energy generated in the body (namely using the ground and rotation).

I read that Pete Sampras hit the heaviest tennis serve ever. This was due to hitting up through the ball (pronating). The spin of the ball was filmed and no one today comes close to that much spin.