The Rosewall Skidder?

[hoodjem]

Laver used to complain about a particular Rosewall backhand shot, he called "the skidder."

Laver said he hated this shot because the ball did not come up. It would stay very low and and skid--not bounce. He said that if he could get to it and hit it all, he had to "hit it off my shoelaces".

With my regular hitting partner hitting lots of deep, high-bouncing topspins to my one-handed backhand, I am forced to slice the ball back. (And I have gotten pretty good at it, I do admit.) But my slices seem to sit up, and don't have any of that fabled Rosewall skid quality.

Does anyone know how I can learn to hit a "Rosewall skidder"?

[pc1]

Originally Posted by hoodjem

Laver used to complain about a particular Rosewall backhand shot, he called "the skidder."

Laver said he hated this shot because the ball did not come up. It would stay very low and and skid--not bounce. He said that if he could get to it and hit it all, he had to "hit it off my shoelaces".

With my regular hitting partner hitting lots of deep, topspins to my backhand, I am forced to slice the ball back. (And I have gotten pretty good at it, I will admit.) But my slices seem to sit up, and don't have any of that fabled Rosewall skid quality.

Does anyone know how I can learn to hit a "Rosewall skidder"?

Sorry I think it was patented by that Australian born in 1934.

Incidentally since I have a one handed backhand I pretend every slightly sliced backhand I hit is something Rosewall would have hit. Probably never succeeded in real life.

Hoodjem, in all seriousness I occasionally hit with a friend who played singles on her college team. She is a terrific player but she actually hit sort of a Rosewall skidder with her forehand. It's super hard to return until you have hit against it a few times and a super pain in the neck when she uses it as an approach shot. She has a terrific topspin forehand too but that basically flat slightly sliced skidding forehand is unbelievable. I don't know how she does it. It goes over the net by inches, sometimes inch fractions and she rarely misses on that shot.

Hoodjem, maybe you should try to flatten your backhand out a little. The extra penetration may make it skid.

[LeeD]

Not easy, especially off a hard shot bouncing high to you.
1. Stay solid, all body parts forward or stable.
2. Fully turn, more than normal, your upper body.
3. Hard forceful high to low stroke, with all your body weight behind it.
4. For me, best to use a conti grip with a SLIGHT eFOREhand flavor, taken very late, almost level with my hitting shoulder.
5. Targeted height is 1' over the net. The ball needs enough spin and ball speed to land into NML.
6. Full followthru across your body and low to add some sidespin to the underspin.
No 5 is the key, you have to slice hard and low over the net, but hard enough so the low net clearing ball goes all the way to at least NML.
For most good players who can hit this shot, it comes and goes depending on who you are playing, and of course how you're playing.

[treblings]

to make your slice stay lower, try changing your grip more to the forehand side.
it helps to use a really flexible frame with low string tension. the deepest slice i can hit is with my old wooden rackets

[ahuimanu]

Originally Posted by hoodjem

Laver used to complain about a particular Rosewall backhand shot, he called "the skidder."

Laver said he hated this shot because the ball did not come up. It would stay very low and and skid--not bounce. He said that if he could get to it and hit it all, he had to "hit it off my shoelaces".

With my regular hitting partner hitting lots of deep, high-bouncing topspins to my one-handed backhand, I am forced to slice the ball back. (And I have gotten pretty good at it, I do admit.) But my slices seem to sit up, and don't have any of that fabled Rosewall skid quality.

Does anyone know how I can learn to hit a "Rosewall skidder"?

My old school hitting partner hits a great slice "skidder" which most of us at our club are trying to emulate. He has the classic continental on the backhand, strikes it flat and pushes the head thru the ball and cuts the ball with backspin (varies from top-down or with slight side spin too).

Am an old school player too and rely on the "Rosewall" style slice but my footwork isn't as clean as it use to be so its more like a side slice (how Fed works it). I find having a racquet that is correctly weighted (head) and strung on the medium side helps greatly to counter act the heavy balls of today's players (neutralize in coming shot and have the head to some of the work). When you're body weight is into the shot with the correct technique you'll see the ball hit the court and stay low making it difficult for your opponent to 1) dig it out and 2) make an offensive shot...am actually trying to develop a solid slice forehand too Signed: constantly working on it...

[BeHappy]

If you've ever played on an artificial grass tennis court(worst surface in the world) that is slightly damp every good slice (very low over the net, lots of spin) reacts like this.

I've never played on real grass, maybe it's the same there? It is almost unplayable.

Rafter was very good at getting his slices unbelievably low.

[slowfox]

Was Rosewall's more of a drive slice? And what about Graf's?

[Mike Bulgakov]

This is a very effective shot against the extreme Western forehand grips common today. The key is to hit through the shot and not impart too much slice.

[powerslave]

Well the only way you can get close to hitting a shot like Rosewall's skidder is to play on grass courts of the type prepared in those days, remember all old players alluding to how the grass courts in those days had this horrible inconsistent bounce ? Also the balls were smaller and bounced relatively lesser in those days (the old white ones). Then you have the rackets too, a modern racket with a large headsize and strung with poly will bite the ball so the slice will have a lot of underspin than what is needed for a shot that skids off the court, for latter you need to hit the ball flatter with just a hint of underspin and not the modern slice which tends to have a lot of under/side spin.

[TomT]

Originally Posted by hoodjem

Laver used to complain about a particular Rosewall backhand shot, he called "the skidder."

Laver said he hated this shot because the ball did not come up. It would stay very low and and skid--not bounce. He said that if he could get to it and hit it all, he had to "hit it off my shoelaces".

With my regular hitting partner hitting lots of deep, high-bouncing topspins to my one-handed backhand, I am forced to slice the ball back. (And I have gotten pretty good at it, I do admit.) But my slices seem to sit up, and don't have any of that fabled Rosewall skid quality.

Does anyone know how I can learn to hit a "Rosewall skidder"?

Sounds like you're just slicing the ball too much. The skidder is a just slightly undercut drive, not a long 'drop shot', and it doesn't sit up ... it skids, stays very low, doesn't lose much pace, and presents difficulties for most (at least most rec) players.

So, I would guess that the recipe for hitting it is to start by hitting flat backhands, and then just experiment with undercutting them slightly to produce the skidding effect, but not so much that they float and sit up.

[Limpinhitter]

Originally Posted by slowfox

Was Rosewall's more of a drive slice? And what about Graf's?

Rosewall could hit his backhand with heavy underspin to nearly flat and everything in between. Graf hit a heavy slice backhand much more often than Rosewall. In fact, I can't picture Graf hitting a drive slice. Instead, she did come over the ball on occasion which Rosewall never did.

[hoodjem]

Originally Posted by TomT

Sounds like you're just slicing the ball too much. The skidder is a just slightly undercut drive, not a long 'drop shot', and it doesn't sit up ... it skids, stays very low, doesn't lose much pace, and presents difficulties for most (at least most rec) players.

Yes, I am probably hitting with too much slice, and not enough drive.

Originally Posted by TomT

So, I would guess that the recipe for hitting it is to start by hitting flat backhands, and then just experiment with undercutting them slightly to produce the skidding effect, but not so much that they float and sit up.

Oh no. If I start hitting flat backhands, I may un-do all the hard work I have put in to learn to hit topspin backhands. (I was taught to hit back in the sixties, when the chip approach was the rage.)

[Frank Silbermann]

Rosewall had the best control of anyone in his era. His backhand skidded because he could hit it fairly hard by skimming the net and having it land just barely in -- consistently.

[droliver]

That type of shot is more a function of the poor quality of the grass surfaces and the technique took advantage of it. I think today his shot just looks like an average slice backhand. If you watch old clips of it, I'm not sure you can reproduce it when you have courts with true bounces.

[ced]

Originally Posted by ahuimanu

My old school hitting partner hits a great slice "skidder" which most of us at our club are trying to emulate. He has the classic continental on the backhand, strikes it flat and pushes the head thru the ball and cuts the ball with backspin (varies from top-down or with slight side spin too)...................

This is the key to hitting the "skidder" ...... always w/ OHBH

[hoodjem]

Originally Posted by droliver

That type of shot is more a function of the poor quality of the grass surfaces and the technique took advantage of it. I think today his shot just looks like an average slice backhand. If you watch old clips of it, I'm not sure you can reproduce it when you have courts with true bounces.

Nope. Muscles hit it on clay, indoors, and on cement. It's not a grass only shot.

[ahuimanu]

...watching the US Open final... Murray's got a pretty good backhand skidder... he hit a couple of nice ones (inside out) in the 4 and 5th sets to elict a Djokovic error or two...Djokovic uses more arm instead of leaning on the shot so his backhand slice tends to sits up...great match!

[rkelley]

The modern slice is a bit different than the shot that Rosewall hit. The modern slice has both back and side spin (in varying amounts). It has good pace (for a slice), stays low, can have a lot of curve, and you're never quite sure when it's going to finally land and bounce. The biggest downside is that you have to get it low over the net, so there's not a lot of margin.

Here's a good tutorial on the modern slice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II7Wo0y6fC8

[FiveO]

hoodjem,

I copied this from a post I made in a thread from 2010 that got some positive feedback. I know you know this already, but here it is:

Here's a gif of Rosewall's driven slice:



Check the height of his hitting hand from takeback to contact to followthrough. While he demonstrates the classic "U" shaped swing for slice his hand doesn't stray too far above the intended contact point in either the take back or the followthrough. IOW it's a very flat U shaped swing. In an attempt to impart backspin, many players employ an exaggeratedly high take back with their playing hand above shoulder height, even though they are going to make contact at about hip level. That high a takeback sets up for a much more severe downward path of the forward swing, describing nearer a right angle between the path of the ball and the path of the swing. That severe an angle creates a very narrow window requiring exceptional timing for clean contact. The faster the incoming ball the more precise the timing will have to be with a very severe downward motion. Again look at how compact and quiet Rosewall's stroke is, look at the hitting hand, not the racket head. Note how "flat" Rosewall's U-shaped path is.

This link draws a distintion between the example of Rosewall vs. Federer. Compare the flatness of Rosewall's playing hand to Federer's "relative chopping motion" and to yours.

http://www.tenniscruz.com/content/view/27/9/

2) Dr. Jack Groppel, PhD, a tennis coach who bases alot of his coaching on science states in "High Tech Tennis" that if the trajectory or ball flight from the strings to the bounce hit with underspin strikes the court surface at an angle of 45 degrees or greater, the rebound will tend to be greater than that and that in inverse is true at incoming angles less than 45.

For example a ball which impacts the court at 55 degrees will rebound at an angle of 65 degrees, where everything else being equal a ball impacting the court at 30 degrees will rebound at 28 degrees.

<edit> also, be mindful of how open the racket face is on contact, no matter how "flat" the U-shaped swing path is if the racket face is too open (facing the sky) that player's slice will tend to float and sit up. While not purely square (90 degrees to the court surface) it should be closer to 90 than 45 or less, depending on the amount of pace applied to a given shot.

5

[TennisCJC]

I am not expert on how to hit it but I saw him play live in a small arena. It was a tour of seniors with Laver, Rosewall, Drysdale, McMillian, Stewart and a couple of others.

Rosewall's bachhand did not have as much spin (slice) as most pros hit today. It was more of a flat drive with a hint of slice.

Most of the courts during Rosewall's and Laver's prime were fast. All the slams were grass except the French.

I would think Rosewall's BH hit hard with little spin would have a very low bounce on the grass courts.

He also hit it surprisingly hard. He could drive a passing shot by a net rusher with it.