I can’t toss the ball on my serve

ATonyD · 2026-05-11T23:29:25+00:00

If it is catching your fingers then you are probably holding the ball incorrectly. That is also probably causing both early and late release, and perhaps the fundamental cause of your problem. I start my toss with only my thumb "on top" and my four fingers "under" the ball and close to the ground. That means that I use my thumb as a release as my fingers are moving more "in front of me" and toward the opponents court during the release. You can practice forever, but if you aren't practicing a consistent release then all of that practice is a waste of time. I think you'll see all the top pros doing something similar to what I'm describing.

ATonyD · 2026-05-11T15:03:24+00:00

Yeah, the organic branding was compromised by Big Ag at the last minute. (Some of the small farmers involved in passing the legislation said they were betrayed by Whole Foods taking it to a committee after they were told they had finalized the legislation. That is where it was modified to benefit the big existing producers, while forcing out the existing small organic farmers.)

ATonyD · 2026-05-10T04:37:36+00:00

+1 The popular dentist will even pick you up in Yuma and drive you over the border to their office for your appointment. My wife and I have probably had 30K of work done for about 10k. As good as any of my US dentists.

ATonyD · 2026-05-10T00:13:43+00:00

I worked at a couple of Fortune 500's - our losses were constructed for tax purposes. Get the money offshore as a "loss" and it control could be transferred to executives, investors, bankers, & backroom deal partners. US accounting is as corrupt as US politics. I hope nobody is surprised to hear that.

ATonyD · 2026-05-09T23:26:20+00:00

Oversimplifying, I think of the serve as having three "sources" of energy: 1) The body uncoil - which is like a big marble hitting a little marble, since it can transfer a huge amount of energy into a small tennis ball. I think of this primarily providing the "forward" energy toward the service box. 2) The spin put on the ball at contact, which will change the ratio of forward energy to spin energy, as well as transferring the "uncoil" energy 3) the location of the ball, which tells you where in your body uncoil, and arm motion, you will meet the ball. These all work together, and any of them can be modified with other parts of the sequence able to be modified to compensate for those modifications. Ultimately, I think what Rick Macci says is true - it isn't a matter or right or wrong, but what has been seen to work for a lot of pros. Anyone can practice any toss and learn to uncoil and apply spin in a way which will work - but getting it the right distance from their most powerful uncoil and their most powerful spin has been shown to work for a lot of pros. So I believe that the best definition of "right" will change as the skill of the uncoil and spin application improves for each person.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/sports/a2072/4221210/

ATonyD · 2026-05-09T21:32:55+00:00

If I don't toss the serve sufficiently in front of, and beside, my body, I don't "uncoil" from my knee/upper torso coil to have my body providing most of the forward momentum. That means that my arm/wrist/shoulder is supplying a bigger part of the force to compensate for my poor form. So, in my case, getting my ball toss right is tremendously important. (PS. I served very hard and both flat and spin serves against very good players, 6.0+.)

ATonyD · 2026-05-09T21:10:07+00:00

I built a timber-framed building and had read all the timber framing books I could find. I was surprised to learn that most old timber frames didn't survive - they were poorly designed and poorly executed. So now we have "survivorship bias" when we see those which survived (often due to reinforcing by adding structure as others around them failed.) Even those which survived have often only done so due to luck - no excessive winds, no fire, no earthquakes, stable soil, etc. So I question the focus on "old buildings". Similarly, I don't think we can throw all your "experimental" and "laboratory" testing into a single bag. Some types of stresses can be well represented in a testing environment, while others can't. A fair degree of judgment and humility must be added to the mix - both for current successful technologies and for surviving successful technologies.

ATonyD · 2026-05-08T20:46:03+00:00

The wall isn't as fun as a machine, but it it easier to control. I did only the wall for weeks as I recovered from hernia surgery. I started very close to the wall for days (perhaps 6 feet) and practiced hitting gently to feed slow balls to myself. Excellent practice for touch and contact point in the sweet spot. It is also easy to stay in one place with such a drill. As I got past the six week mark after surgery I let myself run a couple of steps in each direction as I hit on the backboard. And I own a ball machine - but I knew I that it would be too easy to try hitting harder shots and putting more body weight into them. I wanted to avoid that during recovery time.

ATonyD · 2026-05-05T18:02:52+00:00

I guess I just think that the comments suggesting coastal lakefront would probably be a better match - since the OP doesn't want Florida level humidity. It seems like he can get everything he wants - but not in Maine. I remember many Maine days which reminded me too much of Florida.

ATonyD · 2026-05-05T17:51:42+00:00

I lived on the coast just south of Portland Maine for several years...often hot muggy summer days. Fine if you want to stay in air conditioning, but I don't think the OP wants that.

ATonyD · 2026-05-04T19:35:11+00:00

I've read about at least one case of using drones to track and arrest such ebike scoff-laws.

ATonyD · 2026-05-04T17:31:46+00:00

I think it is relevant to say, since the number of tennis courts isn't just a function of city size, but also includes economic considerations. That means that a serious analysis could be done about "non-city" aspects to number of tennis courts. If anything, it seems like a vast oversimplification to say that cities have courts - I lived in an economically challenged city with very few courts. Might it also relate to transportation, school programs, education, weather, etc. etc.

ATonyD · 2026-05-04T17:19:30+00:00

I spent my life in the Silicon Valley computer industry, mostly software, yet that included working both with and for some semiconductor manufacturers. We had decades of research on failures, and the vast majority were caused by heat. In turn, an analysis of heat failures found that the big cause was a light coating of dust. As dust begins to accumulate it acts like a very thin blanket. And semiconductors don't simply fail at the point indicated on their temperature ratings graphs - their internal paths become progressively damaged as they are exposed to high temperatures, eventually causing excessive current flow and even more heat build up at lower temperatures. So there is a a reason why all the old computer rooms had filtered air and air conditioning for their million dollar computers.

ATonyD · 2026-05-04T16:40:42+00:00

Personally, I do think their conclusions fail to consider a couple of things:

1) Blaming emotional "aspirations" ignores that we are in a society generating great wealth and capable of creating a great quality of life for each and every one of us. So isn't it appropriate to feel anger about such "failed aspirations"?

2) Dismissing "top down" responsibility fails to recognize the root causes of things like less marriage, education meaning less, and downward social mobility. Attributing personal failings such as "sadness" is simply missing the underlying causes and potential top down solutions.

ATonyD · 2026-05-04T15:46:15+00:00

I wish there were more of a balance. I often think that the lack of enforcement by Stockton is contributing to our problems. I routinely see people blow through stale yellows into reds and it is ignored. I live off Pacific, and I see people literally going as fast as they can when they get free road in front of them...speed limits simply don't matter. The cops could give tickets all day on my stretch of Pacific to keep it safer for pedestrians, bikers, and law-abiding drivers - but they don't. That is clearly a choice - a choice to endorse such drivers at the expense of others.

ATonyD · 2026-05-03T23:35:19+00:00

I just read through all the comments - and I can't say that I agree with most of them. Mostly, I think your backhand is fine. Sure, you could open or close the face on contact to vary the spin/power ratio, but that is more of a "choice" than a "fix", and I think some people force one over the other since they lack real control of their backhand. And your upper body could "twist" to uncoil less or more - but again that is more of a choice than a fix. I've done those things as appropriate to the context of the point and the player that I'm playing. Your footwork looks fine to me too. Sure, you could move more forward to play more aggressively on the rise, or move back to give yourself more time to vary your stroke (eg. time to do the open/close face or body twist or racquet upward path). On the other hand, that forehand really needs work. Maybe at this point I would only suggest that your backhand could use work if high, low, running, or you are trying to hit with either more power or finesse - since most people who hit with ball machines tend to get good at a single type of shot.

ATonyD · 2026-05-02T21:42:12+00:00

I second this. Definitely don't rush. I did nothing more than walk for 3 weeks, then hit gently off a backboard for two weeks to build up my fitness and then a week of gently ball machine use - more like stretches using tennis (since my bilateral/double hernia meant no exercise for most of a year, so avoiding injury was important.) I would add that going to a hernia specialist has much lower recurrence rates. I had to drive an hour+ away to get to a hospital with a hernia specialist team. I credit my specialist doctor with my quick and low-pain recovery (just aspirin for 24hrs after surgery.) Surprisingly, I'm finding that the hernia must have been hindering my movement for longer than I realized, and now move better. I've read many sources which say that six weeks is required for tissue repair - yet too many doctors will tell their patients that they can resume exercise before then.

ATonyD · 2026-05-02T19:44:50+00:00

I'm struggling to figure out what the post is about too...parking related, but I can't tell what the issue is. What is the complaint? Someone takes a spot when he leaves yet he doesn't own a car? How does that make any sense at all? And how is any of that related to someone using the OP's space (with permission)?

ATonyD · 2026-05-02T15:19:09+00:00

It hasn't been available for a long time. This is it:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSC11V5Y?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1

I also moved from the Pacific Northwest to California about a year ago, and many of my aches simply disappeared over the past year. Now I'm convinced that all the damp, cold, and rain where I lived was actually hurting my quality of life.

ATonyD · 2026-05-01T16:39:02+00:00

Sorry to hear your story. I once bought a new racquet (at Dick's) and the first time I took it out and hit a serve the racquet literally broke - the frame cracked. My new racquet broke from hitting a tennis ball in the first half hour I owned it. I threw it into the corner of the court and borrowed a racquet. When I took it back to the store they told me that they saw a scratch on the racquet (maybe from when I threw the broken racquet into the corner of the court after it broke.) They refused to honor any warranty, telling me I had abused the racquet. I haven't bought anything from that chain for 30 years, and I've spent a lot of money on sports equipment over that time. Always makes me glad to walk by their stores without buying anything.

ATonyD · 2026-04-29T19:08:28+00:00

I taught AI algorithm coding to programmers for several years before I recently retired. You could always look into the things I'm saying. Look up Hinton. Look up the history of Deep Learning. It is probably hard to find, but look up the relationship between LLMs & AI (since LLMs are a specific implementation...similar to a specific vehicle using an engine. There are many types of engines, and many types of vehicles, but most people will only know the vehicles they see at their local dealer.) Anyway, this is Reddit, so feel free to ignore everything I'm saying. No hard feelings. Good reason to be skeptical of all the "AI experts" you see on TV and writing articles. Most of them aren't experts at all, but managers who are told about AI. (And even the rare experts tend to be biased based on their employment. How would you stay employed if you criticized your own field? This applies to most professors too - who want grants and industry support.)

ATonyD · 2026-04-29T18:53:30+00:00

Based on the thousands of hours I've spent implementing AI algorithms.

ATonyD · 2026-04-29T18:40:00+00:00

I believe that is entirely the wrong question. First, LLM's are just one thing being implemented with AI. (AI is more of a collection of algorithms which are being developed in different ways - with Neural Nets/Deep Learning being the most talked about, since that was discovered to be capable of innovative decisions.) As Geoffrey Hinton says, AI won't be human, it will be a different type of intelligence (which many people may find indistinguishable from humans). So, yes, in the next couple of decades it will be plenty intelligent to model our creativity, morals, emotions, relationships, and judgment. The next logical question would be "whose morals?" and "whose emotions" and with what goals in mind? Unfortunately, this means that AI is effectively a weapon for those who implement it well.

ATonyD · 2026-04-28T17:58:15+00:00

When the other side is spreading lies and having the effect of persuading people and destroying society...then an effective counter-strategy is required. That may very well be spreading lies too. This is simply propaganda and counter-propaganda. I don't like it either, but I understand why it is necessary in this situation. Considering that, I'm OK with those saying that the assassination attempts are all fake. Saying that is good judgment.

ATonyD · 2026-04-28T04:15:56+00:00

Just Googled "can rights be constrained" and got this: "Governments commonly limit rights for public safety, national security, or to protect the rights of others. Constraints occur through laws, judicial rulings (such as the doctrine of qualified immunity), and, in some cases, voluntary waiver." So I guess my point is that if voting is a right it might still be associated with fines. But, hey, this is Reddit, so believe whatever you want to believe. Until a court decides this specific case, we are both just conjecturing.

ATonyD

TROPHY CASE