The World Center for Japanese Tennis (WCJT) is located at: 604 Tremont Street, Mauston, WI 53948, Tel: 608 847 5625, email: jtennis@jvlnet.com. WCJT promotes and teaches tennis as individual and mutually exclusive stickhandling systems (SHS) of Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Chris Evert, Monica Seles, Steffi Graf, and Francoise Durr. None of these individuals have anything to do with Jtennis except WCJT associates admit to having seen the individuals hit tennis balls on television in Wisconsin. Jtennis is one man’s view of somebody else’s tennis.

OVERVIEW OF JTENNIS

There is a subtlety in the way John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg use a tennis racket on a tennis court that is often mistaken for genius. It is not genius. The subtlety is something peculiar that Borg does with his fingers and hands on a tennis racket. It is the Borg Peculiarity. John McEnroe has his own peculiarity.

Peculiarities (twitches) are the basis for teaching jtennis. Stroke production and style on a tennis court evolve to accommodate a grip. Within each grip there is a peculiar twitch. Twitches are responsible for most conventional wisdom tennis instruction being misdirected . Twitches don’t mix. In Jtennis, the terms Eastern, Western, and Continental grips are irrelevant. Jtennis concentrates on those twitches that work better than most and don’t require strength.

JTENNIS TIPS FROM ISIKAWA

Never, necessarily, believe anything anyone says about how to use a tennis racket to hit a ball called a tennis ball.

Eventually, someone was bound to hold onto a tennis racket using the McEnroe twitch. John McEnroe was lucky. He did it first.

Bjorn Borg dropped his hockey stick before he got to a tennis court and picked up a tennis racket. Borg’s hockey twitch followed him to Wimbledon.

John McEnroe is not a genius. The 14-year- old boy or girl who can do on purpose what John McEnroe did by mistake is a genius.

If a million monkeys were put on center court at Wimbledon and given tennis rackets, one would eventually start handling the racket like Bjorn Borg with a tail.

To use a tennis racket like John McEnroe it is essential not to hold onto the racket like Vic Braden or his friend Jack Kramer.

There is a natural tendency not to hold onto a tennis racket like Borg or McEnroe. This tendency can be overcome.

BORG VERSUS McENROE

Someone who had seen a lot of tennis said that Bjorn Borg's tennis game lacked diversity and that’s why it was so good. If a lack of diversity means Borg dumped his net game and simply devoted his time to hitting from low to high with topspin on his grounds strokes, then Borg had a diversity rating close to zero. But Borg's stickhandling technique showed a diversity that made McEnroe's stickhandling simplistic. Borg had two different grips on his two-handed backhand side and one on his forehand side for a total of three. Plus he had an involved grip change that makes dealing from the bottom of a deck of cards seem simple. John McEnroe had one grip for all occasions.

John McEnroe's lack of diversity was in his grip not his game. McEnroe used one grip for all occasions to drive a diversity in his game that Borg could not approach. It's peculiar that Borg's diversity in his grips caused a lack of diversity in his game. Borg dropped to the level of his competitors at the net. His ground strokes, which took so long to execute because of his grips, made it difficult for him to get to the net. And he wasn't very handy when he got there. Stickhandling peculiarities drive tennis styles. Borg and McEnroe are no exceptions.

STEFFI GRAF VERSUS CONVENTIONAL WISDOM TENNIS

In June of 1991 before too many people were worried about Y2K computer problems, the editor of a tennis magazine and a gentleman who had won Wimbledon were worried about Steffi Graf and her backhand. The editor thought Graf did not use her topspin backhand enough, and the gentleman thought she hit her sliced backhand too close to her body.

Eight years later after winning the French Open and being a finalist at Wimbledon, it was apparent that Steffi Graf had paid no attention to the tennis lesson that some might have paid good money for.

Steffi Graf does not hit a backhand drive with the economy of effort of a McEnroe or Evert. It's tough work for Graf. And Graf's backhand slice, if hit farther from her body, would require a grip change that would probably make her topspin forehand drive fall apart. Steffi Graf's athleticism counts for something. But without her unique stickhandling system which gave her an effortlessly sliced backhand and devastating topspin forehand, she might have made a good magazine editor or tennis player whose backhand didn't produce the number of Wimbledon or French Open championships that Graf's did. Stickhandling peculiarities drive tennis styles. Graf's tendency to limit her backhand to a slice and hit with her hand closer to her body than others was locked into a peculiar grip. The grip in stickhandling systems drives styles. Steffi Graf is no exception.

JAPANESE TENNIS TERMINOLOGY

JAPANESE TENNIS: Japanese tennis is a system that teaches tennis as individual stickhandling systems of Bjorg Borg, John McEnroe, and a few others. The systems don't mix. They are mutually exclusive due to gripping peculiarities which lock Borg out of the McEnroe style and McEnroe out of the Borg style. Gripping peculiarities make much conventional tennis instruction irrelevant. The use of CW terminology such as Eastern, Western, or Continental grips is obsolete.

JTENNIS: Jtennis is the same as Japanese Tennis. It distinguishes itself from conventional wisdom tennis (CWtennis).

GRIP: The grip is the conventional wisdom tennis term for how an individual puts a hand or two on a tennis racket. CWtennis talks about Eastern, Western, and Continental grips. Something in between the three grips are said to be semi-this or modified-that. Jtennis uses the term peculiarity instead of grip, e.g. the McEnroe peculiarity. Stroke production on a tennis court evolves to accommodate the grip. In Jtennis, the CWtennis terms, Eastern, Western, and Continental are obsolete.

TIV: The TIV is something that looks like a "V" on a hand where the thumb and index finger join. Everyone has a TIV. When a hand is placed on a tennis racket, the TIV is there someplace. The TIV has been used for years in CWtennis to locate a hand on a tennis racket. It still is. The TIV is not useful in Jtennis.

PECULIARITY: There is a peculiar way John McEnroe uses his hand on a tennis racket. It's the McEnroe peculiarity. Borg has one, too. Peculiarities are peculiar to the individual. Peculiarities don't mix. Most peculiarities, the good ones, are simply lucky mistakes that work better than most. In Jtennis only those peculiarities that don’t require exceptional arm strength are taught.

TWITCH: The twitch is the same as the peculiarity. Twitch is easier to pronounce and more descriptive.

SIGNATURE: Signature is style on a tennis court. It's the general manner of play that can be seen. It is macro-tennis versus the micro-tennis of the peculiarity. Signature is everything that characterizes stoke production and can be seen with the eye. The signature evolves to accommodate the peculiarity. Trying to change the signature without changing the peculiarity will cause the stickhandling system to crash or result in tennis-elbow, a bad back, or worse, rebellion.

SAM: SAM is a strong-armed-male who originated CWtennis. SAM played and still plays one-handed tennis. He has one arm twice as big as the other. SAM's signature on a tennis court was a sliced backhand and lots of net play. Recently SAM has learned how to use a topspin drive. But, in contrast to John McEnroe, it requires lots of strong-armed effort.

CHANGE OF GRIP: A grip change occurs when the hand or fingers move to a different location on the handle of a tennis racket or when part of the hand or some fingers don’t move but do something they didn’t do before. The grip change, if it exits, is an integral part of each stickhandling system's peculiarity. The change is a trick of the trade and unique to each peculiarity. Grip changes are a virtual black art unless they are viewed as a part of a particular stickhandling system. Some people don’t change grips. They flex a wrist, flick a wrist, bend an elbow, straighten an elbow, rotate an arm, or move the entire body to accommodate a peculiarity.

A HITCH IN THE TWITCH: Many stickhandling systems in Japanese Tennis have problems (hitches). The problems are related to individual twitches that cause Connors to lack pace in his serve and have trouble with short balls to the forehand; Borg to be shaky at the net; and Graf to neglect using a backhand topspin. But none of hitches kept them from getting into the ranks of the top ten players in the world.

A LOOK AT THE BJORN BORG PECULIARITY

Any tennis coach who saw Borg hit tennis balls in the l970’s could have guessed there was something peculiar going on with CWtennis. Borg abolished strategy in the game of tennis. He practically abandoned the net game. He hit ground strokes with high-bounding topspin off both sides. His topspin was considered excessive and a threat to his arm. When his opponent approached the net, Borg hit low top spin balls off either side, down-the-line or cross-court. Borg could hit low balls off both sides by simply dropping the racket head. He took so long to complete his strokes and played so deep in the court that it was difficult to get to the net. When he got to the net he dropped to the level of his competitors, if he were lucky. And if not, he dropped lower. Borg hit with unrivaled authority from the baseline. And he didn’t have to work hard to do it. Borg’s tennis was everything a CWtennis coach could dream of except conventional.

There is a pattern to Borg’s use of a stick on a tennis court that came from a hockey stick. Most people who put their hand on a stick once, do it the same way when they do it twice. Before Borg put his hands on a hockey stick, he put hockey gloves on his hands.

To an extent, Borg kept the hockey gloves on when he played tennis. Borg played tennis with the base knuckles of his left hand wrapped with athletic tape, and the thumb of his right hand also wrapped with tape. Additionally, he wrapped tape around the base pad of the middle finger of his right hand. The use of this tape helped Borg with a thoroughly unconventional use of a stick called a tennis racket.

Borg’s initial grooving of his peculiarity came off his two-handed grip of the hockey stick on his left side. Suggestions that he uses somewhat of an Eastern grip somewhere in his two-handed backhand are exaggerated. It’s an example of the use of the familiar to explain the peculiar. Borg was left with little choice on the right side. He used the taped base pad of the middle finger of his right hand as a fulcrum. His taped right thumb kept the racket from rotating out of his grip. The other fingers of the right hand did virtually nothing. This lack of finger tension keeps the arm and wrist from locking up and gave Borg the ability to hit opened-faced with excessive topspin without his arm eventually falling off. The Borg grip switch fits neatly into the Borg peculiarity provided it follows a pattern allowed by the peculiarity. It’s of no practical value learning how Borg fell into his peculiarity. Hockey lessons probably wouldn’t help either.

Borg did peculiar things to his racket to accommodate his peculiarity. He double- wrapped his grip starting just above the racket’s butt. This reduced the relative size of the butt compared to the rest of the grip and allowed him to play with his hand partially off the butt of the racket. He also tightened the strings beyond conventional wisdom stringing tensions and played with a head-heavy racket. John McEnroe accommodated his peculiarity by tightening his strings to a little beyond the tension used in a fish net.

John McEnroe’s peculiarity is child’s play when compared to Borg’s. It’s ideally suited to 14 year-old girls whose CW coaches think they should hit with one hand and no tape.

On Borg’s forehand drive the taped pad of the middle finger acts as a fulcrum on the bottom panel of the racket. The base knuckle of the taped thumb rests on the top panel. The other fingers essentially go along for the ride. The racket locks into the hand by wedging between the middle finger and thumb during the forehand topspin stroke.

In Pursuit of the Francoise Durr Peculiarity

Pity poor Francoise Durr. She’s from France, a lady tennis player, and a good one. Normally, writing about Francoise outside of France causes the little tail on the bottom of the “c” in Francoise to fall off and the two dots over the “u” in Durr to disappear. Let’s call her “Frankie” like her friends and forget about the tail and the dots.

Although Frankie won the French Open in l967, was ranked as high as number three in the world, and was in the top ten for almost a decade, Frankie has been used as a good example of a bad example on how to handle a tennis racket on a tennis court. If there is a classic style in playing tennis, Frankie’s style is classically unorthodox. The redeeming social value of Frankie’s style is that it is uniquely more efficient than most conventional wisdom stick handling techniques on a tennis court.

Frankie has suggested that if she could start her tennis life over again she would hit topspin balls instead of flat ones. She never explained, however, just how she would do this. In trying to wish away a successful stick handling system, Frankie is in good company. Steffi Graf, who won the French Open five more times than Frankie, said that if she could start over again she would hit with a two-handed backhand. It’s nice to dream. But it’s even nicer to have a stick handling system on a tennis court that will get a person to the championship of the French Open.

Frankie’s peculiar grip on a tennis racket got her a reputation for looking goofy on a tennis court. Frankie uses only one hand on a tennis racket. She doesn’t change grips. Her gripping technique doesn’t require strength or a “Popeye” arm. She does nicely at the net and can drive balls equally well from both sides. They fly fairly flat. Somewhat like Jimmy Connors’ ground strokes. She volleys well and is know to be an excellent doubles player. Frankie has what has been considered a puffball serve. The puffball serve comes with the territory. Jimmy Connors serves weren’t quite so puffy but didn’t carry much more authority than Frankie’s. Frankie can drive a ball off her backhand without having to use the tortuous technique of using her thigh muscles to hoist a two-ounce ball over a tennis net.

There is a peculiar way Frankie locates her hand on the racket. More importantly, there is a peculiar way Frankie uses the fingers on the hand she puts on the racket. These peculiarities are beyond conventional wisdom tennis-talk. If stroke production on a tennis court evolves to accommodate the grip, Frankie is a good example of why conventional wisdom tennis instruction wastes time trying to make people look less goofy. Anyone who saw Bjorn Borg hit tennis balls might have guessed that conventional wisdom tennis instruction had missed something remarkably goofy. Frankie was doing something goofy before Borg.

Frankie’s peculiarities on a tennis court start with her “twitch.” The twitch is a peculiar hand habit. It’s difficult to know where Frankie’s twitch came from. But with thousands of people manhandling tennis rackets, including women, Frankie’s twitch was just a lucky mistake she made as a 13-year old when she first pick up a tennis racket. Bjorn Borg’s twitch probably occurred when he first picked up a hockey stick before he headed to a tennis court.

Frankie’s twitch follows Frankie everywhere on the tennis court. It follows her to the net when she volleys. It follows her to the service line when she serves. It is in her ground strokes. No matters what Frankie does, her serve will be a puffball because of her twitch. Frankie’s twitch keeps her from hitting much topspin, if any, on her ground strokes.

Frankie’s twitch is beyond the conventional wisdom tennis of eastern, western, and continental gripping jargon. Conventional wisdom tennis assumes that if the hand is moved somewhat to the left or somewhat to the right or, perhaps, left alone, the effect will be predictable. Things don’t work that way for Frankie or Bjorn Borg.

Frankie waits for service in her forehand grip. Her index finger on the right hand points almost directly to the top of the racket while resting on the right panel. Her racket is essentially an extension of her arm. The base knuckle of the thumb rides on the top panel and the top pads of the middle, ring, and little fingers rest on the left panel. The pads of these three fingers pull the racket directly into the palm of the hand. The middle knuckle of the index finger rests near the edge of the right panel with the top pad of the index finger slightly off the right panel. For the backhand grip, the middle finger releases its pressure on the left panel while the index and little fingers maintain their pressure on the left panel. The top knuckle of the thumb presses against the upper left bevel and the second pad of the index finger comes down onto the lower right bevel. The release of the middle finger allows the wrist to flex on the backhand, the pressure of the top knuckle of the thumb braces the racket on the backhand, and the dropping of the second pad of the index finger around the lower right bevel provides additional support on the backhand. The grip change sequence is always from forehand to backhand. Seen from a distance it is not possible to detect the grip change. The release of the pressure exerted by the middle finger when switching from forehand to backhand is the most important element in the grip switch together with using the top thumb knuckle to brace against the upper left bevel. The distinguishing feature of Frankie’s grip when seen from a distance is the index finger which points toward the top of the racket and the flexed wrist on the backhand.

Frankie has the ability to hit with a flexed wrist and bent elbow on the backhand. She can change the face of the racket in relation to the ball without having to move her whole body. It’s an efficiency that most people don’t have when handling a tennis racket. Her volley is known for its touch and placement. Her serve is not too scary. Her service motion is more awkward than awesome. She can hit off- balance. She often genuflects on her ground strokes as her balls skim across the net. It all goes with the twitch.

Frankie’s stick handling system on a tennis court is no more or less goofy than Borg’s or McEnroe’s. It is a system that is driven by a twitch. It’s simple and effective. It doesn’t require strength and has a versatility in hitting tennis balls that matches Borg’s and McEnroe’s. It’s highly recommended for any fourteen year-old girl who wants to beat most of the boys on the high school tennis team and probably all of the girls.

THE WCJT TENNIS PROGRAM (THEORY)

Objective: To convince the participant that Jtennis exits and is alive and well in Wisconsin.

Duration: One to five days. Participant may elect one or five days or elect to leave the program at will. One hundred percent refund will be made for days participant elects to leave program. Participant can elect to participate in program for additional days after one day’s participation. On-site Jtennis clinics are available by special arrangement.

Schedule:

First day: Introduction to conventional wisdom tennis of Braden, Burwash, and others. General discussion of Jtennis concepts. A look inside the Borg twitch.

Second day: The Graf twitch.

Third day: The Seles twitch.

Fourth day: The Connors, Evert, and Durr twitches.

Fifth day: The McEnroe twitch.

Costs:

One hundred dollars per day. Cost includes single motel room plus breakfast at Mauston Park Oasis (Best Western) Motel just off I-90/94 (exit 69) at Mauston, WI. Motel has indoor pool, hot tub, restaurant, and lounge. Bus transportation is available to Hochuck Casino.

Registration:

Email: jtennis@jvlnet.com

Regular mail: Director, WCJT, 604 Tremont St., Mauston, WI 53948 Tel: 608 847 5625 Fax: 608 847 5625 (call first for connection)

THE WCJT TENNIS PROGRAM (APPLICATION)

Objective: To help the applicant select and apply one of several stickhandling systems offered by WCJT.

Programs: The WCJT application program has four divisions: (1) Individual training (2) Instructor training (3) Pro-circuit (protégé) training and (4) WCJT instructor training. Arrangements are made depending on the objective of the applicant. The WCJT instructor training is designed to certify an individual in teaching Jtennis.

Costs and schedules are programmed on an individual basis. On-site Jtennis clinics/seminars are available by special arrangement.