Word: racquet
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Coto de Caza, 60 miles southeast of Los Angeles, a few dozen students are watching a most peculiar exhibition. At one end of a tennis court, a ball machine flings one ball after another across the net. Seated on a chair on the opposite side, a short, chubby man, racquet in hand, rises to meet each one, hitting it squarely with a looping forehand. Thwack. Thwack. The balls whiz back over the net, landing just inside the base line...
...lectures are sprinkled with such terms as force vectors and parabolas, as he explains why he recommends certain strokes and movements. "The ball doesn't know if you are hitting forehand or backhand," he says, "or if you're wearing your lucky shorts. It only knows how the racquet meets it. You can't violate the physical laws because Mother Nature will get you every time...
...computers. His goal is to discover what really happens while an athlete is in action, and to use that knowledge to improve performance. An example: although Braden is a foremost advocate of top spin in tennis, he has proved, contrary to conventional wisdom, that tennis players who roll their racquets "over" the ball to impart top spin not only waste energy but also unnecessarily risk "tennis elbow." His high-speed film shows that the ball is in contact with the strings for only four milliseconds and is well on its way to the net before the player even begins rolling...
...concept of what a true renaissance man should be. He is the Houdini/Handel man of the squash world. One time, I believe, in the early '70s, he took a team comprised of three football players, two basketball players and four dancers--all of whom have never touched a squash racquet before--all the way to a national championship. In a nutshell, Dave, 'How the heck...
...Louise and Martha are very good athletes," Piltch said. "They have excellent racquet skills. We wish they had played the game as freshmen...