Visual Tennis:
McEnroe Case Study

By John Yandell

In the middle of 1991, John McEnroe was in the middle of a serious comeback. He was convinced he could still compete with the world's top players. But he had a problem.

For a period of several months his serve--the dominating shot that had made him one of the most electrifying players in tennis history during the late 1970's and early 1980's--was consistently the weak link in his play. His first serve percentage was less than 50%. Meanwhile the radar gun was registering ball speeds in the mid 90 mph range.

The result was that John had to work very hard on his service games, was under constant pressure to hit difficult first volleys, and was often broken twice or three times a set. Though his legendary mental toughness kept him in many matches, he seemed to have lost the firepower to win against top players. Many observers commented that at age 30 the game had passed him by.

Working with John in making the "Winning Edge" instructional video in 1984, I had spent a lot of hours studying his technique, particularly on his serve. Watching John play in 1990, however, it was clear to me that he had developed a severe technical problem his backswing that was causing his loss of consistency and power.

When I saw John in San Francisco that year, he decided to have me analyze the changes in his motion and compare it to the glory days of the mid-1980's. We both believed that if he could recover the biomechanics of his motion, he could restore his serving effectiveness and compete successfully again at the highest levels of the game.