Kick Serve

[uspta146749877]

We should ask Chris Lewit

I think the "cobra serve" is an excellent alternative/method to taking your racquet back on the serve. Most articles and lessons taught on the serve seldom talk about how best to take the racquet back to the trophy position, just prior to the leg extension and racquet drop. Even in Chris Lewit's excellent article on the "kick serve", I don't believe he mentions how best to take the racquet back-most instruction does not. Personally, I have struggled for years on hitting a high level serve because of my take back and have tried everything! I just recently saw the "Cobra Serve" on the Tennis Channel by Dial Jones and was immediately intrigued and cautiously optimistic about giving it a try. In all the years (over 30) of playing tennis, reading books, watching videos, taking lessons, attending tennis camps, viewing live pro tournaments, ect., I have never heard of the "Cobra Technique". I gave it a try and I am happy to say that it clicked for me and feels great! My serve has improved significantly because I now can apply speed and spin with a loose, relaxed, fluid arm, forearm, and wrist, and I can coordinate the arm motion and racquet drop with the rest of my body much more effectively.

I personally think that Andy Roddick's serve is a poor model with the abbreviated motion-too rigid and tight for most people. Ivo Karlovic motion is much better to emulate for the average player , along with Roger Federer.

The "cobra serve" is definitely worth trying out if you have struggled like I have with creating a loose, relaxed arm with the proper deep racquet drop to create an effective, penetrating serve with speed and the critical spin component. Don't underestimate the value of trying the cobra method-it was of great value to me and has been the key missing component for taking my game to the next level. Also, you won't be able to get a deep "butt scratch" position on your serve without a "loose" hitting arm. The cobra serve gives me that looseness, elasticity, and fluditity I had been missing. Obviously, you still have to coordinate your other body parts on the serve, particularly your knee bend/extension and forearm/wrist pronation to hit a solid serve. By the way, I am a solid 4.5 tournament level player.

We should ask Chris Lewit what he thinks

[lgvargas]

I really don't care what other people think of the "cobra serve", I know for me it has greatly improved my serve and is definitely worth trying if you have difficulty getting a loose arm and a deep "butt scratch" position What surprises me, after all these years of playing and studying tennis, I have never come across the "cobra serve" until watching the Tennis Channel during the US Open.
I am combining the Cobra serve with Chris Lewits "kick serve" article and already I have seen excellent results! I have taken my racquet back before with the head low pointing to the ground, but my elbow was also low and I could never get a comfortable feel or consistent results. The key difference with the "cobra" is while keeping the racquet face pointing down during take back, you raise the elbow to shoulder height where before I would have the elbow much lower. Immediately, upon making the change it felt very comfortable and I loved the looseness and fluidity of the motion and consequently I was getting great results. One word of caution, while doing this motion, you still need to incorporate the other body parts like the shoulder coil, knee extension, back arch, ect.

[uspta2331024484]

There is no backbend

There is no arching on the way down if the serve is hit properly. As in all serves when the server drives upward into the shoulder over shoulder windmill action then the back is arched but that doesn't put strain on the lower back. Watch Sampras who tossed as far left as anyone, not only does he not arch his back it doesn't even get to a straight back position most of the time, he is actually leaning forward a few degrees. As you will notice if you watch Sampras frame by frame that he bends to the side, he turns his shoulders and bends his knees but the back is not arched when he is his "trophy pose" postion. Also don't confuse a back slanted backward as arching when in fact, if done properly, the back and the thighs will be on same plane only creating that image of an arched back.

[bottle]

This is Good

Thanks, Chris, for the attention (even if I did go to Brown). I haven't given up and just posted on my hopefully not too euphoric claims of progress under the "Mystery of the Jack Kramer Toss" string.

I agree that I get too complicated. Anybody does who is lost. I compare all of this stuff to a roadmap of Budapest, Hungary. When my solid kick serve is third nature I will have found my way through the maze and won't be complicated any more.

On this point of a straight back from knees to hitting shoulder, Brenda Shultz is great. So is John Yandell (though he hates me when I discuss him).
What I think it means is a simpler method: a long lever that's really powerful, with no crack in the middle. So instead of thinking, "Now I'm going to drive
my legs," and "Then I'm going to cartwheel," that big beam from knees to
shoulders comes wholloping up from quads and ankle muscles alone. Going down, the knees and pelvis are a cantilever moving toward right fence while
shoulders move down toward left fence. So you just reverse it, keep a firm
left side, keep a really tough, straight lower back.

You also got your hips slightly out toward net, and your spring and mild cartwheel action can take you into the court, but it is the sideways action from the parallel knees which is the true fun.

Brenda Schultz, who once owned the fastest, bestest serves among the women, says that for a first serve, you really load up the front leg; better, for kick, she says, to load up both legs equally. Will Hamilton is strong on this point, too. And Jeffrey Counts is provocative about getting racket to right side of body. I haven't checked out any Cobra serving yet but will. For the time being I want to enjoy the simplicity of Schultz.

There is so much stuff on the web by now. If you have Google Chrome, simply enter the words "kick serve" in the single box. It's too much information but it's all fun. And with too much information, the basic checkpoints of Chris Lewis become doubly important. Beyond that, none of the other treatises can compare with Lewis' image of his student hitting not only over a chainlink fence but over a mossy wall, too. No way for anyone to beat the symbolism of that.

[ochi]

Can the cobra be explained?

References to the cobra serve leave me as baffled about it as I was when I first heard about it, 15 years ago. An instructor/friend was in a hospital room, fading fast from a rare blood disease. I brought him my copy of "A Handful of Summers," not knowing how far gone he was. He said thanks, put it aside, and began to tell me about hearing about the cobra at a seminar that summer. And then he passed out, kept alive by fluids dripping into him through tubes.

This instructor, Rich Bleck, a schoolteacher, had recently competed in the national doubles 45s in California. He was one of the most remarkable, versatile servers I have ever seen, a genius at it. He could, with the same toss, change direction "all with the wrist;" he could kick fast and wide to both sides, make you return from very high, or jam you very hard. Yet, in that hospital bed, the cobra came to his mind. It was something that might have made his serve even better, I supposed. I wanted to know more, but he fell alseep. A day later, he was gone.

Months and years later, I studied photos in Tennis and World Tennis magazines, and carefully watched players on TV -- and still do whenever I happen to wonder about the cobra. My best guess, beginning with observing Goran Ivanisovic, Lindsay Davenport and many other top players, was that cobra users cock their serving wrist forward as far as it will go (looks like a cobra about to strike), at the bottom of the drop, and keep their arm loose. (Unfortunately, cocking does nothing for me.) Years ago, I asked about it at another web site, and drew a blank.

Today, watching the Madrid Masters, I noticed that Phillip Kohlschreiber cocked his wrist that way, but far back behind him, at lower chest level.

Am I right, or all wrong, with my simple explanation of the cobra? If wrong, what's with the wrist cocking? Does it mean nothing more than Rafa picking at his shorts -- just a preparatory tic?

[bottle]

Grip isn't just where Hand is on the Ridges

Good God, this is great stuff, and I hope Ochi gets a cogent reply-- he deserves it. The first USTA tournament I ever played, in Winchester, Virginia, I drew a school-teacher, Ray Bender, president of Maryland tennis. He was one of the warmest people I have ever met despite what he did to me. He drop-shotted every one of my serves and was dead within a year (the drop-shots weren't the reason). This was the best tennis lesson I ever received.

I hesitate to change the subject but we tennis players are self-absorbed, no?

A big change for me is to enjoy Chris Lewis's windmill exercise more and more in conjunction with a looser grip that gets the right forefinger pad OFF of the racket. I've also taken pinky finger off of the butt rim. I think I understand for the first time why Charlie Pasarel, a very good server, keeps forefinger way out to the right when he serves. I've returned to page 67, "Racket Work,
The Key to Tennis," John M. Barnaby, where the caption beneath two photographs of a successive action reads: "Note that the action is obtained exclusively with the fingers. Many people do not appreciate the role the fingers can play in helping the wrist to give a feeling of skillful facility." He's getting about 30 degrees of extra racket tip lowness just with his fingers.

Then I went to Google Chrome, typed in the words "serving from yoke of hand" and, receiving no reply typed in "serving from web between thumb and forefinger," which also brought up no hits, so I knew I was good to go and do it.

I may not want to put my forefinger way out to right, but I do want to relearn
loving the bulb at the end of my racket, with one finger off. I know that some servers have two fingers off. This seems a good route for me now-- a person whose fiercest side-spin always goes in a slightly downward direction producing a low bounce no matter what I try.

[bottle]

Mid-course Correction

No, better to keep all fingers on handle (Barnaby). But the idea of settling handle down in the yoke doesn't seem bad for new kick attempts so far. That gets racket tip lower than previous grip where pad at base of forefinger is perched somewhere from 8.5 to 2.5 (this latter placement being John McEnroe's sharp ridge-- for a right-hander-- used for all of his tennis shots according to "You Can't be Serious"). The racket tip then can get even lower if one uses Barnaby's method of relaxing the fingers while keeping them on the racket and then recompressing as wrist straightens upward. That's the challenge of good timing. The pre-timing or relaxing of fingers (a good idea only for talented players with a good wrist according to Barnaby) then can be accomplished whenever the person thinks best. I'll start out by relaxing the fingers at buttscratch and continue to open them during firing of triceps, influenced by Jeffrey Counts, who says not to move the racket at all just then (a physical impossibility but great cue?).

[bottle]

How Good is Jeffrey Counts' Free "Kick" Article?

Answer: VERY good. It's at hi-techtennis.com .

If I'm lost in a city, and I ask a hundred persons for street directions, and only one is able to get me to my destination, I ought to feel like praising that person whether I actually do or not (maybe I don't want everyone to know how lost I was). And 25 of the other people may finally make sense so that accurately assigning gratitude becomes quite difficult. But I can never do anything until I put it in my own words, so, with all actions seen from the rear:

Toss to left.

Cantilever shoulders to the left.

Extend legs to the left bringing knees in (take it easy) while compressing arm (folding it) with elbow slightly above the horizontal. The bony outer hinge of the elbow must point at right fence or nothing will work.

Cartwheel the raised elbow another 60 degrees to the left while understanding that "cartwheel" is a slippery term all at once incorporating minimal head movement left with un-wriggling of body along with screwing racket tip out right (supination) during 60 degrees of internal rotation of trunk under the head.

Two instances of 60 degrees in the same combined movement are confusing but stand.

A main sensation may be the upper arm clocking up to verticality as both an inner watch part and overall, exterior motion.

This is buttscratch and more-- the racket tip is now to outside of right edge of body.

I prefer to follow hand now instead of strings. Hand goes up straight a bit. Hand goes up straight a bit more. Hand fish-hooks to right (a very small arc but essential). The videos of the article show these freeze points as three pauses in slow motion for two different players.

Strings, to right, go up. Strings go up some more but they're starting to move
left. Strings (racket tip) turns left.

The two previous paragraphs are both the result of a naturally unfolding but perfectly positioned arm.

Another way of putting it: "You take a left and then another left and then a third left and then go straight, and then go straight again, and then do a slight hook to the right, but really small, followed by a twist on Pronation Street to bring the racket tip up to the ball, and then cross it with the same twist only with sideways motion of the arm added this time."

Another way of putting it: "You find a great big plate glass window three times taller than you and misted over. Swiping with your elbow, draw a big wet arc up to left and then let your hand take over, swiping straight up and then a little to the right before you come to Pronation Street..."

Jeffrey Counts: "Rather than brush over the ball, you are grabbing the ball with your strings and twisting it off to the side."

[bottle]

Question

Chris, you speak of right knuckle "slightly off the top panel." By that do you mean that it's slightly to the right of the top panel or slightly off it as in up in the air, in which case the middle section of the forefinger, pasted across panel number three, could become part of the leverage system? I realize that describing any grip in precise words is difficult, that things work better if the teaching pro just adjusts someone's hand. But your story of your own post-college change of grip for better kick is compelling, and I'd like to move a little closer to what you mean. Thanks so much.

[bottle]

More

Okay, with knuckle "very near top bevel" and in the caption "just off the top bevel." And then the finger is interesting to me (whose grip has been more hammerized). The mid-finger knuckle seemed hooked on 1.5 with rest of finger maybe off the racket altogether. Is there then movement within the grip? Any thoughts, anybody? I don't think I'm being too fancy since this is the first of Chris Lewis' checkpoints.

[bottle]

Solution

Using the guidance I received, I now hold the racket upside down with slight pressure from thumb and forefinger on the butt rim.

[jeffreycounts]

Bottle,

I share your enthusiasm for Chris' article. The best I've ever seen on the kick serve, and a tremendous break down of the different movements and how to develop them over time. Incredible stuff to say the least.

I personally found the "butt scratch" idea and the "windmill" to be huge and found it helped not only get more kick on my ball, but more power on the first serve as well. I played a guy last weekend and hit so much spin on the second serve it hit him in the face because he didn't expect it to kick up so much.

Jeff

[bottle]

A Potent Kicker from Platform Stance with only Mild Leftward Lean

Thanks, Jeff. I agree. And I'm a believer in great material from all sources. And it is Chris who reinforced my admiration for the Kuznetsova serve- maybe encouraged me to examine it even more than I was about to do with Henin's.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Svetkuz extends legs straight up, not out toward net with the rear leg vector. But she first gets left hip out toward the net. It stays where it is after the legs extension-- above the baseline in both compression and extension. Then, at legs extension the upper body cartwheels and segments up and over the legs mountain all the way to the canaped landing. Which means her back is so horizontal to the court that she could carry a tray of canapes on it and they wouldn't fall off. If she had stood on the ground throughout, perhaps her hips would have kicked backward like Bill Tilden delivering his dragged cannonball. But Svetlana Kuznetsova, with feet in the air, takes similar, longitudinal body motion entirely forward-- which means the shoulders go out a bit more before they go down. Which in turn keeps head up and spin up, too. And how can we further define in tennis terms this segmentation-cartwheel with the segmentation appearing to come from Toni Sailer type Austrian skiing? Shoulders edge on to contact, open out to land.

[bottle]

Arm Action

Someone may notice I discussed body motion only in Post # 28-- influence from re-reading John M. Barnaby no doubt. A central premise in his brilliant work, applied everywhere, is that the body in tennis goes in one direction, the racket in another.

The Kuznetsova kick serve seems a good illustration of this. And in "Racket Work: The Key to Tennis," Barnaby writes, "Hold the racket up in front of you and serve using ONLY the hand, fingers and wrist. Follow through only with the wrist, not the arm. This is your skill, your steering wheel, the kernel of the serve. If you can slap the ball flat with a little down-wipe and make it go close to the top of the net, you have a flat serve. If you can carve the ball and arc it into the court, you have a slice serve. If you can now toss over your head and snap up and over it, so a high arc shot results, you have a topspin serve. All of these will be light and will lack pace. But if you have the hand skills (the racket work), then rocking, bending, leaning, pressing-- these are EASY to add. If you do not have the hand skills, you can rock and flex and heave yourself half dead and create enormous power-- but you can't serve. Racket work is the key."

One may not want a dragged cannonball any more or a carved slice-- that would be half speed with NO pronation, though that sort of junior serve won a championship for me and my partner in Berryville, Virginia doubles once-- but the basic principle here is irrefutable. And what I described in Post 28 is "enormous power," about twice what I usually generate along with ZING, break, everything. Was I dreaming? We'll see today. (It is today and I was not dreaming.)

What does Kuznetsova do with her arm and hand which also may be different? Well, she fully compresses arm (unlike the big servers who don't do that) and earlier than Henin, say. She may complete this squeeze and twisting up of the elbow and supinating of forearm during initial legs thrust-- is this the full butt scratch?

The racket at this stage is pointing at left side from a rear angle camera shot. In next frame it's pointing at the right side. Frame after that arm has started to extend but arm and strings are parallel to what they just were only farther out.

We'd feel awfully silly if we were trying this and didn't realize that Kuznetsova was already in full power position with racket still pointing at left side. What appears next could be eye-foolingly fast wreaking havoc with camera logic. This is longitudinal serving after all which can smash a lot of assumptions about a chain of whirling horizontal disks. No UBR (horizontal upper body rotation) from the gut until contact, say I. And since gut isn't whirling you don't have to stop it. (Take that, Dave Smith!)

But hitting arm and hand-- that's the subject. Wrist gets straight then distends left. Or to describe the same phenomenon a second way: The hand gets straight with the arm and then bends to right, not to mention any finger-clenching and pronation that may be going on.

Is this something to think about? Well, Boris Becker, for instance, does nothing of the sort. His wrist does get similarly straight but then humps over.