Why does Djokovic's serve work for him?

[ochi]

Update: Novak Djokovic went out early again, to diminutive, gifted Olivier Rochus in Key Biscayne. The previous day, he said on camera that his serve was not working well. During the match, Justin Gimelstob said the same thing, but did not comment about the Djoker's technique. I wonder if he has frozen shoulder, a strange condition that has afflicted two friends over the last two years. Both of them are very fit, and one has gotten over it, thanks to therapy. His seems to have been caused by a combination of tennis and swimming. It prevented them from going up for overheads or serving, but not for groundstrokes. Perhaps Djokovic has it in an early stage. However, Soderling also has an odd motion -- sweeps his racquet out to the side and back, then up at the ball.

Original post: Oliensis, while watching Davis Cup today, I was baffled by Djokovic's serve. Why does it work? It looks as if he's giving the ball a swift push with extended arm, not cracking it. How much racquet speed can he get that way? He takes his racquet back and down at about a 25-degree angle, rather than raising his elbow and dropping the racquet down his side, but he serves well enough to be number 2 in the world, and led Serbia to victory today.

Is this a technique you've mulled, and tried, Bottle?

And Djokovic has a sort of knob built around the bottom of his handle, like Kafelnikov used to have. I suppose that's to prevent the racquet from flying out of his hand when he serves, due to a relaxed, almost loose grip.

[bottle]

I did try it, and got nowhere. I think I concluded that Djoker was the most flexible person in the world and I the least.

[oliensis]

Just watching Djoker's serve in a replay of today's Kohlschreiber match. It looks ridiculous. It looks like nothing so much as Jimmy Connors' straight-arm overhead from back in the day. But he hit that when the lob was too deep to hit a "trophy position" overhead. Djoker's doing it on his serve, the one stroke that you get to hit WHEN you want to WHERE you want to.

His serve is clearly not what it was at the US Open in '07 when he had a more compact, classical delivery. I have no idea why he's doing this.

Mr. Yandell? Anyone?

[johnyandell]

Well, we filmed him at IW and I can say more, possibly, later.

[oliensis]

OK. Now this makes sense. It's what I suspected MIGHT be behind the weird change in his motion. But I'd heard nothing about Djoker having shoulder pain.


(Todd) Martin had tried to encourage Djokovic to play more agressively, and also fiddled with the Serb's service motion in an attempt to prevent more of the shoulder pain that bothered Djokovic in late 2009.

“We tried a slightly different action and it all got very complicated,” Djokovic said. “So now I am just going back to my original action.

Food for thought: where Sampras definitely had great articulation of his right shoulder on his serve in a kind of cocking action, Djoker opens up his shoulder in a different way. And I wonder if the way he does it ends up putting a lot of strain on the front of that rotator cuff. It looks like that's where the stress would be, given how open that shoulder is in the trophy position.

[uspta146749877]

Another post-for Oliensis

OK. Now this makes sense. It's what I suspected MIGHT be behind the weird change in his motion. But I'd heard nothing about Djoker having shoulder pain.


(Todd) Martin had tried to encourage Djokovic to play more agressively, and also fiddled with the Serb's service motion in an attempt to prevent more of the shoulder pain that bothered Djokovic in late 2009.

“We tried a slightly different action and it all got very complicated,” Djokovic said. “So now I am just going back to my original action.

Food for thought: where Sampras definitely had great articulation of his right shoulder on his serve in a kind of cocking action, Djoker opens up his shoulder in a different way. And I wonder if the way he does it ends up putting a lot of strain on the front of that rotator cuff. It looks like that's where the stress would be, given how open that shoulder is in the trophy position.

You may see

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=4559671#post4559671

[llll]

are the videos in tour strokes examples of novaks serve you are refering to??

[ochi]

No, from watching Djokovic on TV in recent tournaments.

[ochi]

Just now, I saw Djokovic beat Stan Wawrinka, 4 and 4, in Monte Carlo. It didn't appear that his shoulder was sore. His serve was not outstanding; he pretty much simply put the ball in play and went from there, like Connors did. His technique was so slow and mechanical, it was easy to watch. I wonder if high-speed video would be of any help evaluating it. I kind of doubt it. As I've mentioned, it's similar to Soderling's technique. Are there others using it? Is this something new in the game?

I'd better go out and try it. What the heck, I doubt that it will make my serving any more mediocre than it already is.