Sampras Serve-Hip and Shoulder Rotation Article

[stroke]

That was a very precise piece on the angles of Pete's hip and shoulders throughout his serve motion. It also made me appreciate even more how complex and difficult that motion would be to duplicate. I recently bought and viewed Pat Doughtery's latest instructional serve video called "Serve MPHs". In this video, Pat explains very well his "serve doctor preferred method" of the serve, and explains why he does not advocate the "Sampras" style of serve as a model because of the degree of difficulty. He even mentions McEnroe's motion as being the motion to copy if "you really want to make life difficult".

I do think this instructional serve video by Pat is the best I have seen and I really agree with his logic in building a serve model. I was curious if anyone else on the tennisplayer commuiity has seen this video.

[spacediver]

I've been waiting for RPM, having watched and loved MPH.

Where can you buy it?

[stroke]

I made and error in my earlier post. I was talking about MPH. I know RPM is supposed to be the next one Pat puts out. I have corrected it in my original post.

[GeoffWilliams]

The left hip opening and the shoulders cocked against and coiled against the hip, is also key in ground strokes, for full stick accel. The little dip he does, just as he starts his leg drive up, opens the left hip up, while the shoulder is still cocked against the hip, and the timing is exact, to be able to smoothly gains full accel. against the hip/coil. All top servers do the same, open the hip up first. All top ground strokers do the same, open the hip up first.

[bottle]

Learn an archer's bow serve (Mark Papas, Revolutionary Tennis website, free).
Then turn your body way around. Then figure out your toss. Start with weight on back foot. Where's your racket pointed? Did it ever matter? Did you really think you were frightening your opponent by pointing your racket at him? You'll frighten him more by not pointing it at him.

Now you can hit Sampras or McEnroe type serves without being as complicated as either or as Pat Dougherty, who also usually is good. A little hips here, there, and a lot up there sandwiched in a huge shoulders turn. Can even be done with a low toss.

What's all the negativity about? Why shouldn't we try this at home? Immediate suspicion is the only correct response to these familiar lines. They're the voice of the past, of country club tennis players wanting to keep the riff-raff out. Present day translation: "The really cool stuff in tennis is not for you."

[johnyandell]

That article was descriptive not necessarily prescriptive. That is another question. I wouldn't advise most players to try to turn like Pete. But the stance and the amount of turn can be modified--Federer is a less extreme example. And you can reduce it further until you get an amount of turn that seems natural and that you can incorporate.

Haven't seem Pat's most recent stuff. He's certainly a close student of the game--and as our new high speed filming is showing, the mix of elements in good serving is tremendously varied. There isn't a black and white answer for players at any level.

[bottle]

Right. And some players are going to run with provocative new information and others wouldn't if they had a thousand years. They'd probably wait for the major study that's going to appear in the year millennium plus one.

No, to me the new information here is tangible-- something that literally could be a game-changer if someone were only bold enough to try it.

Forget every other distracting aspect of the serve and concentrate only on the last tenth of a second. Or on the next to last tenth of a second, too, if that's when the leading hips take the racket head from low point to pro drop to the right of low point.

Of course such concentration must occur first off the court and then be almost willed onto the court-- by osmosis or the magic of clear suggestion creeping into one's muscles.

What's most interesting is how big muscles always dominate small muscles in tennis and other sports. And not always through the linearity of a chain. Big body and the end of one's arm both crescendo at contact in this description.

The athlete in all of us craves something it can do. Focussing on
big parts rather than little ones is more fun, also. Why not give it a try?

[stroke]

John, I like the way you put that, "descriptive and not necessarily prescriptive". I'm just like a lot of folks on this board I guess, I like looking for things that I can use to improve my own game(plenty of room for that).

One of the neat things about Pat's video is that he does address, and I feel explain very well, all the different styles of serves that the pros use. He also gives his take on these. It was a very revealing and interesting portion of the video. Pat does a great job of presenting this in an easily understood format.

He also points out that his "preferred method" is one you rarely see in women's tennis, "but there is no reason women can't learn this also". Good stuff. It would be great if Pat could chime in here. I know he used to be a member of tennisplayer.

At any rate, his new video is a very nice real world improvemant over his older "Sonic Serve" video.