Serve improvements after long break

[rosheem]

I took a few months off from tennis and came back better than ever.

Wanted to share my biggest discovery along the way.

Regarding the arm action responsible for getting the hitting surface of the racquet to "flip" over immediately after contact:

As it was described in the recent Federer serve article, "pronation" is more about internal rotation from the shoulder than anything that occurs at the elbow or wrist.

I'm not sure how widespread this little technical flaw is, but before I figured this out, I was using too much wrist flexion and ulnar deviation. I was throwing a ton of momentum out into the racquet head and really never getting the right feel for the arm and racquet rotating as a unit. I was using too much kinetic chain.

In comparison, my improved serve feels like everything is one motion from the bottom of the drop to contact. Pull the whole thing over the top like swinging a sledgehammer, and use internal rotation to get the entire arm/racquet unit rotating from the bottom of the drop through contact.

I am now serving enormous bombs with what feels like very little effort and much better control. It no longer feels like I'm waiting and hoping for some magical "snapping" effect at the end of the kinetic chain to bring the ball down into the box or to put spin on it. Fewer moving parts to sequence together.

Probably what held me back the most was trying to "lead with the edge" of the racquet all the way until contact. Depending on your current motion, this may be good advice. For me, though, it was the wrong feel. Too much speed in that leading edge will prevent the weight of the sweet spot from coming through the ball. Now that I'm bringing the whole arm/racquet unit through the ball, I can bring the thunder without hoping for a bunch of delicately timed motions to come together at precisely the right time. My motion feels slower now, but the ball absolutely explodes off the racquet.

Good stuff. Hopefully there is a nugget of info here that might be helpful to you, especially if you can relate to what I was doing before.

Interestingly, I had a taste of this motion a few times before, but never enough to really understand it and incorporate the feel into an actual technical improvement.

[johnyandell]

Good news!

[gsheiner]

Rosheem,

I couldn't agree more about the shoulder internal rotation. It's something I also picked up in the last year or so from watching slow motion of the arm action.

I found that in addition to adding power, it's really helped my slice serve as I don't worry anymore about wrist type movements to carve the ball. I focus on the same swing but with the plane a little more left to right to hit the outside edge of the ball. Since the swing plane looks identical to the receiver and is going from left to right, they often seem frozen or late when my serve turns out to be a slice .

When I warm up my arm or practice the service motion with the racket and no ball , I always now go from the drop to the end in one smooth motion. o focus only on the internal arm rotation. The pronation of the forearm and wrist movements seem to care of themselves if I don't stop the arm internal rotation. If for some reason I stop the arm internal rotation halfway through the swing, then I feel tight and mechanical and I feel my forearm and wrist trying to finish the swing.

Glenn

[bottle]

Rosheem,

It was a great match. Roger bent but didn't break except when he broke.

You have your grip pretty far over, right? Mine's just a continental.

I tried what both you and Glenn said here, was open to it and willing to let the chips fall where they may. But if I don't have much upper arm twist room available, maybe I'd better not spread out what I do have, i.e., should save it for close to the ball. And I think I want at least a little counter-rotation to happen as elbow extends.

Glad you're back from the lay-off.

[gzhpcu]

Rosheem,
What grip are you using for your serve?