Serve Contact/Feet on Ground or in the Air

[ralph]

My previous readings have told me that when serving the toes are still in contact with the ground at the moment of contact, but the body gets propelled into the air right after contact. I video all of my players and then do a comparison to a pro. In each comparison it looks as if the pros are making contact after they have propelled themselves into the air with both feet off the ground. The person who does my video work has told me that it looks that way to him in all of his pro video recordings - contact after leaving the ground. Is my old way of thinking wrong?

Ralph

[worldsbestcoach]

I think you are right

Ralph, I am not an expert about that part of the serve. However, what you say sounds consistent with what other experts have said about the serve of top modern players. So there is no reason to doubt yourself, as far as i am concerned.

In older days, the rules were that the foot must be in contact with the ground as the racket made contact with the ball. In some tennis eras, both feet had to be behind the plane of the baseline, as racket struck ball. Of course, the rules have been changed for a long time.

[gzhpcu]

Vic Braden agrees also, see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42STJ...eature=related

[ralph]

I still am fuzzy about when contact is made on the serve, but I found an interesting comment by Bruce Elliott in the Biomechanics section. He said that one "should not jump into the serve, but drive oneself upwards." There was no mention of when contact was made.

Ralph