Gonzales Serve: Analysis

[tennis_chiro]

Fits right in

Don,
I recently saw a discussion on why women players don't serve as well as the men. Bottom line was that they think more or jumping up to achieve a high impact point, and have disregarded the coil and shoulder turn which was much move evident during the old days.

Pushing the non-dominant side forward (archer's bow) creates tension and enables a "body snap", adding more power to the serve.

That goes right along with what I've been saying about junior serving techniques, not just women. There's too much emphasis on trying to fire the legs up after a big knee bend, that the more critical and essential body coiling and snapping is overlooked or at least underemphasized. To my mind, that essential coiling and snapping up to the ball has to be perfected before you start complicating things with the extreme knee bend advocate a great deal in many quarters today. Sjeng Schalken could have served better with a little more leg action, but he certainly showed that you could serve pretty well with very little knee bend. I have to think his horizontal coil and turn into the serve was pretty good.

One point... you do have to be careful about injuring the front hip be throwing it too far forward. You want to get it a little forward and then come up into an almost straight line up the front side of the body from the ground (left side for a righty) to the mid-trunk and continuing up the dominant side and arm reaching to contact. That hip should not still be in front at contact.

don

[nabrug]

Don,

I agree with you. Like I wrote before coaches should there for at the beginning start with this racket (and arm) action. And every other step lower down the body should be in service of this end goal.

I don't know if you have the arm and racket action of the pro's but more and more I get convinced that the core/legs etc. are following the arm and racket action. Ofcourse not following in the sense that they come later but are natural consequences of the most important fase: the arm and racket action.

Schalken is a nice example but I can't find any clip of him serving. So I take Karlovic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0RbH...yer_detailpage
I see the right arm and racket action and I don't see a lot of cartwheeling, legdrive etc..

[tennis_chiro]

Clip of Schalken

Don,

I agree with you. Like I wrote before coaches should there for at the beginning start with this racket (and arm) action. And every other step lower down the body should be in service of this end goal.

I don't know if you have the arm and racket action of the pro's but more and more I get convinced that the core/legs etc. are following the arm and racket action. Ofcourse not following in the sense that they come later but are natural consequences of the most important fase: the arm and racket action.

Schalken is a nice example but I can't find any clip of him serving. So I take Karlovic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0RbH...yer_detailpage
I see the right arm and racket action and I don't see a lot of cartwheeling, legdrive etc..

It's amazing how good Karlovic's motion is. There have been big men before, but not with as good a motion as Ivo. But it's not really fair to draw conclusions from someone who has a lever arm almost a foot and a half longer than those of up poor souls who are 6' or less in height. And I can't say he doesn't have much leg drive. He is using his legs pretty well; just not bending his knees very much.

Here is a clip of Schalken
Schalken vs Muster in 1996, serve about 11 seconds in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-8Ono5QbaA

Martens video on iCoach that you referred us to earlier in another thread

http://www.tennisicoach.com/members/conferences/Technical-development-of-the-serve-for-beginners-to-intemediate-Steven-Martens.php

was a great example of what you are talking about, how the arm action leads the motion. He started with the simplest throw and gradually expanded and extended it to something that had value to someone trying to learn to serve.

don

[gzhpcu]

IMHO, the most elegant server of all remains Gonzales...

[tennis_chiro]

Who else is in the conversation?

IMHO, the most elegant server of all remains Gonzales...

It's pretty hard to come up with anyone else who is in the conversation for grace, elegance and power all at the same time. As good as Pete's serve was, it didn't have the air of effortless grace that Gonzales did; while at the same time being totally dominating for a long period of time.

I like the longer backswing and I use the model of Michael Stich. I like his rock and the shape of his overall motion; he more bows than bends. But if a student wants to use an abbreviated backswing, then I try to get them to model their motion after Gonzales. It's too bad we don't have more good videos of him, especially in slow motion. And there seems to be very little useable footage from the 50s.

Clearly, Roger is one of the great serves of all time, but I don't like the way he starts with his hands low, just a personal preference for more of a gravity drop. But he certainly is a great model for any player today. And it looks like Raonic may end up having the signature service motion of this decade. But I just hate the initial position he uses with the palm of his hand facing upwards. He gets out of it well enough, but I just have the way it looks. But after that initial irritant, his service motion is terrific...but in no way demonstrating the grace and elegance of a Gonzales.

Who are your favorite serve models out there?

don

[stotty]

IMHO, the most elegant server of all remains Gonzales...

Phil, You have Gonzales on the brain. Now find out if he ever played Borg. Apparently he did, but what age both men were at the time they played remains a mystery. Pancho won 6-1 6-1 and he claims Borg was around 18 at the time, but wasn't sure.

Get Googling, Phil.

[gzhpcu]

Phil, You have Gonzales on the brain. Now find out if he ever played Borg. Apparently he did, but what age both men were at the time they played remains a mystery. Pancho won 6-1 6-1 and he claims Borg was around 18 at the time, but wasn't sure.

Get Googling, Phil.

Voila...

Gonzales had the details slightly wrong. He was 44 and a half when he defeated Borg, then 16 and a half, on December 6, 1972, by a score of 6-1, 6-1, in the $75,000 Clean Air Classic at the Seventh Regiment Armory in New York City. [3] Gonzales lost in the finals of the tournament to Charles Pasarell in three sets.

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Panch...s#cite_note-21

[nabrug]

Who are your favorite serve models out there?

When you asked this question I remembered that I had a very strong opinion about the esthetics of the serve. I had roughly the idea that if the motion was fluent/stylefull the serve would be good. I am also a dance- and movement coach. So I think I was very biased by the idea that the movement of the serve had to fullfill certain high criterias. Like I see with most of the posters here.

Thank heaven that GBA came into my life. I know that I really got brainwashed at this time by GBA. I don't think about esthetics anymore. I think about helping the player to create a service with which he has the biggest outcome during his matchplay.

GBA learns you to first look at the other side of the net! What is the outcome of the service. And that is harder to figure out than most people think. Tennis is not a jurysport. You don't get points for a service. An ugly ace is 15-0. A perfect serve in the net is 0-15.

What would you do with Sjeng Schalken as a coach? Most of you here have the urge to change everything about his serve right away. Yes, it wasn't the nicest service motion to make an understatement. But is that important? Sjeng tried different service movements for years. He was fed up with it. He had lower back problems. This was the outcome for this person. He didn't win a lot of points with it. But he didn't loose them either. He reached the top 10. What is your urge to change his service then? Because it doesn't look nice???

It is hard enough to create and have a service with which you can compete at the top. You don't change motoric skills just by telling or showing the better service (If it was that easy to change motoric skills than players wouldn't be that stupid to not do that right away). These players changed there service motions already 50 times to come to the final stage. Than when you have the outcome like Soderlings service I think you didn't really did that bad as a coach. Maybe there are flaws but maybe this is the best he can ever be. The service of Robin is not a big weapon but at least a little weapon. So why do you want to change this service? For esthetic reasons?

So I don't have a favourite service motion anymore. And the best serve technique does not excist by the way! As a coach you need to know the tasks at hand and with which principles you can improve these. And you need to have a lot of experience about how services develop in time, from beginner to elite player and especially what the outcome will be for this one player you are coaching.

Maybe now you understand that I think GBA is much harder for a coach. I used to think to model the serve of Federer to all students. That was the end goal for every student. The reality is that you don't reach that end goal a lot. The reality is that you have players with flaws in their game and you as a coach must have the experience "to compensate" that with stronger points in their technique.

[EdWeiss]

Favorite Serve Motions

Of recent players, liked Wayne Arthurs and Mario Ancic for grace and rhythm. The old timers said that Neal Fraser had a fantastic serve. He won three majors in singles. Indeed, Arthurs and Fraser had real similarities - great lefty serves who could hit all different variations of serve off the same toss. They both lived off their serve (and of course could volley as well). Never saw Fraser play but he had a reputation as a tremendous competitor. Found the following footage of Fraser v. Laver from 1960s Wimbledon finals. This is a young Laver before he won his first Grand Slam. Fraser won this final. Interestingly, Fraser's starting service position was more "open" than you usually see. Looked like he really used his hips well and great rotation away from the ball and then into it with hips and shoulders. Backhand looks weak but probably used it wisely like Newcombe - lots of lobs and low chips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0-6cRPqA8g

[gsheiner]

Fraser has a beautiful motion. I wonder if the open starting point for the service motion could work today? other strokes have moved to open stance so could the serve? As Kerry pointed out in his article on the open forehand, at contact the hips close up anyway.

My gestalt impression from this clip seems to be that the open stance serve made it easier to hit a twist and come into the net aggressively. Perhaps, with all the 2 handed backhand returns today this wouldn't be an advantage --although it still would be killer at the club level.

Also noticed that Gonzalez started a bit open.

Glenn

[stotty]

Phil, you're amazing! Are you a detective in real life? You ought to change your user name to Colombo. You seem to be able to ferret information better than the rest of us put together. I've been trying to find out the facts about the Borg/Pancho game for ages! Well played, Phil

[don_budge]

Don't forget tactics...

"The Gonzales service is a natural action that epitomizes grace, power, control and placement. The top players sigh when they see the smooth, easy action. There is no trace of a hitch, and no extra furbelows. I have never seen a serve so beautifully executed. The toss is no higher than it has to be, and it is timed so that he is fully stretched when he hits it. The backswing is continuous, the motion of the backswing blends into the hit and continues into the follow-through without a pause.

The strongest part of Gonzales' serve is his ability to put his first service into play when the chips are down. At 0-40, 15-40 and 30-40, his batting average on first service must be .950. It is incredible to have so high a percentage while still hitting hard and almost flat. The number of aces served on these important points is also astounding. No other player has been able to perform this feat so regularly." Written by Gladys Heldman from the introduction of "Tennis" by Richard Gonzales.

This would suggest that he was a master tactician as well as having a beautifully aesthetic motion...but I guess that goes without saying. It is the perfect motion that enables one to serve well under pressure. Tilden said "The really fine server is the man who consistently varies spin, speed and direction with each delivery" and "Serving tactics are a practically a book in itself."