Tony Trabert in slow motion.

[stotty]

Here's a side view of Tony Trabert's serve in slow motion. He starts with all the weight on the back foot, his chest leant back. Not dissimilar to Lew Hoad and others of that era. He then lifts the front leg up to transfer the weight (I think) just after initiating the first part of the swing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DkxpHHnjdA

Look at the left foot throughout the action. It finishes up turning away from the baseline a few degrees toward the back fence. His rotary toss is on the extreme side with the throwing arm rotating and cutting in past parallel with the baseline. I always find this kind of over rotation can play havoc with some of the juniors I teach, throwing them off balance and kind of disorientating their sense of direction. Top players often seem to get away with it.

Great upper body rotation. The path of the swing is vastly different from Lew's.

Must have been a real hinderance to power having to keep the front foot on the ground. Does anyone know if Gonzales learnt to leave the ground after the rule change? He played for so long I wonder if his career spanned across the rule change permitting the server to leave the ground.

Very interesting these old serves from around that era. No abbreviated motions back then...all classical...no narrow stances...weight transfer is different.

Your thoughts on Trabert's serve anyone?

[johnyandell]

Great find! And with a shutter and high speed! Any more stroke isolations you have found like that?

Gotta think that is a second serve or a kick that he plans to serve and volley on--the contact point is truly far behind. The body rotation especially off that stance is amazing--McEnroe-like! Also look at that amazing racket drop that appears to go outside the plane of the body--something Roddick did and a few other great players did or do to lesser extent.

[julian1]

Which year was the rule change?

Here's a side view of Tony Trabert's serve in slow motion. He starts with all the weight on the back foot, his chest leant back. Not dissimilar to Lew Hoad and others of that era. He then lifts the front leg up to transfer the weight (I think) just after initiating the first part of the swing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DkxpHHnjdA

Look at the left foot throughout the action. It finishes up turning away from the baseline a few degrees toward the back fence. His rotary toss is on the extreme side with the throwing arm rotating and cutting in past parallel with the baseline. I always find this kind of over rotation can play havoc with some of the juniors I teach, throwing them off balance and kind of disorientating their sense of direction. Top players often seem to get away with it.

Great upper body rotation. The path of the swing is vastly different from Lew's.

Must have been a real hinderance to power having to keep the front foot on the ground. Does anyone know if Gonzales learnt to leave the ground after the rule change? He played for so long I wonder if his career spanned across the rule change permitting the server to leave the ground.

Very interesting these old serves from around that era. No abbreviated motions back then...all classical...no narrow stances...weight transfer is different.

Your thoughts on Trabert's serve anyone?

Which year was the rule change?

[stotty]

Rule change

Which year was the rule change?

Sometime in the sixties, I think. tennis_chiro will probably know if he pops in the thread.

[julian1]

Did you see my question about Hoad?

Sometime in the sixties, I think. tennis_chiro will probably know if he pops in the thread.

Did you see my question about Hoad?

[EdWeiss]

When Rule Changed

I believe the rule was changed in 1960 or 1961. Laver and Gonzalez learned to play well before the rule change so that is why they stuck to the old style even after the rule was changed - I have never seen any picture of Gonzalez or Laver jumping on the serve. Interestingly, if you look at the serves of Newcombe and Stolle, both great servers, they jumped with the back foot (the right foot for them as they were both righties) landing first unlike all of the modern players who land on the front foot and kick back with the back foot (with Becker, Stich and Mayotte notable exceptions). Perhaps this was because when Stolle and Newcombe first learned the game the old rule was still in place so they were used to stepping in with the back foot and then when the rule changed that back foot step morphed into jumping with the back foot landing first - just speculation.

[stotty]

Great observations from Ed and John. This is why it's good to post clips for others to look at because we all see different things. I hadn't noticed what John observed about Trabert's racket drop. I was focused on Trabert's front foot, which starts at 1 o'clock and finishes at nearly four o'clock! Never seen that before. And his upper body rotation is amazing. I think Trabert has a really interesting serve.

Ed's comments about Stich, Becker and Mayotte were interesting...as well as his speculation about Newcombe and Stolle's serves morphing after the rule change.

I land on my right foot, too!

[bottle]

I like the second half but disdain the first half-- is that permitted?

[stotty]

I like the second half but disdain the first half-- is that permitted?

Of course, but why? What's wrong with the first half?

[bottle]

The first half just seems awkward and inelegant, if virtuosic, to me, a trick of balancing on one foot like a flamingo when two feet ought to work just as well.

How though? I'm open to the great features of the second half, even to the restricted hips and therefore greater rotation (horizontal!) by upper body than in most serves.

I really love the way the upper body rolls forward (vertical!) with shoulders turn (horizontal!) as if the two motions are one.

I notice a lot of similarity between the Don Budge serves in available video and this one (in its second half).

My imitation of the Budge goes in every time but is sitting up a bit too nicely for my opponent, and my serves have been zippier at other times.

So I'll try as soon as I'm able to combine the threshing heels I was talking about so much with this second half difference.

Both guys cartwheel way forward, but in Budge's case it's done with hips rotating (forward!) on the toes of his anchored right foot.

When I do it, I don't feel I'm hitting the ball with the hips but rather getting on front foot and starting energy up all over again. When I watch this clip of Trabert I see the rotating shoulders at work right up to the hit.

So I'll try both ways next time I'm working on serve but with threshing heels in both cases, and who knows what other changes that might entail.

The physical therapist I'm working with pressed something yesterday while I was flexing and unflexing my left leg and for the first time in 15 months the clicking (with pain) I've been experiencing went away.

So I'm encouraged. She and I have agreed that maybe I can be an experiment in the new tapes-- something exotic similar to what Li Na has on her leg.

[stotty]

The first half just seems awkward and inelegant, if virtuosic, to me, a trick of balancing on one foot like a flamingo when two feet ought to work just as well.

How though? I'm open to the great features of the second half, even to the restricted hips and therefore greater rotation (horizontal!) by upper body than in most serves.

I really love the way the upper body rolls forward (vertical!) with shoulders turn (horizontal!) as if the two motions are one.

I notice a lot of similarity between the Don Budge serves in available video and this one (in its second half).

My imitation of the Budge goes in every time but is sitting up a bit too nicely for my opponent, and my serves have been zippier at other times.

So I'll try as soon as I'm able to combine the threshing heels I was talking about so much with this second half difference.

Both guys cartwheel way forward, but in Budge's case it's done with hips rotating (forward!) on the toes of his anchored right foot.

When I do it, I don't feel I'm hitting the ball with the hips but rather getting on front foot and starting energy up all over again. When I watch this clip of Trabert I see the rotating shoulders at work right up to the hit.

So I'll try both ways next time I'm working on serve but with threshing heels in both cases, and who knows what other changes that might entail.

The physical therapist I'm working with pressed something yesterday while I was flexing and unflexing my left leg and for the first time in 15 months the clicking (with pain) I've been experiencing went away.

So I'm encouraged. She and I have agreed that maybe I can be an experiment in the new tapes-- something exotic similar to what Li Na has on her leg.

The start of both Hoad's and Trabert's serve is intriguing. There is no rocking back to initiate weight transfer with Hoad. He almost has a mini run-up to gain momentum. Trabert has ALL his weight on the back foot. He commences the swing from a high start.

[bottle]

The Budge serve starts this way, too. As does the Charlie Pasarell in the old book which I know you used to study MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES.

[don_budge]

The Tony Trabert backswing...

The first half just seems awkward and inelegant, if virtuosic, to me, a trick of balancing on one foot like a flamingo when two feet ought to work just as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DkxpHHnjdA

Check out the backswing of the Tony Trabert serve. Just like the J. Donald Budge backswing, the integrity of the entire arm, wrist and racquet structure is maintained from the start of the backswing in his ready position until the conclusion of the backswing when the racquet head starts falling due to the gravitational pull of the earth behind his back...in this severe case it appears that his shoulders are almost parallel to the baseline. Ala McEnroe without the side saddle stance. It appears that he is applying some mega twist to the ball as evidenced by the follow through which accounts for the extra shoulder turning and back flexing.

Maintaining the integrity of the arm, wrist and racquet structure does not require a death grip either. Just enough tension to hold it together. See how the racquet head lags just a bit as his arm swings up and into position...there is a lot of play built into that motion. At the same time when the structure reaches the zenith at the top of the backswing the racquet can begin its lazy descent before it transforms into a screeching, screaming roller coaster car when it comes out of the loop behind his back. Look how far the racquet falls...its almost to the back of the knees. Incredible flexibility compared to the tank like qualities of the Trabert physique. The supple relaxed wrist behaves like a well intentioned cobra...striking with perfect timing. The whole timing of the action coming out of that loop coordinated with a perfect toss sends him rolling into the court seeking to hit the return in the air...a equally antiquated notion as the black and white video image. Slight exaggeration.

Back in those days the motion always was rolling towards the net which is of course a lost concept in the modern game of tennis.

While you are at it...dear readers...pay a little attention to the action going on on the court behind Tony. The ball comes into the screen from the right and the player on the next court is completely hidden behind Trabert. The ball bounces without the modern day velcro effect and maintains its waist high trajectory. I'll bet nobody noticed this. The player hidden behind Tony Trabert hits a waist high backhand and you see his racquet head finally in the backswing and then on the follow through as he extends his swing forwards and through the ball. Look at the incredible extension through the ball with the head of the racquet. The player is standing perhaps a yard behind the baseline yet his racquet head appears to break into the plane beyond the baseline. I call that keeping the racquet face on the path of the ball.

There is always more going on than what meets the eye.

[bottle]

No, I didn't notice what the guy in the background is doing: People including me are sleepwalkers who don't notice much. One of the many compensations of having been married to a very good painter (and rather good tennis player) for twenty years was just observing how she'd knock out something and then step back never to admire the canvas but to notice something different, to see what she wanted to develop or modify or add next. She'd stand here, there, back there, everywhere, always looking for the new angle. And no one was tougher than she on her own work. She'd even discard things I thought were great. And she'd start and finish while the work was still "hot," not spend years like me on a piece of writing which maybe had promise in the beginning but turned into sludge eighteen months before. I say that even though I'm a big advocate of the re-write. In nature studies, there's a lot written by Annie Dillard in her early book PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK about the power of second, third and eighth looks. And somewhere in the fiction of Walker Percy there's a scene where a man falls through the skylight in an art gallery after which the people looking at paintings can now see them for the first time.

[stotty]

No, I didn't notice what the guy in the background is doing: People including me are sleepwalkers who don't notice much. One of the many compensations of having been married to a very good painter (and rather good tennis player) for twenty years was just observing how she'd knock out something and then step back never to admire the canvas but to notice something different, to see what she wanted to develop or modify or add next. She'd stand here, there, back there, everywhere, always looking for the new angle. And no one was tougher than she on her own work. She'd even discard things I thought were great. And she'd start and finish while the work was still "hot," not spend years like me on a piece of writing which maybe had promise in the beginning but turned into sludge eighteen months before. I say that even though I'm a big advocate of the re-write. In nature studies, there's a lot written by Annie Dillard in her first book, PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK, about the power of second, third and eighth looks. And somewhere in the fiction of Walker Percy there's a scene where a man falls through the skylight in an art gallery after which the people looking at paintings can now see them for the first time.

I could never be a writer because I would be forever word-tinkering. Nothing would ever get finished. I'd keep looking at a piece forever until it ceased to make sense anymore.

My sister is a great writer. She can sit at a desk and write five pages in one sitting with no errors or need for a rewrite. She can store a whole composition in her brain and bash it out eloquently and in logical order. Wish I had that skill...clever bloody cow.