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Would love to get your thought's on "A New Teaching System: The Second Serve"!
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Contact point? Not as high?
As usual, it's excellent. But I have a question: in addition to being slightly to the left and not quite so far in front, I have felt that the contact point is actually a little lower to enable the server to strike the ball with a more upward motion and create more topspin. Does the video evidence bear this out? On the first serve, I think you want to catch the ball at the highest point of your service motion, but even there, you might be hitting slightly up on the ball.Originally posted by johnyandell View Post
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I would agree yes, lower. That does go with the backward (or left bevel) of the racket tip. Probably like 2 or 3 inches?? At most.Comment
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2 or 3 important inches
Yes, just a couple of inches, but if you actually hit the ball at the top of your reach like we were all taught to do, at least on our first serves, you couldn't actually impart any topspin to the ball. (Not absolutely correct because you could still get some topspin off a descending ball, but that would be minor compared to the actual spin rates that are needed for effective second serves.) That feeling of hitting up on the second serve is not imaginary; it is very important.Originally posted by johnyandell View Post
donComment
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Agreed.Comment
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More Pros Going Big on Second?
John,Originally posted by johnyandell View Post
Do you have any thoughts on the apparent trend of more ATP pros going for aggressive, second serves?
Not sure it is relevant to us weekend hackers, but I've noticed two approaches 1) a lot more "big" seconds, i.e. 116-125 by likes of Nole, DelPo, Janowicz, Gulbis and 2) more wide, short slice (Dimitrov, Fed, Haas)
Tangentially, there is this 2010 NYT.com article by John Branch arguing that mathematically many ATP players would be better off hitting two first serves (Djoko yes, Fed no).
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Intersting post, Jim. I will be interested to hear John's thoughts. I see the article you linked to was written in 2010 not 2013.Originally posted by jimlosaltos View Post
Tim Henman assures us Brits that, on average, second serves are slower these days and less aggressively placed...just rolled in. He thinks there is an opportunity for the game to change as a result. He thinks returners could attack more and even seize the net.
I'm have no idea whether the average second serve speeds of players have decreased or increased over the last five years or not. I watch tennis mostly TV and not live so it's hard to judge.
Is Henman right...or is his personal opinion undermined by evidence? Over to John....Last edited by stotty; 10-13-2013, 02:46 PM.StottyComment
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You guys give me too much credit. The numbers are out there but someone would have to compile them...but my impression is second serve speed is going up just like all ball speed.
The idea of hitting two first serves...yeah I read that article. There is an assumption there that these guys are robots and can just produce shots according to certain percentages should they choose to. Obviously the feeling of hitting a first and second serve is different emotionally and psychologically and that's why it's kind of a silly idea in my opinion.Comment
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Women winning just 20% of second serve points
There's been times I've looked at women's stats and thought hitting two first serves was a no-brainer. Sometimes they lose 80% of their second serve points, and I'm talking about top ten women, especially playing against other top ten women.
Barry Mackay made it work well enough to win the NCAA's and the Italian and earn a number one ranking in the US and even a #1 seeding at the French.
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Henman?
I suspect Henman is overly influenced by watching countryman MurrayOriginally posted by licensedcoach View Post
IMHO Henman is a couple of years too late; the servers are responding. In that great Delpo-Nole semi at Wimby this year, Delpo was teeing off until Djokovic started going for 116 mph second serves to counter. On WTA side, Bartoli won Wimby basically hitting nothing but first serves.
But, again, it's not all about velocity, I'm also starting to see more variety on second serves, not simply going for more MPH while still hitting kickers. Not all the time, mind you, but more than I recall ever before. For example, going for really wide slice in the ad court on a second serve. I've seen Fed and Nole do this occasionally, but more often lately by younger players, such as Grigor Dimitrov.
Not sure it is a trend yet, but perhaps just starting. Something to look for.Comment
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Getting back to the article, the variation concept of the first serve and second serve differences simplifies and clarifies. It's has cut a lot of mental clutter out for me when trying to hit a second at a big moment. I love the idea of the second serve having as much racket head speed. The only good choice becomes to go for it.Comment
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I agree. I always thought of the first and second serve as different. When I finally learned the kick serve 15 years ago I developed a horrible hitch. Then I worked on it for three years starting in 2010 and it began to get better. But I found that I could hit either a first or second serve well. They were different in timing and my windup varied because of it. Lately, I have been trying to use the same windup for both serves and just focus on tossing it in a slightly different place and hitting up more. It seems to have helped as now there is less variation in my windup. It feels like a slight different rhythm but it no longer feels like a different serve. So simply by changing the location of the toss a bit, catching it a little lower and hitting up more I can generate a reasonable second serve without having to think about any specific physical technique. And I can accelerate just as much but in a slightly different direction.Comment
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Wow, this has been a huge help to my second serve since coming out. I've started really focusing on just bringing the toss back a little bit and thanks to the Federer clip I have an unbelievable image in my mind of the racket head moving upwards and the angle of the racket relative to the first serve. Just by doing this and making sure I'm always going up and accelerating the racket my serve speed, spin and consistency has increased on the second serve greatly!
I find it pretty incredible how one image in your mind, maybe two can do this. Keep up the great work John!Comment
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As someone who tends to teach second serve principles very early in development, I think this should be required reading. I'm a firm believer (in the long term residual benefits) of working early on the more left ball placement as it promotes steeper (cartwheeling) shoulder rotation, upward chest angle, inside the hand contact position, and because of the more topspin axis rotation, a real "acceleration", racquet head speed emphasis.Originally posted by johnyandell View PostLast edited by 10splayer; 10-29-2013, 09:14 AM.Comment
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Interesting. I have thought a lot about the fact that the serve is really much more of an up concept than most people realize. I have been teaching my son to serve since he was 7 and watched him evolve. He used to hit a sky high serve when he was really young. Today he hits a reasonable spin serve but not quite as much kick yet at 14. But early on I emphasized the up portion of the serve and he gets that. In fact, he is a weird lefty that prefers to hit to a righty's forehand than to the backhand. My sense is that most rec players hit a the slice much more naturally. But as I watch more skilled players and pros they seem to hit much more of a topspin kick serve even on the first serve. The second serve just adds more topspin to it in order to increase the margin.Comment
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