Help Kindly Requested on Junior Player

[bottle]

Get a Grip!

I continue to disagree with hockeyscout on the importance of grip. The slightest variation has exponential result out of all proportion to all other advice offered by all the self-appointed geniuses in tennis. Yeah, we want to be athletes and not have to think about such stuff. In the beginning however (which is every day) one should put some study into this subject.

[hockeyscout]

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[bobbyswift]

serve

On his serve it looks like their is almost no leg drive. The backswing phase it appears that his right arm is to locked at the elbow. It bends eventually but trophy position appears compromised. I would look at different servers that he likes and look at how the elbow flexes and when. Then shadow that movement a lot.

[stotty]

On his serve it looks like their is almost no leg drive. The backswing phase it appears that his right arm is to locked at the elbow.

My initial thoughts on his serve are along the same lines. It would be nice to see his serve from a side view to confirm it and see better what is going on. His second serve is very tame with little leg drive or kick back. There is something going on in the supination and pronation phase which I cannot fathom. It would be nice to view it from a few more different angles.

[bobbyswift]

serve

Looked again. If you film from side his trophy position is poor. His hand is so low because he has not positioned his shoulder correctly. It appears his hand is belly button high when someone like Federer is closer to ear high. Even with the tilt of the shoulder.

[stotty]

Looked again. If you film from side his trophy position is poor. His hand is so low because he has not positioned his shoulder correctly. It appears his hand is belly button high when someone like Federer is closer to ear high. Even with the tilt of the shoulder.

Yes I noted this in an earlier post. When Ed does the slow motion side view, let's take a closer look. Should be interesting.

[EdWeiss]

Second Video

Thanks again for the great input. I have set forth at the bottom of this post the link to the second video. Thanks so much folks for looking at it. Here is the breakdown of the video including where the slow motion is:

0:00 - forehand side view. On all forehands on the video he worked on extension and getting more legs/body in the shot. He felt he was making more errors this way (of course he was trying something different).
0:37 - slow motion forehand side view.
1:33 - forehand back view
1:53 - slow motion forehand back view
2:18 - backhand slice side view. On all of these backhand slices he worked on better extension. He could see his shots had better bite.
2:28 - slow motion backhand slice side view.
3:04 - backhand slice back view
3:08 - slow motion backhand slice
3:54 - backhand slice back view using Kyle's concept of thinking of hitting hit 1 inch over the net. I think his shots had a more driving shape to them. Old man Weiss is feeding the balls.
4:08 - performing the hockeyscout drill where have no racket and move to the ball.
4:28 - volleys side view
4:52 - slow motion forehand and then backhand volley
5:39 - first serve side view. On all of the serves he focused on 1) pushing off the ground and in general using the body more and 2) a kickback landing. I personally think the serves had more on them.
6:06 - slow motion first serve side view
6:45 - first serve back view
7:06 - slow motion first serve back view
8:14 - second serve back view
8:26 - slow motion second serve back view
9:26 - second serve side view
9:49 - slow motion second serve side view

Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsVgRFVjafg

Thanks again!

[bobbyswift]

serve

slow motion from the reverse side shows the backswing problem into trophy position. His elbow is to stiff for to long, his shoulder never abducts. or moves away from his lat's. It appears as a low elbow in trophy position but the solution is fixing the shoulder. I would use Federer as the model for trophy. His hand is around ear high even after the tilt or lateral flexion of the spine. Try to get way more space from tricep to lats.

[bobbyswift]

The leg drive looks much improved.

[klacr]

Wow. Just Wow.

Tennisplayer.net forum contributors ask, Ed Weiss delivers. Thank you Ed and Great work. I will share my thoughts in a post a bit later when I have a sufficient amount of time to collect my thoughts and give you the respectful and appropriate effort in my diagnosis that you have shown us in collecting this footage.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[hockeyscout]

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[hockeyscout]

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[hockeyscout]

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[klacr]

First, let's start with the obvious. Nice private court in a heavily wooded area. Tennis amongst nature. I love it. Also good to see a cameo by Ed Weiss in a few shots. His flat and technically sound groundies left their mark on my courts in Boca.

Now let's get to this awesome student.

Great work on the forehand. Extension looks much better. What grip would you say he has? How much variation can he execute on the forehand? Flat drive, heavy roller etc etc. How often in matches does he hit a reverse forehand? If too often, footwork or backswing could be an issue.

Loving the slice. Much better and he looks comfortable hitting it. He looks like there is intent behind the slice as well. Lowering the height over the net will be no problem if there is an intent, he will easily drive that ball over the net with what seems like slim margin but in reality he'll make it all day long. He needs to keep in mind his contact point on that slice. Has habit of reaching out a little too far in front which can open up racquet face with a continental grip. Wouldn't mind if he let it get a little closer.

Volleys: He has pretty good hands. I'd like to see him do more with that split step. Looks like he is just hopping up and down because someone at some point in his young tennis career told him to. I'd love to see his split step take him somewhere in relation to the ball. I'd love to see him strengthen those legs a little bit. He needs to get low on those volleys, eye level. Make his legs burn, not his buns. Am I right tennis_chiro?

Serve: Contact point seems a bit Wawrinka-esque.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...gosnell_serve/

Much better leg drive from the first video we saw. Looks like he is muscling that serve a bit as well. I can tell because his left hand on the follow through gets stiff as it comes down and back by his left side.

How many of these new improvements and future improvements will hold up in a match? That will be the question.

Keep up the great work.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[stotty]

The clip where he is playing the points with the other kid showed a lot about the confidence he has on his serve. I see when back on the practice court things are clearly going better.

I am going to keep looking at this, but for now if you go to the very last shot on the clip...a slow motion side view of the serve, you'll see he has a low elbow...a classic case. A low elbow usually guarantees a dolly drop second serve with kids. It's not a big problem to fix in my experience if the student is dedicated.

The locked arm on the backswing I have seen before with kids. I have seen it develop due to overemphasis of closing the palm too long on the windup phase. Sometimes coaches over here use the palm down/closed trick as it ensures the racket face is closed in the wind up phase, which helps to keep the elbow away from the body. But over focusing on it too much can result in a locked look. His racket face looks okay but I wonder if he has ever been taught to close the palm/racket face earlier in his coaching? Just curious.

The other question is coachability? How coachable is he technically? Does he find change easy or does he have trouble visualising and carrying out change?

I may post more later. This are my initial thoughts while having my breakfast over here...