klacr Strokes

[stotty]

Serve: Of all the shots I got on video, nothing surprised me more than my serve. This was the first time I served with a purpose in nearly 11 months since my neck surgery at end of 2013. Amazing what happens to a motion after that long in hibernation. There were some things that I had no idea I was doing to that degree. Some good, some bad. My back foot steps up way earlier in my motion than in years past and swings around to far to my right than I imagined. Before surgery, the model was always Krajicek. And I could get it close. Sadly, it's become a Ivanisevic/Roscoe Tanner love child. Krajicek on crack if you will. I'm not upset in my serve as I know it's still effective but am alarmed at what it morphed into. I look like an albatross trying to take off in an attempt to fly.
Here it is...(disregard the thumb)

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUjela6yTRw

Serve slo-mo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZzJ5gp4ML4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oGH_zfl4RI

Your serve:

You do well to pull this off. It's not easy to hit a ball at the apex and consistently time it. There are certainly many positives in there for me.

I'm not sure others would agree with me but I find the action just slightly cramped, which I think effects your balance as you come out of the serve and land. A slightly higher ball toss might resolve it. If you were my student, it's something I would experiment with to see if there might be a benefit.

There are so many good points otherwise. The elbow position is good, the swing path is good, rhythm is good, knee bend is good. Yes...lots of good things.

BTW: Thanks for this. It's generous of you to post clips and put yourself on the line. You've had a wonderful response already. The tour finals are a damp squib so far...better to watch you.

[bobbyswift]

I agree with 10s player. You need to start elbow extension just about the bounce of the ball on your side. The elbow extends just short of fully straight in general. For straight arm forehand it straightens more after the flip. Your wrist extension needs to be lessoned as you straighten the elbow.

[gzhpcu]

Actually, the question is: how does the forehand hold up in a match situation? It is flat and looks great IMHO. I would only start tweaking it, if there were a reason: more consistency with topspin, less unforced errors, whatever.

[klacr]

Your serve:

You do well to pull this off. It's not easy to hit a ball at the apex and consistently time it. There are certainly many positives in there for me.

I'm not sure others would agree with me but I find the action just slightly cramped, which I think effects your balance as you come out of the serve and land. A slightly higher ball toss might resolve it. If you were my student, it's something I would experiment with to see if there might be a benefit.

There are so many good points otherwise. The elbow position is good, the swing path is good, rhythm is good, knee bend is good. Yes...lots of good things.

BTW: Thanks for this. It's generous of you to post clips and put yourself on the line. You've had a wonderful response already. The tour finals are a damp squib so far...better to watch you.

Response has been nice. About 50 posts in less than 24 hours. Impressive.
Glad people are watching me rather than top 8 players in the world. I'm a much cheaper ticket and willing to listen and follow your critiques.

Glad you like my motion. I've never had an issue with the serve per se and picked up the serve quite easy when I first began this game. I've always been able to swing it freely. A higher toss is certainly something that has been brought to my attention by others before my video.

Question is, how much higher? How will that affect my service rhythm? I'd like to get more into the Krajicek model but based on many responses I've received on the thread and in private messages you guys seem to be content with the shot as a whole. Is it worth tinkering with and restructuring or are we talking about a "kaizen" approach that Doug Eng has written about in serve articles on this site?
Not planning on playing Aussie Open in January so I got some time.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[stotty]

Response has been nice. About 50 posts in less than 24 hours. Impressive.
Glad people are watching me rather than top 8 players in the world. I'm a much cheaper ticket and willing to listen and follow your critiques.

Glad you like my motion. I've never had an issue with the serve per se and picked up the serve quite easy when I first began this game. I've always been able to swing it freely. A higher toss is certainly something that has been brought to my attention by others before my video.

Question is, how much higher? How will that affect my service rhythm? I'd like to get more into the Krajicek model but based on many responses I've received on the thread and in private messages you guys seem to be content with the shot as a whole. Is it worth tinkering with and restructuring or are we talking about a "kaizen" approach that Doug Eng has written about in serve articles on this site?
Not planning on playing Aussie Open in January so I got some time.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

I think this is a question any coach should ask himself before plunging in to alter strokes: will there be a benefit? what will the benefit be? how big/disruptive will the change be? The latter is the one I would ask myself in your case.

There is no disruption that cannot be quickly reversed in raising a ball toss three inches. It's a shot to nothing to try. It's not like changing a swing path or re-synching the arms. You try it and if it works, it works...if not revert back to type.

The motion just looks a tiny bit cramped to my eyes. It's fractional but cramped nonetheless. Others may think otherwise.

I am not a fan of hitting the ball at the apex of the toss because you don't benefit from the micro adjustments players with higher tosses can make to time the ball. On the basis that it is almost impossible to get a ball toss in precisely the same place each time, micro adjustments in the service motion are easier when you have more time to play with, which you get with a ball that descends and you don't with an apex ball toss.

Just my personal opinion...there may be nothing in it.

Go to 3:06 on this clip. This is Paolo Cane. Your motion reminded me of him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE4_UTA3J1k

I believe he gets better height than you...has slightly more time...fits everything in better...with a better landing and trip to the net.

[klacr]

I can't compete with that hair Stotty. Paolo has me beat in that category as well.

I see what you mean. I'm taking some notes on these posts and will work on my height and time on the serve. If I don't like it, I can revert back. Appreciate the feedback and critique. That's how I improve.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[gzhpcu]

Kyle,
Your friend Vic Braden advocated the minimal toss. He recommended it in his book "Tennis 2000"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42STJgl2K4E

[hockeyscout]

Kyle,
Your friend Vic Braden advocated the minimal toss. He recommended it in his book "Tennis 2000"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42STJgl2K4E

Right on the money.

What I gather from all these posts is the following.

Training athletes like Geoff, myself and Kyle who are 6'1", 6'4" and 6'6 respectively, is a whole different ball game.

Geoff's posts hit the nail on the head. Stepping back, playing spanish style, high serves and all the rest wouldn't really work. He knows, and is a big physical man.

I have an eight year old here with the same characteristics physically as Kyle. She'll be 6'6 by 14 or 15. Right now at eight she looks like twelve or thirteen. For her, we do the exact same toss on the serve as Kyle. It feels good for her, and that's that.

When you are BIG you want to train your player to get EVERY ball on the rise. As Kyle said, he doesn't get many high balls (balls that are high to other players are not high to him). As a young lad I imagine Kyle took the ball on the rise for a few reasons, (1) it felt great to be aggressive, (2) he could hit it back harder on the rise, (3) he was athletic enough and skilled to step in, (4) it likely felt REAL good on his arm.

When you have bigger athletes with longer limbs you really want to be careful. I am not sure if Kyle has a double jointed elbow and fingers like my young one, however, if he does I'd avoid the high hits just to save wear and tear.

You can get away with a lot of chaos with smaller players like Ferrer, however, when dealing with taller players (especially when they are kids) you're always walking a very fine line.

Bottom line, and I am sure Geoff, and Kyle would agree with me, when you are a big man it feels not so good from a psychological standpoint to be hitting top spin, waiting for the ball, tossing high balls on the serve, playing baseline tennis and all the rest.

That's the tough thing for us big guys - some times we want to open up way to much, and we really need to make an effort to focus on that Bruce Lee one inch punch! When we do we're great! And that comes back to his serve, its like a 2 inch punch for him, and it feels good on the body. If he put the toss higher in my opinion psychologically I am not sure he could deal with that extra time, and he'd start muscling, bucking and doing a lot of things he doesn't want to do.

Us big men have to really concentrate and focus because chaos for us is a very bad thing especially when you carry the kind of weight we carry. My young one right now is over 90 pounds, so we've really focusing in on her always being collected, which I am sure all of you know is very tough for woman to do with the racket head!

Anyways, that video was great. Its nice to see the flat balls, stepping into the shot, low toss and all the rest. Now, if only Kyle could find more kids with his physical traits, and get them into tennis, and teach them to play his perfect style of game! That's the challenge. A hockey coach like me would kill to get an athlete like this, bottle has his own ideas (boating) and I am sure the swimming coaches went nuts when this guy decided to go to tennis.

Their's a ton of peer pressure for the boys who are athletes like Kyle to play HS football. That is the issue right now with the USTA - get the kids like Kyle, keep them away from HS football and basketball prep rallies, cheerleaders, and allow them to play a style that is physical, tough, mean and athletic so they don't want to go to the sports where they can fight, hit, tackle, swear and be, well, young kids!

This new generation of USA tennis player is the nicest group of kids you'd ever want to meet. I like the old generation who were all wild children who had some spirit like Serena, Andre, Courier, Everett, Connors, McEnroe and all the rest. Even Sampras, man what a cool guy, you can just see he just lives for the game. Sorry, I don't see this passion and life in many of these current players. Its so businesslike, and professional. I wouldn't want to go fishing or invite this new generation of USA players fishing, hunting or to the bar for drinks, however, that old generation, they were all men's men, and guys you'd want to hang out with on the weekend. It makes a difference in development.

I had a hockey team I coached once. At the start of the year we'd get team photos done. My mom looked at the photo and said, "Oh wow. What a nice looking bunch of boys you have this year! In my mind, I thought, oh god, we're going to lose a lot of games this season. My worst fears came to fruition on the first road trip when the boys wanted to watch Shawshank Redemption. It was a LONG YEAR."

[klacr]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXqLZJQ4Emg

Stop this clip at the 13 second mark…here is the problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4OkITdLTSo

Coincidentally…stop this clip at the 13 second mark also…another view of the problem.

Kyle…what do you see? Do you want to know what I see?

Unlucky number 13.

My approach to that ball is too far above to get a significant amount of topspin. I'm almost hitting down on the ball.

My extension is superb but my racquet head should be accelerating up and over the ball and instead my frame is still parallel with my hand on a flatter trajectory.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[hockeyscout]

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...tanceFront.mov

Compare to 43 through 51 clicks into this forehand.

Need any help Brother…I'm here if you need me.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...tanceFront.mov

Compare to 43 through 51 clicks into this forehand.

Need any help Brother…I'm here if you need me.

He's in his 30's, so his technique is nicely comparable to what players did in that day and age. I have a 46 year old hitting partner, and to get him to adapt to the Grigor Dimitriev mold isn't really feasible. Kyle was compared to one old school player, and for me that was fair. Not being on the pro tour for 15 plus years he hasn't really had to adapt or die, or face some new age shots in mission critical survive or famine situations, so its understandable why he is where he's at right now.

I hate commenting on his technique because its not his real technique anyways as he's coming back from injury, and muscle groups aren't firing in quiet the right sequential order. Also, when you get older, you've got train so many more hours to keep neurology paths firing correctly, and focus harder, and clearly that is tough to do for us regular guys who have wife's, mortgages, lessons, life, hobbies, kids, students and all the rest.

Moving on ...

It would great if we had video from when Kyle was 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21 to now so I could see what has happened over a long period of time, and understand how certain habits have been developed and evolved over time.

I would touch nothing with his technique right now because it would result in other areas falling apart. One has to always start from the groundfloor, and not be in a rush to provide a magic bullet to the client.

The only way to really solve that issue is to talk to all of his coaches who've worked with him over the years, and see how he was developed, what excercises his body adapted to when he was 7-8-9-10, and restart everything from their in as best a sequential order as we can get it. If we don't do that it'll be a long hard road and chaotic. That's how you handle a growth spurt in a young athlete, restart the sequential firing mode their bodies have adapted to over time. If you don't know their history, really, good luck with that one.

This is what happened with Bartoli, she got so used to her dads training, she flatlined when she started doing the French Tennis Federations program. Her coach Amelie Mauresmo went back to sqaure one, figured out the skill-sets the dad used, implemented them nicely, added in a few new wrinkles and a Wimbeldon win resulted. That's superb coaching. That's why Andy Murray hired her. She ain't no fool.

Athletic setups are so different now adays players can do more interesting things with the racket head because they've engaged a completely new set of small muscle groups successfully, and they sequentially much nicer than the older generation who did not have this sort of science behind them.

What I'd like to see.

AS for the 13 second point. I am guessing at what don_budge is seeing here. I'd think he is looking at that wrist and hand on the non-hitting arm a bit more engaged (at times), and the fingers working in uniformity. The fingers are kind of caving in, and going every which way which shows me I'd need to solve something somewhere else on the chain of command, and get to that cause. It may be habits from swimming, I don't know, it'd be a long discussion.

[B]Its our big problem with my daughter (setting up small muscle groups)! The athletic chain set up thing needs to be patiently set up over the long haul, and its diffucult to do. This is sprinters work, setting everything in perfect alignment, and making sure EVERY small muscle group has been fired and tested.

A few times in the video his hand - wrist kind of slaps around and the wrist isn't as engaged as I'd liked. It'd want you to face up with the back of the hand, and finish with the hand turned in (palm turned in a bit - some do it to the sky, and others will take it in like a sprinter to the side). I like it in a certain way so you can regrip the racket to get a two hander, put the hand in the right position to drive the next running movement or whatever else you want to do. Its important that's properly engaged so you can athletically get to a next without having to restart things in the chain of command. When you have to continually restart a chain of command things will fall out of order very quickly, and go worse.

When you are 6'6", its so important what you do after the stroke, as every fraction counts. If that hand - wrist isn't properly engaged it'll be tough to fire sequential movement (moving into your next shot), and you'll have to restart a lot of small muscle groups which'll take a lot of time.

This athlete would get this as swimming is all about proper engagement and sequential muscle firing over and over and over.

Again, that's a whole big setup that can be done off the court. It is alignment. I was working on this in my kitchen today with a MMA fighter who is firing his hip way to slowly. I told him every movement needs to be accounted for in development as it'll effect your end outcome (the smallest of things).

As I said before the tools Kyle possesses can't be taught by coaches. The hard (impossible) things to teach he possesses! The easy things to mentor or teach, well, this guy has the ability to grasp it. Again, he's a money player who'd be a guy every coach could develop into a world class athlete. He's projectable.

[hockeyscout]

Could you opposite hand be the cause? How do you feel right now about your opposite hand in this equation. If that opposite wrist and fingers are not firing correctly it effect your end movement you know. Maybe start thinking about playing the piano when you play tennis? We do piano exercises in warm up to get that muscle group firing as its important to do so! Glenn Gould ones! You look like your fingers are double jointed maybe? Is this the case?

[hockeyscout]

And BTW, your toss is brilliant. It isn't copyright, so we're stealing it. Thank you. We like it very much. That ball is into play so quick. We can play around as well with a couple of other heights, and really throw someones rhythm into a complete mess as well. Yah, that is it, practice it at all heights. You're is awesome.

[hockeyscout]

This might be a useful teaching methodology BTW. We used this one to teach the engagement we wanted in a few areas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzviN135ZYQ

[gzhpcu]

And BTW, your toss is brilliant. It isn't copyright, so we're stealing it. Thank you. We like it very much. That ball is into play so quick. We can play around as well with a couple of other heights, and really throw someones rhythm into a complete mess as well. Yah, that is it, practice it at all heights. You're is awesome.

It is the Roscoe Tanner toss. I always loved it. I find that the lower the toss, the easier to achieve practically the same position to hit the serve. The higher the toss, the more the discrepancy gets magnified. Also Kyle's serve, just like Roscoe's robs time from the receiver to respond.

[stroke]

Good stuff. Got it. Thanks 10splayer and stroke.

It's clear I'm never going to have the Bruguera type swing or the spin that is for sure but I don't think my game or style is ideally suited for that either. I am well aware of that wrist extension that was mentioned earlier. It is prolonged as I don't use much wrist in my swing pre-impact. Something I need to focus on and something I know I can do. Absolutely.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

Kyle, as I am sure you know, I am not a advocating a Sergi type forehand. I, like 10splayer was suggesting, think maybe that the wiping action(upper arm and forearm pronation at and through contact, similar to the upper arm rotation up and through the serve at contact) is more important to the spin component on the modern forehand than the steepness of the swing path. You may even already be doing this. It is hard to tell without high speed video. I would like to see some video of your kick serves. I love your motion. Do you ever play any USTA matches, and if you do, what level?