BBC: iWonder . "What makes the perfect serve"

[gzhpcu]

Look at this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zgppfg8

In the animation, Pat Cash says not to look at the ball at impact! So, instead of keeping the head steady, he says to look forward into the court! Unbelievable!

[curiosity]

I have no opinion on what makes the perfect serve. I just note that Greg Rusedski did exactly what Pat Cash recommends. I always thought it was odd. The first time I saw Rusedski live was on an outer court at the US Open. I had a seat in the first row. He was playing Jonas Björkman. R's toss would go up and just as his racket started to drop he turned his head forward seeming to look at the opponent's service box.

[gzhpcu]

My understanding was that you should keep your head still. By looking at the target, you influence the body motion. The head leads and the body follows. One is trying to hit up at that ball, so the head should remain looking at the impact point.

[stotty]

I always go to the archive for these kind of answers. Roger looks at the ball right to contact; Rusedki doesn't. I didn't check anyone else.

[johnyandell]

Roddick doesn't! It's an interesting question. Pat Cash was influenced by Rusedski's old guru. Not sure if he believed it or advocated it because that was what Greg did... But even if they aren't looking certainly they are trying to look down!

[nickw]

Look at this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zgppfg8

In the animation, Pat Cash says not to look at the ball at impact! So, instead of keeping the head steady, he says to look forward into the court! Unbelievable!

Absolutely with you Phil, this is unbelievable! Another example of a pro player advocating things which are wrong (imo this is wrong) because they don't have a proper understanding of what happens, but of course everyone listens to them because they played at pro level.

I delved into this issue many years ago, and like others have pointed out, I found that there are several pro's who don't look at the ball at impact (Stosur and Venus I remember particularly bad when you freeze frame point of contact), and many who do. Among my junior squad players, it's around a 50/50 split between looking and not looking, before they have been made aware of it.

I think the natural tendency is for the head to come down early and end up looking more down the court at impact, but from my experience, if a player can change that so they maintain sight of the ball until contact, it can lead to a higher % going in, and perhaps more power, based on the idea the head staying looking up allows more energy from the body to be stored a moment longer, and then used to transfer into the ball.

From personal experience, I don't find it comes easy to keep sight of the ball until contact, but what's without doubt, is that my own serving % can shoot up when I do it consistently. I've been known to have days when my 1st serve % has been in the 80's, and I've always put those days down to this one thing

Try it, see if it works for you, report back, would be great to hear more opinions on this.

[klacr]

with all this said, 99% of the tennis playing population would love to have Rusedski's serve or Stosur's forehand.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[gzhpcu]

Yes, but would you tell your pupils not to watch the ball at impact?

[bottle]

Be Decisive: Do Both

Thanks, guys. Sorry to have the best answer once again since it will mark me as a "know-it-all." But I've learned from watching Donald Trump not to care. I'm grateful for the discussion and now will serve both ways.

Here's another bit of self-empowerment from self-feed on a Sunday morning. At least I felt SE right during the session, with ice-free Lake St. Clair in the background even though it was February.

From over-exposure to tennis instruction, certain right-handed victims of the game strain mightily, when serving, to get their racket not only aligned with right side of the bod but even farther to the right than that.

So get the racket head to toc right but not for such a distance as before.

It seems to me I saw an old photograph of Chuck McKinley with racket way way out to right. The photo was taken shortly before he utterly destroyed his elbow. Was there a connection? Dunno.

Serves lose spin and bite when the strings hit the ball too flush. The last time I played, within the space of a set I turned my serve from a losing one into a winning one simply by thinking about this.

[gzhpcu]

Well, here is Chuck McKinley winning Wimbledon in 1963 and the toss does not seem to the right to me, oh and btw, he is keeping his head up...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_eS12h1C-o

[bottle]

I understand that you are a visual artist, and perhaps that is why you don't read well. I was talking about the racket head going to the right, not the toss. Great film though. I give it the Oscar for best tennis clip from the past.

[gzhpcu]

I understand that you are a visual artist, and perhaps that is why you don't read well. I was talking about the racket head going to the right, not the toss. Great film though. I give it the Oscar for best tennis clip from the past.

Right, I misread it.

[bottle]

Thanks. Now. I'm really serious about serving both ways, one in which you move your head and one in which you don't, with a great preference for number two. I just think if you've served for a long time-- one of these two ways-- and you tried the other for three or four serves, it wouldn't kill you.

One perennial tennis argument is whether there can be any jack-knifing or not. And my favorite writer of tennis instruction, John M. Barnaby, insisted that there can be. He felt that the hips bumping backward imparted the greatest forward push on the ball that was possible. He was writing about a cannonball. Which players was he thinking of? Most likely Tilden and Gonzalez. And he was closer to these guys than we are.

Maybe I admire Barnaby too much because of his verbal skills. I don't think Gallway, one of his captains in 50 years at Harvard, admired him very much other than Barnaby's urging when volleying to "bite the ball." But I really do admire him, much more than the best-selling Gallway (Inner Tennis, the Inner Game of Tennis etc.). Gallway may have been rebelling against Barnaby's attention to detail for all I know. To me Jack Barnaby, a great friend of Gardnar Mulloy, I believe, is about like Noam Chomsky in linguistics and current affairs-- just heads and shoulders above everybody else with a much higher quotient of being right.

None of this matters to a guy passionate enough to try anything to get a better kick when his serve hits the court. Blindfold oneself and toss to the serve? If one were blindfolded the strict rule of keeping head still might not matter quite as much? Dennis Ralston in his great article on hitting slice serve in this website absolutely insists on keeping head still-- advice he got from Pancho Gonzalez. But watch Gonzalez and Tilden serve, look at the films-- do hips pop backward a bit?

Listen, I come from a golfing family. One keeps one's head still. But every once in a while if I pitch head forward I get an ace or service winner. And of course with a knee replacement I've become a grounded server like the old guys before the rule change. Maybe everything changes when you're up in the air, but I'm not up in the air and don't want to think about that so much any more.

[stotty]

Well, here is Chuck McKinley winning Wimbledon in 1963 and the toss does not seem to the right to me, oh and btw, he is keeping his head up...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_eS12h1C-o

Lovely clip...

[stotty]

Thanks. Now. I'm really serious about serving both ways, one in which you move your head and one in which you don't, with a great preference for number two. I just think if you've served for a long time-- one of these two ways-- and you tried the other for three or four serves, it wouldn't kill you.

One perennial tennis argument is whether there can be any jack-knifing or not. And my favorite writer of tennis instruction, John M. Barnaby, insisted that there can be. He felt that the hips bumping backward imparted the greatest forward push on the ball that was possible. He was writing about a cannonball. Which players was he thinking of? Most likely Tilden and Gonzalez. And he was closer to these guys than we are.

Maybe I admire Barnaby too much because of his verbal skills. I don't think Gallway, one of his captains in 50 years at Harvard, admired him very much other than Barnaby's urging when volleying to "bite the ball." But I really do admire him, much more than the best-selling Gallway (Inner Tennis, the Inner Game of Tennis etc.). Gallway may have been rebelling against Barnaby's attention to detail for all I know. To me Jack Barnaby, a great friend of Gardnar Mulloy, I believe, is about like Noam Chomsky in linguistics and current affairs-- just heads and shoulders above everybody else with a much higher quotient of being right.

None of this matters to a guy passionate enough to try anything to get a better kick when his serve hits the court. Blindfold oneself and toss to the serve? If one were blindfolded the strict rule of keeping head still might not matter quite as much? Dennis Ralston in his great article on hitting slice serve in this website absolutely insists on keeping head still-- advice he got from Pancho Gonzalez. But watch Gonzalez and Tilden serve, look at the films-- do hips pop backward a bit?

Listen, I come from a golfing family. One keeps one's head still. But every once in a while if I pitch head forward I get an ace or service winner. And of course with a knee replacement I've become a grounded server like the old guys before the rule change. Maybe everything changes when you're up in the air, but I'm not up in the air and don't want to think about that so much any more.

An even lovelier post...