Rebuilding my serve!

[allanmurphy]

Hi guys

I am trying to rebuild my serve because of many double faults and an arm that sometimes is quite sore.

Would like some advice on what you think I should do differently! (probably a lot!)

I could not attach a wmv file, so I uploaded it to my website:
http://www.allanmurphy.dk/serve_slow.wmv

What i´m trying to do myself:
- Move grip to continental to bevel 1 (from nearly bevel 2 backhand grip)
- Point the head of my racket to the right when hitting the ball - in stead of going very much left.
-Toss the ball further backward

After reading the Federer analysis and watching the videos, I can also see that my raquet rotation is extremely late - which is probably the reason why my arm is hurting?!

Looking forward to you comments!

Regards
Allan, Denmark

[CraigC]

First suggestion

I'd start with your balance. You bring your right foot so far around to the right that you have totally lost your hip coil and lost most of your upper body rotation by the time you are attacking the shot.
Suggest--building a better base of support with your feet, either platform or pinpoint stance

Then it appears that you pull your hips backward before contact and the serve is hit primarily with your arm----you have lost the kinetic chain and are hitting on the way down to the court.
Suggest--attempting to hit on the way up and climb through the serve. Perhaps doing some drills where someone else tosses the ball at different heights for you and you have to time it by releasing your leg drive at the right time. I believe your arm problems stem partially from losing the natural kinetic chain release from legs to hips to upper body to arm to elbow to wrist.

I's start there.

CC

[johnyandell]

Craig nailed it. Took the thoughts out of my mind.

[jhm36]

Hi Allan,

I'm curious about your moving your grip from backhand to continental. I'm certainly no expert but it seems like people often recommend moving the other way. I know my own serve has improved in the last couple of months by sticking with the move from continental to backhand. I can get far more spin on the ball, and so I'm getting more balls in and less double-faults. What are you looking to gain from the switch? Feel like you lost anything?

[allanmurphy]

Thanks Craig! You are suggesting quite a bit of change.. but I guess it´s the best way to go! I will go practise this week and post a new video, where I try to implement your suggestions.

Seems like my serve needs a lot of "simplifying"! My serve might be to complicated and demand a lot of precision in order to send the ball in the right direction - nearly with out achieving any power.

Jhm36, I did the grip correction in order to take spin out of the serve and increase the speed. I use a lot of energy on getting a bit of spin in my serve - but almost no speed. So a coach suggested to be, that I should use platform stand, move the raquet towards the right when hitting the ball and moving my grip to continental. This centainly gave me a lot of speed - but I still make a lot of double faults.

Will keep you posted on my expected improvements!

Thanks again!

Allan

[johnyandell]

Continental all the way please.

[allanmurphy]

What do you mean by "Continental all the way" John?? Im not changing my grip during the server?! Just wandering weather to use continental or a slight backhand grip.

Was something lost in translation here..

Allan

[jhm36]

Hi Allan,

I'm sure John will answer soon enough, but my guess is that he highly recommends using the continental grip on serves, and isn't a big fan of ordinary mortals using the backhand grip. "All the way" as in "all the time" sort of thing. I'd like to hear more from John on this, since there are articles on the Tennis Player site endorsing the backhand grip and we know the pros, such as Federer, use one. It certainly helped improve my serve percentage. I'd like to know why John doesn't recommend. I had more speed and less placement with the continental, but I now have less speed and more placement with the backhand, and I'm thrilled not to be giving away any more points with double faults. It's helped my game.

The serve, such a complex motion. I get a headache out there some days, tinkering with this, altering that, nothing much working right. I'm sure we've all been there. Good luck, Allan.

[johnyandell]

I don't like extreme backhand grips on the serve for most all players. Federer would be the outside edge of the envelope--and he's the best player in the world. That's a moderate eastern. For most players a milder grip works better in all ways--it takes a lot more flexibility to get all the way thru the motion with a stronger grip. You might hit more spin, but...

[allanmurphy]

Lots of improvements!

Hi guys!

Thank´s again for your advice. I played a whole match yesterday and only made 4 double faults with my new serve..and no sore arm!

The Danish clay courts have opened this week, so I did some footage today of the serve on a really nice court in sunny weather! (rare in DK )
You can watch the serve here: http://www.allanmurphy.dk/serve0405.wmv

As CraigC suggested I started with my balance, and think I found a better base of support for my feet.

Then I corrected the backwards hip movement, which also helped me.

Do you think the kinetic chain is better now? Any more recommendations?

Allan

[gzhpcu]

allan,
IMHO: You are moving your right foot over too much towards the right (this will cause you to open up too soon...). Keep the toe of your right foot behind the arch of your left foot.

You should also be jumping up more towards the ball (you are not taking advantage of your height...).

Also, I would try swinging in a more relaxed fashion so that your forearm will pronate more.

[N1ghtKids]

IMO:
The frist look quite good over all, but how about leg push timing?! Do you think is a bit too late?! Every serve when you about hitting the ball is the time when the ball drop down so low, end up you don;t have much time to use your leg push at all... That will effect your full serve linkage. I will work on that frist!













And then you can work on ball position as toss ball abit foward, to use full body stretch.

Hope it helps

Cheers