Salzy Killer Serve

[johnyandell]

Not sure we can say that this distinction has validity. Not sure landing off balance is good for the serve or for either style of play, or that it adds "momentum." Remember the racket hits the ball.


Sampras and Rusedski landed on better balance than Roddick and they were the two great serve and volleyers of their era. It's been an issue with Jeff, since it is tough to serve and volley, and he's tried at times to shorten his landing to recover better for the next ball (when it comes back...)
I like the balanced model. Not sure if Andy would serve worse or maybe even better if he landed better.

[jr2044]

Salzy Killer Serve

Hi John:
Nice lefty serve, but a couple of things catch my eye. He has an extremely deep knee bend, more than Roddick or Federer. Could he lose some power if he loads too long? In the clips of the racket drop it seems that in the first clip he doesn't drop as well--pretty high elbow when the racket is at its furthest point in the drop.
Jody

[johnyandell]

It's an interesting question and we experimented with it. That's just the natural strength he has in his legs, in my opinion. The one thing that I felt could still be better was sometimes the landing was too far forward in the court--and Jeff agreed that it made it harder to recover when staying back.

His shoulder is pretty damn flexible. Maybe not Pete Sampras, but as good or better than Federer in terms of the drop. I think what you are seeing is a function of the tilt of his body. If you watch all the serves you'll see him rotate that upper arm back very well.

[forehand]

trying to explain

Not sure we can say that this distinction has validity. Not sure landing off balance is good for the serve or for either style of play, or that it adds "momentum." Remember the racket hits the ball.


Sampras and Rusedski landed on better balance than Roddick and they were the two great serve and volleyers of their era. It's been an issue with Jeff, since it is tough to serve and volley, and he's tried at times to shorten his landing to recover better for the next ball (when it comes back...)
I like the balanced model. Not sure if Andy would serve worse or maybe even better if he landed better.

I feel the need to explain what I meant. I don't disagree with your reply, I just feel that my post has been misread a bit.

Throwing your body more into the court adds forward momentum to your body, for sure. This can cause off-balance landings unless you are a super-athlete.

The raquet hits the ball, and maybe I was jumping to conclusions about serve speed as a result of throwing the body forwards. But intuition tells me that this would also result in more energy being directed at the ball if it is timed right. Intuition could be wrong, and this is not a big deal to me.

The on-topic part of my post was that Jeff seemed to be going a bit too much forwards, resulting in a loss of balance. (Although this might have been lost in my ramblings about serve speed )

I have struggled a little bit with going too much into the court myself, even though my delivery is a humble one compared to Jeff's It can be very difficult to change that habit (or whatever one chooses to call it), and I still struggle with maintaining good balance after the serve from time to time.

Through working on this, I've found that landing on balance wins me more points than hitting a faster serve (for whatever biomechanical reason) combined with landing off balance. Plus being balanced has a very positive effect on my sense of control, my court awareness and my confidence. It also helps me relax more.

I firmly believe that balance is vital to all tennis strokes (and how you play tennis). My impression is that this is too often overloked by recreational players.

Fred.

[1379]

The knee bend vs. the bow

Is Jeff's serve his main weapon ?
His motion looks awesome but I was wondering about its efficiency in match play. I guess he's deadly on the ad court against righties...

About Jeff's knee bend: I read on www.revolutionarytennis.com that the knee bend is less important than the bow position of the left side of the body (for a right handed). The guy on the site wrote that for example Henman, who has a deep knee bend, could have maximised his serve with a better bowing position. It seems that Jeff has both. What do you think John ?

I'm familiar with that site (I like it) and the article at hand. I'd argue that Jeff displays a very good bow. In my opinion the knee bend can drive the bow. If you look at the images from side view, look how far forward his hips move. Classic bow and no bending backwards at waist. I think that this forward hip movement can be found in a lot of top serves. Looking at the video archives of Henman, I see wide platform stance which makes him drag the right foot rather than use it to power the hip forward motion like Jeff does. Thus I'm not a fan of wide platform stances. I personally can't do it. The dragging seems unnatural. I do a mini step something between a platform and a pin-point.

A--

[johnyandell]

I'd have to agree that Henman's stance is too wide. I think that the key is to be able to drop the knees, have a deep bend and keep the body weight back. If the stance is too wide or in the case of a pinpoint, that doesn't happen.

The bow idea is probably a good description, but in my experience, it leads to players leaning back and trying to force that front hip out when they think they have to try to achieve it. I've helped a few high level players get out of that one. The idea in my opinion should be to try to keep the torso as straight up and down as possible--and let the change in angles come as a result of the coiling and uncoiling.

[GMann]

This Superior Serve Could Be Even Be Better

Hi everyone, sorry I've been out of pocket lately, and I realize that I'm coming to this party at a very late hour; however, at the risk of restarting the heated "high toss/apex toss/Roscoe Tanner" debate, I'm willing to bet any amount of money that as outstanding as this serve motion already is, if you could get Salzy to bring his toss a little bit down to Andy Roddick's toss level, that he would automatically gain at least 10 mph more on his serve. This would speed up his motion and, as it stands now, he is losing some kinetic energy by having to wait so long until he hits it. I also believe that he wouldn't lose consistency or accuracy and that he might actually gain some on both counts with the slightly faster motion.

Make him spend about 1 hour getting used to the slightly lower toss. With his talent, his serve would be even more invincible than Roddick's. It doesn't hurt that he's left handed.

It's pretty obvious from his recent articles that Rick Macci will agree with me even though John Y. will not.

[johnyandell]

The funny thing is that Jeff experimented with all kinds of toss heights, including one much lower than the one you see here, probably about the same as Andy.

His conclusion was that he couldn't hit the ball with enough spin with the lower toss, which inevitably had to move to the left as well. His ball was flatter and easier to return and his serving percentages went down to under 50%.

[GMann]

Well, I'm relieved to hear that he at least tried it. This confirms your view that toss height is a matter of preference and people are just built differently in terms of biomechanics.

[johnyandell]

I think the lower toss will work for some players, but it's not compatible with a big body turn, and also somewhat less compatible with a big knee bend. It's a trade off and a choice for the player.