Further Thoughts: The Serve

[johnyandell]

Would love to discuss my latest article, "Further Thoughts: The Serve"!

[seano]

John -

I love this article. I really like learning the technical aspect of things and have it explained in an easy to understand way. Perfect example why video analysis is such an important part of the teaching experience. There's no way the human eye could see if the racquet is in full drop mode when the feet leave the ground.

I do have one question, you talk about looking at the extent of the racquet drop when the feet leave the ground. Rick Macci makes a point of explaining that leg drive should start the racquet drop. Are these two related or another way of saying the same thing?

Sean

[arturohernandez]

One drill I have used a lot with my two kids is what is called the serve/throw drill. I alternate throwing the ball with serving. Generally, I find that when a child (or adult) tries to throw the ball in the box they have to really accelerate with their arms and legs because there is so much less power in the throwing motion. It requires a lot more effort to even get it to go over the net and into the box. By alternating this with serving it kind of cleans up the timing so that the racket has to accelerate in a coordinated fashion with the legs.

I found the drill on the web many years ago and have not heard of it being widely used.

But it seems that throwing the ball into the box is pretty difficult unless we use a lot more of our bodies than is necessary to plop the ball into the box with a racket.

Just wondering if anyone has used this drill and has any experience with it helping the coordination of legs, torso and arm movements.

[faultsnaces]

Fantastic article!
One question: is there any reason to not enter the full racket drop position early and stay there until the feet leave the ground? And, what's the relation of the toss arm - should it stay fully extended until the racket starts exiting the full drop? (OK that's two questions....)

[kruger]

Many years ago at a tennis camp in New England, an instructor said, "Be sure to follow through on your forehand." So...I hit the ball and then did a follow through which made no difference because there was no, "automatic passive consequence of other movements."...as was stated in the article regarding the serve. Follow through on ground strokes as well as shoulder to shoulder rotation can be thought of as positive side effects when we use good and proper form! Thanks for a great article, John.

[johnyandell]

Seano,
I agree with Rick. The leg drive is what enhances the backward or eternal rotation of the shoulder in the backswing leading to a deeper drop. Brian Gordon says that's magnified even more if the arm is a little shy of the trophy position when the leg drive starts.

[johnyandell]

F and A,
It's better to have a racket drop than not. But assuming you really do make the position, entering it early would reduce the impact of the leg drive on the external rotation.
On the tossing arm, it seems to extend at maximum at just about the the full coil. Starts to come down as the racket moves into the drop. Would think about pulling it down though--that I think happens naturally.
Look at this one:

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Serve/1st_Serve&stroke=RF_1stS_Ad_Front1_250fps.mp4

[seano]

Thanks John, that's great info.

Sean

[faultsnaces]

JY, thanks so much for this! The HS video has always been useful, but it takes on entirely new value once I have more tools to understand what I'm seeing.... I had never noticed all these timing relationships before - an incredibly complex motion. Another question based on the Fed video you referred to: looks to me like the lift of the racket shoulder (Fed's right) contributes a lot to 'tumbling' the racket into the drop position - am I interpreting the timing correctly?

Your point about maximal drop as the feet leave the ground seems intuitively correct, as that would maximize the external shoulder rotation and stretch. But I don't quite follow the logic of any connection relating the start of the leg drive to the trophy position.

I am wondering if starting from a stationary fully coiled and full drop position may help with learning the feel and thus help to improve the timing, guess I will have to experiment with that. Then again, that may cause issues with the shoulder drop / lift timing....
Thanks again

[johnyandell]

F and A,
I would try to not overthink this. No damage from working from the full drop--but I would get there and then coil--if the knees stay bent too long they won't explode... As for the right shoulder I would not think about the lift. The idea is to get the racket to about the trophy position or a little shy--then start the bend. I have seen Brian Gordon have high level junior players do exactly that.

[arturohernandez]

Great article! I keep thinking of how the feel of this has changed over time as I have worked on my serve. I used to think of the serve as getting my arm up to the trophy because my arm was very low and stayed low. Then for a while I kept my arm low and tried accelerating later. Then I really loosened my grip and tried that. Over time I kind of developed this feel that I was flinging my racket up and using my legs to start that fling.

If I try to throw a tennis ball from the serve position and get it over the net then I have to really accelerate. There is also the towel drill where you try and snap the towel above your head after mimicking the serve.

I am not advocating for a wrist snap in a conscious manner but there is also the pretzel drill in which one tries to hold something like Sampras's follow through to the serve.

It's very untechnical but what it results in is exactly the connection between the legs and the racket drop. All of these in some way result in that very loose acceleration when with paired with a nicely timed knee bend result in a nicer drop.

The tricky part is how quickly it happens and how little of it is present to consciousness and thus very hard to learn as a server.

It took me a while to try and put together the video and analysis with what I feel. But it seems spot on.

The serve is a whole world. Thanks, John for showing it to us once again!

[johnyandell]

Will keep trying to learn...

[customsports]

This is clearly some of the best work on serve mechanics I have ever come across, and it all makes sense. Now we have to break it down into chunks, progressive segments, to help people learn the separate phases of it, as we teach our students. It still all depends on a solid toss to the ideal contact point, right? Can we go into the serve from a static racket drop position to focus on the leg drive? The take away for me is that it is a holistic action where all of these passive-consequence movements, everything broken down here, revolving around how we have to use our center/body weight.

[bottle]

This is clearly some of the best work on serve mechanics I have ever come across, and it all makes sense. Now we have to break it down into chunks, progressive segments, to help people learn the separate phases of it, as we teach our students. It still all depends on a solid toss to the ideal contact point, right? Can we go into the serve from a static racket drop position to focus on the leg drive? The take away for me is that it is a holistic action where all of these passive-consequence movements, everything broken down here, revolving around how we have to use our center/body weight.

I wouldn't be too ecstatic if I were you. Ecstatic never works when it comes to serving. I know!

[johnyandell]

Custom,
Thanks for the great words. Check out my complete teaching overview and progression in the Teaching Systems section:

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members/teaching_systems/teaching_systems.html