Novak's New Serve

[stotty]

Sorry, John...had to resort to YouTube.

Here is a look at Novak Djokovic's new serve. Any thoughts? Why would it take pressure off the elbow? I prefer the old serve.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3nK09i8t98

[bottle]

Sorry, John...had to resort to YouTube.

Here is a look at Novak Djokovic's new serve. Any thoughts? Why would it take pressure off the elbow? I prefer the old serve.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3nK09i8t98

An opinion that is a complete tennis lesson, in my view. Novak Djokovic's new serve offers a "teachable moment" which, translated, means, "Don't do this. Do that."

[arturohernandez]

Is the serve the problem? Djokovic is super flexible and it seems that he can get into the drop via a very flexible shoulder like Sampras did.

But I wonder if he is feeling it in the serve but might be caused by both his forehand and serve. Both seem to involve more extreme technique that were never a problem when he was younger.

Now that he is older he may be losing some flexibility and thus it creates a problem where there was not one before.

[stotty]

An opinion that is a complete tennis lesson, in my view. Novak Djokovic's new serve offers a "teachable moment" which, translated, means, "Don't do this. Do that."

Is the serve the problem? Djokovic is super flexible and it seems that he can get into the drop via a very flexible shoulder like Sampras did.

But I wonder if he is feeling it in the serve but might be caused by both his forehand and serve. Both seem to involve more extreme technique that were never a problem when he was younger.

Now that he is older he may be losing some flexibility and thus it creates a problem where there was not one before.

I didn't see Novak's first round match but he seems to have breezed through very easily by all accounst. His stats look low on his first serve but apparently his second serve held up well...so a good sign.

Let's see how his serve holds up over the next match or two.

[johnyandell]

Stotty,
Agreed. That abbreviated motion is what screwed up his serve years ago. He and Todd Martin reconstructed it using footage on Tennisplayer. His real problem is inconsistent hand and arm rotation, though no one asked me...

[seano]

John -
Can you be more specific by the meaning of "inconsistent hand and arm rotation"? Are you talking about not consistently having 180 degrees of internal shoulder rotation? Any background you have of varies changes he has made to his serve would be very interesting to hear, thanks.

[johnyandell]

Yeah what you said. Someday I will write about my experience with Todd and Novak's serve...

[seano]

There's a video on youtube of Todd Martin working with Djokovic on his serve in Indian Wells from 2010. Martin has Djokovic on one knee serving and Djokovic having trouble keeping his balance.

[johnyandell]

Yep...

[stotty]

There's a video on youtube of Todd Martin working with Djokovic on his serve in Indian Wells from 2010. Martin has Djokovic on one knee serving and Djokovic having trouble keeping his balance.

From memory, Novak's serve was a disaster around that point. I watched him play at Wimbledon and wondered how he was getting through rounds. He was often starting rallies in deficit. I think it's one of the reasons he became so quick and such a great returner. Often a player develops greats strengths through having to compensate for weaknesses.

[arturohernandez]

I have been thinking a lot about this in light of earlier threads on the serve. I work with my kids on the serve at least twice a week for twenty mins one on one. They are not perfect but they are very good at the rec level. They are fluid and have good timing.

It takes a lot of work with a particular coach to get the serve right. It just does not happen overnight. And smaller kids are simply not equipped physically or mentally to learn the same way that adults do.

Djokovic was very flexible and developed a decent serve in spite of his flaws.

He was so good off the ground that he could compensate for his flaws.

But I think it has to be that the serve needs to be learned very young if someone is not naturally inclined toward the ideal technique.

Someone along the way could have introduced the right elements so that Djokovic would have struggled less.

Amazing given that he will go down as one of the best ever...

[stotty]

Well the tournament is over for Djokovic so how did his new serve stand up?

Two of his matches were a cakewalk and his serve seemed to hold up well in those. In his two tighter, more pressurised matches (Monfils, Chung) he served 20 double faults across both matches - way more than he would normally. His first serve percentage was decent, averaging above 62% across the four matches.

It's so nice to have the deeper swing when it comes to rhythm but many players survive well without it. That said, it can't be easy amputating part of your swing so deep in your career.