My serve

[maverick1]

Sorry, no quicktime format. I only have a video file made by Windows movie maker. A side view of my serve(deuce):
http://mavericks.cc/tennis/serve/serve.wmv

I made a sequence of relevant stills from that short video. The JPG files are all here:
http://mavericks.cc/tennis/serve

I hope that is enough for anyone who wishes to comment on my serve. If you want better angles, let me know. I will try and do this over the weekend.

The problems that are obvious to me are:
1. The knee bend is ugly. much bigger gap between knees than between feet
2. The left arm doesn't come down enough.
3. My body (at contact) isn't as straight as most pros. Is this a real problem?

I welcome all comments, encouragement, advice, ctricism, negative, brutal, whatever.

Thanks.

[maverick1]

Not even one comment? Somebody, please?

[EricMatuszewski]

The "bowleg" effect of the knees out can be corrected by simply pointing the feet more parralell to each other during the leg drive.

This is probably more cosmetic in that it's not going to increase ball speed, spin or reduce injury risk greatly, but nevertheless it will make you look "More Pro".

Yes, your spine looks more hunched forward throughout the stroke than top players.

Some of this is probably from doing a desk lob and being hunched forward all day. Yoga can help correct this, and that would carry over into your serve motion without any real "reeducation" of your stroke.

Again, this might have some minor ball speed,spin increase but it probably will be just a cosmetic change.

Finally the shoulder over shoulder quality could be better, (this is a pet peeve as of late on this board). The video is not the best but that's what it looks like from here.

Increasing flexibility thru Yoga practice will help the trunk positioning out without much real "adjustment" but it will take a long persistent effort (Months of everyday practice). It is also likely that the Yoga practice will decrease your chance of injury by making you stronger and more flexable as well as just making your "stroke postures" better.

I'd also like to see you get rid of the "hunching forward in preparation to toss the ball". Just work on keeping your back straight up and down as you toss the ball. You shouldn't be actively bending your spine during the preliminary movements or during the actuall serve.

As your flexibility increases (thru regular Yoga practice) you will also want to get yourself to stay more closed (keep your chest from facing the target, your left shoulder should face it more).

This should keep you busy for a long time.

Don't expect these changes to be able to happen in even a months time. This is more like a year or two years project you have ahead of you (working out 4 times per week). Use your camera frequently to evaluate yourself and to see which strategies for re-programing yourself are working. You'll probably be supprised with how hard it will be to change these hardened habits.

Nothing worth doing is easy, tennis is rewarding because it's hard.

Eric

[maverick1]

Eric,
Thanks very much for your comments.

The main things I take from this are to work on flexilibity(which I understand is a long term project) and that the non-cosmetic issues to work on are shoulder-over-shoulder quality, not hunching during the toss and staying more closed.

I think lowering my left fore-arm some more will improve the shoulder-over-shoulder cartwheeling. I thought I had fixed this. But when I looked at the video, I was a bit shocked to see the left arm action was almost unchanged.

[mntlblok]

I probably shouldn't even comment about serves (he of two second serves) , but I seem to recall from many of the videos on the site that at least some of the pros have their tossing arm more or less parallel to the baseline as they toss the ball, while yours seems to be "aimed" toward the right net post. I wonder if that change would go along with some of Eric's suggestions about being more "closed". I've found that, since making more of an effort to have my tossing arm go parallel with the baseline that it's much easier for me to make my toss consistent. Maybe it even leads to a bit more racket speed via some more "torso twist".

Kevin
Savannah

[maverick1]

Kevin,
I was told that before and I thought I had corrected the direction of tossing arm! I guess I need to do more. Until a couple of weeks ago, I used to point my tossing arm almost perpendicular to the net and attempt to toss it up as straight as possible, about a foot in front of me and a little to the right. This is suggested by a lot of a coaches but no pro uses it. Not sure if it is in the list of myths that John identified, but it should be.

Thanks for the comments
maverick1(Murali )

[gzhpcu]

Maverick1,
Do you have any videos or jpegs from the rear? Would be nice to see where you are tossing the ball. I would think turning your shoulders a bit more intially would also help improve your serve. To get this, try moving your right foot a bit more to the left when you start your serve. Otherwise, I think you have a nice swing and movement.

[maverick1]

No, I don't have a shot form the rear. I will try and get one this weekend if it is not too cold and if my arm is feeling well

The toss is very inconsistent right now. I had a completely different (straight up, a foot in front diagonally to the right) toss before that night.

Now, the goal is to toss the ball in an arc and try to hit it 1 to 2 ft in front of the left foot or a little to the left of that. When I managed to do that, I found that my back naturally arches back to make room to hit the ball, my abs come into play, and the right & left shoulders get aligned more vertically than horizontally, and I feel the extra pop in my shot although the accuracy isn't there.

But there is no arching of the back on this particular serve, so I think I forgot the tossing to the left part on this serve. I am making way too many changes. On any given practice serve, I seem to forget at least one of them. Sad to say, this serve was the best of about 240 serves I hit that night. I like to look at the "carry" of the ball after the bounce to judge the pace of my serve. It seemed to land about a foot inside the service line and got lodged in the fence(21 ft behind baseline) about 1 foot high. My benchmark for decent pace is whether it hits the fence before second bounce after landing inside the service box. Right now, I can only hit a few of those in a 1 hour practice session.

I thought the one thing I did right in this serve was to launch my body into the court. My left foot landed more than 2 feet inside the court, and I am taking that as a very positive thing. Is there a reason I shouldn't? The only thing that makes me suspicious is that most pros don't land that deep. Federer and Roddick don't. Philippousis does. Sampras is in between. I landed deeper than Sampras. Is there some sort of trade-off?

The odd thing is that my stance should make it harder to land deep in the court. The Bruce Elliot article says that feet closer together (like Roddick) allows a better vertical drive and feet farther apart(like Sampras) is more useful if you want to quickly get to the net behind the ball. Since I am not an S&V player, after reading this article, I changed my stance width from Sampras-like to Roddick-like. It is still new to me, amd that is probably what introduced the bowleg effect.

[gzhpcu]

Changing too many things at once is confusing and difficult. I'd recommend setting priorities on what you want to change. And use the video. I know how frustrating changes are. You think you have changed (in your head), but when you look you haven't. Keep at it, and you will be rewarded.... Good luck.

[maverick1]

Attaching a Quicktime version.

I used a trial version of TMGEnc 4.0 XPress to produce this file. Nice software. A wide choice of outputput formats including HD, and some nice editing features including cropping of the frame. That really saved a lot of space.

[maverick1]

I seem to recall from many of the videos on the site that at least some of the pros have their tossing arm more or less parallel to the baseline as they toss the ball, while yours seems to be "aimed" toward the right net post. I wonder if that change would go along with some of Eric's suggestions about being more "closed". I've found that, since making more of an effort to have my tossing arm go parallel with the baseline that it's much easier for me to make my toss consistent. Maybe it even leads to a bit more racket speed via some more "torso twist".

Kevin
Savannah

I agreed with you about the toss, but now after reading Welby van Horn's article in the November issue, I am a little confused. He is recommenidng a 45 degree angle to the baseline, as opposed to nearly parallel.
This is what he says:

In addition to all of the tossing mechanics just discussed, another key factor is the angle of the tossing arm. Specifically, as the tossing arm moves up to toss the ball, the angle formed by the line of the arm and the baseline should be at about 45 degrees.

As the tossing arm moves up, the angle to the baseline is about 45 degrees.

Having the arm at the 45 degree angle enables you to turn your hips and shoulders as you toss the ball.

[madcheese]

quicktime pro tutorial

Maverick do you know where to find John's tutorial on how to use quicktime pro on tennisplayer? I can't locate it!