Practicing the toss

[maverick1]

I would love to work on my toss this winter. It is the one thing I can do at home. I would like to hear any comments, but the number one question is: where should the toss land?

For the first year, I was using advice I read in a coaching book - to toss it straight up, diagonally in front and to the right. Now after seeing Tennisplayer videos, I want to dump that and learn to toss in an arc and hit the ball to the left of my starting position. I found that this is fairly natural for me and I can feel some extra power coming via the abs. Now I need to work on a consistent toss to this new location.

Has there been any study of where the pros' tosses would land on the court if they were allowed to? I have a feeling the pro tosses would land way to the left and deep into the court, to extent that would be physically impossible for me to even reach and hit a legal serve, but it would be good to have an idea of the general direction of their toss.
I remember looking at Hewitt's serve from the side and thinking that would probably land 5/6 feet inside the court; he seemed to hit it about 3/4 feet inside.

Also how accurate does the toss need to be? Can the pros put it on a dime? On a tennis ball?
Is it sufficient for me to be able to land it on an area the size of a racket head?

[davehagler]

practicing the toss

John Yandell wrote something about this - http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...part3_pg1.html
although I am pretty sure there is something else on the website. Practicing the toss without a serving motion is useless. I remember back in the 70's (yes, I was teaching then) we used to have people put their wooden racquets in the court and have them toss the ball up and try to have the ball land on the racquet. There were people who could do this 9 out of 10 times but when they tried to toss and serve it was completely different. I do not believe you can practice the toss without serving. I do believe you can practice your service motion without a ball and pretend to toss one but then you are working on your motion - not your toss. I would focus on your contact point - and the goal is trying to get the ball to your contact point. One other thing - your toss will go where your hand points so make sure you point your hand where you want the toss to go.

Dave

[maverick1]

Dave:

I practice my toss with a racket in hand and I take my racket back just as I would in a real serve. In other words, I am doing exactly what I would do in a real serve until the ball leaves my hand. Do you still think this practice is not helpful?

I was focusing on a spot on the floor rather than on the contact point because it is not easy to mark the contact spot. But I just realized that I could probably stand near a wall such that I can mark a spot on the wall where I want my contact point to be.

The new question is where should the contact point be? How far in front, how far to the left and how high. The contact height is especially uncertain to me. The pros are in the air when they hit, but they have a fair amount of lean, so it is not clear to me at what height they hit the ball relative to their standing reach.

[gzhpcu]

I have not seen any recent research data on this point. All I can ever saw was this:



It is from Stanley Plagenhoef's "The Fundamentals of Tennis", but was done when the servers still had to serve with the front foot in contact with the ground.

[maverick1]

Wow, Phil, that is a very interesting diagram. Thanks for digging it up, copying and posting.

Just so I am clear, is this diagram showing the location of contact or location where the toss would land? Either is helpful.

Amazing that this kind of detail is available for ore-open players but not for modern players.

[gzhpcu]

Though not explicitly mentioned, I believe it is the contact point, since for an arcing toss it would wander off to another point.

This study was done pre-1970. Shame nobody has ever come up with anything similar since, I agree.

Some additional statistics from Plagenhoef on the height of throw above the contact point:

0-1" Newcombe, Graebener, Trabert
1"-3" Seixas, Savit, Palofox, Emerson, Osuna, Pilic
3"-5" Ashe
6"-9" Gonzales, Sedgeman, Hoad, Laver, Roche
9"-12" Kramer, Mulloy, Richardson, Rose, Rosewall (1969)
12"-15" Stolle, Ralston, Smith, Santana, Connolly
15"-20" Smith, McKay, Rosewall (1952)
20"-24" Lutz, Santana, Garcia, Drysdale, Barthe, Brough
24"-30" Chaffee

[maverick1]

Thanks Phil.

Re: height of toss, I am fully sold on John's preference for the higher toss, a la Sampras, who tosses it almost 2 feet.

The following is a digression, if anybody cares...

The article by John estimates Sampras's toss height as 12-14 inches, but I calculated it more precisely as about 2 feet, by counting the number frames the ball takes to drop from the peak and using an elementary physics formula(h = 0.5gt^2).
g, acceleration due to gravity = 9.807 m/s^2 = 386 inches /sec^2
t, time = number of frames / 30 (for regular speed video)

If the ball drops for 10 frames before contact, the height of drop is
0.5 * 386 * (10/30) ^2 = 21.4 inches
For 11 frames, the height would be
0.5 * 386 * (11/30) ^2 = 25.9 inches

Sampras is usually betwen 10 and 11 frames.

You can use this method even when the peak of the toss is not visible, as long as the contact point is visible. Count the number frames during which the ball is out of view and divide by two to get the number frames from peak to just-in-view.

For the purposes of developing our own serves, it is not becessary to know the exact height. Use video to count how many frames your toss drops before you hit it, compare that number with that of your model pro, and adjust accordingly.

[gzhpcu]

I am also sold on the higher toss, not only because it results in a more relaxed motion and also in reaching up for the ball, but also because of the added number of topspin revs added, that apparently can make quite a difference in the amount of serves hit in.