The Serve: Probation!

[gzhpcu]

How about Nicolas Jarry starting from the probation?

[don_budge]

How about Nicolas Jarry starting from the probation?

Brian told me that Nicolas started with him about 13 years ago and just never got out of jail...I mean probation.

[postpre]

How about Nicolas Jarry starting from the probation?

At the probation point, Jarry's strings are definitely not facing the right side fence, but rather more toward the net. This seems to be comfortable for quite a few servers. I fail to see how this limits the effectiveness of the serve, as some suggest. Especially considering Raonic, Sock, Roddick, and many others.

[stroke]

At the probation point, Jarry's strings are definitely not facing the right side fence, but rather more toward the net. This seems to be comfortable for quite a few servers. I fail to see how this limits the effectiveness of the serve, as some suggest. Especially considering Raonic, Sock, Roddick, and many others.

I find this racquet strings facing position at probation point interesting also, and I certainly don't dispute Brian's take on the preferred position. I reviewed the Todd Martin serve and it appears to me his serve is pretty much the same as Jarry's, and his strings at probation point are facing the right side. Not sure why as their wrist position seems the same. It may be Todd has slightly more body turn.

[don_budge]

At the probation point, Jarry's strings are definitely not facing the right side fence, but rather more toward the net. This seems to be comfortable for quite a few servers. I fail to see how this limits the effectiveness of the serve, as some suggest. Especially considering Raonic, Sock, Roddick, and many others.

Roddick?

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/andyroddick/ar_serve/ar_1st_serve/ar_1st_serve.html?AR1stSDeuceFront1.mp4

[postpre]

Roddick?

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...euceFront1.mp4

You are right about Roddick, his strings are facing more toward the net earlier, but as he passes through the so called trophy position they are facing more toward the right fence.

But, a few more examples of huge servers where their strings are facing the net are Karlovic and Copil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmmmGm9fAcU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqAXjGCOZ-I

These guys serve huge, and have a continuous motion (but have obviously learned to time their leg drive superbly).

[lovati4]

I would like to go back to the question of why it is so difficult for players to synchronize the beginning of the backswing with the beginning of knee extension.
It takes a lot of time for the legs to go down and stop (before they can go up). Let’s assume this time interval is constant.
Before reaching the trophy position the hand with a racquet accelerate first and then decelerate. It is quite easy to accelerate them but the deceleration actually takes a lot of time and effort. I would like to elaborate on that.
a. To decelerate the hand you have to contract muscles of your arm and shoulder. But from the beginning players learn to relax their arm and shoulder. It is a conflict.
b. In addition you need to decelerate the racquet head in the trophy position. For that you need a firmer wrist. Again from the beginning players learn to relax it. It is one more conflict in the mind.
c. What is the possible solution? The player should begin to decelerate his (her) hand and the racquet early in the motion.
d. Possible analogy here is a deceleration of a train. If you want to stop it at a station you need to begin slowing it down very early, long before the station and keep doing it. Only then the train will slow down smoothly, in time.
The same way players should learn to begin the deceleration of his (her) hand and the racquet early in the motion. By the time they get into the trophy position the knee extension should begin.
e. It seems easier to practice this motion (at the beginning of a lesson) without an actual ball toss.

[lovati4]

It seems unusual to compare hand movement up with a train movement. It takes a lot of time to stop a train because of its mass. For the hand, when initial acceleration is over it has some velocity. After that shoulder and arm muscles are very relaxed. They cannot stop the racquet head on their own. It is like stopping your racquet during a forehand before the follow through and a stretch on the back of the shoulder.
Fortunately in our case we have an assistance of gravity. Gravity decelerates the hand and the racquet while they are moving up to the trophy position. But with relaxed muscles they keep moving up for a while in spite of gravity. To slow or stop the racquet in the trophy position we actually need to stop accelerating the racquet early on the way up. It gives gravity time to do its job. Even here we need some effort (muscle contraction) to slow down the racquet head.
One extra point is that it might be better to have an angle of less than 90° for the racquet head in the trophy position. If you have it on edge and your knees are not ready to extend yet gravity will make the racquet drop into the backswing too early.

[nickw]

I would like to go back to the question of why it is so difficult for players to synchronize the beginning of the backswing with the beginning of knee extension.
It takes a lot of time for the legs to go down and stop (before they can go up). Let’s assume this time interval is constant.
Before reaching the trophy position the hand with a racquet accelerate first and then decelerate. It is quite easy to accelerate them but the deceleration actually takes a lot of time and effort. I would like to elaborate on that.
a. To decelerate the hand you have to contract muscles of your arm and shoulder. But from the beginning players learn to relax their arm and shoulder. It is a conflict.
b. In addition you need to decelerate the racquet head in the trophy position. For that you need a firmer wrist. Again from the beginning players learn to relax it. It is one more conflict in the mind.
c. What is the possible solution? The player should begin to decelerate his (her) hand and the racquet early in the motion.
d. Possible analogy here is a deceleration of a train. If you want to stop it at a station you need to begin slowing it down very early, long before the station and keep doing it. Only then the train will slow down smoothly, in time.
The same way players should learn to begin the deceleration of his (her) hand and the racquet early in the motion. By the time they get into the trophy position the knee extension should begin.
e. It seems easier to practice this motion (at the beginning of a lesson) without an actual ball toss.

I would say the solution is to keep the acceleration of the hand to as little as possible. The less speed the hand builds up, the easier and more natural it is to decelerate it. Smooth and deliberate through this phase of the serve, as per my 1-2 rhythm concept (articles on this site). It never looks right when players rush the racket to trophy position, which often leads to poor timing and lack of acceleration through the hitting phase. The slower and smoother you can make it, the better you prepare for phase 2 which of course starts with the explosive driving up of the legs. It's like very slowly pulling back a slingshot, and then release...BANG! Maybe that makes some sense

[don_budge]

Article by Nick Wheatley...1:2 Rhythm: The Serve

I would say the solution is to keep the acceleration of the hand to as little as possible. The less speed the hand builds up, the easier and more natural it is to decelerate it. Smooth and deliberate through this phase of the serve, as per my 1-2 rhythm concept (articles on this site). It never looks right when players rush the racket to trophy position, which often leads to poor timing and lack of acceleration through the hitting phase. The slower and smoother you can make it, the better you prepare for phase 2 which of course starts with the explosive driving up of the legs. It's like very slowly pulling back a slingshot, and then release...BANG! Maybe that makes some sense

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members/classiclessons/nick_wheatley/1-2_rhythm_serve/

[lovati4]

In the initial phase of a serve I like allowing the racquet head go down first, slowing it down at the bottom without a full stop then letting the racquet head accelerate a little on the way to the trophy position.
In this case the racquet head accelerates without much effort. You really have to slow it down at the bottom.
Then it accelerates again on the way up before slowing down again. Here I like the analogy with slowing down a train. If you want to stop the train at a station you need to begin slowing it down very early, long before the station and keep doing it. Only then the train will slow down smoothly, in time. The same way players should learn to begin the deceleration of his (her) hand and the racquet long before the trophy position.
Some players use a different sequence. They completely stop the racquet head before pulling it up to the trophy position. Surprisingly many good players serve like that. May be even for them this acceleration-deceleration sequence is not easy to synchronize with the knee extension.
On the other hand some players do not slow down the racquet head at the bottom of the path. This may lead to poor timing of the knee extension and the beginning of the backswing (the key element of a good serve).

[nickw]

Thanks for digging out my article don_budge

Hi Brian, when you have a moment, I'd really appreciate your thoughts on a couple of issues regards what's going on at the hesitation point. By the way, fantastic article, and series as I've mentioned before. I'm a huge fan of your work.

First issue is the position of the elbow. You said that if this falls much below 20 degrees in relation to the shoulder, then it will start causing problems. There are examples of players who drop the elbow well below 20 degrees in the hesitation point, yet it seems to me this position almost helps them get more power by generating a deeper starting position to the cartwheel motion. I wonder is there any truth in that, and to what extent this is less efficient bio-mechanically? Does maintaining a straight line between the shoulders, by extending the tossing arm to point more directly upwards, allow this deeper elbow position to function better? You can see this in the Isner and Dent examples, by finding the point where the legs first start to push up. I took screenshots, but couldn't upload them.

Taylor Dent: https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...stSAdRear2.mov

John Isner: https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...2%20240fps.mp4

Second issue is the position of the racket being to the right of the player in the hesitation point. Logic would suggest that if the racket is positioned to the right of the player (ie a little short of the traditional trophy position), then the hitting arm can benefit even more from the accelerating effect of the leg drive, because it has a little further to travel enabling a little more racket speed to be generated. I wondered your thoughts? Would this be the case, or might this have negative implications on how well the racket gets in and out of the drop position? Perhaps it depends on the flexibility of the shoulder too. Roddick is an example of the racket to the right at the moment his legs start to push up, and Isner exhibits this to some extent too.

Andy Roddick: https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...DeuceRear1.mp4

[bottle]

Yes one can clearly see it in the Roddick. My other idea was that racket might get going the 20 degrees during the slow part of the serve to build a little momentum before the legs speed everything up.

[postpre]

Sorry, I need to go back to the point that many big servers do not have their strings facing the right (side fence) at the trophy position (or as they pass through trophy if it's a continuous motion). They display a bit of forearm supination at this point, and often get more of an "on edge" racquet drop than Sampras and Federer. Below is another clip of Marius Copil's serve. Watch the slow motion in the middle of the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT9dbmuwf4g

I am not here to argue whether severs like Copil have a better serve than Sampras and Fed (they most certainly do not when all things are considered). Instead, I see this as very practical in terms of coaching and development, and knowing when to correct sub optimal biomechanics. Thus far, I am not convinced that a serve like Copil's lacks anything from a biomechanical perspective. But I am open to hearing viewpoints that challenge my current understanding.

[lovati4]

If the player can synchronize knee extension with the beginning of the backswing every time like that, good for him. You need excellent coordination and timing.
But for most players it might be better to decelerate the racquet head smoothly almost to a stop (v=0) by the trophy position. In addition have the racquet head at an angle to a vertical line. This allows for some extra time for the beginning of the knee extension (which actually takes a lot of time) before the racquet head drops into the backswing.