Junior kick

[J011yroger]

I'd focus on the lower body first.

You are leaking a lot of power with the racquet dropping before the leg push starts.

I don't like how the back leg kicks out to the right, that means his weight is going left, then he kind of falls into the court leaning over and catches himself on the right leg way into the court after he landed on the baseline. I'm also not in love with the initial foot position.

I wouldn't worry very much about the hand path or pronation/ISR right now, your son obviously understands how to hit a kick serve. His main obstacle is going to be getting loaded with the racquet tip still up and then driving everything in the same direction, getting it all behind the ball. I wouldn't be surprised if the timing of the pronation sorted itself out or at least improved dramatically once you got the lower body sorted.

If I were coaching him the first thing I would do would be quiet the lower body and have him serve with just his arm/upper body, then I would build in a pause at the trophy at full knee bend with the racquet up. Also make sure he can sink into that full knee bend, racquet up trophy position and hold it for 10 seconds, that will show that he is strong and balanced in his motion which will be a huge asset to the repeatability of the motion, consistency and accuracy.

Last, have him serve and land on his left foot and stay balanced on that one leg with his right still in the air, then from there he will be able to push back behind the baseline to hit the first ball, or push forward to the net.

The +1 is huge and a balanced landing and quick recovery will have him able to attack a weak reply or defend a strong one.

Good luck!

J

[stotty]

I need to get the moderator to delete this one! I don't know how.

No need. Just keep rolling with this one.

[johnyandell]

Try starting a new thread!

[arturohernandez]

I agree with J011yroger that he is losing energy.

He seems like he is trying too hard. I like the idea of him trying to work through the feel of the kick. Sorry John but I am going to advocate for one drill that I think really helps but is not part of tennis player. It's by Tomaz Mencinger of feel tennis. Essential Tennis also has a similar approach.

The drill I like is to try and put the racket on the ball with the hand and roll up on it. You can also stick the racket slightly above your head and then roll it. Then I would stand at the service line or closer and try rolling it over the net. This is very easy and smooth. There is no need to accelerate. First he needs to feel what the roll of the ball is. Then slowly incorporate more of the body.

https://youtu.be/L5d4SYXbufw

I think serving very slow even for advanced players is important. Federer's serve is super smooth for a reason. He practices slow serves when he is warming up and if you watch him he is not trying to hit it hard. He is simply loosely hitting the ball and I am pretty sure if you asked him he would tell you that he is focusing on simple little things like getting his weight forward.

https://youtu.be/QI5adGG6RA8

I would slow his practice way down in terms of speed. Right now he is trying to muscle the ball over the net and that is not going to help. He needs to train each piece of the serve slowly and then let it fall together naturally.

There is a lot of fine coordination that occurs in the serve and trying to put it together too quickly is a bad idea.

[J011yroger]

I agree 100% when I practice serves I might hit an entire 350 ball cart, but only swing full speed at the last 20 or so.

This allows you to feel what is going on and consciously control the swingpath because when you go fast, you revert to your habits. Also it allows you to train a much greater volume as most people would not be able to hit 350 full effort serves daily.

J

[stotty]

I agree 100% when I practice serves I might hit an entire 350 ball cart, but only swing full speed at the last 20 or so.

This allows you to feel what is going on and consciously control the swingpath because when you go fast, you revert to your habits. Also it allows you to train a much greater volume as most people would not be able to hit 350 full effort serves daily.

J

I would slow his practice way down in terms of speed. Right now he is trying to muscle the ball over the net and that is not going to help. He needs to train each piece of the serve slowly and then let it fall together naturally.

There is a lot of fine coordination that occurs in the serve and trying to put it together too quickly is a bad idea.

Great advice. Staged progression is the way to go. And slowing the swing down so the student can fell what's going on inside the shot is a great tip. It takes years to develop a really good serve serve and moving too quickly through the learning phases is seldom a good idea.

I always liked this article by Welby. https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...ing_serve.html

It's amazing how many can't achieve the basic serve like the girl in the first clip. When players first start playing, that 'basic serve' should be the goal, and a player should perhaps not move on until they can do it.

[arturohernandez]

Great advice. Staged progression is the way to go. And slowing the swing down so the student can fell what's going on inside the shot is a great tip. It takes years to develop a really good serve serve and moving too quickly through the learning phases is seldom a good idea.

I always liked this article by Welby. https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...ing_serve.html

It's amazing how many can't achieve the basic serve like the girl in the first clip. When players first start playing, that 'basic serve' should be the goal, and a player should perhaps not move on until they can do it.

Stotty, I am so glad that you found something on tennis player.net. I love the picture of the girl throwing a ball with a serve motion. I have used throwing as an important tool to help my kids develop their serves. My youngest can even throw a kick serve with spin using her hand. It makes it so much easier to learn how to manipulate the ball with a hand and then transfer this to the racket.

I could spend a long time talking about how the racket being far away from the body makes the serve hard too. Somehow it has to become an extension of our body.

In any case, great find with the article. The serve is ironic. So easy to learn and so hard to perfect.

But it has to be learned first and that is where it takes time.

[knifer]

Thanks for the comments. Lots to work on. He is getting a good angle with the serve if you note how far outside the doubles alley the ball is landing. Here is a real match example in mixed doubles of the ball placement and path.

[J011yroger]

Yes, the angle is great which shows he knows how to put spin, hit the left side of the ball and swing backwards. It will be very consistent, nasty serve once the moving parts are nailed down.

J

[stotty]

Tough to see whether he has good internal rotation on the serve in post #23. I toggled through slowly and would hazard a guess it still could be better. What really stood out well was his left to right action across the ball with the racket face and subsequent follow through down the right side of the today. That is how to get work on the ball for sure. Andy Murray's internal rotation was questionable at times (not sure what it is like these days) yet he still could serve really well, although his second serve could be very tame.

The serves in the clip in post #23 are good ones to the ad court. He stands wide to deliver them and gets a great angle. He definitely has accuracy and knows how to employ the kick serve tactic.

[knifer]

Thanks everyone! Here is a collage of several- I think he has more ISR on some than others.

[arturohernandez]

Thanks everyone! Here is a collage of several- I think he has more ISR on some than others.

Thanks for the collage. Do you have any in slow mo or super slow mo? There is something funny about his feet and how they land but I need a slowmotion video to be able to see things more clearly.

The kick looks really good but I think that if he improves he might be able to save some energy or hit the ball with more spin.

In any case, if you have a slow motion video I would be able to see more.

[knifer]

Thanks for the collage. Do you have any in slow mo or super slow mo? There is something funny about his feet and how they land but I need a slowmotion video to be able to see things more clearly.

The kick looks really good but I think that if he improves he might be able to save some energy or hit the ball with more spin.

In any case, if you have a slow motion video I would be able to see more.

This one should be slow-mo.

[stotty]

Thanks everyone! Here is a collage of several- I think he has more ISR on some than others.

I imported the collage into a software and toggled through every serve. His ISR is minimal. Every serve is identical in terms of his ISR. It's just a habit he has formed that is now embedded and it would need to be coached out of him.

Then again Andy Murray's isn't all that great yet he got to number 1 in the world!

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/andy_murray/am_serve/am_2nd_serve/am_2nd_serve.html?AM2ndSDeuceCourtLevelFront1.mov

[knifer]

I imported the collage into a software and toggled through every serve. His ISR is minimal. Every serve is identical in terms of his ISR. It's just a habit he has formed that is now embedded and it would need to be coached out of him.

Then again Andy Murray's isn't all that great yet he got to number 1 in the world!
https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...evelFront1.mov

I guess I don't understand what ISR really is. I thought at least the video in the collage at 0:15 (https://youtu.be/suXzML8y5-A?t=15) and at 0:17 depicted ISR. And I can't view the links to the tennis player net archives without paying I don't think