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My post on Stefanos Tsitsipas's service toss cluster from ESPN, and numerous serve details from Infosys got some interest, so John asked me to post what I had on the Big 3. So, here you go.
First up, is a graphic I've only seen once, this from Tennis Channel in 2015.
This combines HawkEye's "Service toss cluster", which shows where the ball is when players hit in while serving, with a ray-trace for the subsequent ball path. As Courier notes, you can see a "tell" for Djokovic that he'd never realized.
Jim Courier: What's interesting about {the service-toss cluster graphic } is that the further left the toss went for Novak, the more likely the ball is to go out wide. Traditionally, people think about throwing the ball more to the right as a right-hander, to create that sidewinder spin when you slice the ball out wide. So, it is a microscopic tell, but the tell is if the ball goes a little further left he is going out wide in the deuce. That is something I had never picked up on that's beautiful from HawkEye."
Note: Since Goren Ivanisevic worked with Novak to hit more slice wide on both first and second serves during this AO, I don't know if this graphic would look the same today. I'd love to hear if anyone knows or has opinions on what exactly Djokovic was doing differently this year.
DjokovicTossClusterRay.jpg
Here are clusters for Rafa, Fed and another slightly more recent one for Djokovic.
Nadal first serves from this year's Australian Open via EPSN. So, Rafa's "spread" is less than half that of Stefanos's.
Nadal1stServeClusterAO21_900k.jpeg
This is a few years ago, showing Federer and Novak from, I believe, ESPN. 20 cm is ~7.9 inches. So, their cluster is just over 1/3 as wide as Rafa's.
I'd add that any such image captures a period in time and doesn't show everything about a player's serve. For example, we hear former Fed-coach Paul Annacone frequently say after a Fed service winner, "Fed just hit that up the T out of a fake-kick-toss". {I've heard identical descriptions of Fed serves by Courier {Who said he had two tosses, one more to his left which, like Fed, he used for kick serves but could also hit up the T out of that toss to keep people honest}, Jimmy Arias, and Darren Cahill -- who actually told me in an email exchange "Fed has several different service tosses".}
During their quarterfinal at the AO, I noticed the Tsitsipas did the opposite. That is he could hit his kicker up the T in the ad court, attacking Rafa's lefty backhand, then as Rafa started shading over to cover that, out of the same toss, Tsitsipas hit flat and wide often catching Rafa flat footed.
But, Fed didn't hit either one of those so that doesn't show up in the toss cluster.
filedata/fetch?id=92874&d=1615229894&type=thumb
Here's Zverev's much maligned 2nd serve toss cluster from one of the periods where he struggled with his second serve. In fairness, I believe he changed his toss midway through the match to hit more kick, so it is more like two, different clusters. I think this was Tennis Channel. Red here is a double fault. One sympathizes.
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First up, is a graphic I've only seen once, this from Tennis Channel in 2015.
This combines HawkEye's "Service toss cluster", which shows where the ball is when players hit in while serving, with a ray-trace for the subsequent ball path. As Courier notes, you can see a "tell" for Djokovic that he'd never realized.
Jim Courier: What's interesting about {the service-toss cluster graphic } is that the further left the toss went for Novak, the more likely the ball is to go out wide. Traditionally, people think about throwing the ball more to the right as a right-hander, to create that sidewinder spin when you slice the ball out wide. So, it is a microscopic tell, but the tell is if the ball goes a little further left he is going out wide in the deuce. That is something I had never picked up on that's beautiful from HawkEye."
Note: Since Goren Ivanisevic worked with Novak to hit more slice wide on both first and second serves during this AO, I don't know if this graphic would look the same today. I'd love to hear if anyone knows or has opinions on what exactly Djokovic was doing differently this year.
DjokovicTossClusterRay.jpg
Here are clusters for Rafa, Fed and another slightly more recent one for Djokovic.
Nadal first serves from this year's Australian Open via EPSN. So, Rafa's "spread" is less than half that of Stefanos's.
Nadal1stServeClusterAO21_900k.jpeg
This is a few years ago, showing Federer and Novak from, I believe, ESPN. 20 cm is ~7.9 inches. So, their cluster is just over 1/3 as wide as Rafa's.
I'd add that any such image captures a period in time and doesn't show everything about a player's serve. For example, we hear former Fed-coach Paul Annacone frequently say after a Fed service winner, "Fed just hit that up the T out of a fake-kick-toss". {I've heard identical descriptions of Fed serves by Courier {Who said he had two tosses, one more to his left which, like Fed, he used for kick serves but could also hit up the T out of that toss to keep people honest}, Jimmy Arias, and Darren Cahill -- who actually told me in an email exchange "Fed has several different service tosses".}
During their quarterfinal at the AO, I noticed the Tsitsipas did the opposite. That is he could hit his kicker up the T in the ad court, attacking Rafa's lefty backhand, then as Rafa started shading over to cover that, out of the same toss, Tsitsipas hit flat and wide often catching Rafa flat footed.
But, Fed didn't hit either one of those so that doesn't show up in the toss cluster.
filedata/fetch?id=92874&d=1615229894&type=thumb
Here's Zverev's much maligned 2nd serve toss cluster from one of the periods where he struggled with his second serve. In fairness, I believe he changed his toss midway through the match to hit more kick, so it is more like two, different clusters. I think this was Tennis Channel. Red here is a double fault. One sympathizes.
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