Your Strokes:
Alan Serve(s)

Analyzed by John Yandell

"No one has ever been able to teach me a kick serve," Alan told me when we scheduled his video analysis at my court in San Francisco. He felt sure he could do and had no idea why he wasn't, as he was an athletic 4.5 level player.

I told him that the so-called "kick" serve was not somehow a different serve, but actually a relatively small variation on the first serve motion so we needed to look at his overall serve technique to see what the limitations might be there.

I was pretty sure what the high speed video would show because I had seen the issue with so many players—usually something to do with the racket drop. If the racket drop position isn't great, that affects the racket path on the way to the ball, making it come too much from the left, limiting the critical topspin component.

When that's the case, there isn't some magical change that can somehow allow a player to hit a "kick." To this point, Alan had never seen himself in high speed video, and what he saw was I think a revelation to him.

Although his drop was better than many players I have filmed, it wasn't close enough to full to optimize his basic motion. It happened too far away from his torso to really allow him to hit up to the ball on the right path. We could see this is both in the angle of his racket at the drop and then of his arm in the upward swing, coming too far from the left in the last few frames before contact.

When I look at a service motion I am not necessarily concerned with the wind up and backswing—unless it fails to deliver the racket to the fully dropped position. In Alan's case his backswing started out more like a classical pendulum, but then went somewhat behind his body. From there it went up more like an abbreviated motion.

I have seen a few NTRP players achieve a good drop with an abbreviated motion. But most players lack the shoulder flexibility it takes to do that. And that's sometimes true even at the pro level.

Click Here to see the article I did with Paul Goldstein when he was on tour. We dramatically improved his drop and his serve speed by going from an abbreviated wind up to a more classical pendulum.

So we decided to try to shape Alan's wind up more toward the classical model and see what happened. This meant trying to keep his racket more on his right side and turning the face over sooner.

A Model From the Past

One of the things I like most when working with players is when they themselves flash on an image that turns out to be an active key. At one point Alan turned to me when we were discussing all this and said: "Johnny Mac."

He'd read the article on Tennisplayer I had done years ago showing how McEnroe had developed a deviation in his backswing late in his career, taking the arm and racket way too far back behind him—much further than Alan--and how we had corrected it using video of his motion when he was the best player in the world, going back to a pure circular pendulum wind up. (Click Here).

Alan modeled the Johnny Mac position on the court with the racket face turning over sooner and pointing at the back face on edge. Then he created internal visual images of that position to guide the actual swing. After hitting no more than a dozen serves there was a significant change in his motion.

Now his windup didn't look perfectly like Johnny's—but it didn't need to. And yes his drop could still go 10 or 15% further. But the increment of change made a difference. His wind up was staying more on his right side, and at the drop his hand and racket were much closer in toward his back.

All this was allowing his swing to the ball to become more directly upward. Alan said he could feel the difference and particularly that the motion felt freer and more effortless. So that was satisfying.

What About the Kick?

But now what about the reason he came, trying to get more kick on his second serve?

We know from our high speed video studies of great servers that the second serve toss is more to the left and slightly over the top of the head, and that this causes the drop to become deeper and the path upward to the ball to become steeper. These are relatively small differences in the motion—but they are the difference in terms of hitting a higher topspin component and kicking the ball.

When we looked initially at Alan's second serve, we saw exactly the same issues as in the first. The windup going too far behind him and the same issue with the drop and the path upward to contact.

And we saw something else unexpected. The motion of his back leg. As he hit, he raised it from the hip and then kicked out to his right. That surprised him when he saw the high speed video, to say the least.

So we worked on the same two issues in the wind up and backswing, with a similar result. Using the same backswing model as the first serve he improved his drop and the racket path to the ball.

What about the leg? We used what I call the "hoppity hop," something that I have used in my serve work many times including with players like elite world senior player Jeff Greenwald (Click Here.)

Basically the player has to land on his front foot and then take another forward hop with that foot and stay on balance. It was amazing because within 2 balls Alan had almost completely corrected his leg kick.

So now we had it modeled on both serves. An improved racket path and good balance on the second. The second serve was already starting to kick more at the end of our two hours, and like the first, felt more relaxed and fluid.

So Alan left with a clear technical blueprint for his new motion. He also left with a series of progressive drills.

One of the basic problems in traditional tennis lessons is the myth that if a teacher simply verbally explains what to do and the student understands it change will occur. (Click Here to read the Myth of the Tennis Tip.)

This is the operating paradigm for the overwhelming majority of teachers and students. But the actual process of change isn't verbal. It's visual and kinesthetic. How the motion looks and how it feels inside the player's mind and body.

Progressive

The process of change is also progressive and happens in increments. Even if a player improves his technique in lessons it quickly disappears if he jumps directly back into matches.

So for Alan I outlined a series of drills and drill games. Start in the deuce box and count how many serves out of 10 go in. Do the same in the ad box. Do it for first and second serves.

Before every second or third serve, model the new backswing motion and then when actually serving, visualize the image of that key backswing position. Do the hoppitty hop every few second serves.

Check the motion with video. Remember with an iphone anyone can now record high speed video! Work until 70% or so of first serves go in with the corrected motion, and 95% or so of seconds.

Now find a practice partner and play service games in both boxes to 7 or 11 points, again with the modeling and video. Do all this for at least a week if not two before playing matches. But come back to the drills as well when you start to play.

Check the match serves with video and if necessary drop out of match play to work on the basic motion. Use your intuition to decide how much you need the drill games and work back and forth between them and matches.

This is the nature of the process for real change. Hopefully he will work it. But I think Alan was happy with the work so far because he is coming back in a month to work on his backhand return!