Kick Serve motion for critique

[NiteFly]

I am working on sprucing up my kick serve and I have recorded a few serves at 420fps. I had already allowed one Forum member to post some annotations on the video with his insightful tips. The main thing I saw on first viewing was that I need a deeper knee bend and need to hit the ball a bit higher. Any additional tips would be great.

Of note, the annotations feature on youtube seem really cool for this kind of application!

Kick Serves in Slo Mo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn7fv8RG2qQ)

[Nellie]

If you freeze at contact at 55 sec, for example, you will note that you are not hitting up and through the ball. You cannot get topspin/kick without hitting low to high. You racquet movement is level at contact, so you cannot get spin on the ball. You need to sideways longer (it is hard to hit up and through the ball if you open your shoulders too early prior to contact) and let the ball drop slightly (2 inches is enough).

To get the feeling of the position, hold a ball over your head with the left hand and brush up the back of the ball with the face of the racquet (like you are buttering your left palm). Note that your racquet face travels almost in the plane of the baseline

Nice video and angle, by the way. It really good for reviewing your serve.

[LeeD]

As N said, and your trophy position is all wrong. Your hitting arm is waaaay too high, lacking any archer's hip, so you can't really swing hard or up thru the ball. Your serve is much weaker than it should be, seeing how strong you are, but that ultra high racketarm at the trophy takes away the power...maybe ala MartinaNavritilova....but you're NOT a girl.
Seems the ball is moving to downwards after your hit, and a true twist/kick must clear the net by over 4' and still move into the court around 60-75mph for a real high bounce....over the opponent's head.

[NiteFly]

If you freeze at contact at 55 sec, for example, you will note that you are not hitting up and through the ball. You cannot get topspin/kick without hitting low to high. You racquet movement is level at contact, so you cannot get spin on the ball. You need to sideways longer (it is hard to hit up and through the ball if you open your shoulders too early prior to contact) and let the ball drop slightly (2 inches is enough).



Nellie - Thanks for the tip. Oddly, I just started trying to hit the ball with fuller extension rather than letting the ball drop as much as I was before. Ill take some shots showing the balls full trajectory next time I do filming. I am actually getting pretty good topspin (maybe not so much on that first serve in the video), but over the past few months I started losing all of my kick because I was letting the ball drop lower and lower and all the pace started to go. I'll let it drop a little more and work on staying more closed for the next session.

I think I had four serves in that video and one of them kicked pretty well. You can see I toss one farther into the court on one of the serves as well and that is what I am using for a first serve right now. It stays flatter and has pace close to a flat serve, but it dips a bit more than the flat serve. I was pretty surprised myself when I saw these videos and how little it looks like I am hitting up on the ball.

Do you see a correlation on the amount that you let the ball drop past full extension and overall pace?

[Sup2Dresq]

First thing I noticed was your feet. Something seems wrong about it.. besides the front foot planting sideways. hehehe

[ramseszerg]

Which exilim are you using?

For next time, try to get the camera closer so there's less room wasted. That way the critiquers here can see your motion more clearly.

[NiteFly]

As N said, and your trophy position is all wrong. Your hitting arm is waaaay too high, lacking any archer's hip, so you can't really swing hard or up thru the ball. Your serve is much weaker than it should be, seeing how strong you are, but that ultra high racketarm at the trophy takes away the power...maybe ala MartinaNavritilova....but you're NOT a girl.
Seems the ball is moving to downwards after your hit, and a true twist/kick must clear the net by over 4' and still move into the court around 60-75mph for a real high bounce....over the opponent's head.

Thanks for the input LeeD. I seem to be backwards in my own analysis. I filmed my serves a couple of months ago and I thought my trophy position had the arm way too low. I intentionally have been working at bringing it up some.

Of note, these serves are all over 60 mph. I'll try and mix in some shots from behind and maybe that will give a more complete picture. I agree that I should have more power in my serves however. I am hoping to get my kick serves consistently above 75 mph.

I thought my hips were moving forward ok. Should I be intentionally pushing them out front more? Right now, I don't even think about my hips. I guess I mostly focus on my tossing arm and then throwing the racquet once the ball comes into the strike zone.

[NiteFly]

Which exilim are you using?

For next time, try to get the camera closer so there's less room wasted. That way the critiquers here can see your motion more clearly.

It is an EX-FH20. I can get it closer. I was wanting to see my full ball toss at the time I filmed this. This was my first film session that was not in terrible indoor lighting. I am hoping to get some clearer shots too once I learn how to use the camera better.

[NiteFly]

First thing I noticed was your feet. Something seems wrong about it.. besides the front foot planting sideways. hehehe

Nikes will give me an extra 20mph, but I wanted to train with my lead weights on my feet :)