Serving Landing Foot
 

Hi:

I'm 17 years old and I've been playing tennis for about five years now. I've enrolled in a juniors' programme in Vancouver Canada, and the coaches are set about improving my serve. I've been described as the most aggressive player in class, and I usually do S&V. The dominant style there is aggressive baseline, which makes me a slight oddity there.

The issue is that I never seem to be able to "jump off" during serve and I leave my left foot on the ground during the motion. At contact I am standing on the tip of my toes of my left foot. After that I land on my right. The serve is usually consistent and the weight balanced; I usually serve a wide slice on the deuce side and up the middle on ad side.

The coaches (along with another one on individual lessons) said that I should land on my left foot, but I couldn't seem to do this in balance and the return just wizzes past me. Also, if I land on my right, it would form my "first step" to the net. Any suggestions?:confused:

before addressing technique you need to strengthen some leg and foot muscles. can you balance well on one leg? like stand on one leg for a very long time able to resist falling? practice this for each leg. then practice lifting the heel and lowering on each leg and practice tilting the pelvis for each leg. standing on one leg straight lift the other leg up and down in the air using the pelvis. do all these until slightly sore and repeat. to learn a technique the muscles should be able to coordinate and to do that the right muscles should be strong enough otherwise cannot learn a technique. here the muscle strength is not a bulky muscle build up but more balanced distribution of strong and serviceable muscles throughout.

Most pinpoint servers land on their tossing hand side foot.
Pinpoint is a different animal. They seem to land on either foot, preferred by the player. McEnroe lands on his left foot, he lefty. Some players land on their other foot, it doesn't seem to matter because it's linked with how much twist you put into your serves. Some twist, some ab crunch, some pivot.
What IS important is a low trophy hand, a slight archer's bow, and a high hand, high elbow AFTER you contacted the ball, with your racket now pointing straight down at the ground.

Second sentence is platform?

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I was thinking exactly the same thing as I posted, but I still typed on....
Seems I recall him pivoting on his right foot, landing on his left his early years..
Then some footage of his pivoting on his right foot, landing on his right foot.
Oh well.
Doesn't BrianGottfriend land on his right foot?

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From what I've seen almost all pros land on their non-dominant foot today. Go back before 1970, when one foot had to stay on the ground during the serve, and everyone "stepped" into their serve - the non-dominant foot stayed touching the ground and the dominant foot swung into the court.

Becker was a modern player who landed on his dominant foot, and his serve was OK:wink: So, it can be done, but even in the late 80's he was unusual. Sampras, Edberg, and other S&V players all landed on their non-dominant foot.

Will Hamilton of Fuzzy Yellow Balls made this video just for you:

Leg Kick on Tennis Serve http://blip.tv/fuzzy-yellow-balls/le...-serve-1190196




But the fact that you are not landing on your left leg is a symptom that you are not properly loading your body to power "up the mountain" at the ball.
For that check out the following video:
Nick Bollettieri-Sonic Serve.wmv http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajoZ0f7hw-A

Left foot if you are right handed

You can't cite any extremely old players to support landing on the (initially) back foot. The reason to that being that it was illegal to leave the ground, so the front foot stayed on the ground.

Higher ball toss or more leg strength. You should be reaching up to hit the ball.

Boris Becker Serve Slow Motion
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFPPz0Iy5A0

Impressive!!!

For pure serve and volleyers, many land on their right leg (for righties). It does help you get into the court and up to the net faster.
Michael Stich served that way as well as Becker and many of the old serve and volleyers.

Serve and volleyers bring their back foot through and get to the net faster. Some have a little hop and land on their front foot (Sampras, Rusedski), some don't and land on their back foot after it comes through (Becker, Stich).
These are similar and both different than a serve like Roddick or Sharapova where the back foot actually kicks up behind the body. This forces the landing to be on the front foot, but also stops the forward momentum. This can be an advantage to a baseliner, so they don't get caught up in the court and can stay at the baseline more easily. (Edberg actually does this but his front foot lands way into the court in a running motion).

The Sharpova motion is like a baseball pitcher, the Stich motion is like a football punter - with the upper body and the leg being pulled forward by the core of the body. Both can give a tremendous amount of force into the ball. One is not inherently better than the other in terms of the serve itself.

If you are intent on serving and volleying, it is probably an advantage. If not, it doesn't matter much.

If you get enough force in your serve your front foot will come off the ground at least a bit, regardless of which foot you land on.

Impressive return winner indeed.

The rule change to allow jumping on the serve happened way back in the 50s or 60s. However, the old school serve that the OP describes still appeared to be the de facto standard serving style for amateur and elite players in the 70s and well into the 80s. The modern serving style that Will Hamilton of FYB describes has become the standard for elite servers in the past 2 decades or so.

Sure, one can still employ the old school style. Pancho Gonzales and many others had excellent serves, even by today's standards, even tho' they left the front foot on the ground for the most part. However, I would still encourage a modern serving style as suggested by FYB and the OP's coaches.

It sounds like the OP might not be getting enough knee bend and leg drive for the front foot to leave the ground. If you are bending the knees, then perhaps you are not timing the leg drive properly. The legs should start to extend at the trophy phase and should be fully extended by the time the racket is at its lowest point (for the back scratch phase). This means that the upward swing (to contact) of the racket head starts immediately after the legs are fully extended -- the legs fire and then the arm & racket fire.

A serve & volleyer should still be able to use the modern style. The rear leg (right leg for righties) can still kick back as the server lands on the front (left) foot. The right leg action helps to minimize the hip/lower body rotation late in the service action (the hips should rotate earlier then the rotation should transfer to the torso/upper body). The right leg might also serve as a counterbalance as the body is launched upward and forward. After the right leg kicks back, it can then swing forward if the server wishes to follow his/her serve into the net.

That's right.

Ball position front to back is a big part of this. If the ball isn't far enough in front it won't be natural to explode upward and especially forward.

The contact is at the very front edge of the body--like the nose--but to do this with the leg explosion requires a ball toss placement into the court.

tho I agree tossing into the court thing but I have seen some juniors and rec players over doing this and the balance become unstable.

Good strikepoint position is 3"-12" inside the baseline.
Volleyball servers can do otherwise.

Strike position
 

Yes, but Rosewall says in his book that the strike position should be between 1' and 1' 6" in the court?