Pete Sampras ‘How to disguise your serve’

[DropShotArtist]

^^^ So maybe you should have posted this in the tennis tips section then?

[Laurie]

A more technical question now.

If I think of Sam Stosur, she has a great kick serve, but we all know it is predicatble and the very best returners are waiting for it, there are certain serves Sam cannot do to a very high level.

Her serve down the middle on the ad court can be much better. But her serve is limited by how she holds the racquet, if anyone else has observed it, does she use a forehand grip to come round the ball to get the kick? It looked like a forehand grip to me when I see close up clips.

As far as I can tell, to hit all of the serves with great disguise and a lot of spin, the continental grip still gets the job done doesn't it?

[Laurie]

Originally Posted by DropShotArtist

^^^ So maybe you should have posted this in the tennis tips section then?

Indeed I should have, I mentioned that in the former pro player thread, and I will, thanks.

[mattennis]

Great data, Moose Malloy.

Maybe my memory fails, maybe it was only for the WTF as you suggest.

I would love to see those statistics for any entire year and it would not surprise me at all to see Sampras fifth or sixth in some years (behind Ivanisevic, Krajicek, Becker...) or maybe not, maybe he would be top-3 in that list (in any case, your data seem to suggest that though Goran or Krajicek hit more aces, the nº of unreturned is not that different).

The reason I would not be surprised by that (some players having more unreturned serves than Sampras, per first service point played) is that, like I said earlier, Sampras not always tried to make an ace or unreturnable with his first serve, whereas other big servers usually tried to make an ace or unreturbable almost with all their first serves.

[mattennis]

Originally Posted by DropShotArtist

Isn't hitting a first serve ace or unreturnable serve ALWAYS more desirable than hitting a serve that requires a follow-up volley?

Depends. Trying to hit an ace with EVERY first serve can tire you down quickly and you won't get a high % of first serves in trying to hit absolutely perfect first serves (aces) all the time (Well, maybe you can if you are Goran Ivanisevic or Richard Krajicek, but few people can do that).

A good kick first serve can make you win the point as well with an easy first volley and you will get them in with a higher % than other types of serves.

In fact, in my opinion, Rafter's or Edberg's first serves were just perfect to win easy points with first volleys, for example (and they both won more points that way than when they tried to hit aces).

[Relinquis]

great tip from pete... thanks for posting this, will try to incorporate it.

anyone know what grip he used for his serve? i use continental, but shifted slightly (half a bevel) towards eastern backhand.

also, any space between fingers?

[smoledman]

Super #humble Petros filled with advice for all!

[Laurie]

Originally Posted by Relinquis

great tip from pete... thanks for posting this, will try to incorporate it.

anyone know what grip he used for his serve? i use continental, but shifted slightly (half a bevel) towards eastern backhand.

also, any space between fingers?

I believe he used continental. Still the best grip to serve in my opinion.

[BeHappy]

Actually, if you look at atp world tour final matches/end of year masters, from the 90's on youtube, they occasionally had an (amazing) overhead angle of the serve, they'd do it every 5-6 points and you can see that Sampras threw the ball way to the right when he hit a big flat/slice first serve, and further behind and to the left when he wanted kick etc.

It's possible that the toss was the same every time and he twisted his body so it was further to the right or left relative to him depending on what serve he wanted. But it was very noticeable and even if you look at normal matches I think I could definitely tell if he was going to kick it or slice/cannonball it, although I obviously wouldn't return one out of a 100.

Maybe the real disguise was his ability to disguise the direction?

[Bobby Jr]

Originally Posted by mattennis

Ivanisevic, Becker, Stich, Krajicek, Arthurs and some others from his time had better serves

Do you really think Stich had a better serve than Sampras?

Seriously?

[ultradr]

Sampras' was the best in all aspects of serving

• pace
• accuracy
• varieties
• disguise
• consistency over long period
• management and change ups
• efficiency
• backing it up with rest of his game
• and so on

It was proven time and time again for over decade, we witnessed how deep
Pete's serve was in every aspect listed above.

In terms of sheer potency, some people say Krajicek's and Ivanesvic's were
the most devastating.

And, please, somebody drop Wayne Athurs from this thread.

[Raul_SJ]

Originally Posted by Laurie

This is excellent instruction, I should put this thread in the Instruction section if there is one:

It looks like Sampras was disguising not just the serve placement but the spin as well. Returners didn't know if a flat or a kick or a slice was coming.

I was tossing at 12 o'clock for a kick serve and 1 o'clock for a flat serve.

The new coach then told me to try to use basically the same toss for kick and flat (use a very slight tossing difference). He said if my toss varied too much for a kick serve, I would be giving the spin away.

I had thought it wasn't a big issue if the returner knew a kick serve was coming but I can understand why the coach thinks its important to disguise the spin.

[Mahboob Khan]

The key is that the players must spend 50% of their practice time on learning all types of serves and then applying it in pointplay situations. In the coaching camps I observe that too much time is spent on ground strokes and very little on serve. We all know that a point does not start with a ground stroke, it starts with a serve.

The serve should be practiced in two segments:

1. Serving from the basket to various targets, (spin control, heights), etc., and

2. Pointplay situations, practice sets, etc.

For example, in pointplay situations the following discipline may be followed:

Playpoints or a set with the following rule:

If you win the point with a volley and/or a smash you win 4 points. If you win the point from the baseline you win just 1 point.

This will improve the other essential area such as approach shots because without quality approach shot you can't have a decent first volley.

Mahboob Khan

[SystemicAnomaly]

Originally Posted by heftylefty

It was Becker.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Not read Andre's book myself. The first time I heard of the tell, someone said that it was Henman. The 2nd time I heard the story, it was Sampras. Goes to show you... unless it's on the internet, it may not be true (and I am a French model).
.

[Mahboob Khan]

Nice to hear from you sir.

[SystemicAnomaly]

Originally Posted by Mahboob Khan

Nice to hear from you sir.

Wow, a blast from the past. I don't think that I've seen much from you in more than a year. Good to see you and B Bill posting again. It's the 2nd coming.

[Mahboob Khan]

I will try to be around. My time is distributed between Facebook, Twitter, and some international News Forums. But I have realized that the TW is the place where we all belong.

[TennisCJC]

Originally Posted by Shaolin

True if you only take into account the first serve, but factoring in the second serve Pete has the best overall. He was more dangerous with his second serve than a lot of pros are with their first.

Correct, there were a few that had 1st serves that could hang with Pete, but day in and day out, no one could hang with his 2nd serve. Pete had the only 2nd serve that could frustrate Agassi. Pete would pick up his 2nd serve up quality against Agassi and it was almost as effective as his 1st serve.

Pete had the best serve overall that I have seen since I started paying attention in the mid-70s.

[TennisCJC]

Disquise is important but I have noticed that Federer uses 2 tosses. He 1st serve toss appears to be toward 1 and out front. His 2nd serve toss is around 12 and not quite as far out front. He can hit L, R or middle from these 2 toss locations.

So, I don't think it is too bad to move the toss.

[Mahboob Khan]

Of course the toss should be adjusted such so that the receiver fails to notice it.