Pronation only for flat serve??!

[geo]

Hi all. Nice to be here...
I have read somwhere in this forum that forearm pronation is used ONLY for flat serves. Is it really so? I have seen pros at tennisone and they pronate at EVERY serve. Am I getting something wrong?

Tx

-geo-

[vin]

Pronation happens on every serve with a continental grip as a natural way for your arm to complete the swing.

However, I think pronation occurs in different amounts for different serves. I pronate earlier and more forcefully for a kick serve because it adds to the spin. If you watch the follow through of a pro's kick serve, the racquet head usually ends up out to the side of there arm.

When I hit a flat serve, the pronation is mainly to get the racquet face square with the ball and allow a smooth follow through. In this case, the racquet head will pretty much follow through straight down rather than out to the side after contact.

I'm not overly experience with the slice serve, but I believe the goal here is to hit the ball with an angled racquet face which is basically a delayed pronation.

This may not all be exactly correct, but is at least the way I view it. Hopefully it helps.

Vin

[polakosaur]

as long as you remember to hit up on the serve the forearm will pronate naturally

[GP]

Agree with vin mostly. It's a bit more complicated than that.

On the old message board, in one of the last posts in a thread on this very topic, somebody had posted an incorrect reply to the effect that pronation only occurs for flat serves.

I had worked up a lengthy reply to it, then discovered that the old TW message board was defunct and wouldn't accept my reply.

There are several keys to understanding what is going on:

1. The forearm pronation is the final piece in the kinetic link of the serve motion. It is the last bit of significant acceleration that your body/arm unit can apply to the racquet head. If you don't do it, or if you do some lesser version of it (beginners and intermediates often end up doing wrist flexion rather than true forearm pronation), you're going to lose significant racquet head speed.

2. The forearm pronation produces two motions - an upward and forward arc of the racquet head, and a rotation of the racquet face from an initially edge-on position facing to the left for right-handers(when the racquet head is at its initial position dropped downwards and behind the shoulder) to a flat position (face parallel to the net) at some point during the arc of the swing forward, and finally finishing with the racquet face again edge on and facing to the right. The art of putting different spins on the ball depends essentially on being able to separate out the timing of these two motions relative to each other and relative to when the racquet strikes the ball.


3. The goal of flat serves is to rotate the racquet face so that it is parallel to the net when the racquet strikes the ball.

4. The goal of topspin serves is to contact the ball at a point that is slightly lower and a bit closer to your head/body than the flat serve. The racquet face has to be rotated a bit earlier, as a result, since the goal is to hit the back of the ball, with the racquet face nearly flat, while the the wrist/forearm pronation and elbow extension motions are still in the earlier, upwards segment of their arc, and the racquet head has not yet reached the top of this arc. The result will be to brush up and slightly outward on the ball during the ball strike.

5. The goal of slice serves is to contact the ball pretty much at the top of the arc of the wrist/forearm pronation and elbow extension motions. A delay is put on the rotation of the the racquet face so that by the time the raquet face strikes the ball, it is still oblique to the plane of the net. The goal also is to contact the outside of the ball. The result will be to apply sidespin to the ball. Players usually still finish with full pronation/rotation of the racquet face, although some players might cut this short in their follow-through.

6. Reverse slice - often done with an Eastern grip to make it easier. The goal here is to rotate the racquet face very early so that it is actually facing outwards somewhat by the time the racquet strikes the the ball. The result will be to put a reverse sidspin on the ball.

[Thunnus]

GP,

This is some real good stuff. Would you please explain on how to excute the kick serve with forearm pronation? Thanks!

[Roforot]

Thanks for informative post. I'm still trying to digest part of it.
I understand pronation for the flat serve, and delayed pronation for
a slice serve so you make contact w/ the racquet at an oblique angle.
I'm just lost on visualizing the description of #4.

When I hit a topspin serve, I'm straightening my elbow upwards and the racquet is travelling in a near vertical path. I imagine that I'm cutting the ball in half. This gives me a high arch w/ spin but not much pace. If I pronate, should the palm (and racquet) face the sky at contact, so the racquet is sort of hititing tbe bottom of the ball??? Or are you trying to get the racquet to hit over the top of the ball to keep the serve from going long?

thanks again in advance for your help,

Roforot

[quote="GP"][size=6]Agree with vin mostly. It's a bit more complicated than that.


4. The goal of topspin serves to to contact the ball at a point that is slightly lower and a bit closer to your head/body than the flat serve. The racquet face has to be rotated a bit earlier, as a result, since the goal is to hit the back of the ball, with the racquet face nearly flat, while the the wrist/forearm pronation and elbow extension motions are still in the earlier, upwards segment of their arc, and the racquet head has not yet reached the top of this arc. The result will be to brush up and slightly outward on the ball during the ball strike.

[Joe Oldschool]

I, too, understood everything except the pronation for the kick serve.

[geo]

The angle that the racket face hits the ball is given by the pronation movement. In the twist you want to hit the ball with the racket plane facing forward while the racket is moving upwards and to the right. So you must start pronation a bit earlier to meet the ball square BUT while moving upwards, so you toss closer, more to your left and you will end up hitting lower. Is this correct?

-geo-

[Mahboob Khan]

I agree with GP. With continental grip you won't be able to strike the ball with your strings unless you pronate!

For kick serve the strings bypass the ball from 7 to 1 o'clock positions (the face of the ball is the clock), and then some players supinate but the Pros pronate. Same is true for slice serve when the strings bypass the ball at 3 o'clock -- some supinate, some pronate. Yes, pronation occurs on all types of serves! I hope I have not said anything controversial!

To serve out wide in ad court you pronate more because you are trying to bypass the ball at 9 o'clock (hitting inside of the ball).

[Roforot]

Mr Khan,

Forgive my density, are you saying that the pronation on a kick serve should occur after moving the racquet from 5 to 11 (I'm a lefty)? in which direction, should the racquet face post pronation?
i.e. for flat serve, racquet faces right at target.

thankyou for your advice!

[Momo]

Mahboob's comment about how some people supinate after they do a kick or slice serve reminded me of something I hadn't really put much thought into before. Now that I think about it, I realize that when I get lazy or unfocused, I'll supinate on the follow-through of my kick serve. This tends to take away a lot of the forward momentum of the ball since as you supinate, it allows the strings to brush past the ball a lot more than they hit through it. With not much forward momentum and the spin of the ball making the ball dip downwards, this serve rarely makes it over the net, and never lands deep in the service box. I realize that a little pronation is needed to give the ball a more solid hit from the racquet which will give it the juice it needs to get over the net before the spin brings it down.

As for my slice serve, I must admit, I supinate on the follow-through for that one as well... but on purpose in this case. I figure if I'm gonna hit a slice serve with pace (with slight pronation) I might as well hit a flat bomb, so instead I have an extreme spin slice which is slow but goes very wide on the deuce side. It works well for me on S&V because it gives me time to get up to net and it leaves the opponent literally off the court. Also it's funny to see people outright miss the ball as they swipe at it because it pops off low and to the (server's) left when it hits the court because it's almost all sidespin on the ball. Anyhoo, it's more a gimmick serve (although the erratic bounce is really great on indoor rubber and clay) that was just another example of how the supination once again causes the racquet face to become less and less normal (as in vector analysis) to the trajectory of the ball, imparting more of the racquet's energy to the ball as rotational rather than translational (ie. more spin, less pace).

So in conclusion:
1. If you have a wimpy kick serve, see if your forearm stays pronated on the follow-through.
2. Beware my 15 mile per hour slice serve

P.S. Please do not misunderstand what I mean when I say supination. I dont mean to serve with a supinated forearm. To do that would be to try to serve backhanded. Awkard to say the least. Assuming you have a continental grip, every serve will need some degree of forearm pronation at the point of contact with the ball (as been previously stated)... unless you like to serve with the edge of your frame to intimidate your opponents. When I say supination on the serve, I'm talking about what happens after contact (ie. the follow-through). As the arm comes back down, if you dont keep your mind on it, it'll have a natural tendency to return to it's neutral position (neither pronated or supinated as excellently depicted by the Atlanta Braves Tomahawk Chop). To go from a pronated position back to a neutral position will require supination. This motion is what I'm referring to. I think my problem is that with the kick serve, I'm worrying about so many other things, I'll let my arm start to supinate back to neutral position during or before I even hit the ball. This of course leads to the stuff I discussed earlier. Anyways that's my take on it. I don't make any claims that my ideas are the end-all truths. I'm no tennis guru. I'm just devastatingly witty and dashingly handsome... but in this day and age, isn't that all one really needs for instant credibility? I hope at least some of you were able to relate to what I was talking about.

P.P.S That was a long P.S.

[vin]

Momo,

Have you ever heard the expression 'thumbs down for a harder spin serve'? If you pronate correctly, your racquet head (and thumb) are pointing to the ground during your follow through. Just a simple phrase that might stick in your head and make you aware if you are supinating.

Vin

[gofederer]

i think when hitting a topspin serve i keep supinating for a while after the contact and just drop the wrist at the last moment to apply a brake on my arm swinging back into my body and to get prepared quickly for the next shot. that last wrist drop makes it look like i've somewhat pronated during or before the contact but actually it's not. ball contact is made through the whole wrapping motion and i still get decent pace as well as a lot of top spin on the ball. am i an odd man out here?

[GP]

Well, what Mahboob calls supination is essentially what I mean by wrist flexion. It is almost the same thing, except that beginner/intermediates frequently use wrist flexion (and an Eastern or "frying pan") grip to hit flat serves as well. It's more obvious when they are hitting a flat serve that the key feature is that they are flexing their wrist through the ball rather than pronating their forearm/wrist unit. These players will also use wrist flexion to hit slice and topspin, and the supination shows up mainly in the follow-through.

The main problem with using wrist flexion instead of forearm pronation is that the wrist flexion motion has a much more limited range of motion compared to forearm pronation, and, the muscles driving wrist flexion are much weaker. Hence, less racquet head speed as several people have noted.

As for more details on hitting the topspin serve: Here's a few more keys:

1. Pronate the racquet head rapidly from its position from behind your shoulder (more rapidly than you would for a flat serve).

2. Keep the elbow and wrist/forearm unit flexed downwards/backwards. The combination of motions 1 and 2 will bring the racquet face to a nearly flat (parallel to the net) position to hit the back of the ball, AND the racquet face will be LOWER than it would be for the flat serve.

3. Contact the ball at a point slightly lower and closer to your head than you would for a flat serve. This requires either that you do a slightly different toss, or that you lean or step forward slightly more underneath your standard (non-readable) toss.

4. The natural follow-through of your forearm/wrist pronation motion, together with the straightening of your elbow, will result in an upward arc of your racquet face which will brush upwards and outwards on the back of the ball.

5. The follow-through is usually more outward and lateral than for the flat serve.

[Japanese Maple]

I think it is very difficult to accurately describe in writing what happens to your forearm and wrist for each of the serves. I really wish Pat Dougherty would come out with a second serve video on how to hit the various serves(flat,slice,topspin,top/slice,kick) with
disguise, where to toss the ball, what serves are best to hit to each target, ect. I found very few pros do a good job explaining this aspect of serving and you will get as many different viewpoints as there are pros. Through trial and error I have discovered that you can hit various serves effectively using both
pronation and supination for spin serves and strictly pronation for flat serves only. My definition of supination is the wrist and forearm snap/flexion that you would use if you where throwing a curve ball in baseball-when hitting a slice you actually try to hit the side of the ball and trying to snap the racquet around the front of the ball. You can also hit a slice with pronation with the thumb pointing down-both work and one isn't better than the other,just different-experiment. Same thing with hitting a kick/american twist. When hitting the kick with supination you would use the curve ball wrist/forearm snap and rotation similar for the slice but instead of hitting the ball at 3:00, you would hit the inside of the
ball with the racquet face angled towards the right sideline as you
snap up and over the ball. With pronation on the kick your racquet
face is parallel with the baseline as you snap up the back of the ball and your thumb points down as you pronate with your arm going to the right side and slightly backwards towards the baseline. Both ways are correct but obviously the serves will vary in terms of spin and penetration-its worth trying both ways and see what works best for what your trying to create. I know of ex
pros who have outstanding spin serves(slice,topspin,kick) using mainly supination and wrist flexion. As I said earlier this is difficult to explain in print-when is the serve part 2 coming out Pat Dougherty? Please help us out!

[jun]

i agree with vin mostly....
I was pretty confused about pronation and wrist snap for a long time..Took me a while to figure that out.

Pronation is a mere action of your palm turning inside out. For every serve, the butt cap is pointing upwar before you go up for the ball.

In order to hit flat serve, your racket face has to be square. So your palm obviously have to turn inside out. It's a very distint form of pronation.

In order to hit kick serve, you have to brush up from 7 to 1. And pronation happens a bit earlier and quicker than flat serve.

For slice, it's not so obvious. Some people will carve around to hit slice serve. Some people will by pass the ball at 3:00. If you are hitting the slice in later form, than you are pronating much later than that.

It should be happening very naturally. If you are having hard time hitting flat serve, it maybe a good idea to think about it.

After experiencing with many aspects of serves, i think following things are the utmost important.. (at least for me). Not in particular order...

1) relaxed grip/arm
2)backscratch position.
3)Correct toss (no exaggeration)
4)proper use of legs.
5)hip stretch.

[sonicdeviant]

"Check your watch" - QUICKLY! Do that ON EVERY SERVE!

Yes...you DO PRONATE on ALL serves, not just the flat. There was a serving article by Pete Sampras in Tennis Magazine a few years back and it showed him pronating on ALL serves, including and especially kick and slice. The key for me is the angle of attack on the ball (read Pete's article). Don't slow your serve swing down or use weird movements in your wrist, arm, and elbow to generate spin. The pros are good on ALL their serves because they use the same swing every time (same pronation) and just vary where they hit the ball (and how much of the ball they hit).

Try this - make your grip more extreme toward the eastern backhand grip for the kick serve. Now, do all the things you've been taught - over the head toss or over the left shoulder toss, etc. Now instead of going OUT with pronation like on a flat serve, go UP at the ball and PRONATE AT IMPACT. In other words...pronate up. The grip and pronation are actually keys to hitting this serve in my experience.

Forget trying to consciously brush from 7 to 2 o'clock. Turn your wrist over and "check your watch" - this time you're checking it over your
head while on the flat serve you check it out it in front. If you do it right, you don't hit much of the ball...you kind of rub or massage it, and the extreme grip helps you hit from 7 to 2 o'clock using that extreme grip WITH PRONATION and without having to think about brushing from 7 to 2! I think that whole 7 to 2 brushing thing has screwed up more tennis players trying to learn kick than if they'd just learned to pronate on all serves to begin with. If you don't pronate - you're left trying to use arm motion from your elbow or wrist (wrist flexion - I used to do this too) to generate spin. If you hit it right, it will feel like your strings are brushing over the top right side of the ball (like you're wrapping the string bed around the ball using the pronating motion). You're not doing that at all but it feels like it. I can say that the kick serve has a distinct feeling where, once you hit it right, you'll remember the feeling.

You'll know when you hit it right, because the ball will SPEED UP after if bounces, it will bounce high and steep suddenly, and it will bounce to the right (your right if you're right handed). The more you feel like you wrap around the top right of the ball, the more the ball will break to the right after it bounces. Just try it and see. Do the same pronation for the slice. Hit the outside right edge of the ball with a slightly angled or open racket face and then PRONATE - turn your wrist over at impact and "check your watch quickly". As some have said here...delay the pronation. It's the same thing. Once you start spin serving this way you'll leave your "wrist flop-over" serves behind. I did. I think this is important too - pronate as the racket hits the ball. I used to turn my forearm on the follow-through which mistakenly led me to believe I was pronating when I wasn't. In other words, pronate at impact...not after.

If you still don't believe me, go back and look at Pete's article again. See what his arm looks like after the ball has left his racket on his kick
and slice serve. Pronation is the key to BOTH SPEED AND SPIN. It seems like it won't work when you try and think about it logically, but trust me...it does work. Don't trust me then...trust Pete!

On the flat serve, you attack the back of the ball and hit or pronate straight through it...YOU DO NOT HIT DOWN. Never hit down. You'll make the ball go into the net if you THINK DOWN. You need to be something like 7 feet tall to think that way. My pro taught me to SNAP UP on the ball for net clearance on all serves and SNAP OUT TO THE SIDE if the serve isn't landing in the box (added spin). Just equate WRIST SNAP to PRONATION. They are the same thing.

Another thing to remember is that applying spin on a serve is not much different than applying spin in ground strokes. When you hit a topspin forehand, you don't brush the ball in 2 dimensions (straight up and down), which is the way most kick serves are taught. You massage the ball - hit low to high while carrying the ball on your strings forward a bit. It's not really brushing...it's more like massaging or rubbing it. That's the way I like to think about it. Serve the same way - rub the ball when you're trying to get spin. You can do this to some extent using your regular flat service motion too - try thinking this way when you're missing first serves. You'll be surprised how much spin you can generate this way without changing your toss or angle of attack. This is the way Pete developed that serve that couldn't be read easily. His one toss gave you all three serves.

[Japanese Maple]

SonicDeviant,

I thought your insights and analysis of what happens on the serve
was outstanding,especially your comment about the pros hit all the
serves well because they use the same motion and pronation for
each serve but just vary the angle and how much ball they hit.
Just a few questions to help clarify your analysis:
1)Are you an advocate of using the same toss(where?) hitting
each serve or do you vary the toss for flat,slice,kick(where?)
2)Is the toss for the kick out front off the left shoulder and when
you jump up and forwards its above your head,or is the toss
above your head and when you jump up and forward it is towards
your right shoulder-I wonder if most tennis players don't get the
toss out front enough and back behind their heads-they think it
is behind their heads but it usually is not back far enough-do you
agree?
3)where do you toss the ball(how far in front and to the right) to
hit the pronating slice serve out wide into the side net of the duece
court. Do you ever hit that wide slice with a baseball curve wrist
flexion as if your trying to wrap the strings around the side and
front of the ball(supination) or is it better to always use pronation.
4)what serve works best for you to hit down the middle on the
add side,flat or slice?

[sonicdeviant]

Originally Posted by Japanese Maple

SonicDeviant,

1)Are you an advocate of using the same toss(where?) hitting
each serve or do you vary the toss for flat,slice,kick(where?)
2)Is the toss for the kick out front off the left shoulder and when
you jump up and forwards its above your head,or is the toss
above your head and when you jump up and forward it is towards
your right shoulder-I wonder if most tennis players don't get the
toss out front enough and back behind their heads-they think it
is behind their heads but it usually is not back far enough-do you
agree?
3)where do you toss the ball(how far in front and to the right) to
hit the pronating slice serve out wide into the side net of the duece
court. Do you ever hit that wide slice with a baseball curve wrist
flexion as if your trying to wrap the strings around the side and
front of the ball(supination) or is it better to always use pronation.
4)what serve works best for you to hit down the middle on the
add side,flat or slice?

Hi...thanks. I'll try and answer based on my own preferences and experiences.

1. I'm an advocate but I can't do it for the kick. I need that over the left shoulder toss to aid in adding spin (mostly to get that twist). Hey - I'm not Pete and I guess many of us aren't. I toss the same for the flat and slice; I don't exaggerate my toss out to the right for slice like I've seen some articles/books suggest. I get good slice with the right contact point and pronation using the standard flat toss, but if you are one who can muster a can-opener by exaggerating the toss - do it (especially if it gives your opponent fits). I've tried the exaggerated slice toss and the ball spins like crazy...it just doesn't have enough pace on it, so I don't bother with it.

2. For the kick, I toss the ball over and just in front of my left shoulder. When I lean in to hit it, it seems like the ball would fall on my face or bounce off my left shoulder if I didn't hit it! If I want more twist, I'll toss back behind my left shoulder (still over the baseline though), but you really have to arch your back to hit it this way. It always feels like you're going to fall over - it does to me anyway. I don't do this often, and usually when I do it's a mistake. It does produce some interesting returns though when it goes in

3. My toss for the flat and slice serves is the same - got that one from Pete. I toss to the right and out in front (much more in front than for the kick and obviously no where near my left shoulder as on the kick). You should toss so that the ball is ready and waiting out in front of your right shoulder once your shoulders turn towards the net. The shoulders never open up on the kick like they do for flat and slice serves. The difference between slice and flat is, again, the angle of attack (how much of the ball you hit). Some folks on this thread described it as "delayed pronation" and that's a very good description. I just think of hitting the right side of the ball with a racket face that is slightly open with the string bed pointing toward the left net post and then pronating ("checking my watch" quickly)...works for me. I never use wrist flexion anymore (my wrist is laid back on my looping backswing though - I just do this to let my arm go limp); I used to flex my wrist forward on all my serves, because I thought that was what everyone did. But I could never get the pace or spin of higher level players, and my wrist often would hurt when I first started playing a match. I would wonder why guys who were my size or smaller were able to generate so much more pace and spin. Once I started turning my forearm out instead of flopping my wrist over, I started getting easier pace and spin. I could kick myself for not knowing this sooner. Plus my wrist doesn't hurt anymore. That's not to say that you don't keep a loose wrist, and the wrist may flop over naturally on the follow-through, but "the wrist hinge" technique is not what delivers pace and spin on impact in my experience - it's the turning forearm.

Also, I never try "wrapping my strings around the ball", but it sometimes feels like that's happening if you get the angle just right. I think that whole "wrapping" thing is just the FEEL of both the kick and slice...it's the end and not the means. Have you ever hit a really good biting slice backhand that bounces weird? If so, doesn't it feel a little like you're wrapping the string bed around and under the ball? But if you saw it played back in "slow mo" you'd see that this is not what is happening at all. Same thing on the spin serves - you're going for that FEELING of wrapping, but don't worry about contorting yourself in all sorts of weird ways to "wrap the strings around the ball". When you hit it right it will feel that way without your trying to make it happen.

4. I use a flat serve for down-the-middle ad serves (center T), but all my "flat" serves have a little spin on them (and so do everyone else's flat serves really). Remember, I use the same toss for flat and slice, and there's all sorts of room to go from full "flat" to full "slice". There's even room to massage the ball upwards a little for more lift...you can actually hit a miniature kick serve this way. Lot's of room to have more of one than the other - sort of a synergistic serve. I've found that if I consciously try to hit the big arcing slice to the ad side that I'll usually miss left because I'm aiming center T. I've never done this but you could try and hit that big slice and aim more toward the middle of the service box. That would be a great change-up because of the bounce to the left. I've seen pros use that slice to the ad up the T, but I've never really developed it. I think it would be a great serve to have up your sleeve.

Hope my two-cents is helpful.

[Japanese Maple]

SonicDeviant,

Thanks for your input and analysis-just a couple of more questions
if you don't mind:

1)on your kick serve when you toss the ball slightly out front and
behind you,as you arch your back do you make a point of also
rotating your shoulders back or do you keep them along with
your chest parallel to the right sideline with no real shoulder turn
like you would for a flat or slice? Also, for a high bounce is it critical
to have a high contact point with your arm fully extended or do
you hit a lower toss hitting the ball as you go upwards-I've heard
of both ways.

2)On your 1st serve to hold serve do you pretty much hit primarily
a flat or slice(which one mostly) and concentrate on moving the
ball around the various service targets(t,middle,wide,short wide) or
do you focus on spin and placement variety hitting all target areas
with flat,slice,and kick?

Thanks for your input!