Help me to improve my serve!

[kiteboard]

sampras motion

sampras serve oh
sampras serve sideways

You have great stick accel. with not the best form. I can see how that's caused shoulder damage, along with the bab stick, too stiff, and probably poly string, which is also bad for the arm.

[pvaudio]

Originally Posted by kiteboard

sampras motion

sampras serve oh
sampras serve sideways

You have great stick accel. with not the best form. I can see how that's caused shoulder damage, along with the bab stick, too stiff, and probably poly string, which is also bad for the arm.

1. I injured my shoulder due to kick serves, not flat serves.

2. I have only played with Dunlop since I started playing in 5th grade.

3. When I injured my shoulder I was using either syn gut or NRG2.

[pvaudio]

New video, yay!

At the advice of Djokovicfan, I decided to implement a rear leg knee bend. It's thrown off my timing and I only had an hour to practice, but it still doesn't look right. It isn't fluid enough at all. What's the problem? I want to have a typical platform server's trophy pose, which I can't get:






Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol9rrVCPcG8

[LeeD]

Seems you have plenty of knee drive, plenty of forward movement at times...but not at other's, you swing hard and fast, your prep position seems fine, you toss is fine.
Only thing that bothers me is that you used DJ's new unpolished motion as your example. I'd like to think of bending my hitting elbow more, so it can uncoil into the service motion. Also, bending the elbow more serves as a technique for more replicability, more consistency, like a catcher's throwing motion over a pitcher's in baseball. The least consistent is the longthrow for an outfielder. They keep their throwing elbow relatively straight, for distance but not for accuracy.
Then again, how good (fast) is your serve? Seems lots of the serves have plenty of spin, robbing you of ball speed. Are you short? I think 6' delineates between tall and short for a flat serve in tennis.

[kiteboard]

LIne of the shoulders is not right. Rear foot is way over the center line. Syn gut or nrg2 are soft strings, and dunlop is flexy.

[Djokovicfan4life]

I think you should look at the angle of your shoulders compared to the pro pics you posted. They tilt their shoulders upwards towards the sky, while yours are more or less parallel to the net. I think this might be what's throwing your balance off with the leg adjustment, as well as limiting how much you can "hit up" on the ball.

Perhaps pointing your left arm more straight up would initiate a better shoulder tilt. If you try to point it up without tilting your shoulders, you'll hit your head, more or less.

[pvaudio]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Seems you have plenty of knee drive, plenty of forward movement at times...but not at other's, you swing hard and fast, your prep position seems fine, you toss is fine.
Only thing that bothers me is that you used DJ's new unpolished motion as your example. I'd like to think of bending my hitting elbow more, so it can uncoil into the service motion. Also, bending the elbow more serves as a technique for more replicability, more consistency, like a catcher's throwing motion over a pitcher's in baseball. The least consistent is the longthrow for an outfielder. They keep their throwing elbow relatively straight, for distance but not for accuracy.
Then again, how good (fast) is your serve? Seems lots of the serves have plenty of spin, robbing you of ball speed. Are you short? I think 6' delineates between tall and short for a flat serve in tennis.

I don't know; the last time I had it legitimately clocked was when I was 16 at 111. I'll be applying for grad school soon so I don't know how accurate that figure is anymore

I do like to put a bit of topspin on my first serve to help keep it in and give it some heaviness. I've found that a huge flat serve is great as long as the opponent is nowhere near it. If they are, they just block it right back to you with that same pace. If you add a bit of topspin to it, I've found that I get a far higher percentage of 1st serve points.

And I am 5'10 and a bit, for reference.

I'll try to tuck the forearm in a bit more; you're right; it seems as though I'm losing pace unnecessarily

[pvaudio]

Originally Posted by kiteboard

LIne of the shoulders is not right. Rear foot is way over the center line. Syn gut or nrg2 are soft strings, and dunlop is flexy.

Okay...then what is not right about it?

And yes I know all of that; that's exactly why I posted it since you tried to attribute my injury to a Babolat racquet then stiff strings when I injured it using a forgiving frame with soft strings.

Edit: and no, my rear foot isn't far over the center line. Look at the angle that the video was shot. My feet are far apart, but my rear toe is just inside the center line. I know that because I used to be called for "foot faulting" for having my heel in line with the service strip.

[LeeD]

On my first post, way back when, I mentioned you slightly open stance on the prep. Now some other guys have also mentioned it. Back should just face opponent to get full rotation.
I"m also a hair under 5'11", and have been having problems breaking into the higher teens lately. But then, I mostly play once a week, and never practice in between.

[pvaudio]

Originally Posted by Djokovicfan4life

I think you should look at the angle of your shoulders compared to the pro pics you posted. They tilt their shoulders upwards towards the sky, while yours are more or less parallel to the net. I think this might be what's throwing your balance off with the leg adjustment, as well as limiting how much you can "hit up" on the ball.

Perhaps pointing your left arm more straight up would initiate a better shoulder tilt. If you try to point it up without tilting your shoulders, you'll hit your head, more or less.

Hmm...maybe that's the missing link. You're right; Federer and especially Henman's hands are pointed straight skyward, mine is pointed directly at where I tossed the ball which is out in front and to the right. I'll try that, and see if that passively pulls down my rear shoulder

[pvaudio]

Originally Posted by LeeD

On my first post, way back when, I mentioned you slightly open stance on the prep. Now some other guys have also mentioned it. Back should just face opponent to get full rotation.
I"m also a hair under 5'11", and have been having problems breaking into the higher teens lately. But then, I mostly play once a week, and never practice in between.

So I should close my shoulders even more? I know you're not saying anything ala McEnroe, but to me, my chest looks parallel to the curtain. But do you think closing it further will help?

[Lsmkenpo]

The knee bend is to load in a coil position with your hip leading into the court and your shoulders to angle to get more coiled power.

Your knee bend is not loading your coil as it should, you are just using it to jump up and arm the ball. You should feel a stretch on the front of your torso when you load.

[kiteboard]

The left hip has to be out over the baseline, so you can coil backwards, with a bow, and toss arm straight up, so shoulders can get more rotation, and elbow can move a greater distance. Look at the sampras oh shot, and see how he moves forward, with the left hip, and coils the right shoulder towards the net, and faces the thumb towards the back fence, and first supinates the hand, and then pronates it. Also look how low the left shoulder is vs. the right shoulder at the contact pt, and the angle is almost straight up and down, so the shoulders rotate 180 degrees. Your shoulders hardly rotate at all.

[pvaudio]

Hmm, I'll work on this one step at a time. The way that it got completely FUBAR last time was because I tried to change everything at once. I'll try to reach straighter up which I think will force my rear shoulder down as well as naturally cause my left hip to come forward. I think it'll give me a bit more consistent leg drive as well. After that, I'll try what Lee said and try to tuck my forearm in a bit and see if that doesn't help with consistency.

You guys are invaluable; I need to post a groundstrokes video one of these days so you can take a look at that as well

[AlpineCadet]

There's so much that could be wrong with your serve. But one of simple things ppl forget to do is have good rotation. Toss high enough so you have good reach and hit up to the ball and make sure you don't have a death grip. With all that, you should have decent spin/pace without much effort. Knee bend, balance, pronation and whatever else can come later.

[ttbrowne]

You're leaving your tossing hand up sometimes and then other times it is straight out in front of you. There is no consistancy with the tossing arm.

Leave it up and then come over. It'll help you with the shoulder problem.

Cause the thing is your shoulders are not angled up enuf.

[kiteboard]

Originally Posted by pvaudio

Hmm, I'll work on this one step at a time. The way that it got completely FUBAR last time was because I tried to change everything at once. I'll try to reach straighter up which I think will force my rear shoulder down as well as naturally cause my left hip to come forward. I think it'll give me a bit more consistent leg drive as well. After that, I'll try what Lee said and try to tuck my forearm in a bit and see if that doesn't help with consistency.

You guys are invaluable; I need to post a groundstrokes video one of these days so you can take a look at that as well

You still have to toss forward, and keep in mind the small part of the ball you are going to hit and leg drive forward as well, not just up. Look at how far forward the contact point is in the sampras shot.

[cesarmo03]

Originally Posted by kiteboard

The left hip has to be out over the baseline, so you can coil backwards, with a bow, and toss arm straight up, so shoulders can get more rotation, and elbow can move a greater distance. Look at the sampras oh shot, and see how he moves forward, with the left hip, and coils the right shoulder towards the net, and faces the thumb towards the back fence, and first supinates the hand, and then pronates it. Also look how low the left shoulder is vs. the right shoulder at the contact pt, and the angle is almost straight up and down, so the shoulders rotate 180 degrees. Your shoulders hardly rotate at all.

Originally Posted by Lsmkenpo

The knee bend is to load in a coil position with your hip leading into the court and your shoulders to angle to get more coiled power.

Your knee bend is not loading your coil as it should, you are just using it to jump up and arm the ball. You should feel a stretch on the front of your torso when you load.

that about it.

this comment is really funny on your first serve video

ouggnoy your opponent would be fossilized by the time the ball leaves the racket's string bed.

9 seconds in every serve that is not counting the time you take to pick the ball and returning to the baseline.

[tricky]

pvaudio --

Have to say, your pronation is just beautiful. Kinda ironic given the monster thread about it.

Because you're using an abbreviated service motion, you don't want to use a J-toss. It doesn't coordinate well between the tossing arm and the hitting arm.

Shoulder is not being loaded very much. It makes me wonder just how much you can put on that puppy once the shoulder is being properly loaded. Again, this goes back to the forward momentum thing. Your momentum needs to be going forward as you start separating the tossing arm from the racquet. The weight transfer is what starts loading the shoulder for power.

Shadow serve with the One Foot Drill a few times. Prepare your setup position. Stand on just your back foot, weight on the balls of that foot. Then separate your arms and make the tossing motion. You don't even need to execute the service motion in full, just observe what goes on.

[pvaudio]

I shall be going out for another two hours and will have videos once again of the results