Why can't I serve with poly?

[dode]

Seems like a simple question. I have run into this issue with about every racquet I have tried in the last year. Since starting to play again last year, I have tried full poly and poly/syn gut in a few different racquets, and for the life of me I can't serve with any of them. My flat serves just don't do much, and my spin serves are like a hanging curve ball. Playing with either multifilament or gut/poly hybrids with the same racquets, my serve is a huge weapon. With the poly, it is a hindrance. It isn't like I double fault or anything, it just turns my serve mediocre.

Case in point. I am trying some new racquets right now. Today was the first time that I hit with either one of them. The first is a Volkl C10 Pro. One was strung with Pacific Tough Gut mains and Genesis Black Magic crosses. Very good performance on everything. The other was strung with Signum Pro Poly Plasma. Just to hit with it, I liked it quite a bit, though it took a little adjusting after hitting the gut/poly hybrid. Serving though was atrocious. My spin serves just sat up right in the hitting zone, getting no bite at all. This is funny because my groundstrokes seem to have more spin and hop to them.

The second group of racquets I tried today was the Donnay X-Dual Gold 99. One racquet was strung with the same gut/poly hybrid. This setup has a little more power than I am used to, so some shots were flying a little, but the serve was again very good. I switched to the other frame that was strung with Poly Star mains and Gosen OG micro crosses. Holy cow did I LOVE that setup for hitting ground strokes. Again I was very disappointed with how I served with it. It really stinks because that setup was amazing for hitting ground strokes.

Do I need to change something in how I serve? I mix up my serves normally, hitting some flat serves and some very heavy spin serves that get a good deal of action on them, some slice and some kick. With full poly or poly mains though, my serve just suffers really bad. I have tried to play around with hitting it different, but it seems that I can never get them to act the same as with either a full bed multifilament or my gut/poly setup.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Gut is getting kind of expensive, even in a hybrid.

John

[CrispyFritters]

I have noticed the same thing when I serve with full poly. I normally play with a gut hybrid in the mains. In my case, I concluded that I just did not have enough racket speed and the loss of power from the poly really magnified that. Gut helps you "cheat" a little because it is more powerful.

One thing that has helped is to lower the tension a lot. I can get some pop back if I string poly around 45 instead of gut at 60.

[Rjtennis]

I think you will get used to it if you like the other benefits poly can provide. Maybe try to start generating a bit more racket head speed so you can get the extra pop. Racket head speed is king with poly, especially on the kick serve. You might also want to think about dropping the tension on the poly to get more power. What are you stringing at now?

[LanEvo]

I was not a big fan of serving with poly in the beginning either, especially coming from softer strings, i.e. multi/syn gut.

But what I found was the technique, you kind of have to swing up on the ball more to generate spin. As well, another way was to hit the ball at more of an angle and not just head on. These things could go hand in hand, but try it out. That's how I fixed my problems with poly.

[NLBwell]

Poly definitely takes away power. Check out how you do on no-pace balls (or drop-feeds) to see if it is just the serve or any ball with no initial pace on it.

If I played as well with it, I'd play gut/poly instead of poly mains just because it is easier on the arm.

[lawrencejin]

There are a few things you could look into:

1. Appropriate tension. As the posts above said, lowering tension could give you extra power and spin you need to get your serves back up.

2. Different poly's. As you know, some poly's are much softer than others, and some much more powerful than others. Right now I'm experimenting with SP Tornado crossed with Forten Sweet at 52/55lb in my Dunlop 4D 100, and I am amazed at how much extra pop I am getting on my serves compared to my previous hybrid set-up with SPPP.

3. The one time I've tried natural gut / poly hybrid, I've noticed that it's a lot more forgiving with serves than a poly / synthetics hybrid. With natural gut in the mix, I could be lazy and still get in bombs. Considering this from your perspective, it might be possible that you just got so used to the forgiveness of natural gut / poly hybrid that you are initially struggling to adjust with poly's. With poly in the mains, you need to be more dead-on with your timing and contact point. If this is the case, just practice a bit more and you'll adjust. Once adjusted, you'll soon find that you can serve just as well as you did with natural gut in the mains.

My opinions, of course. Good luck!

[BabolatTennis9]

with polys instead of trying for alot of power try going for more spin and placement and your serve can become a weapon that way or if you want power try a thinner poly

[julian]

Originally Posted by dode

Seems like a simple question. I have run into this issue with about every racquet I have tried in the last year. Since starting to play again last year, I have tried full poly and poly/syn gut in a few different racquets, and for the life of me I can't serve with any of them. My flat serves just don't do much, and my spin serves are like a hanging curve ball. Playing with either multifilament or gut/poly hybrids with the same racquets, my serve is a huge weapon. With the poly, it is a hindrance. It isn't like I double fault or anything, it just turns my serve mediocre.

Case in point. I am trying some new racquets right now. Today was the first time that I hit with either one of them. The first is a Volkl C10 Pro. One was strung with Pacific Tough Gut mains and Genesis Black Magic crosses. Very good performance on everything. The other was strung with Signum Pro Poly Plasma. Just to hit with it, I liked it quite a bit, though it took a little adjusting after hitting the gut/poly hybrid. Serving though was atrocious. My spin serves just sat up right in the hitting zone, getting no bite at all. This is funny because my groundstrokes seem to have more spin and hop to them.

The second group of racquets I tried today was the Donnay X-Dual Gold 99. One racquet was strung with the same gut/poly hybrid. This setup has a little more power than I am used to, so some shots were flying a little, but the serve was again very good. I switched to the other frame that was strung with Poly Star mains and Gosen OG micro crosses. Holy cow did I LOVE that setup for hitting ground strokes. Again I was very disappointed with how I served with it. It really stinks because that setup was amazing for hitting ground strokes.

Do I need to change something in how I serve? I mix up my serves normally, hitting some flat serves and some very heavy spin serves that get a good deal of action on them, some slice and some kick. With full poly or poly mains though, my serve just suffers really bad. I have tried to play around with hitting it different, but it seems that I can never get them to act the same as with either a full bed multifilament or my gut/poly setup.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Gut is getting kind of expensive, even in a hybrid.

John

Please read the related post
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=443145

[UCSF2012]

Originally Posted by dode

Seems like a simple question. I have run into this issue with about every racquet I have tried in the last year. Since starting to play again last year, I have tried full poly and poly/syn gut in a few different racquets, and for the life of me I can't serve with any of them. My flat serves just don't do much, and my spin serves are like a hanging curve ball. Playing with either multifilament or gut/poly hybrids with the same racquets, my serve is a huge weapon. With the poly, it is a hindrance. It isn't like I double fault or anything, it just turns my serve mediocre.

Case in point. I am trying some new racquets right now. Today was the first time that I hit with either one of them. The first is a Volkl C10 Pro. One was strung with Pacific Tough Gut mains and Genesis Black Magic crosses. Very good performance on everything. The other was strung with Signum Pro Poly Plasma. Just to hit with it, I liked it quite a bit, though it took a little adjusting after hitting the gut/poly hybrid. Serving though was atrocious. My spin serves just sat up right in the hitting zone, getting no bite at all. This is funny because my groundstrokes seem to have more spin and hop to them.

The second group of racquets I tried today was the Donnay X-Dual Gold 99. One racquet was strung with the same gut/poly hybrid. This setup has a little more power than I am used to, so some shots were flying a little, but the serve was again very good. I switched to the other frame that was strung with Poly Star mains and Gosen OG micro crosses. Holy cow did I LOVE that setup for hitting ground strokes. Again I was very disappointed with how I served with it. It really stinks because that setup was amazing for hitting ground strokes.

Do I need to change something in how I serve? I mix up my serves normally, hitting some flat serves and some very heavy spin serves that get a good deal of action on them, some slice and some kick. With full poly or poly mains though, my serve just suffers really bad. I have tried to play around with hitting it different, but it seems that I can never get them to act the same as with either a full bed multifilament or my gut/poly setup.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Gut is getting kind of expensive, even in a hybrid.

John

What's happening? Are your serves slower? Is placement worse? Is your serve more spinny? Is it less consistent?

There are lots of things you can do, but no one can give you input if they don't know what's happening. Saying that your serves are mow mediocre doesn't say anything.

[tlm]

Originally Posted by dode

Seems like a simple question. I have run into this issue with about every racquet I have tried in the last year. Since starting to play again last year, I have tried full poly and poly/syn gut in a few different racquets, and for the life of me I can't serve with any of them. My flat serves just don't do much, and my spin serves are like a hanging curve ball. Playing with either multifilament or gut/poly hybrids with the same racquets, my serve is a huge weapon. With the poly, it is a hindrance. It isn't like I double fault or anything, it just turns my serve mediocre.

Case in point. I am trying some new racquets right now. Today was the first time that I hit with either one of them. The first is a Volkl C10 Pro. One was strung with Pacific Tough Gut mains and Genesis Black Magic crosses. Very good performance on everything. The other was strung with Signum Pro Poly Plasma. Just to hit with it, I liked it quite a bit, though it took a little adjusting after hitting the gut/poly hybrid. Serving though was atrocious. My spin serves just sat up right in the hitting zone, getting no bite at all. This is funny because my groundstrokes seem to have more spin and hop to them.

The second group of racquets I tried today was the Donnay X-Dual Gold 99. One racquet was strung with the same gut/poly hybrid. This setup has a little more power than I am used to, so some shots were flying a little, but the serve was again very good. I switched to the other frame that was strung with Poly Star mains and Gosen OG micro crosses. Holy cow did I LOVE that setup for hitting ground strokes. Again I was very disappointed with how I served with it. It really stinks because that setup was amazing for hitting ground strokes.

Do I need to change something in how I serve? I mix up my serves normally, hitting some flat serves and some very heavy spin serves that get a good deal of action on them, some slice and some kick. With full poly or poly mains though, my serve just suffers really bad. I have tried to play around with hitting it different, but it seems that I can never get them to act the same as with either a full bed multifilament or my gut/poly setup.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Gut is getting kind of expensive, even in a hybrid.

John

I have noticed this also, I love the way my ground strokes work with full poly but serving is not near as good.

[Bartelby]

I may be deceiving myself but l'effet woofer on the Babolats seems to improve the serve with polys.

[tball]

My serve becomes weak if I string a racquet too tight. My best serving is with a racquet strung with Luxilon @ 32 / Gamma TNT2 41. Unfortunately, groundstrokes are a little too loose with this setup.

But when a racquet is strung right (which is about 35-39 lbs poly for me), my serve, especially the second serve, has an order of magnitude more spin on it than a multi or syn.gut. Not with C10, though. I could never find a good serving motion with that racquet.

It appears the opposite for me on ground strokes. I feel poly is "slippery", "skids off" the strings a lot, is difficult to "catch", so I am forced to hit flatter ("more secure") shots. With a multi, when I feel there is a good "catch" between the strings and the ball, I go all in, with very aggessive angles and very closed face.

[UCSF2012]

Don't bother responding to his inquiry. OP doesn't care enough to even reply once in his own thread.

[NLBwell]

Still not useless, though, since people with the same question in the future will do a search and find it.

[Say Chi Sin Lo]

It's in your head. The notion of equipment dependent shots is absolutely ridiculous and plays precisely to what marketers want you to believe.

[tomseek]

Originally Posted by Say Chi Sin Lo

It's in your head. The notion of equipment dependent shots is absolutely ridiculous and plays precisely to what marketers want you to believe.

If this were true, the tennis world would only have 1 type of tennis racket & 1 type of tennis string. The fact that we have hundreds of different kinds of rackets and strings proves that it does matter.

As a matter of perspective, I switched from an all-poly set-up to a gut set-up b/c of wrist pain. When I first made the switch, I had to back-off my serves, b/c big serves were going long. I could just slam my 1st serve with full poly setup. In my case, I don't have an option of going back to poly b/c my arm hurts. Eventually, though, I am now able to hit my 1st serve with a gut-multi setup.

Just hang in there, you'll get used to it.

Tom

[Say Chi Sin Lo]

Strings and equipment alike give the players the confidence to go for their shots, because they're comfortable with the setup. But they do not dictate what kind of shots they can hit.

I certainly won't say I can't hit my slices/kick/flat serves because I'm using blah blah strings instead of yay yay strings.

Gut is known for the power, are you telling me you can't hit a drop shot/drop volley with gut? Poly is known for the spin, are you telling me you can't hit flat with polys?

There are hundreds of choices out there because marketers know each individuals value something different. It could be because their favorite pro is using the product, or because the product promises certain quality that an individual values. That's it.

Stop looking for the miracle equipment and work on your game instead. There's no point in fiddling with all kinds of equipment when there is potentially a fundamental flaw with the stroke.

[UCSF2012]

Originally Posted by Say Chi Sin Lo

Strings and equipment alike give the players the confidence to go for their shots, because they're comfortable with the setup. But they do not dictate what kind of shots they can hit.

I certainly won't say I can't hit my slices/kick/flat serves because I'm using blah blah strings instead of yay yay strings.

Gut is known for the power, are you telling me you can't hit a drop shot/drop volley with gut? Poly is known for the spin, are you telling me you can't hit flat with polys?

There are hundreds of choices out there because marketers know each individuals value something different. It could be because their favorite pro is using the product, or because the product promises certain quality that an individual values. That's it.

Stop looking for the miracle equipment and work on your game instead. There's no point in fiddling with all kinds of equipment when there is potentially a fundamental flaw with the stroke.

Except in this case, the claim has merit. Serving with poly is drastically difference because of the significant drop in power. Flat serves are slower. Actually, all serves are a bit slower, while accuracy and spin is improved.

When switching to poly, serving is drastically different because you have to change everything. Toss, swing, etc. You have to fine tune your serve motion to get back the power.

[TennisCJC]

Originally Posted by CrispyFritters

I have noticed the same thing when I serve with full poly. I normally play with a gut hybrid in the mains. In my case, I concluded that I just did not have enough racket speed and the loss of power from the poly really magnified that. Gut helps you "cheat" a little because it is more powerful.

One thing that has helped is to lower the tension a lot. I can get some pop back if I string poly around 45 instead of gut at 60.

^^^^ 'nuff said

[anubis]

Originally Posted by dode

Seems like a simple question. I have run into this issue with about every racquet I have tried in the last year. Since starting to play again last year, I have tried full poly and poly/syn gut in a few different racquets, and for the life of me I can't serve with any of them. My flat serves just don't do much, and my spin serves are like a hanging curve ball. Playing with either multifilament or gut/poly hybrids with the same racquets, my serve is a huge weapon. With the poly, it is a hindrance. It isn't like I double fault or anything, it just turns my serve mediocre.

Case in point. I am trying some new racquets right now. Today was the first time that I hit with either one of them. The first is a Volkl C10 Pro. One was strung with Pacific Tough Gut mains and Genesis Black Magic crosses. Very good performance on everything. The other was strung with Signum Pro Poly Plasma. Just to hit with it, I liked it quite a bit, though it took a little adjusting after hitting the gut/poly hybrid. Serving though was atrocious. My spin serves just sat up right in the hitting zone, getting no bite at all. This is funny because my groundstrokes seem to have more spin and hop to them.

The second group of racquets I tried today was the Donnay X-Dual Gold 99. One racquet was strung with the same gut/poly hybrid. This setup has a little more power than I am used to, so some shots were flying a little, but the serve was again very good. I switched to the other frame that was strung with Poly Star mains and Gosen OG micro crosses. Holy cow did I LOVE that setup for hitting ground strokes. Again I was very disappointed with how I served with it. It really stinks because that setup was amazing for hitting ground strokes.

Do I need to change something in how I serve? I mix up my serves normally, hitting some flat serves and some very heavy spin serves that get a good deal of action on them, some slice and some kick. With full poly or poly mains though, my serve just suffers really bad. I have tried to play around with hitting it different, but it seems that I can never get them to act the same as with either a full bed multifilament or my gut/poly setup.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Gut is getting kind of expensive, even in a hybrid.

John

In the same vein as others have suggested -- in relation to the tension, that is -- you should lower the tension. But the question is: how much?

Everyone here knows you should string poly lower than syn gut, and the amount you lower it by should be 10 lbs. Stringing full bed poly 10 lbs lower than what you string syn gut should produce very similar dwell time, power and deflection degree. At least, that's what the research of TW Admin found in a prior thread.

So if you're used to stringing @ 50 lbs with syn gut, then you should string poly @ 40 lbs (full bed) in order to at least have similar attributes from what you're used to. That might make it a little easier for you to serve.