Serve Grip

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
...................... I would suggest tracing the center top tip of the racquet as "the swingpath". ...................

If you want to make that point, what do you get when you do that?

Unfortunately, the trajectory of the ball is not on the Toly/FYB composite pictures.

You can download free Kinovea and place markers and lines on videos, and save the frames.
 

Hmgraphite1

Hall of Fame
If you want to make that point, what do you get when you do that?

Unfortunately, the trajectory of the ball is not on the Toly/FYB composite pictures.

You can download free Kinovea and place markers and lines on videos, and save the frames.
I may try this, finally downloaded full version of adobe premier so can start editing (got to relearn what I knew a couple months ago) then can try the kinovia.
 

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
Here is a picture, of probably a slice serve, with the camera somewhat aligned with the hand path. It is clear that the hand path, the racket center path, the path of the racket tip, do not align with the ball's trajectory or target. I believe that the flat serve would be similar. A Waiter's Tray serve probably has different path alignments more aligned with the target.

Because a camera produces a 2D image of 3D space it is possible to look for videos that seem to show alignments. Careful interpreting videos and pictures. The racket center, racket tip path and hand paths for the high level serve don't line up pointing at the target or the ball's trajectory for this slice serve.
6E7FE645E567434F9E29811E54D3E639.jpg


These details can only be observed in high speed videos of high level serves.
 

Hmgraphite1

Hall of Fame
Here is a picture, of probably a slice serve, with the camera somewhat aligned with the hand path. It is clear that the hand path, the racket center path, the path of the racket tip, do not align with the ball's trajectory or target. I believe that the flat serve would be similar. A Waiter's Tray serve probably has different path alignments more aligned with the target.

Because a camera produces a 2D image of 3D space it is possible to look for videos that seem to show alignments. Careful interpreting videos and pictures. The racket center, racket tip path and hand paths for the high level serve don't line up pointing at the target or the ball's trajectory for this slice serve.
6E7FE645E567434F9E29811E54D3E639.jpg


These details can only be observed in high speed videos of high level serves.
Agree slice serve is a whole different animal
 

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
i can't figure out the kick serve.. i even paid for coaching lessons and the coach just kept telling me to angle the racket more so the strings are facing more towards the sky..

or to be more accurate.. the twist serve.. i can get a kick even if it's slow.. but i can't get it to bounce to the right. or bounce away.. always in straight line.

The book Technical Tennis, Cross & Lindsay, shows the contact area for the strings to be on the top half of the ball. I have found and posted impact with the racket tilted forward - necessary to first contact the top half of the ball - and I believe that Cross and Lindsay's description is true. I posted many times. Toly said the same about in 2011.

I could verify this closed racket angle high speed video if I had a player with a strong kick serve that bounced high and clearly to the right. I can also give instructions on how to video the racket shaft angle right before impact for anyone with a strong kick serve.
 

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
Agree slice serve is a whole different animal

I did not say that the slice serve was different regarding hand or racket paths.

I said "I believe that the flat serve would be similar". The flat serve would be similar regarding the paths - specifically the paths don't point at the target or at the ball's trajectory.

Word descriptions of 3D tennis strokes don't work. Word descriptions with 2D pictures work better.

I believe that Toly produced many composite pictures of serves with the ball's trajectory indicated. See if you can find some where the hand path or racket path aligns with the ball's trajectory.
 
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Hmgraphite1

Hall of Fame
I said "I believe that the flat serve would be similar". The flat serve would be similar regarding the paths - they don't point at the target or at ball's trajectory.

Word descriptions of 3D tennis strokes don't work. Word descriptions with 2D pictures work better.
Don't want to dissect the word similar. Are you suggesting the flat serve trajectory is more away from the target than the slice serve? I think not, but don't understand where this discussion is going.
 

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
i can't figure out the kick serve.. i even paid for coaching lessons and the coach just kept telling me to angle the racket more so the strings are facing more towards the sky..

or to be more accurate.. the twist serve.. i can get a kick even if it's slow.. but i can't get it to bounce to the right. or bounce away.. always in straight line.

You have to throw your racquet at the back fence.

J
 

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
Don't want to dissect the word similar. Are you suggesting the flat serve trajectory is more away from the target than the slice serve? I think not, but don't understand where this discussion is going.

This discussion started here

If your not getting power with continental, it could be that your mistiming the pronation or your swingpath is not directly inline with the target. The pronation adds way more speed than any wrist flexion and allows you to toss the ball further forward where you want to drive yourself foreward.
Imo
Neither the swing paths of the hand or racket are inline with the target for a high level serve.

I thought that there was an important misconception regarding the alignment of the "swingpath" and the target. So I said that was untrue in order to see the other side of the argument and clear things up. I argue mostly with videos and pictures.

Behind this is that when I first started realizing that these hand and racket paths were at such large angles to the ball's trajectory and that often these angles did not stand out in videos from ground level cameras I could see that it was a trouble point for understanding tennis strokes. I started posting how rare and valuable the overhead camera view is specifically because it shows these angles so well.

Because of ISR, during the serve the face of the racket may be rotating about 3 degrees per millisecond at the time of impact. While the swingpath of the center of the racket strings may be a line, the racket face is also rotating. If you want to consider the direction of 'swingpaths' vs ball trajectory you also should consider the direction the racket face is facing at impact and collision effects. That is a complicated problem................
 

Hmgraphite1

Hall of Fame
This discussion started here




I thought that there was an important misconception regarding the alignment of the "swingpath" and the target. So I said that was untrue in order to see the other side of the argument and clear things up. I argue mostly with videos and pictures.

Behind this is that when I first started realizing that these hand and racket paths were at such large angles to the ball's trajectory and that often these angles did not stand out in videos from ground level cameras I could see that it was a trouble point for understanding tennis strokes. I started posting how rare and valuable the overhead camera view is specifically because it shows these angles so well.

Because of ISR, during the serve the face of the racket may be rotating about 3 degrees per millisecond at the time of impact. While the swingpath of the center of the racket strings may be a line, the racket face is also rotating. If you want to consider the direction of 'swingpaths' vs ball trajectory you also should consider the direction the racket face is facing at impact and collision effects. That is a complicated problem................
Were on he same page, with rounding error. A whole lot of variables and intents. Like you've said, words, descriptions lacking, video same.
If draw a line on Salizars racquet vertical plane, it looks to me the flat serve has the least arc on the path shown in your post. I'm operating on the premise that a flat serve has a flat racquet face at contact (with primary respect to the left/ right direction-pronation accuracy, up/down timing liftoff, ball toss into court making truely flat in the other plane while valid if you define swing path in 3d space)
Perhaps I should have said swing plane to ignore the up down dimension instead of swing path which has no vector because it's curved in all 3 dimensions.
Swing plane, my mistake
 
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