serve break thru

luvforty

Banned
after numerous shadow swings in the living room and bunch of scuff marks on the ceiling for the past couple months, finally found my serve... MY serve.

foot line perpendicular to the baseline, chest to the right post at ready position.

tossing arm straight into the court.. hitting hand continental grip with V right on top of bevel 1.... racket shaft about 45 degrees to the forearm....abbreviated motion to the trophy, with the racket face already addressing the contact point...

racket drop doesn't feel like a drop, more like a counterclockwise rotation... aka external shoulder rotation

laid back wrist on the swing up... lean on the ball and wack the felt off it....well it doesn't feel like a swing up, more like a clockwise rotation. aka ISR

flats hitting 1-2 ft on the back fence.... 45 degree weather with slight head wind.

spin serve, same motion with slight grip change, feels very secure as well.

ball toss is quite low.

so effing easy, zero wasted motion.

with some more work i should be able to put some legs and more core into it, and find better locations to make it a little monster.
 
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TomT

Hall of Fame
after numerous shadow swings in the living room and bunch of scuff marks on the ceiling for the past couple months, finally found my serve... MY serve.

foot line perpendicular to the baseline, chest to the right post at ready position.

tossing arm straight into the court.. hitting hand continental grip with V right on top of bevel 1.... racket shaft about 45 degrees to the forearm....abbreviated motion to the trophy, with the racket face already addressing the contact point...

racket drop doesn't feel like a drop, more like a counterclockwise rotation... aka external shoulder rotation

laid back wrist on the swing up... lean on the ball and wack the felt off it....well it doesn't feel like a swing up, more like a clockwise rotation. aka ISR

flats hitting 1-2 ft on the back fence.... 45 degree weather with slight head wind.

spin serve, same motion with slight grip change, feels very secure as well.

ball toss is quite low.

so effing easy, zero wasted motion.

with some more work i should be able to put some legs and more core into it, and find better locations to make it a little monster.
Ok, yeah, what you said. However, the epiphany (for me), if I may call it that, regarding the essence of my serve, actually came to me somewhat recently during a time of decreased strength while recovering from a recent bout with a Crohn's disease flare.

For me, regarding my serve (motion or mechanics), it's all about the toss. The recent adjustment that produced the epiphanic realization was: to toss a little farther out front and a little farther away (than I had been doing). That's it. Not complicated. That simple adjustment, wrt and in keeping with my service motion, has resulted in a marked increase in serving speed and accuracy (and this, while I'm still recovering from a recent Crohn's flare and maybe at 1/2 normal strength).

To put this into perspective, what this means (when I'm at full strength) is consistent (ie., ~ 70% + first serves in) serving at around 100 mph (using the current gauge of serving speed). Which, at my current level of competition (~ NTRP 3.0), would be pretty devastating. So, I think that if I can ever get back to full strength then my W/L results will improve and therefore my pseudo NTRP rating will increase.
 
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NLBwell

Legend
Also, some of the added speed TomT could be because you are weaker you are not trying to force the racket around, but just letting it flow through the stroke.
 

luvforty

Banned
Ok, yeah, what you said. However, the epiphany (for me), if I may call it that, regarding the essence of my serve, actually came to me somewhat recently during a time of decreased strength while recovering from a recent bout with a Crohn's disease flare.

For me, regarding my serve (motion or mechanics), it's all about the toss. The recent adjustment that produced the epiphanic realization was: to toss a little farther out front and a little farther away (than I had been doing). That's it. Not complicated. That simple adjustment, wrt and in keeping with my service motion, has resulted in a marked increase in serving speed and accuracy (and this, while I'm still recovering from a recent Crohn's flare and maybe at 1/2 normal strength).

To put this into perspective, what this means (when I'm at full strength) is consistent (ie., ~ 70% + first serves in) serving at around 100 mph (using the current gauge of serving speed). Which, at my current level of competition (~ NTRP 3.0), would be pretty devastating. So, I think that if I can ever get back to full strength then my W/L results will improve and therefore my pseudo NTRP rating will increase.

Tom I looked at your serve from the 'grips' thread.... interesting that your ready position, grip, swing path are almost the same to mine.

regarding the 'conti' grip, it's not an exact position, it's a range.... i have my V right in the middle of bevel 1.... so it's not too far from eastern...

if the V is on the edge between bevels 1 and 8, you can put spin, but not much pace on the ball... I use such grip for 2nd serve.

and yes, the toss is definitely into the court.

my old motion had chest CLOSED to the target at ready position and always struggled with ball toss not forward enough... with this new set up chest 45 degrees OPEN (almost the same as yours), toss is 2-3 ft into the court, and I can lean on the ball with body weight.
 

The Meat

Hall of Fame
I'm pretty sure that "flats hitting 1-2 ft on the back fence...45 degree weather with slight headwind" isn't referring to his living room.

I have a fence stuck to my living room wall for decoration, is that a problem? :neutral:
 

slowfox

Professional
Just outta curiosity, how far back behind the baseline is your fence? Whenever folks reference their serves hitting the fence at a certain height, they rarely mention the distance to the fence. Just wondering cuz when I practice my serve (and it's a decent one), I don't hit the fence at all... :(
 

luvforty

Banned
Just outta curiosity, how far back behind the baseline is your fence? Whenever folks reference their serves hitting the fence at a certain height, they rarely mention the distance to the fence. Just wondering cuz when I practice my serve (and it's a decent one), I don't hit the fence at all... :(

typical public court.

if TomT a 65 yo 3.0 can 1-hop to the fence.... most grown men should be able to...

it's the technique.... need to understand external/internal shoulder rotation (INSTEAD OF PRONATION)...

use ESR/ISR to whack some wild bushes and feel the power, then take that motion up top to hit a ball.
 

LeeD

Bionic Poster
Slowfox....
Typical distance is 21', or just over NINE tennis rackets of 27".
And the typical white line on that backboard is around 38" at our courts in California.
 

luvforty

Banned
nico's is nice... sam querrey's motion is also quite simple.

it's interesting that with ESR/ISR, the racket drop/swing up feel like misnomers.... the 2 parts feel more like a door opening and a door closing.
 

LeeD

Bionic Poster
Nico has a nice serve.
Moving the front foot during the motion is a license for footfault calls, and even though the vid angle doesn't show it, his shrug of his shoulders just before he starts his motion looks very girly.
 

watungga

Professional
........

For me, regarding my serve (motion or mechanics), it's all about the toss. The recent adjustment that produced the epiphanic realization was: to toss a little farther out front and a little farther away (than I had been doing). That's it. Not complicated. That simple adjustment, wrt and in keeping with my service motion, has resulted in a marked increase in serving speed and accuracy (and this, while I'm still recovering from a recent Crohn's flare and maybe at 1/2 normal strength).

...........

Eggxactly my kind of post about to make here.

It's all about that the said toss.

Only concern here is, you gotta be ready/inspired/confident/All-in/no-backout-feelings, when you intend to toss said ball to more out front. Coz there's only 1 set of motion to hit that far out front. If you modify your stance or swing, which at the point that you doubt about getting it in, and trying to slap the ball making sure it goes in, expect that the result will not be to your liking.
 

luvforty

Banned
31F this morning, no wind.... was able to hit flat 1.5 feet up the fence on the T shots and 0.5 ft up the fence on the wide one (ad court).

forget about pronation.... for the flats, the strings are always square to the swing path of the racket head.
 

arche3

Banned
31F this morning, no wind.... was able to hit flat 1.5 feet up the fence on the T shots and 0.5 ft up the fence on the wide one (ad court).

forget about pronation.... for the flats, the strings are always square to the swing path of the racket head.

Maybe for a rec guy like you its pan cake from trophy. Pros not so much. They pronate. The reason being it gets the racket head going faster. The wrist is not in the way of the racket handle as it accelerates thru contact. So you can have more racket head speed thru the serve. Please go take some tennis lessons.
 

onehandbh

G.O.A.T.
Maybe for a rec guy like you its pan cake from trophy. Pros not so much. They pronate. The reason being it gets the racket head going faster. The wrist is not in the way of the racket handle as it accelerates thru contact. So you can have more racket head speed thru the serve. Please go take some tennis lessons.

not beginner E grip pancake.

pro pancake.

luvforty, arche3 is right.
The 1 foot IHOP pancake serve is a limiting serve.
That's why the ATP top 20 club has a strict no pancake policy.
 

Fuji

Legend
Just outta curiosity, how far back behind the baseline is your fence? Whenever folks reference their serves hitting the fence at a certain height, they rarely mention the distance to the fence. Just wondering cuz when I practice my serve (and it's a decent one), I don't hit the fence at all... :(

Hitting the back fence off the bounce isn't really a big deal if your placement is effective enough. That being said, I believe it was Jolly who posted a video years ago about how fast your serve had to be to hit the back fence off the bounce, and it was something around 60MPH if I remember correctly? Anywho, it also has to do with elevation I'd assume. If you're not hitting the back fence at all however, I'd definitely take a look at mechanics to make sure you aren't just totally arming the ball, which would lead to decreased performance of course. Good luck!

-Fuji
 

luvforty

Banned
Sorry, I don't really understand your comment.

-Fuji

I am saying you can 1-hop to the fence with 60mph serve if there is no air resistance and no friction on the bounce..

by the way.... went out for a hit this morning and flats are real good... almost every one that my opp didnt touch were on the fence... one of them was 1 foot up on ad side wide serve.

35F weather.... balls were 2 days old.
 

arche3

Banned
I am saying you can 1-hop to the fence with 60mph serve if there is no air resistance and no friction on the bounce..

by the way.... went out for a hit this morning and flats are real good... almost every one that my opp didnt touch were on the fence... one of them was 1 foot up on ad side wide serve.

35F weather.... balls were 2 days old.

Btw. Are you still playing with the old dogs?
 

LeeD

Bionic Poster
OK, the guys are on your case because you sounded similar to a former poster we had here, one called DOZU.
But in 35 degree weather, any kind of good balls, a IN serve that reaches the backwall at a foot height is excellent speed, probably pushing over 100mph.
 

luvforty

Banned
the break thru continues -

after more scuff marks on the ceiling, now I understand why the elbow has to be on the shoulder line at the trophy position.

now the motion feels like a piece of cake.... just a trophy and a turn that automatically achieves the ESR position.

this is exciting... tennis is a lot of fun when you serve big!

also showed the motion to a friend of mine and he 1-hopped a serve for the first time in his life lol.
 

Fuji

Legend
the break thru continues -

after more scuff marks on the ceiling, now I understand why the elbow has to be on the shoulder line at the trophy position.

now the motion feels like a piece of cake.... just a trophy and a turn that automatically achieves the ESR position.

this is exciting... tennis is a lot of fun when you serve big!

also showed the motion to a friend of mine and he 1-hopped a serve for the first time in his life lol.

I don't exactly what you are doing? You're pancakinh serves with a hop? Sorry I'm just confused with your hop terms etc.

-Fuji
 

arche3

Banned
I don't exactly what you are doing? You're pancakinh serves with a hop? Sorry I'm just confused with your hop terms etc.

-Fuji

Ha ha. I know some guys who can hit a pretty fast flat pan cake. But they look silly. And its so inconsistent with the panny I can not swing on all first serves and still win the break. Because they never learned to serve they dont have a second serve.
 

luvforty

Banned
why is that?

with elbow on the shoulder line, the shoulder over shoulder rotation will have the maximum leverage at the elbow, and put the hitting hand in an ESR position automatically.

with that said - i think the 'back scratch' concept is one of the most, if not the most misleading in tennis instruction.
 
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