Advice Needed - Serve Practice

[tunganhdo]

Hello everyone! I would rate myself as a 2.5. I have a short video of my serves. The first one is second serve, and the other one I would call it my first serve, but I am not really sure. I will really appreciate if you guys can take a look and give me opinions on what I did wrong and how to improve. Please let me know if more videos are needed. Thank you!
https://youtu.be/BFOJdF8Bj2I

 

[Topspin Shot]

The good news is you're probably better than 2.5. One thing I see is your racket drop might be straight down the middle of your back rather than more toward your right side.

 

[tunganhdo]

Thank you for the opinion! But does it look like a first serve to you?

 

[JonC]

Too slow, you need racquet speed. It's not going to come from the arm, use the body and figure out how to make the racquet whip through the ball. Take an old racquet to a field - pretend you're serving and throw the racquet as high as you can- what can you do to make the racket fly farther? You'll have it figured out quickly.

 

[tunganhdo]

Thank yall! Will try!

 

[shindemac]

Relax arm

Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm. Relax arm.

 

[Gazelle]

You seem to have a slight pause with your racket already partly dropped behind your back. If you want to pause, do it when the racket tip is facing more upwards. It's hard to accelerate from where you pause.

 

[warmsurfing]

You could be a 3.5.by the way of your serves.I think.

 

[Flatballs]

Racket drop - check.
Trophy position - check.
Shoulder tilt - check
Racket face 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock - check
Kick - check

That is almost an ideal second serve. Its a very nice looking serve. I reckon you could loosen up even more and get more racket head speed. That will give you more RPM too, to increase the speed of the serve and the RPM = even more kick.

Well done.

 

[Chas Tennis]

You seem to have a slight pause with your racket already partly dropped behind your back. If you want to pause, do it when the racket tip is facing more upwards. It's hard to accelerate from where you pause.

Your racket position when your legs first start to thrust up. For a high level serve based on internal shoulder rotation, the racket should be more up so that the leg thrust and other motions cause more external shoulder rotation. (The moment of inertia of the forearm and racket is greater with the racket up.) Jay Berger refers to this flaw as the 'racket leaking.'

Reply to another posters with similar early racket drop -

It looks as if your racket may have dropped back early. How much ESR do you see in your serve when you do leg thrust? Compare to high level servers.
Search: Jay Berger Racket Leaking

I'd say that you may go to positions pretty well but don't adequately stretch your ISR muscles. Your upper arm at shoulder does not rotate much with ESR. Is it relaxed or held in position? A rear view would do better to show ISR.

Do you have your serve thread from 2014?

Your racket has dropped back before your leg thrust. The purpose of the leg thrust is to raise the body including the shoulder and cause the forearm and racket to rotate back and down from inertia. The inertia of the forearm with racket is greater with the racket aligned as the high level servers are doing it. Search Jay Berger as he deals with this issue and calls it 'racket leaking'. There are a some posts and a thread on Jay Berger including my post in the thread that I linked.
....................................

Click ">" to see pictures in original reply.

Technical -

There was a Tennis Channel Academy show, "USTA Player Development", broadcast April 2, 2013 in our area.

Jay Berger was included coaching the serve. See minute 26.

He discussed a point that I've been confused about regarding the 'back scratch'. He used a term that I had never heard before - "racket leaking" - with regard to the 'back scratch'.

He also mentions briefly internal shoulder rotation.

For the leg thrust phase of the serve where the stretch shortening cycle is being used:

CORRECTION - The forearm-racket angle does not appear in line for most servers with camera views from the side. Viewed elbow on as in the Henin picture below it does appear straight in the trophy phase. In the Henin pose below her racket is toward her head. See high speed videos.

1) See CORRECTION above. Forearm-Racket in Line. The forearm and racket should be roughly in line and at a right angle to the upper arm when the leg thrust phase of the serve begins. When the shoulder rises due to the leg thrust and other motions this forearm-racket to upper arm angle causes the shoulder joint to externally rotate and stretch the internal shoulder rotators (lat & pec). When the forearm & racket are in a straight line & at 90° to the upper arm, the moment of inertia of the forearm-racket is maximized. As soon as the wrist breaks to allow the back scratch, the moment of inertia decreases sharply. The racket has not yet "leaked" according to Jay Berger's terminology.


2) Forearm-Racket at an Angle. At some point after a good shoulder stretch is achieved, the wrist is allowed to let the racket drop down on the back - to the back scratch position. He calls this wrist joint motion 'letting the racket leak'. He discussed that the racket should leak but not too early because the stretch phase needs the forearm and racket more in a straight line. When they are in a straight line & at 90° to the upper arm, the moment of inertia of the forearm-racket is maximized. As soon as the wrist breaks to allow the back scratch, the moment of inertia decreases sharply. This can happen too early during the leg thrust before a good stretch is achieved.



This video shows both the forearm-racket in a roughly straight line followed by the wrist joint motion allowing the racket to go more into the back scratch position. Type of serve unknown.
https://vimeo.com/63688133

These videos of another service motion show some variation and not as much wrist joint change for the racket drop. Racket is out to side and not behind the back. Type of serve unknown.
https://vimeo.com/63688134
Another similar serve.
https://vimeo.com/63709517

This cleared up a confusing phase of the serve for me as he identified two things that I have seen in high speed videos and explained what is going on and a critical piece of timing.

Do to the slow frame rate I can't tell if you use internal shoulder rotation for you serve.

It looks, guessing, as if you may not use ISR but have developed a technique where you swing across the back of the ball to hit a slice serve.

See the Ellenbecker video on the shoulder and the position to hold it to reduce the risk of impingement.

 

[Chas Tennis]

---duplicate post----

 

[Chas Tennis]

Can't tell if this is internal shoulder rotation or not. Is your upper arm rotating around its axis at the shoulder? I'd guess no. This motion is too rapid for low frame rates, high speed video is needed. The racket probably goes across the back of the ball and is producing slice.

Frame #1.

Frame #2. Look carefully at the shadowing at the elbow and compare frame #1 to #2. As best indicated by the shadowing at the elbow, did the upper arm rotate? How much racket head speed comes from the joint motions of elbow extension, wrist flexion and ulna deviation (wrist bend toward pinkie) and how much from ISR?

Frame #3. In this next frame after impact, the wrist looks possibly stressed. ? That area of the wrist gets injured in tennis, cause unknown.

Your technique is unknown. Looks as if your racket path cuts across the back of the ball. Put a piece of tape on your upper arm as a marker to show how much it rotates. Camera viewing along the line of the ball's trajectory into the court is more informative than along the court's center lines.

A high level slice serve. Watch until your are able to see the very rapid upper arm rotation (1/4 second just before impact with normal playback, 7 frames recorded at 240 fps). You can put the mouse pointer on the Vimeo slider, drag it back and forth and get the video to go back and forth around the time of ISR.
https://vimeo.com/27528347

 

[JonC]

Racket drop - check.
Trophy position - check.
Shoulder tilt - check
Racket face 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock - check
Kick - check

That is almost an ideal second serve. Its a very nice looking serve. I reckon you could loosen up even more and get more racket head speed. That will give you more RPM too, to increase the speed of the serve and the RPM = even more kick.

Well done.

Component breakdown - bad idea.

 

[tunganhdo]

Thank yall for the feedback! Thanks to Chas Tennis for the amount of time you put in. I really really appreciate it and am looking deeper into what you said. Not gonna miss a single word. Will update progress ASAP.

 

[Chas Tennis]

Everyone's information should include some more comprehensive books by those who did the research on the serve.

Technique Development for Tennis Stroke Development, (2009) B. Elliott, M. Reid, M. Crespo

Biomechanics of Advanced Tennis, (2003) B. Elliott, M. Reid, M. Crespo

Availabe ITF Store or Kindle and may be hard to find elsewhere.

 

[tunganhdo01]

I so wanted to buy that biomechanics book in the past but forgot to. Always wanted to understand deep into what makes every single stroke. Will try to get it tmr.

 

[LeeD]

Big problem I see is that you are taking the racket too far into it's swing for your trophy position, so you lack the loop needed for a fast serve swing.
YOUR trophy position is about 1/4 of your forward swing, so you're lacking that much swing into the ball.
Trophy position is the takeback needed for a complete swing, meaning you have to have a point in time when the racket is vertical, while the ball is near it's apex of the toss.

 

[GuyClinch]

You shouldn't read any BOOKS LMAO.

Dude you have a hitch and you are muscling your serve. A hitch is when you slow your serve down and destroy all the momentum you have built up to time hitting the ball. Time your toss to match your swing - and not the other way around. Don't waste effort..

Your hitch (clearly) is when you leak into racquet drop positon. You are not letting (or aiding your racquet fall) but slowing your racquet down - then going into racquet drop.. It should be a fluid motion.

Your serve almost looks like slow motion - when its at full speed - and that's because of this hitch. On a normal serve its too fast to see without going frame by frame. Roddick for example - once he gets to the start of his serve - its just a blur.

Feeltennis.net explain the muscling issue.

http://www.feeltennis.net/secret-effortless-serving/

Some good drills to do to make your serve fluid and more effortless.

1) Throw a racquet.
2) Throw tennis balls/footballs.
3) Shadow swing a fluid serve 2 x - then try to toss the ball such that you preserve this motion on the third.
4) Use a total serve or some balls in a sock or plastic bag to increase the fluidity..
5) Throw a ball at a ball you toss up.
6) Take your legs out of your serve - serve on balance instead - trying to keep this fluid motion.

Serving takes alot of practice. Your serve is already pretty decent - IMHO.

 

[LeeD]

I wouldn't be so quick to discount the "hitch" in the serve, providing the hitch occurs when the racket is pointed straight up at the sky, or a little forwards of straight up.
This is NOT the case of the OP in this thread. His points to his left, dropped to low and too early.
To me, the hitch gives me a complete backswing to the ball, meaning more power, as was seconded by another poster on another thread.
A continous motion, for me, needs a much lower toss, is harder to time, and the ball doesn't go as fast.
OP's problem is not continous or hitch, but his swing starts with the racket already in motion, so he doesn't get the full benefit of the backswing on his serves.

 

[shindemac]

Dude you have a hitch and you are muscling your serve.

Very clear he is arming his serve. Very very clear. Unless you want to post in the Health and Fitness section complaining about pain, relax the arm! Increasing power w tense arm == disaster.