Advice on my serve and backhand... videos!!

drakulie

Talk Tennis Guru
You have such a quick motion it is hard to tell. One thing is for sure, your motion is very smooth, and you have very fast racquet speed. From seeing the second serve video you should probably make sure your tossing arm goes all the way up. Your serve motion looks really good though.

Good luck, thanks for sharing the vids with us.
 

Swissv2

Hall of Fame
Dang all you lucky people with indoor courts :p
Serve looks good, has good pop on it. I hope its consistent though!
 
Thanks for the advice guys, I know that my toss kind of floats sideways over my head... is that bad? Shouldn't it just go straight up. I will prolly take some more video clips soon, so I will be sire to add them on here for more feedback. Thanks again!!
 

FiveO

Hall of Fame
You're upper body on the serve is outstanding. Good toss (very Sampras-like in its placement-which is a good thing). Good coil, elbow height and position, loose arm, stretch across the chest, good shoulder cartwheeling, good upper body extension into contact.

You can get more out of it though. You're very "two footed" in your load (very equal weight distribution between both feet-a la Agassi), and seem to be blocking a better front side (toss side) stretch of the length of your body as you're shoulders remain relatively flat (near parallel to the court surface) througout.

Even with a relatively quick motion I believe you can squeeze those elements into it.

First I would encourage you to employ more of a pronounced weight transfer from the back foot to the forward pre-launch. "Feel" your weight go nearly completely and entirely from the back foot through to the front, again nearly completely before launching into the hit.

Second I'd recommend, a slight change in mindset as to the your angle of attack on your path toward contact of the tossed ball. Right now you seem to have a strong baseball/football throwing background and the carryover seems to be that you a driving well "but almost too well" forward. This is evidenced by the minimal lift your feet show off the court.

A slight adjustment of your swing path should cause your shoulders to go from nearly flat "___" more toward the vertical " / " and should result in a greater body bow " ) " or hip-stretch (allowing your left hip to lead forward of the baseline instead of leaning in toss shoulder first) in the pre-launch. A slight swing thought direction change from swinging toward the service box to swinging more upward "to" the ball will help.

Those two minor adjustments shouldn't mess too badly with your quicker than average timing and should result in more efficient use of the legs and employing more use of your overall body elasticity to further accelerate your very good upper body elements. What should be immediate feedback beyond the additional pop and spin would be that you experience greater lift and a landing point deeper into the court on your front foot after the hit.

The potential for more pace and spin for control and "consitently heavy serves" is way there. These slight adjustment can make what you've got even more effective IMO.

Good luck,

5
 

FiveO

Hall of Fame
From two bh's it's hard. Again your upper body and swing path look good and sound.

From those two hits you drive the ball well and I would encourage you to take advantage of that.

Move in closer to the baseline and be more aggressive on your footwork. The first ball you allow the ball to drop well below net and your hip height because of your assumed rally depth behind the baseline. It also appears that you are using your weight transfer/last step to get to the ball and are closing your stance for no good reason. Squeeze two or three more steps in there not only to make contact at a more optimal height for your swing path and to take the net barrier more out of play but also to use that last step only for your linear weight transfer into contact.

A little closer to the baseline and a little quicker footwork.

Good luck,

5
 

shindemac

Hall of Fame
There's a couple things I noticed about your serve. You don't make good use of your legs even though you are bending them. The other thing is your arm at contact and follow-through. I'm not sure what it is yet, but something looks off. I also agree with the other posters about your bh and serve.
 

kicker75

Rookie
I think Five-0 gave you a good and fair assessment. Your upper body mechanics are excellent, and your footwork, though not bad by any means, could use some improvements. You could drive more "up and through" the ball, which should naturally lift you off the court more. As it is, (and it's hard to tell cause it's video), you look very close to foot-faulting because you have a small "skip-step" due to the lack of elevation you're getting. Also, it might help if your body was more parallel to the net. It would help you gain that lean into the court which would also help you to explode up and out...but all of this is nit-pciking. Lastly, and you don't need this, but if you want to get a little more pop on your serve, you could probably rotate your trunk a little more. Otherwise, great serve.

Your 2HBH is pretty good as well. The swing is good, the mechanics and followthrough is pretty nice. Again, nitpicking, you could get loweron the ball by bending your knees more which would help generate more spin and more power. Also, it looks like your contact point is just slightly overextended and that you're slightly reaching for the ball, but that's easily fixable with your footwork (and also hard to judge if you do that all the time with just seeing 2 swings)

Great mechanics.
 

nagan

New User
For the serve, I think you should work on getting how to land on your left foot with the right leg kicking back for balance (what Sharapova). It will give you more power since you go into more of a complete circle. Right now you kind of land and stop with both feet. With just one foot down, your head (and body) can go deeper into the court, hence power and penetration...
 

Solat

Professional
i think the primary focus for you should be the shoulder displacement

if you were to get a better "trophy position" (L arm higher then R, L hip out over the front foot) this would allow for a greater cartwheeling shoulder motion which allows for greater drive upward giving you more net clearance and the ability to get more bounce out of your serve. As told in good detail by fiveO
_40791428_sampras270.jpg



your leg drive would also be improved by pushing the weight on the front leg and pushing up to land again on the L leg ie like this pic, as mentioned by Nagan

Trademark_Serve.jpg


but overall it looks pretty solid and pretty quick so if it works you might not want to mess too much with it.
 
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Trinity TC

Semi-Pro
Thanks for the advice guys, I know that my toss kind of floats sideways over my head... is that bad? Shouldn't it just go straight up.
That's normal. BTW, game looks good. I know I've only seen a couple seconds of your backhand swing but have you considered standing closer to the baseline on your groundstrokes? It might be easier to groove them if you don't have to wait so long for them.
 

zzzbrianxxx

Rookie
Your motion looks good overall, and everybody is pretty much spot on about how to make it better. You bend your knees, but it does you absolutely no good because you don't "explode" upwards into the ball. To help fix this, I'd suggest trying to move your toss further into the court and a have it go a little higher so that you will force your self to jump into the court. How far into the baseline do you think your toss would fall if you didn't catch it? It's hard to tell from the videos.
 
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