Critique my Serve (slow-mo video)

I have uploaded a video of me hitting a few slice serves. I'd appreciate any feedback/critique you guys might have on how I can improve it.

The main thing I notice is that I seem to lose balance (notice how my front foot lands left of where it started). This is probably due to a toss that drifts lefts too much?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IamsK9xrpIg
 

WildVolley

Legend
I think you can see your problem. You are leaning too far back and then falling off to your left. That may be due to the toss, but it means that you don't get power from your legs and you sort of stumble for balance after hitting the ball.

Toss less left, don't lean back so much and push up and into the ball with your legs.
 

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
Look at the starting position of the two feet for the pro serves. Look at where your back foot is.
https://www.google.com/search?q=pic...1AseryATbjYCYBw&ved=0CCgQsAQ&biw=1348&bih=688

Your body falls in your backward direction, as you noticed, instead of, like the pros, finishing in balance on the left foot with the right leg going up in back (probably to also keep balance?). You have to do some recovery steps to get your balance back.
https://vimeo.com/92038760

Those videos are pretty good. It is useful for comparisons to place the camera in reference to the ball's trajectory instead of court reference points such as looking up the center line. The camera looking along the ball's flight path is one useful viewing direction. You have to change the camera position for the deuce or ad side serves to look along the direction of the ball's trajectory. With those camera viewpoints the same serve would look more the same, and some useful angles would look the same.
 
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LeeD

Bionic Poster
Ball toss is too far left for a slice serve.
It's almost too far left for a top/slice serve.
It's about correct for a twist serve. But a twist serve, you swing out to your RIGHT, up and right, to make the ball bounce to your RIGHT.
 

psv255

Professional
Looks like a pretty smooth motion in slow mo, good upper body motion and swing path.
Toss should definitely be more right as LeeD mentioned and maybe farther in front, can't tell exactly. as a result you're not very balanced because of the leftward toss and you fade away to the left some after the hit instead of straight ahead.
Last thing - you have a fairly active knee bend but it doesnt actually contribute to your serve - you lift out of it before you start your racket drop. Ideally the push off with the legs has to coincide with the racket dropping so you get a more dynamic stretch in the shoulder directly from the push.

Hope it helps
 
Thanks for all your feedback everyone.

LeeD: yes my toss is too far left, I think even for most of the different types of serves.

ChasTennis: your comment about my back foot's starting position is interesting. I may consider moving my back foot so that it is clearly left of my front foot. Right now my feet are mostly parallel at the start.

WildVolley, psv255: It's true that I feel like my legs don't provide me with any power on my serve right now. I think it's because I tend to move to the left instead of moving forward into the court. You mentioned that I start to lift before my racket drops. Maybe i'll try delaying my push-off a little bit to help with that.
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
Not a bad looking motion at all. As others have already indicated, your toss might be ok for a topspin serve but is too far to the left for a slice (or even for a topspin-slice). As a result you fall off to the left.

Take a look at the direction of your left foot when you land. This is exacerbated by the right leg kicking off to the right. As Chas indicated, the right leg should kick up toward the back fence (not the side fence) when the left foot lands. This should help to minimize your lower body rotation late in your motion. The hips/lower body should rotate earlier in the motion. This rotation should give way to upper body rotation later in the serve motion.

Take a look at RF's first serve in the video link below. His contact for the slice is somewhere between his right shoulder and his head -- and into the court as well (not directly above him). When he lands, his left foot is pointing toward the target area (and not way off to the left). Notice the action of his right leg when the left foot lands (at about 0:11).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xbC31AQqSg
 

RetroSpin

Hall of Fame
Not a bad motion at all. You are angled a bit too far to the left at setup. Most pros would have their feet angled toward the right side post. There are some minor timing and sequencing issues that others covered. There's room for improvement but you have a lot to work with.
 
Your motion is pretty solid. I like it. Ball toss as everyone has said is too far to the left. A good drill that should help you a lot is to hit serves standing on your front leg only. If you toss it where you're tossing it, you'll fall over. The key is not to fall over.
 

TennisCJC

Legend
I think the easiest and biggest chance for fast improvement is to get more extension and upward push from the legs. Your body is not pushing upward and you can see you have a fairly long forward stride into the court. Go watch a video of Federer on youtube and see how his body goes upward into contact.

On the 2nd serve, it appears you get a lot of knee bend but don't use it as you stay low into and through contact.

If you don't want to use your legs to push up, then don't bend them as much. You can hit a fast serve with just shoulder rotation and a couple of inches of knee bend. You are bending a lot but not utilizing the bend with an upward push.

Try to get the feel that you are pushing up and getting the legs to extend a bit.

Overall, you have a good motion and look like a good athlete. I think you can serve faster if you use the legs.
 

Chotobaka

Hall of Fame
I think the easiest and biggest chance for fast improvement is to get more extension and upward push from the legs. Your body is not pushing upward and you can see you have a fairly long forward stride into the court. Go watch a video of Federer on youtube and see how his body goes upward into contact.

On the 2nd serve, it appears you get a lot of knee bend but don't use it as you stay low into and through contact.

If you don't want to use your legs to push up, then don't bend them as much. You can hit a fast serve with just shoulder rotation and a couple of inches of knee bend. You are bending a lot but not utilizing the bend with an upward push.

Try to get the feel that you are pushing up and getting the legs to extend a bit.

Overall, you have a good motion and look like a good athlete. I think you can serve faster if you use the legs.

Exactly what I noticed. Lots of low, lateral movement and no upward and outward energy transfer. There is a ton more power and action to be had with this single adjustment. OP, you are going to have one heck of a good serve by focusing on this single dynamic. You have a lot of power on tap that is never reaching the ball.
 
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