Current state of my game - feedback please

onehandbh

G.O.A.T.
Okay. Just recorded a game of me serving. It was my first time in awhile on clay.


Okay. Just recorded a game of me serving.

It was my first time in awhile on clay. Plus I don't really know how to slide properly yet.
Just checked my calendar and I've average playing 2.5x per month over the last year or so. So in a sense, I am starting from scratch. Any feedback and tips welcome.

Some things I noticed that I need to improve/work on:
1) Serve toss:
  • toss further to the right and more into the court
  • toss higher and more consistent
  • swing harder instead of just 70%
2) forehand:
  • - keep right elbow higher and farther away from my body during the takeback
  • - extend left arm more.
3) split step more often

4) learn to slide properly instead of taking baby steps.

5) don't be so lazy:
  • - I take the minimum number of steps and move at the last moment and just fast enough to get to the ball
 
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Deleted member 23235

Guest
nice hitting...
regarding your serve... what kind of serve are you trying to hit? to me it looks like you're tossing as if you're going to hit a kicker, but instead to you hit more top/slice?
 

onehandbh

G.O.A.T.
Might be hard to tell from the video, but actually none of the serves were flat. All at bit of top/slice.

My toss is also a bit erratic right now. I never catch bad tosses. Out of habit I hit everything I toss. Trying to get it more consistent and also improve balance on my serve.

I'll try and take a 240fps video the next time I play.
 

onehandbh

G.O.A.T.
Also b/c my toss is always a bit to the left, I can't hit a good slice serve at the moment because there ends up being more topspin and less pure slice.

This is bad for my wide deuce side serve...
 

onehandbh

G.O.A.T.
Serve: 4.5

Groundstrokes: 4.0-

Slice bh: 3.0

Tweener: 5.0

Apparel: 2.5

Settings: 6.5
If you saw my apparel up close I think you might lower the rating. $2 shorts from a street market in Taiwan, and cheap long sleeve shirt with a couple holes in it.
 

onehandbh

G.O.A.T.
I agree with you on my toss being in the incorrect place for trying to hit a flatter serve.

What would you recommend to work on to fix this?

Your first serve in the video is as flat as can be. You may think you're getting some spin but it's impossible to get topspin the way you're hitting the ball. Another dead giveaway is your swing path which should be up and to the side for top spin and facing the corner post on a slice. When your racket follows the path of the ball that's hitting flat.
And the final clue that you're not getting spin is your balls have no kick when they hit the clay.
 
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onehandbh

G.O.A.T.
I'm thinking of trying to serve without using my legs at all to try and fix my toss. Basically just standing stationary and not using or moving my legs at all and only using my torso/shoulder/arms. Hopefully this will fix my toss and hitting location/balance.
 

10isMaestro

Semi-Pro
(1) Your toss location is very acceptable. Maybe you could benefit from tossing a tad more forward, but it's hard to tell from this angle. The major benefit of tossing further to your left as a right handed player is to be able to tilt your racket leftward and thereby gain a bit more topspin. From what I can see, you strike your first serve somewhat in line with your ear and that's just about where it should be struck, laterally speaking. You can also get a bit more under the ball (you jump a bit to your right to get under it) to hide a kick serve with that same toss location. If you send the ball further right, even if you manage to hit pretty decent flat serves, any attempt to introduce variety in your first serves will be betrayed by a very unusual toss.

(2) There is no need to toss higher. It is hard to tell exactly how you serve with this video because the motion is blurred, but I can see that you get a nice racket drop and get to the ball in time with a full motion despite the low toss. Not everybody is forced to have an extreme hand delay like Sampras! If you toss lower, you have less of a delay in your hitting arm; if you toss higher, you need a greater delay between the rising of your hitting arm and your toss. After all, the principle that matters here is to make a proper contact and to go through your motion without stopping -- if you can manage a lower toss, go ahead.

(3) If you are going to serve and volley, you need to learn to use your service as a means to initiate your run towards the net. You perform a serve and volley around 0:07, 0:29, 0:41, 0:46 and 1:00. In every instance, you hit your serve, land on the opposite foot (up to this point, it's perfectly okay), but you stop yourself and only then do you start running. Normally, if you take a snapshot of a server-volleyer right out of his serve, he looks like a sprinter:
hqdefault.jpg

Pete Sampras looks like that off a flat serve, a slice serve, a kick serve and everything in between. He lands all his serves in an athletic running posture and uses his serve to help initiate his forward movement. At the moment, your serve speed and your opponent do not trouble you much, but at some point that wasted step will be a major bummer. Fortunately, it's not tough to fix: you just need to lean forward a bit around contact and bother to land in a sufficiently balanced way that you can actually use that forward fall to start running.

(4) As you noted, you needto split step, especially on the return of serve. You were lucky enough your opponent did not notice this, but if you simply rush the net you are opened to be wrong footed or lobbed all the time... So, when the man in front of you makes contact, you split step everytime. Beware, though: a split step for a serve and volley play is not static. You still move forward during your split step when you attack the net off your serve.

(5) People mistakenly think that a good serve for this sort of tactic needs to be fast when, actually, the opposite is true. The real killer in the serve and volley tactic is not your serve, but your court position. Your serve is an approach shot of sorts: the goal is to give yourself easier volleys, not to hit aces. The reason this tactic can be so deadly is that from the service line and onwards you can easily play insane angles. As such, you should privilege a serve that allows you to move further into the court before having to hit your first volley. In this video, you strike most of your first serves as flat serves and that runs counter to what the vast majority of the best serve and volley players have been doing since decades -- and did so for a good reason. It's better for a serve and volley player to privilege putting more action on the ball and to keep his first serve percentage higher than to try to rack up digits on a radar gun: it gives you a better court position to hit your first volley, it still troubles your opponents a lot, and it forces your opponent to face more situations where you can afford to miss.

(6) Your major advantage at the net is that you "see a lot of court." Again, exploit your forward position to angle the ball. You don't need big punching volleys: if the ball is above the net and you're inside the service box, just lay the ball at an angle and the point likely will be over.

Just to be clear, there are lots of things you do well in that video. You vary your serve placement, you hit nice kick serves, you do not try to do too much with your volleys (especially high volleys which can be tricky) or your passing shots, etc. It's just that you need to work on some aspects of your game to make it better still. By the way, if you want inspiration for volleying and executing serve and volley, watch doubles players. They tend to be leaps and bounds ahead of singles players in this department because they do it so much more often.

Finally, I'd like to ask you a question: are you a serve and volley player or did you simply tried to work on this tactic in this video? If you are one or intend on becoming one, welcome to the club!
 
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Deleted member 23235

Guest
I agree with you on my toss being in the incorrect place for trying to hit a flatter serve.

What would you recommend to work on to fix this?
toss along a fence or wall (ie. you need a reference point/target to toss to)...
 

10isMaestro

Semi-Pro
Also b/c my toss is always a bit to the left, I can't hit a good slice serve at the moment because there ends up being more topspin and less pure slice.

There's a trick to make it happen. If you want to hit different serves with the same toss or very similar tosses, you have to move your body around the ball to get into a proper hitting position. If you push off to your left a bit, you'll be able to slice that ball, even if was about to fall right on top of your head.
 
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Deleted member 23235

Guest
There's a trick to make it happen. If you want to hit different serves with the same toss or very similar tosses, you have to move your body around the ball to get into a proper hitting position. If you push off to your left a bit, you'll be able to slice that ball, even if was about to fall right on top of your head.
definitely an advanced trick... (for me, at my level, anway)
IMO, easier to toss to the proper location... I don't care they know what kind of serve is coming, just care I can accurately hit my target with the intended spin.
 

10isMaestro

Semi-Pro
I'm thinking of trying to serve without using my legs at all to try and fix my toss. Basically just standing stationary and not using or moving my legs at all and only using my torso/shoulder/arms. Hopefully this will fix my toss and hitting location/balance.

In my experience, three things can mess up a toss:
(1) Holding the ball improperly. Usually, we want as little of our palm as possible touching the ball. Some will advise holding the ball closer to the tip of your fingers, others more in the middle of your fingers, but the point is that if you have too much of your hand, palm and fingers included, on the ball, you likely will see the ball rolling out of your hand, causing it to spin and that tends to produce inconsistent tosses.
(2) Not swinging with a steady elbow angle and a steady wrist angle. That is, if you move your arm at the elbow or the wrist, either to flick the ball or as an attempt to accelerate your tossing arm, you introduce more movements for no good reason. The best way to toss is with a straight arm, picking up speed gradually.
(3) Tossing as your body moves. Lots of players try to toss and, at the same time, start to rotate their upper body and their hips away from the net. It means that, to toss properly, those players have to exactly compensate the changing angle of their body with the net using their tossing arm... That's a recipe for inconsistency for obvious reasons.

Your problem, from what I can see, is (2). You bend at the elbow just before you toss the ball up... Instead, learn to toss from the shoulder!
 

onehandbh

G.O.A.T.
There's a trick to make it happen. If you want to hit different serves with the same toss or very similar tosses, you have to move your body around the ball to get into a proper hitting position. If you push off to your left a bit, you'll be able to slice that ball, even if was about to fall right on top of your head.

Interesting. I'll try that. I actually haven't serve and volleyed much since I was a junior. I was just trying it out today.

I was also trying to hit most serves to my opponents forehand in hopes that I'd face more returns. Plus I want to work on a slice serve. I usually hit mostly kick serves to the backhand, but I want to improve my slice and flatter serves b/c I think it will make the kick more effective when I do hit it.
 

LeeD

Bionic Poster
You still have explosion in quick twitch muscles, so technique refinements will result in power improvements.
 

onehandbh

G.O.A.T.
Great toss tips! Shoulder!! Just tried it and it feels better (well inside my office). I was focusing on trying to keep my arm straighter and it wasn't really working. Will have to try it on a tennis court.

Your problem, from what I can see, is (2). You bend at the elbow just before you toss the ball up... Instead, learn to toss from the shoulder!
 

onehandbh

G.O.A.T.
You still have explosion in quick twitch muscles, so technique refinements will result in power improvements.
But not as quick/explosive as was before. I can barely jump over the net these days -- and that's with a scissor kick jump, which isn't really jumping over it. Just kicking legs over the net.
 

10isMaestro

Semi-Pro
definitely an advanced trick... (for me, at my level, anway)
IMO, easier to toss to the proper location... I don't care they know what kind of serve is coming, just care I can accurately hit my target with the intended spin.

Personally, nothing annoys me more than trying to move my toss around. I have one clear habit which is improving and the ball lands nearly always at the same place: from my standing position, to the left of my left shoulder a few inches inside the baseline. If I try to move it, I either miss really bad (we're talking way off target) or I get back into hitting my usual spot. I could be moving the toss around unknowingly when I trade twisting for slicing bounces on my serves -- only a video could let me know that --, but when I attempt to move the ball around knowingly I know for a fact I can't make it happen because I let the damn thing drop and can tell what happened.

To me, it feels like I toss the ball very similarly all the time and I get the intended movement regardless. For some reason, though, it's much easier to get certain movements with certain targets than it is for others. I never had troubles hitting a topspin slice out wide on the deuce court, for instance.

However, I do agree with the last portion of your comment. It's more important to hit your target correctly than to disguise your intentions and, yes, we should privilege doing what comes most easily to us. With that being said, if I can tell too easily what type of serve you hit and where you're going to hit, I'll be able to be aggressive -- unless the quality of your serve is so overwhelming I can't handle it. Part of serving is the same as with pitching in baseball.
 
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Deleted member 120290

Guest
Because tweeners look cool and flashy, people make a big deal of them. But they are not that difficult to hit if you prepare properly:
1. Take back the racket with a continental grip.
2. Let the ball drop to knee level.
3. Elevate your testes to highest level possible.
4. Swing away.
 
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Deleted member 23235

Guest
Because tweeners look cool and flashy, people make a big deal of them. But they are not that difficult to hit if you prepare properly:
1. Take back the racket with a continental grip.
2. Let the ball drop to knee level.
3. Elevate your testes to highest level possible.
4. Swing away.
I make a big deal cuz I can't hit them. and not for lack of trying :(
i blame my height or baggy shorts (vs. admit lack of talent).
 

TupeloDanger

Professional
I don't think I've ever tried one. I credit high school coaching that threatened to send us running laps for such shenanigans.
 

heninfan99

Talk Tennis Guru
when one foot is lifted off the ground it is not quite as impressive
Because tweeners look cool and flashy, people make a big deal of them. But they are not that difficult to hit if you prepare properly:
1. Take back the racket with a continental grip.
2. Let the ball drop to knee level.
3. Elevate your testes to highest level possible.
4. Swing away.
 
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Deleted member 120290

Guest
when one foot is lifted off the ground it is not quite as impressive
Those steps are with both feet on the ground. Step 3: "Eleavate your testes" is to be done using brain control, not by lifting the left foot.

I should have added that before swinging, both legs should be bowed like a cowboy's.
 

heninfan99

Talk Tennis Guru
Those steps are with both feet on the ground. Step 3: "Eleavate your testes" is to be done using brain control, not by lifting the left foot.

I should have added that before swinging, both legs should be bowed like a cowboy's.
I don't expect tennis players to be brave so all is good
 

onehandbh

G.O.A.T.
when one foot is lifted off the ground it is not quite as impressive
Normally, sort of doing a wide, bow-legged split step with both feet on the ground is the best and easiest way to hit a tweener for me b/c I have more room to swing this way.

I basically hit this particular tweener sort of in mid stride and just ran through the shot b/c I was bit scared of sliding on the clay. I don't recommend hitting it in stride b/c it might be more likely that you'll hit your leg or something else...
 

LeeD

Bionic Poster
But not as quick/explosive as was before. I can barely jump over the net these days -- and that's with a scissor kick jump, which isn't really jumping over it. Just kicking legs over the net.

Wait till you're 67, and see your jumping ability.
Everyone on here says to work out, train, get stronger, quicker, faster.
And NOT ONE of them look at the physical conditions of their DADS, who are mostly younger than me.
 

shindemac

Hall of Fame
I agree w da other coaches. You toss for a mostly kick serve, but hit it more like a flat. Kinda like a tweener. It loooks like a flat top slice. Or a slice top flat. This is not bad if this is your intended goal. It could be used as a first serve; It could be used as a second serve.

Ironically, this is what I am going for. I have a diff flavors, one with more kick that I want to develop as a second. I looked at mine video, so I know what I need to do to get more. And a top-slice with enuff juice. As for the vaunted flat, I find it boring and achieved my goals 2 years ago.
 

onehandbh

G.O.A.T.
Wait till you're 67, and see your jumping ability.
Everyone on here says to work out, train, get stronger, quicker, faster.
And NOT ONE of them look at the physical conditions of their DADS, who are mostly younger than me.

I don't expect to be quick or fast forever, but I will try my best.

All of our ships will sink one day. For some it will happen very suddenly. If we're fortunate it will be a slower process. If you take care of your ship, it will last longer, but don't forget to take it on adventures, and repair it when it gets broken.
 
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