i was randomly lookin at some older dvds and tapes from like 8 years ago of some matches the other day .. and in comes ole todd martin swinging.. his serve looks really nice and losse and relaxed.. he gets a lot of action on it.. i think it in many ways has a resemblance to feds.. am i right ?
Todd Martin never seemed to utilise his height to make the serve a real weapon.
Federer's first serve is usually superb. He gets great spin and disguise, using all of the elements of the 1990s guys - which for instance when Federer serves down the middle for an ace or unreturnable in the deuce court, he tosses the ball above his head or slightly to the left, so he can come over it with topspin to go with the pace; in the region of 115 to 135mph depending on how hard he chooses to hit it - a deadlier combination than a flat serve down the centre with a ball toss slightly to the right. As Frew McMillan said once when observing Becker's serve, throwing the racquet left to right to get the heaviness - remember Henman always talked about Sampras' heavy serve.
On the ad court, Federer doesn't serve down the centre as well as Sampras - Federer stands slightly further away from the centre line, so he has to compensate with a bit more sidespin to get it in the corner. Sampras and Becker (and others including Davenport in the women) stand closer to the centre line, so they have to rotate more to get the swing and the slice, so it curves away usually upon pitching, making their serves down the centre more unreturnable as the guy has to stretch much more to get a racquet on it. So you do what Agassi did, inch over there to cover it, leaving the backside free or just give it up as aces and hope Sampras misses the first serve, it's a guessing game.
What makes Sampras' serve more impressive is that on the ad side he can toss the ball to the left, so it looks like he will hit a kicker to the backhand, but swing it down the centre instead, so the ball is kicking up high to the forehand and has a lot of pace, a nasty serve to deal with.
So basically that's where the two players differ (Federer and Sampras) Federer's second serve is more vulnerable to attack because it's not as good in pace and depth. The reason why Sampras' second serve is so good is because he can use those same elements in both deliveries, so unlike other players Sampras is not doing anything drastically different on his second serve when he misses his first serve.
I've incorporated some of those things in my service action, particularly the ball toss been always the same, if I miss the first serve, I don't have to do hardly anything different for my second delivery - so my serve is consistent and gives people a lot of trouble because I get it deep and in the corners getting up often. The straight ball toss or slightly to the left toss, knee bend and rotation are really good things to adopt. I never ever toss the ball to the right, just my preference but I look at players like Capriati and Dementieva and see the problems they have had by tossing the ball too far to the right when they get nervous. I get spin with good pace, a lovely combination, and hitting the slider on the deuce court to the forehand can be very satisfying, by tossing the ball a bit to the left, I can come over it, getting the slider and the ball getting up high as well at the same time.
