Front foot staying on ground in serving

[New Daddy]

For me, I seem to have better pace and spin when my front foot stays on the ground rather than it jumps off the ground.
I know that jumping off of the front leg should not be done intentionally.
But whenever I incorporate an element into my service motion that will result in my front leg jumping off, the pace or spin of my serve will deteriorate.

Should I try to fix my service motion and incorporate a jump in the long run?
Or can I still have decent serve without my front leg leaving the ground, like the rule used to be a few decades ago?

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

For me, I seem to have better pace and spin when my front foot stays on the ground rather than it jumps off the ground.
I know that jumping off of the front leg should not be done intentionally.
But whenever I incorporate an element into my service motion that will result in my front leg jumping off, the pace or spin of my serve will deteriorate.

Should I try to fix my service motion and incorporate a jump in the long run?
Or can I still have decent serve without my front leg leaving the ground, like the rule used to be a few decades ago?

Ask yourself this: did the people from a few decades ago have decent serves? If so, then you can too.

That's independent of which one will ultimately give you better results; if changing it does give you better results, how long would it take, how many steps back would you have to take, how much improvement would you get, and are you willing to take that journey?

 

[Chas Tennis]

You have an unknown serving technique.

 

[IowaGuy]

You have an unknown serving technique.

It's not unknown, it's just from the 1960's

 

[Hmgraphite1]

I struggle with timing the "jump". I used to wonder, "when should it be". After 10000s of reps I found a super comfortable timing where the jump made my serve stronger than any non liftoff serve I could ever do. Now, here, I've learned that I am actually jumping late, so I have the opportunity to improve it further. Probably would have been better to get this part right before the 10000s reps but no matter.
Just depends how much time you want to invest and what final product you'll be happy with. If you jump with worse timing than mine it would be a power killer. With mine it just doesn't add the power it could.

 

[Dragy]

Agree with @Hmgraphite1 it’s timing thing. The benefit of lifting contact point a tad is not big enough to do it with volleyball-flavor. So it’s quite possible a too-early jump hinders your swing instead of enhancing.

 

[New Daddy]

I love the wealth of information that the TT forum represents.
I just found the following thread.
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/the-case-against-leg-drive-on-the-serve.525318/

It includes a video instruction by Taylor Dent. He states that jumping off of the front leg is not that important.

 

[IowaGuy]

It includes a video instruction by Taylor Dent. He states that jumping off of the front leg is not that important.

Note that "jumping" and "exploding" are two very different things.

Most high-level servers leave the ground when serving, due to exploding up into the serve, not due to deliberate "jumping."

Even Dent at ~200 lbs got off the ground a few inches when serving on the ATP tour. Most other pros explode vertically even more into their serve (~1 foot launch is pretty common).

If your front foot doesn't leave the ground, you're probably not generating that much explosive energy with your service motion. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, it's just that you're likely leaving some power/spin on the table...

 

[atp2015]

For me, I seem to have better pace and spin when my front foot stays on the ground rather than it jumps off the ground.
I know that jumping off of the front leg should not be done intentionally.
But whenever I incorporate an element into my service motion that will result in my front leg jumping off, the pace or spin of my serve will deteriorate.

Should I try to fix my service motion and incorporate a jump in the long run?
Or can I still have decent serve without my front leg leaving the ground, like the rule used to be a few decades ago?

Proper and complete upper body serve motion is a lot more important(it's what determines 90% of the serve quality) than exploding off the ground.
Would you rather get most of 90% or most out of 10%? Very easy to answer. If jump messes even 5-7% of the upper body motion, it should stay in the back burner.

On a related note, it happened to me this weekend.
I was a playing match and double faulted at least once in every serve game. I was serving at 4-5 and didn't want to double fault while serving to stay in the set and decided that I would hit serves without a jump to minimize distractions.
The serve quality went down and promptly lost the set. Was it because of the lack of jump that I couldn't hit the serves I wanted to?? Did other aspects of the game suffer just like the serve did.
I have no idea... but I'm still debating in my head.

 

[IowaGuy]

This guy can serve up to 140 MPH, at only 5'10".

Look at his explosion off the ground! (0:25)

How fast do you think he could serve with one foot still on the ground?

 

[New Daddy]

I respectfully beg to differ. That point was debated ad nauseam in the thread that I linked to.

Based on the opinion of many in this forum, as well as Taylor Dent’s statement, my front leg staying on the ground won’t compromise pace at my level. If it helps stabilizing my serve motion, to the contrary, it will actually benefit my serve. That was my own experience and the reason I started this thread.

In other words, everything else being equal, exploding with the front foot will increase power (by what 10%?), but everything will not be equal for a rec player. Trying to explode with the front leg may even be detrimental to pronation or torso rotation for club players, which may more than offset the extra power to be gained from launching with the front foot. This point was raised by many in the other thread.

If your front foot doesn't leave the ground, you're probably not generating that much explosive energy with your service motion. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, it's just that you're likely leaving some power/spin on the table...

 

[New Daddy]

This guy can serve up to 140 MPH, at only 5'10".

Look at his explosion off the ground! (0:25)

How fast do you think he could serve with one foot still on the ground?

I don’t know. Neither do you.
Taylor Dent demonstrated that it doesn’t affect his pace that much. I will believe him.

 

[atp2015]

I respectfully beg to differ. That point was debated ad nauseam in the thread that I linked to.

Based on the opinion of many in this forum, as well as Taylor Dent’s statement, my front leg staying on the ground won’t compromise pace at my level. If it helps stabilizing my serve motion, to the contrary, it will actually benefit my serve. That was my own experience and the reason I started this thread.

In other words, everything else being equal, exploding with the front foot will increase power (by what 10%?), but everything will not be equal for a rec player. Trying to explode with the front leg may even be detrimental to pronation or torso rotation for club players, which may more than offset the extra power to be gained from launching with the front foot. This point was raised by many in the other thread.

I agree, more points to be gained by split stepping with wide base after serve than jump off a few inches. Too much jumping will reduce pace and increase spin.

 

[IowaGuy]

I respectfully beg to differ. That point was debated ad nauseam in the thread that I linked to.

Based on the opinion of many in this forum, as well as Taylor Dent’s statement, my front leg staying on the ground won’t compromise pace at my level.

Taylor Dent is ~ 6'2" and 200 lbs. He still came a few inches off the ground when serving in the ATP. Plus, he has a tremendous back arch which powers his serve (and ended up with back injuries!).

Based on other rec tennis players I've seen over the last 30 years, my guess is that you'll have trouble breaking 100 MPH if your front foot never leaves the ground, unless you're either very tall or built like Taylor Dent...

If you have no desire to serve >100MPH, then I wouldn't worry about your front foot not leaving the ground and would just focus on placement and consistency...