Heath Waters -- Kick Serve Short And Wide On The Ad Court

[Raul_SJ]

Heath: "We use ulnar deviation to make the ball land shorter. You can call it ulnar deviate, snap, flex... whatever you want to call it."

I am already aware that the ball leaves the racket before the wrist reaches the neutral flexion position (dotted blue line below). So when Heath says "snap sooner" to make the kick land short. Is Heath referring to earlier ulnar deviation? Or is he referring to earlier wrist flexion during the time wrist is flexing and moving towards the 0 degree neutral flex position?

Don't really want to get bogged down on the terminology.

I just want to know if landing the kick short is a function of "earlier" ulnar deviation. And I'm not clear how it is possible to ulnar deviate sooner.

I am only familiar with earlier/later pronation.

 

[dct693]

Raul_SJ, Heath is not referring to flexion. Ulnar deviation is a different movement. I can't really describe it nearly as well as many youtube videos can. Do a quick search and you should find explanations.

First understand that the racquet path on a kick serve is very different from that of a flat or slice serve. The racquet moves much more left-to-right (for righties). For a flat serve, the racquet moves directly towards where you want to ball to go. Ulnar deviation moves the hand in the same direction as the racquet path during the kick serve. Because of this "added" movement, it gives the racquet head even more speed. I consider it a "snap" action in the sense that, as the racquet approaches the ball, I consciously perform the action "suddenly" and as quickly as possible. So, to break it down, when hitting the kick serve as you swing towards the ball you should feel like you'll almost hit it with the edge of your racquet. But just before you make contact you ulnar deviate and "whip" the back of the ball as fast as you can. The direction that the racquet travels when "whipping" the ball is generally quoted as "7 to 1" on a clock face.

I recommended this video from Essential Tennis in another thread. It talks mainly about pronation on serves - but it's got great slow-motion video of all 3 types of serves. You can compare the kick serve portion (starting about 5:00 in) and see how the wrist of the server moves on the kick serve BEFORE pronation even happens. I don't consciously think about the pronation myself, but I'm fairly certain is all happens after contact with the ball.

 

[Tight Lines]

IMO, what he means by snapping sooner is ISR.

 

[GuyClinch]

It's not just ISR though.. on a kick ball is more towards left - so you can use ulnar deviation as well.. For serves with more slice its too late to really use ulnar deviation..or so it feels.

 

[Raul_SJ]

I already understand the role of pronation:

Flat serve: Pronation to contact occurs earliest.
Slice : Pronation is delayed compared to flat.
Kick: Pronation is even more delayed compared to slice.

On all serves(flat,slice,kick) there is wrist flexion but the ball leaves the racket before the wrist is flexed past the neutral position (the wrist is in an extended or neutral state immediately after impact).

It's not just ISR though.. on a kick ball is more towards left - so you can use ulnar deviation as well.. For serves with more slice its too late to really use ulnar deviation..or so it feels.

That is basically my question, the role of ulnar deviation and flexion on the kick serve up to contact. It feels like there is minimal (none?) ulnar deviation on the flat serve?

 

[RetroSpin]

There may be some UD approaching impact in a kicker, but I don't think it is the primary driver. Doing it the way Waters says will produce a weak ball that sits up. He kind of implies that you just go to drop, then brush up using UD. That's not the way the top pros do it.

Even the guy in the gif above is clearly using a lot of ISR before impact.

 

[RetroSpin]

See impact at 00:52. No UD.

 

[dct693]

Raul_SJ, you did a great job with that composite gif of the different serves, but I think you made one mistake. The gif of the slice is actually of the kick, so your slice and kick gifs are the same.

To answer your question on whether there is UD on a flat serve, I would say there is none.

 

[Raul_SJ]

There may be some UD approaching impact in a kicker, but I don't think it is the primary driver. Doing it the way Waters says will produce a weak ball that sits up. He kind of implies that you just go to drop, then brush up using UD. That's not the way the top pros do it.

Even the guy in the gif above is clearly using a lot of ISR before impact.

I did not get the implication from Heath that UD is the primary driver. I am aware that ISR/Pronation is the primary power component and ISR is obvious from the slow motion GIFs.

My question was the role of UD in directional control and what Heath means by "snapping sooner" to make the kick land short and wide.

Raul_SJ, you did a great job with that composite gif of the different serves, but I think you made one mistake. The gif of the slice is actually of the kick, so your slice and kick gifs are the same.

To answer your question on whether there is UD on a flat serve, I would say there is none.

Thanks. I fixed it.

Do you notice UD on my Kick Serve Gif? Retro Spin says pros like Federer hit kick without UD.

 

[GuyClinch]

My question was the role of UD in directional control and what Heath means by "snapping sooner" to make the kick land short and wide.

Long story short - I think what Heath is getting at is that you are moving the racquet from pointing at say 9:00 to 12:00 - most people describe this movement as incorporating UD. The more vigorously you make this movement the more top you can get on it - and the shorter it will land. Also conversely the more you toss the ball into the court the less you can really get on this and the more forward and lower the ball will go over the net..

If you want a really good kick tutorial take the mini course from Brady Tennis lesson - he talks about UD - and I think that would clarify what Heath is saying..

 

[5263]

If you want a really good kick tutorial take the mini course from Brady Tennis lesson - he talks about UD - and I think that would clarify what Heath is saying..

Do you think less ISR for a kick?

 

[GuyClinch]

Do you think less ISR for a kick?

For me? No I do not. Kick is about two things basically - swing path (way more left to right then a normal serve) and toss location. Because you are tossing the ball more to your left - you can catch the ball while you are swing up - so UD can come into play. The ISR - alot of it is happening after contact on a kick. People call it delayed ISR - but that's not the real key - you are contacting the ball earlier in your swing path - its not so much any delay of ISR
For a proper serve you load up with ESR - and so the result of that release of energy naturally has some ISR.

Alot of people - and even some really good players - don't "get" kick serves. They look closer to a regular serve then they are IMHO because pros hit such an aggressive kick..Amateurs should start off hitting loopy soft kicks - so they get the idea. Some people around here will whine that hey Fed doesn't hit them like that - but that's because they are going for aggressive kicks - adding pace at the cost of less arc..

See impact at 00:52. No UD.

Debatable. I think of the UD kind of like hitting at topspin backhand. If you want alot of spin on your backhand you can let the racquet release up.. And it will actually finish pointing behind you.. But alot of that is from the forces that you have built up in your backhand - its not the wrist powering that move entirely..

 

[Shroud]

My two cents is that to hit that shorter more angled serve you have to go for it more and swing faster and with more spin. So in a way "snap sooner" kind of describes what you have to do.

Here is a vid that explains it well though it features a lefty server and lefties should be illegal

 

[dct693]

Do you notice UD on my Kick Serve Gif? Retro Spin says pros like Federer hit kick without UD.

I don't think Retro Spin is correct. If you look at the kick gif you uploaded, just before contact with the ball the server's forearm appears to stop moving, if only for an instant, yet the racquet is still moving across the back of the ball. What motion allows this to happen? Ulnar deviation.

 

[dct693]

If you want a really good kick tutorial take the mini course from Brady Tennis lesson - he talks about UD - and I think that would clarify what Heath is saying..

This.

 

[RetroSpin]

I don't think Retro Spin is correct. If you look at the kick gif you uploaded, just before contact with the ball the server's forearm appears to stop moving, if only for an instant, yet the racquet is still moving across the back of the ball. What motion allows this to happen? Ulnar deviation.

I'm not interested in how some guy in a gif does it. Or even Brady, although I like his stuff a lot. Roger
Federer has one of if not the best kickers in history however, so I am very interested in what he is doing. Fed's wrist is not in UD at impact, that is as clear as it can be. There might be some minor movement from radial to ulnar deviation, but it is clear to me that UD is not powering his "brush."

In fairness, Pat Rafter had a pretty devastating kicker and he does seem to have a lot of UD. But he is doing a lot of other things that Waters and the Serve Doctor gloss over.

 

[GuyClinch]

Federer has one of if not the best kickers in history however, so I am very interested in what he is doing. Fed's wrist is not in UD at impact, that is as clear as it can be. There might be some minor movement from radial to ulnar deviation, but it is clear to me that UD is not powering his "brush."

1) It's not 'clear' at all.

2) No one thinks that its 'powering' the brush.

3) You should think about what other people who can hit good kick serves think you should do..

 

[dct693]

I'm not interested in how some guy in a gif does it. Or even Brady, although I like his stuff a lot. Roger
Federer has one of if not the best kickers in history however, so I am very interested in what he is doing. Fed's wrist is not in UD at impact, that is as clear as it can be. There might be some minor movement from radial to ulnar deviation, but it is clear to me that UD is not powering his "brush."

In fairness, Pat Rafter had a pretty devastating kicker and he does seem to have a lot of UD. But he is doing a lot of other things that Waters and the Serve Doctor gloss over.

When you say "Fed's wrist is not in UD at impact" we agree. I would say that "Fed's arm/wrist is performing UD starting before and continuing through impact". That huge whip-like movement across the back of the ball that Fed uses to produce an amazing kick serve is called, from what I understand, ulnar deviation. I see it in the Rafter video too. Every slow motion video of a high level kick server that I have seen performs UD. It does not power the "brush", it adds to racquet head speed.

 

[Tight Lines]

This is purely my opinion. For an effective kick, you need both: 1) radial to ulnar deviation for spin; and 2) "snap sooner"=pronate early=ISR early.

The radial to ulnar deviation is there since you need to contact the ball when the racket is nearly parallel to ground over your head.

Harry