TropicalFruit
Rookie
The average first serve speed on the WTA is 105 mph, and the average height of WTA players is somewhere between 5'6'' and 5'8''.
Diego schwartzman's average first serve speed is between 100-105mph, and his listed height is 5' 7'', actual height probably between 5' 5'' and 5' 8''.
But here's the thing...
Diego Schwartzman is MALE.
And of all the strength imbalances between men and women, upper body strength is by far the biggest, and upper body strength plays a huge roll in serve velocity. Even the most conservative estimates of the leg drive vs upper body ratio still have the upper body contributing around 50% to a serve's velocity.
It seems like Diego should serve much, much harder than he does, given his physical profile, even being 5' 7''. There are tons of 5'8'' girls like Maria Sakkari that seem like they serve basically just as hard as he does (maybe I'm wrong about that). Given the rest of his game, we clearly know he possesses the requisite fast twitch muscle fiber density of other male professional athletes, so why can't he crack the serve harder?
When I bring this up to anyone, they always just mention his height, and when I mention the WTA, they just stutter and have no answer. It looks to me like he might be losing a little bit of the stretch shortening cycle of his shoulder by letting his racket drift behind his head before he initiates from the ground, but idk if that's just an illusion. His internal shoulder rotation through contact looks very muted compared to the great servers, both male and female, (like Maria Sakkari). I'm not sure if this is because he doesn't rotate his shoulder, or because upstream aspects of the swing cause the slower rotation at contact, since the ISR isn't completely volitional, or, again, if I'm just imagining it.
Does anyone have any real insight into this? The only thing I've learned from asking people so far is that no one knows anything, and they just have the "he's short lol" response as a defense because they can't explain it.
Also, if you want to take the position that "his serve isn't fast but it has spin and placement" I'd love an explanation of that with vidoes or something, because I genuinely want to know if Maria Sakkari has a comparable serve to Diego, or if Diego's really is substantially better and it's hard to tell because of the differing quality of returners.
Also, since this will be a discussion of biomechanics, I posted it in "tennis tips/instruction." Ultimately, I want to use the information gathered here to better understand the serve.
Diego schwartzman's average first serve speed is between 100-105mph, and his listed height is 5' 7'', actual height probably between 5' 5'' and 5' 8''.
But here's the thing...
Diego Schwartzman is MALE.
And of all the strength imbalances between men and women, upper body strength is by far the biggest, and upper body strength plays a huge roll in serve velocity. Even the most conservative estimates of the leg drive vs upper body ratio still have the upper body contributing around 50% to a serve's velocity.
It seems like Diego should serve much, much harder than he does, given his physical profile, even being 5' 7''. There are tons of 5'8'' girls like Maria Sakkari that seem like they serve basically just as hard as he does (maybe I'm wrong about that). Given the rest of his game, we clearly know he possesses the requisite fast twitch muscle fiber density of other male professional athletes, so why can't he crack the serve harder?
When I bring this up to anyone, they always just mention his height, and when I mention the WTA, they just stutter and have no answer. It looks to me like he might be losing a little bit of the stretch shortening cycle of his shoulder by letting his racket drift behind his head before he initiates from the ground, but idk if that's just an illusion. His internal shoulder rotation through contact looks very muted compared to the great servers, both male and female, (like Maria Sakkari). I'm not sure if this is because he doesn't rotate his shoulder, or because upstream aspects of the swing cause the slower rotation at contact, since the ISR isn't completely volitional, or, again, if I'm just imagining it.
Does anyone have any real insight into this? The only thing I've learned from asking people so far is that no one knows anything, and they just have the "he's short lol" response as a defense because they can't explain it.
Also, if you want to take the position that "his serve isn't fast but it has spin and placement" I'd love an explanation of that with vidoes or something, because I genuinely want to know if Maria Sakkari has a comparable serve to Diego, or if Diego's really is substantially better and it's hard to tell because of the differing quality of returners.
Also, since this will be a discussion of biomechanics, I posted it in "tennis tips/instruction." Ultimately, I want to use the information gathered here to better understand the serve.