Please help with Serve

luvforty

Banned
what is wrong with that serve? looks pretty darn good.

1 concern though - with the lack of 'chest up', this swing may be suspect for shoulder injury later.
 

sureshs

Bionic Poster
Correct me if I am wrong, but she does not seem to be bringing her racket on edge and then pronating for a flat serve.

Is her grip conti?

Eventually, she will have to use a true conti grip and pronate
 

luvforty

Banned
Correct me if I am wrong, but she does not seem to be bringing her racket on edge and then pronating for a flat serve.

Is her grip conti?

Eventually, she will have to use a true conti grip and pronate

grip looks a little strong, which is common among young kids.

also she tosses pretty far into the court, weaker grip would make it more awkward to chase to the toss.
 

sureshs

Bionic Poster
tennis balla shows of his skills!

(But remember that the Fed clip was a practice clip - he was obviously foot faulting)
 
Correct me if I am wrong, but she does not seem to be bringing her racket on edge and then pronating for a flat serve.

Is her grip conti?

Eventually, she will have to use a true conti grip and pronate

She does start in Continential grip. But I think she slides some during shot. We were working on coming up with racquet on edge. Until it started to snow :(
 

tennis_balla

Hall of Fame
Her racket will get into the proper position once you fix that elbow I was talking about. Its making her open up her racket face and never recovers after that. Many ways to to do, you can try and get her to throw tennis balls over the net, making sure you get that elbow up and back, keep an eye on it and correct her each time. Then put a racket in her hand and repeat that same motion regardless of where the ball goes. She'll quickly find her bearing and find it easier and become stronger with better technique.
 
Her racket will get into the proper position once you fix that elbow I was talking about. Its making her open up her racket face and never recovers after that. Many ways to to do, you can try and get her to throw tennis balls over the net, making sure you get that elbow up and back, keep an eye on it and correct her each time. Then put a racket in her hand and repeat that same motion regardless of where the ball goes. She'll quickly find her bearing and find it easier and become stronger with better technique.

We will work on these things next practice. I showed my daughter she is excited to try and improve her serve.
 

sureshs

Bionic Poster
She does start in Continential grip. But I think she slides some during shot. We were working on coming up with racquet on edge. Until it started to snow :(

Very difficult tendency to correct. It will be easier for her, but over here we have given up trying to convert a 70 year old guy to not to shift to pancake during the motion.
 

boramiNYC

Hall of Fame
Besides the grip issue what balla pointed out is one of the main issues. To help achieve the elbow lift, the deltoid muscles (top of the shoulders that lift up the elbow without shrugging) need to be developed more. Many ways to achieve that but I suggest simply hold the racquet extend both arms to the sides and lift the elbow to the shoulder level with the palm facing down and hold in that position for as long as she can, instead of using any weights. And repeat many times until this motion is not tiring at all. At first the deltoids will be sore but that's fine. it's important not to lift or tense up the muscles around the shoulder blade while you do this.
 

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
I don't know about much about how much a 9 year old girl could or should do to develop the type of serve that the pros are using.

This video, taken from behind, shows clearly the rapid internal shoulder rotation that provides the greatest contribution to the racket head speed at impact. Look at the rapid rotation of the bones at the elbow. (ISR is upper arm (humerus) rotation).
https://vimeo.com/27528701

To do stop-action single-frame on Vimeo press the play-pause control as fast as possible.

Notice 3 angles at impact:

1) The angle between the straight arm and the racket. This angle is to get the very high racket head speed from the axial rotation of the arm. See Toly link.

2) The wrist at impact - it appears to be in a reasonable position not near any limit of the wrist joint's ranges of motion.

3) Notice the angle between line between the two shoulders and the upper arm. One shoulder up, one down, the line between the shoulders and upper arm are somewhat in a straight line, say, roughly, 170 d.. This orientation minimizes the risk of shoulder impingement. This issues has been explained in detail by Todd Ellenbecker in a Tennisresources video - a very important issue for long term shoulder health when playing tennis. It's dangerous for your daughter to work on her serve if you and she are not aware of the information discussed by Ellenbecker. Search: Ellenbecker shoulder video

I would recommend that you do high speed video from behind - in about the direction of the ball's trajectory and look for these important angles as shown in the above video and others in that Vimeo collection.

For reference, the part played by internal shoulder rotation in the tennis serve has been described by biomechanical researcher, Bruce Elliott. On the TW site, Toly has some nice posts describing the serve and especially the angle between the arm and racket at impact.
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=361610

There is a thread on the physics & science of 'pronation'.
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=370729&

A great and very readable reference on the tennis strokes is Technique Development and Stroke Development (2009). Bruce Elliott. Available through the ITF. It has several discussions of what developing young players, given their strength limitations, are capable of doing at various ages.
https://store.itftennis.com/product.asp?pid=86&previousscript=/home.asp
 
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^^^ She working on leading more with the edge of her racquet. She is shadowing it to get the feel for it. I'm trying to make sure she isn't grip changing. Going to freeze and look at video at end of serves.
 

tennis_balla

Hall of Fame
Here is an update of my daughter's serve. We have started the tennis ball throws and the exercises as suggested. Please take a look at to see if there is any improvement. I had her watch the video tennisballa put together and she tried to put those suggestions into practice. I'm sure it will take time.

Thanks in advance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoqcOaIsAZY&feature=youtu.be


Ask her this, and there is no wrong answer. Which serve feels better? What differences she's noticing between the two? Which one does she feel stronger/more power in? which feels like she has more control?
 

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
On your daughter's second video I tried to determine how level her shoulders are as that is a known impingement risk. I could not determine in that video from the side how the line between the two shoulders and the upper arm (humerus) lined up. Be aware of this injury risk issue based on the information below, especially the detailed discussion in the Todd Ellenbecker video.

I believe that serving with ISR is never forced and could cause injury if practiced incorrectly. Here are some known issues. With forceful and rapid ISR the small external shoulder rotator cuff muscles have to be conditioned to keep the ball of the humerus in place and to stop the arm rotation in the follow through. See recommended shoulder conditioning exercises. Easy, light exercises.

There are also the important safety issues related to technique such as the shoulder high orientation for the serve to minimize impingement risk. Just one very bad motion can cause injury.

1) Jim McLennan short video on the rotator cuff, impingement and serving
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTRvxaBMh8s

2) Todd Ellenbecker video on shoulder anatomy, impingement, and serving. At about minute 8 he describes the same issue as McLennan but in more detail.
http://www.tennisresources.com/index.cfm?area=video_detail&vidid=3712&ATT=&reso=lo

If you are concerned because you are having pain, how can you determine that the technique that you use is OK? You have to study and know the proper technique and verify that you are doing it with high speed video or find a well qualified instructor. Keep in mind that the more rapid motions during the serve cannot be seen by eye or even 60 fps video so an instructor who uses HSV is a plus.

A video from behind is necessary to see the angle between the line connecting the two shoulders and the upper arm.

https://vimeo.com/21512296

I had just learned about internal shoulder rotation and had not practiced it much in my serve video. There is not enough of an angle between my straight arm and my racket at impact. See the pro videos (often you can even observe on your DVR stop-action when watching matches on TV). I believe that the wrist angle at impact also may have caused some wrist pain. Research the serve and internal shoulder rotation.

What frame rate is your video camera? Outdoors in bright sunlight the light level is roughly 100X as much as indoors. Most overcast skies might have about 10X as much light as indoors. Most cameras with AUTO exposure control will select a faster shutter when more light is available and that will reduce motion blur so that you can see the orientation of the racket better. For the best videos - with small motion blur - always shoot outdoors in direct sunlight.

With a frame rate of 240 fps and a pro serve, the frame before impact usually has the racket slightly open, around impact its mostly about vertical and one frame after impact the racket face is usually slightly closed. In these ~8 milliseconds the racket face goes from open to closed at impact. Contact itself might last about 4 milliseconds - about the same time as the time between frames at 240 fps. Even though your daughter's serve is much slower, at 60 fps don't try to interpret all detail of what is happening near impact as the 60 fps sampling rate is too slow.
 
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