pronation on a TWIST serve

[Ballinbob]

just wondering

On all my serves except my twist serve, I notice my wrist pronates or snaps forward when hitting the ball. However, for my twist serve, my wrist kinda snaps in a sideways direction (7-1 o'clock) to get the ball to kick right to the backhand side of a righty. For a pure topspin serve though I notice I pronate right into the court. Am I doing this correctly? Does an american twist serve require some special pronation or should I still snap my wrist froward?

Here is a vid of my 2nd serves, is my wrist doing what it's supposed to do? Sorry the camera shakes so much by the way


Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2wGqurdAvQ

 

[larry10s]

could not view your video but.... if the ball does what you want you are doing it correctly.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Can't get to the video (malformed link).

Note that pronation is not a wrist articulation, it is an action of the forearm (that also rotates the hand & wrist). Better to think of pronation as a rotation of the forearm rather than some sort of active "wrist snap". (Wrist actions are, for the most part, only moderate and primarily passive).

With that said, all serves should have some degree of pronation -- some more than others. The pronation on a flat serve will probably be the most pronounced = obvious. The pronation on other types of serve may occur at sligtly different points in the upward swing to contact. They may also happen to a lesser degree.

If, as larry10s speculates, you are getting the twist action that you are shooting for, then you may not really need to dwell on the details. However, if the serve action cause you some pain, feels unnatural, or you really feel that it is not correct, then perhaps it needs to be looked at.

 

[Vermillion]

How does the pronation differ for a twist serve compared to the flat serve?

Would you have to pronate earlier with a twist serve?

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

^ To be honest, I've never really even thought about exactly when the pronation happens on twist kick serves and topspin kick serves. It happens when it happens. It's probably enough to realize that the timing and the amount of pronation will differ somewhat from a fatter serve. No real need to get bogged down in the temporal & magnitude details of the pronation action.

Instead, I dwell more on the toss & the optimal contact point (in space). The timing on the conact will be a bit later than the flat serve since you let the ball drop a bit more. You might also consider how you present the strings to the ball to get the desired action of the ball.

Often, I visualize carving different patterns across the surface of the ball for different types of serves. Even if my visualizations are not completely accurate, as long as they produce the results that I want is what really counts.

 

[Ballinbob]

Hey guys really sorry, but link is now fixed

SystemicAnomaly thanks for the help, and maybe your right that I dont need to get bogged down. If you would take a quick look at my vid and see if my wrist is doing the right thing. The camera angle isn't great but you can see my upper body clearly.

Thanks everyone for the help!

 

[Solat]

you have a really effective twist serve because your racquet path is primarily across the ball, you don't have a lot of forward movement of the racquet on this serve. This means very little pronation is happening, you are actively abducting the wrist to get that quick brushing motion but there is little forearm pronation.

If you want more depth and forward movement after bounce then you would need to adjust this but if your serve is effective at your level then it doesnt matter what the technique is

 

[Tennis Dunce]

On the American Twists...do you find that you don't toss the ball as high as with your flat serves? Knowing that the ball needs to drop more sometimes causes me to be more conservative with my toss, causing a little impatience and perhaps hitting the ball while its too high... Can you get by with a shorter toss for the Twist?

 

[tennisdad65]

For my twist, I do not try to pronate actively, and if my swing path is almost parallel to the baseline, very little pronation occurs. In this case I get a spinny serve similar to the OPs video. If my swing path is a bit more aggressive (~30 degrees to baseline), I naturally pronate more.

For my topspin and topspin-slice, the swingpath is forward and the natural pronation seems to happen a little bit after contact, depending on how far into the court my toss is.

 

[LeeD]

As the first responder said, totally depends how you hold the racket and it's always the RESULTS that count.
Your twist is hit into the body. WHY? You should land it out wide of the intersect always, to move your opponent OFF the court past the doubles alley for his return. Twists work for righties best on ad court.
Your swing is slightly askew, pathing almost directly at the opponent, instead of up and out. Your toss needs to be more over your head, you swing UPWARDS and don't try to followy thru as low as a top or flat service followthru. You have a high bounce only because you're tall. Your bounce should go well over 6' high at the baseline, then twist outwards past the doubles alley.
Not saying it's a bad idea to hit twists into the body, but that's only a changeup from the normal out wide. 70% of your twists should land out wide of the intersect lines.

 

[Ballinbob]

Solat and LeeD, thank you soo much for the advice/input! I agree on everything, and Solat you are right that I'm not pronating enough i do see that now. And LeeD your right about hitting twists out wide, I just don't have the best control yet. You're also right about me having a high bounce because I'm tall, I noticed that on all my serves not just my twists.

I will work on everything that you guys said and fix it as soon as possible and then post another video, this really helped

Thanks again guys, don't know what I'd do without you lol

 

[Ballinbob]

On the American Twists...do you find that you don't toss the ball as high as with your flat serves? Knowing that the ball needs to drop more sometimes causes me to be more conservative with my toss, causing a little impatience and perhaps hitting the ball while its too high... Can you get by with a shorter toss for the Twist?

Yes I toss it much lower for american twists

For my twist, I do not try to pronate actively, and if my swing path is almost parallel to the baseline, very little pronation occurs. In this case I get a spinny serve similar to the OPs video. If my swing path is a bit more aggressive (~30 degrees to baseline), I naturally pronate more.

For my topspin and topspin-slice, the swingpath is forward and the natural pronation seems to happen a little bit after contact, depending on how far into the court my toss is.

Thanks, this helped me alot. I need help on my swing path and this will help for sure

Video coming soon when I fix the swingpath issue!

 

[rocky b]

Thats is not a kick serve no bite to it. More racket head speed and brush up the ball more

 

[Kostas]

Nice serves but buy a damn tripod or find a better camera-man. I got motion sickness watching that thing.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

You got a nice kick to some of the serves on the video. However, those were primarily topspin kick serves and not what I'd characterize as a twist kick serve. The former kicks primarily up & forward while the twist kicks up and bounces to the right side (receiver's left). The twist has more of a spiral spin component than the simpler topspin kick. There were 1 or 2 on your video that had a bit of twist kick.