RIP: John Yandell. A tennis pioneer

onehandbh

onehandbh

G.O.A.T.
Tribute from Jeff Salzenstein:

Tennis lost a legend.
And I lost a friend.

John Yandell (JY) wasn’t just an innovator—he was a tennis genius.

A mentor.
A guy who saw things in the game (and in people) before they saw it themselves.

Back in the early 2000s, I was on tour, grinding, searching for an edge.

I wanted more out of my serve.

I studied every video, read everything I could get my hands on.

But nothing clicked—until I found John.

Before YouTube. Before high-speed video was everywhere.

John was ahead of the curve, capturing slow-motion footage of the best in the world—Sampras, Agassi, Philippoussis, Rusedski.

He broke down their techniques with surgical precision.

I reached out, hoping he’d analyze my serve.

Not only did he say yes, but he showed up.

Aptos Challenger, 2003.

John pulled out his camera, captured my serve with high-speed footage, and in minutes, he spotted what no coach had ever told me:

He saw two things in my serve to make it a bigger weapon.
✅ Change my stance
✅ Change my ball position

He showed me side-by-side why Pete Sampras, the greatest server of all time, had a better delivery than me.

His tweaks changed my serve forever.

That week, I won the Aptos Challenger with my new serve tips from JY.

Then I qualified for the U.S. Open the next month—where John, camera in hand, was right there to support me.

But John didn’t just make me a better server—he made me a better learner.

His influence went beyond technique.
He taught me:
✅ Be smart about making changes. Small tweaks can have huge payoffs.
✅ Keep an open mind. Growth starts with curiosity.
✅ Find the right mentor. The right guide makes all the difference.
✅ Study greatness. Watch, analyze, learn.
✅ Get objective feedback. Video doesn’t lie.

John Yandell changed the way I looked at improvement—not just in tennis, but in life.

Without him, there’s no way to get to #100 in the world.

Tennis instruction transformed because of Johnny.

Tennis is better because of him. I’m better because of him.

Tennis will miss him. I miss my friend already. Rest easy, John. I love you,


www.linkedin.com

Tennis lost a legend. And I lost a friend. John Yandell (JY) wasn’t… | Jeff Salzenstein | 63 comments

Tennis lost a legend. And I lost a friend. John Yandell (JY) wasn’t just an innovator—he was a tennis genius. A mentor. A guy who saw things in the game (and in people) before they saw it themselves. Back in the early 2000s, I was on tour, grinding, searching for an edge. I wanted more...
www.linkedin.com www.linkedin.com
 
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RIP. John Yandell was a pioneer in using high speed film to analyze strokes and utilizing it to help pros and amateurs.

I subscribed to his site tennisplayer.net years ago and gained a lot of useful insight into technique and the game of tennis and I started to make some adjustments.

His eye-opening slow motion videos of Sampras' serve were amazing. They also revealed his incredible shoulder flexibility. Up until then, I had never considered that as being particularly important for hitting a hard serve.
 
RIP John. He was a pragmatic voice in our sport. His library of high speed pro strokes came out decades ago and it was a great resource at the time.
 
how old as JY?
another friend of mine (tennis pro), passed recently (70's)
i thought tennis is supposed to make us live longer!
 
Oh, what a shocker. RIP, John.

I met John Yandell here at the Tennis Talk forum at the Tennis Warehouse site, in a famous thread where with Buffallo Bill and other members and afficionados we all debated the Roger Federer forehand, the role of the tensed wrist, etc. John had the most in depth ideas of us all, as he used high-speed cameras to study the technique. He was a pioneer and a supreme master of the craft, as well as a coach's coach.

He later invited me to contribute to his once-famous site, tennisplayer.net, which I did in the area of fitness, similar to the Great Fitness Sites I started here at TT. He was gracious in compensating me with a subscription for several years at his site, which was wonderful in many respects.

A bit later, he came here at Montreal, to the future Masters 1000 tournament. He was fully loaded with marvellous high-speed cameras, friendly and hugely knowlegeable.

Just last year, I tried to sensitize the wonderful player who is Denis Shapovalov of Canada to fix his technique which I found too random (sorry) by hiring John to study his trajectories and angles at contact vs say Djokovic's taken as a reference. I am not sure if my message reached Denis or whether he understood it. I am an Electronics and Telecommunications professional engineer, but I tried to be as explicit as possible. Missed chance ...
 
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RIP, JY

Great tribute by Jeff Salzenstein.

Odd that I can't seem to find an obit for John Y anywhere. Not a lot of details anywhere either. Did see a mention of cancer somewhere. I know he was 72 or 73 years old -- back in 2017, he had revealed to me that he was born the same year as me & Jimmy Connors = 1952

Looks like JY was last seen here on TT toward the end of January. Any mention of what day he passed? I saw an X "tweet" by Bill Simmons (Inside Tennis) on Feb 13 saying that John Y had passed.

I first heard / read references to John Yandell's work in tennis back in the 1990s. He was also involved in a scientific Tennis Project in the late 90s that was presented as a collaboration between NASA and CisLunar Aerospace. Have been following his ground-breaking, insightful work ever since.

We lost a good one here
.
 
nyta2 said:
i interacted with him here, and on his tennisplayer.net.
Click to expand...
Me too. He was always super-nice. Even when I somehow stumbled upon his brilliant article on all the varieties of the two hander without a membership. He simply asked for the link to fix the loop hole.

He was a big fan of Justine Henin's technique.

Also, he made a little video series with our @Shroud , helping him with his strokes.
 
onehandbh said:
Tribute from Jeff Salzenstein:

Tennis lost a legend.
And I lost a friend.

John Yandell (JY) wasn’t just an innovator—he was a tennis genius.

A mentor.
A guy who saw things in the game (and in people) before they saw it themselves.

Back in the early 2000s, I was on tour, grinding, searching for an edge.

I wanted more out of my serve.

I studied every video, read everything I could get my hands on.

But nothing clicked—until I found John.

Before YouTube. Before high-speed video was everywhere.

John was ahead of the curve, capturing slow-motion footage of the best in the world—Sampras, Agassi, Philippoussis, Rusedski.

He broke down their techniques with surgical precision.

I reached out, hoping he’d analyze my serve.

Not only did he say yes, but he showed up.

Aptos Challenger, 2003.

John pulled out his camera, captured my serve with high-speed footage, and in minutes, he spotted what no coach had ever told me:

He saw two things in my serve to make it a bigger weapon.
✅ Change my stance
✅ Change my ball position

He showed me side-by-side why Pete Sampras, the greatest server of all time, had a better delivery than me.

His tweaks changed my serve forever.

That week, I won the Aptos Challenger with my new serve tips from JY.

Then I qualified for the U.S. Open the next month—where John, camera in hand, was right there to support me.

But John didn’t just make me a better server—he made me a better learner.

His influence went beyond technique.
He taught me:
✅ Be smart about making changes. Small tweaks can have huge payoffs.
✅ Keep an open mind. Growth starts with curiosity.
✅ Find the right mentor. The right guide makes all the difference.
✅ Study greatness. Watch, analyze, learn.
✅ Get objective feedback. Video doesn’t lie.

John Yandell changed the way I looked at improvement—not just in tennis, but in life.

Without him, there’s no way to get to #100 in the world.

Tennis instruction transformed because of Johnny.

Tennis is better because of him. I’m better because of him.

Tennis will miss him. I miss my friend already. Rest easy, John. I love you,


www.linkedin.com

Tennis lost a legend. And I lost a friend. John Yandell (JY) wasn’t… | Jeff Salzenstein | 63 comments

Tennis lost a legend. And I lost a friend. John Yandell (JY) wasn’t just an innovator—he was a tennis genius. A mentor. A guy who saw things in the game (and in people) before they saw it themselves. Back in the early 2000s, I was on tour, grinding, searching for an edge. I wanted more...
www.linkedin.com www.linkedin.com
Click to expand...
What a lovely and fitting tribute! I can remember back to 2003 when, I believe, you also played in one of the Challengers we had in Yuba City, CA. I think you were beginning a comeback from injury with a protected ranking at that time; I could be wrong but I think this preceded what you are describing in your tribute above. You're a great tennis coach and teacher now; you've learned from one of the best. Thanks for sharing this tribute and your journey with us, Jeff.
 
Very sad … we were all lucky he spent some time here. I am reminded he was a cum laude graduate of Yale University.

Found this (John’s memoriam to his mother) … thought others might be interested. All that time interacting with John here, and had no idea he was originally from my city … Tulsa. I played many hours of tennis at the Holland Hall courts.

 
The only tennis book I have read is Visual Tennis. Simple and direct and good enough for recreational players.
 
Yandell really changed my views about how to teach and learn tennis by using video. His high speed video showed what the pros were actually doing.

I said hello to him one time at the Indian Wells tournament. He was there with Robert Lansdorp. RIP
 
dannyslicer said:
They are all observational studies. All invalid for the reason stated above.
Click to expand...
I saw Rod Laver walking with a cane last weekend. He might be 85. What does it prove or disprove? Nothing, that is why controlled studies are used. People are predicting the same for Pickleball.
 
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SystemicAnomaly said:
RIP, JY

Great tribute by Jeff Salzenstein.

Odd that I can't seem to find an obit for John Y anywhere. Not a lot of details anywhere either. Did see a mention of cancer somewhere. I know he was 72 or 73 years old -- back in 2017, he had revealed to me that he was born the same year as me & Jimmy Connors = 1952

Looks like JY was last seen here on TT toward the end of January. Any mention of what day he passed? I saw an X "tweet" by Bill Simmons (Inside Tennis) on Feb 13 saying that John Y had passed.

I first heard / read references to John Yandell's work in tennis back in the 1990s. He was also involved in a scientific Tennis Project in the late 90s that was presented as a collaboration between NASA and CisLunar Aerospace. Have been following his ground-breaking, insightful work ever since.

We lost a good one here
.
Click to expand...
This video was posted 6 years ago. John does not look like he’s in his 70s in the video.
 
onehandbh said:
It's been around in baseball for ages.
Click to expand...
The big change was from high speed filming camera, that required very expensive cameras, buying film and paying to have it processed. That VS digital cameras that recorded and cost almost nothing to record tennis strokes. That high cost of film cameras kept nearly all average tennis players away from any high speed imaging. Until 1995, Internal Shoulder Rotation was not noticed because the upper arm just spins from ISR and goes nowhere, with a little motion blur ISR was just missed.

The affordable digital camera made a big jump when Casio first came out with the Ex-F1 (2010?) that did a great job of high speed video, with a shutter speed down to 25 microseconds. Recording on SD card.

I always liked the way that John Yandell simply said that the ball 'does not roll on the racket strings' - when it flattens and 'cups' into the racket strings - as it does on most hard pro drives and serves.
 
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Chas Tennis said:
The big change was from high speed filming camera, that required buying film and paying to have it processed VS digital cameras that recorded and cost almost nothing to record tennis strokes. That high cost of film cameras kept nearly all average tennis players away from any high speed imaging. Until 1995, Internal Shoulder Rotation was not noticed because the upper arm just spins from ISR and goes nowhere, with a little motion blur ISR was missed.

The digital camera made a big jump when Casio first came out with the Ex-F1 (2010?) that did a great job of high speed video, with a shutter speed of 25 microsecond. Recording on SD card.

I always liked the way that John Yandell simply said that the ball 'does not roll on the racket strings' - when it flattens and 'cups' into the racket strings - as it does on most hard pro drives and serves.
Click to expand...
I think John was using the then expensive Phantom high speed cameras at first. (before the Casio became available)

ISR was already known but sometimes referred to as pronation. My high school tennis coach, who used to play baseball, always tried to get the kids to use pronation on all serves -- especially on kick serves.
 
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