Roscoe Tanner's Big Serve

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
Roscoe Tanner had one of the strongest serves of the 1970's. This era was the time of the 'Big Game' - Serve & Volley Tennis. So his technique was probably oriented toward getting to the net after his serve. He had a very low toss. Tanner was a leftie.

His autobiography mentions his very early training method as hitting leaves on trees. He mentions in the book that he thought the very low toss had a shock value in that soon after he stepped up to serve the ball was on the returner, much sooner than for other servers. He said the very low toss caused him to get moving very fast to meet the ball.

There seems to be very few high speed films of his serve, none that I have found so far. I've read that Vic Braden took high speed films of Tanner's serve available for sale. ?

There are some interesting Tanner threads on the TW forum.

I found this Super Tennis Youtube of a Connors vs Tanner Wimbledon match from 1975. It included a close up of Tanner Serving. Some of the characteristics were different than usually seen today. See time 1:12.

Note - Big Mistake, I did not notice that the video camera lens was zooming during the 3 frames of this serve. I still believe that Tanner moves forward more than usual. This is the first time that I have seen zooming during a video.

Some features of this serve. The tossing arm is low here and does not go higher in the video. Note the height and location of Tanner's head using the stadium features as a reference. Note also the position of the hitting shoulder.
2C0C65E66764433CBB728169B30563E8.jpg


Frame #2. About at Maximum External Shoulder Rotation. The knees have straightened. The head has moved forward but not up much.
EA3100858A94485391C4F273DBB208A1.jpg


Frame #3. Near impact. Feet off ground. Note the position of the head relative to the first frame. Also shoulder position.
5A784F56A5EF427E9E137FB33C2AE0CE.jpg


Frame #4. Probably after impact. Note the overall forward motion and not much upward motion probably related to getting to the net for Serve & Volley tennis. The foot is above a shadow on the court. 4-5" ?
DE24182727BE47239981ED6E57866048.jpg


For this point, match point, Tanner went to the net and Connors appears to have passed him.
 
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steve s

Professional
Chase, neat clip. I use the low toss, racquet up with no drop on serve. Been having trouble with the toss, will try the low toss arm.

Looks like Jimmy was using the T-2000.
 

Raul_SJ

G.O.A.T.
Some features of this serve. The tossing arm is low here and does not go higher in the video. Note the height and location of Tanner's head using the stadium features as a reference. Note also the position of the hitting shoulder.
2C0C65E66764433CBB728169B30563E8.jpg

That is one of the questions I have. After the ball is released, I thought the tossing must continuue rising in order to get the full benefit of shoulder over shoulder rotation... At impact, he looks to be in a standard tilted position... But the hitting shoulder is not in a steep tilted position at the start of the motion(near trophy position?) ... So apparently, the steep shoulder tilt position at trophy is not necessary for generating power? Or maybe he does achieve a similar Federer/Sampras position but
it is too quick to be picked up from that video clip.

220px-Roscoe_Tanner.jpg


FedPeteTrophyElbow.png
 

WildVolley

Legend
An interesting thing is that both Federer and Sampras will drop the tossing arm out into a position like Tanner's as they move further into the racket drop. It may well be that lifting the tossing arm above the line of the shoulders has more to do with toss technique than being vital for power.

Both Federer and Sampras (especially) are using their legs to jump, which Tanner does to a more limited extent. The jump has the benefit of a higher contact point, not just power development. Raising the arm higher may allow better balance for the jump.
 

GuyClinch

Legend
Actually Jeff Salzenstein in one of his promotional videos was talking about how rec player don't need to incorporate the huge shoulder angle - because often that leads to low elbow - which is a worse problem than flat shoulder angle. BTW its obvious you don't need a huge shoulder angle to serve for power - look at baseball players pitch..
 

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
Actually Jeff Salzenstein in one of his promotional videos was talking about how rec player don't need to incorporate the huge shoulder angle - because often that leads to low elbow - which is a worse problem than flat shoulder angle. BTW its obvious you don't need a huge shoulder angle to serve for power - look at baseball players pitch..

Where are the 'needs' of the rec players described? What are those 'needs' based on? 40% or more rec players do a Waiter's Tray serve, probably another 30% have unknown miscellaneous techniques with a minority using ISR for racket head speed. How are the various existing techniques of rec players considered? When is the elbow low? Why does the shoulder tilt lead to a low elbow?

I have read that the Cartwheel or shoulder-over-shoulder was probably the motion most associated with a strong high level serve (researchers Elliott, Reid, Crespo). I don't recall an explanation.

Here is a baseball pitcher. His particular technique has a similar shoulder technique to the serve but the starting position is not the same. Do other pitchers have a similar tilt?
Also check out these high speed videos of baseball throwing. You can see just how similar the biomechanics are.
http://www.hi-techtennis.com/high_speed/baseball.php?video=pitcher_foside_01_1000.swf

Tim Lincecum pitch. In my opinion, there is some similar shoulder action. I look more a the lengths of the throwing side of the body compared to the glove hand side than at heights of shoulders off the ground.

Frame similar to serve at impact. Instead of an upward jump as used for the serve a baseball pitch uses a forward stride. In both cases, the acceleration of the shoulder can cause external shoulder rotation from inertia of the forearm racket for the serve or forearm for the baseball pitch. I believe the similarities of the baseball pitch and tennis serve will show up better if the baseball pitch is viewed with a camera angle that is high like this one or maybe even above the pitch. I added lines as we have for the tennis serve. These indicate the upper arm is roughly aligned with a line between the shoulder joints from this camera view. See Ellenbecker shoulder video.
D009995419F54599990BCBF5342C7038.jpg
 
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Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
I don't think that the role played by the shoulder tilt is understood that completely. Here are some posts in an old thread on the possible role played by the shoulder tilt in stretching the tossing side of the body and shortening the hitting side of the body.

See the section quoted from the Manual of Structural Kinesiology.

Serve - Is raising the hitting shoulder the last big stretch?

Background - My interpretation of some biomechanical research results on the serve-

During the service motion, first, the tossing shoulder is up and the hitting shoulder is down. Then the hitting shoulder is very rapidly moved high using trunk lateral flexion. Last, the final racket head speed is increased to ball impact using mostly internal shoulder rotation. Internal shoulder rotation contributes the most to racket head speed.

The internal shoulder rotators are pre-stretched by the leg thrust. The stretch occurs because the upper arm is at about 90° to the body and the racket and forearm are at about 90° to the upper arm when the legs thrust up and carry along the shoulder. This externally rotates the shoulder stretching the internal shoulder rotator muscles. The internal shoulder rotator muscles are the lat (Latissimus Dorsi), pec (Pectoralis Major), Teres Major and some others. The largest muscle connected to the arm is the lat, the second largest is the pec. Both insert on the front of the upper arm at the same location and internally rotate the shoulder by pulling on the humerus at that insertion point.

The question is what part does raising the hitting shoulder play in farther stretching the lat or in maintaining the stretch?

Apparently it is well known that raising the shoulder can increase the lat stretch.

From the Manual of Structural Kinesiology, C. Thompson, R. Floyd, 15th ed., page 89:

paraphrasing

The stretch (of the lat) may be increased ................by then laterally flexing and rotating the trunk to the opposite side.

(This is a great basic reference. It is a popular college text and the latest edition is $75 while the recent editions like the 15th are just $10 or so.)

Lateral trunk flexion is just the side bend that puts the hitting shoulder up. Rotation of the trunk is just the trunk turn that is used for serving. Both of these lat stretches can easily be felt by just holding the upper arm at 90° to the body and rotating the forearm up and back as in the service motion to give the internal rotators some stretch. When stretched in that way, laterally(side) bend the trunk, feel the lat stretch. Also rotate the trunk and feel the lat stretch.

In Knudson's book, Biomechanical Principles of Tennis Technique, I think he discusses the speed of stretched muscles as more rapid.

Does this late trunk flexion and rotation play an important part for the serve by final stretching of the lat for added racket head speed?

I am trying to identify all stretch details of the lat associated with motions of the serve.

Here is some more detail. I'd be interested in how the points that you mentioned correspond to these points.

This description from the Manual of Structural Kinesiology is not for the serve but in general identifies some motions and their effect on stretching the lat. These motions are all present in the serve, in fact, the description reads like part of the service motion.

"The latissimus dorsi is stretched with the teres major when the shoulder is externally rotated while in a 90-degree abducted position. This stretch may be accentuated further by abducting the shoulder fully while maintaining external rotation and then laterally flexing the trunk and rotating the trunk to the opposite side."

Breakdown-

1) "The latissimus dorsi is stretched with the teres major when the shoulder is externally rotated while in a 90-degree abducted position."

The corresponding parts of the service motion are 1) the upper arm aligned with the line between the shoulders ("90-degree abducted position"). 2) External rotation occurs from the shoulder external rotators and also because the forearm and racket are bent, say, at very roughly 90 degrees to the upper arm when the legs thrust up. The inertia of the forearm and racket stretch the internal shoulder rotators.

2) ......"This stretch may be accentuated further by abducting the shoulder fully while maintaining external rotation..."

There is no corresponding part of the serve because it does not occur in proper technique since farther abducting the shoulder results in more risk of impingement. (McLennan & Ellenbecker videos on shoulder injury) The upper arm should remain in a rough line with line between the shoulders.

3) "...while fully maintaining the external rotation and then laterally flexing the trunk ......................"

The corresponding part of the serve is the lateral trunk flexion that brings down the tossing shoulder and raises the hitting shoulder. Probably starting, as often recommended, with the front hip bowed forward allows more range of trunk flexion and therefore greater lat stretch. ? I have not seen another clear explanation as to why having the hip forward would help the serve.

4) "while fully maintaining the external rotation and then .........rotating the trunk to the opposite side."

The corresponding part of the serve would be 'body turn' (sometimes loosely called 'shoulder turn.') Rotating the trunk can stretch the lat. Also, pointing the chest up, stretching the lat, and then rotating the trunk forward can farther stretch the lat. This may account for the 'chest up' recommendation often heard. Otherwise, what is the reason?

I have sort of a stretch-then release viewpoint where the lat muscle is first stretched for internal shoulder rotation and then released. Maybe some of these stretching motions could also drive the serve very fast more directly. ?
 

WildVolley

Legend
Low elbow? Lower then Sampras and Roger you mean?

Low elbow is usually defined with respect to the shoulder line. So a low elbow would be one that is x% below the shoulder line. I don't know what the degree would actually be, but usually it is obvious. Djokovic used to have an issue with dropping his elbow below the shoulder line in his trophy position.
 

Raul_SJ

G.O.A.T.
Yeah a low toss for me actually helps me generate more pop when I hit it at the top of the toss.

A low toss is appealing, considering so many errors are due to bad tosses. I think everyone would agree that a lower toss is easier to place consistently than a higher toss. If one can incorporate the serving motion, including the cartwheel, with a low toss, then coaches, IMO, should be teaching that as the preferred tossing method. Why introduce more complexity and error with a high toss?

I try to follow the Dolgapolov low toss and incorporate Jeff Salzentein tip of "extending the tossing arm up towards the sky". At first glance, this tossing arm extension looks impossible to achieve with Tanner's possibly even lower toss ( hitting while it's rising?), but I will experiment with it...


 
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julian

Hall of Fame
A low toss is appealing, considering so many errors are due to bad tosses. I think everyone would agree that a lower toss is easier to place consistently than a higher toss. If one can incorporate the serving motion, including the cartwheel, with a low toss, then coaches, IMO, should be teaching that as the preferred tossing method. Why introduce more complexity and error with a high toss?

I try to follow the Dolgapolov low toss and incorporate Jeff Salzentein tip of "extending the tossing arm up towards the sky". At first glance, this tossing arm extension looks impossible to achieve with Tanner's possibly even lower toss ( hitting while it's rising?), but I will experiment with it...


Ask coaches about a low toss.
You will see how far you will go
Ask the coach Suresh.
 

dgold44

G.O.A.T.
Rosco had a mega serve that is for sure!!!

Low elbow position I see a lot in the game today.
The low ball toss i do not know.
 

shindemac

Hall of Fame
Actually Jeff Salzenstein in one of his promotional videos was talking about how rec player don't need to incorporate the huge shoulder angle - because often that leads to low elbow - which is a worse problem than flat shoulder angle. BTW its obvious you don't need a huge shoulder angle to serve for power - look at baseball players pitch..

Baseball pitchers don't need the shoulder tilt to generate power. It's understood what the shoulder tilt is needed for even if not everyone understands. Look at previous discussions.
 

fundrazer

G.O.A.T.
Thanks for posting this + other guys for form analysis. When I was in high school I talked tennis with one of my English teachers pretty regularly. He mentioned Roscoe Tanner's serve a few times, but I never managed to find a clip of him.
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
Actually Jeff Salzenstein in one of his promotional videos was talking about how rec player don't need to incorporate the huge shoulder angle - because often that leads to low elbow - which is a worse problem than flat shoulder angle. BTW its obvious you don't need a huge shoulder angle to serve for power - look at baseball players pitch..
Low elbow? Lower then Sampras and Roger you mean?

A problem arises if the elbow is low wrt the shoulder tilt. In Pete and Roger's case, the elbow is in line with the shoulders, not lower than this line. Note also that the upper arm should, more or less, be at right angles to the body. The elbow should not tuck into the body. If the angle is noticeably less than 90 degrees, the elbow is too low. Prior to 2011, Novak's elbow was somewhat too low. He fixed this late in 2010, I believe, and developed a more effective serve as a result. Here is a video sample of Novak's serve prior to 2011 (actually 2008 or earlier):

http://www.hi-techtennis.com/video_sample.php?player_id=15&video_id=346&stroke=serve
 
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CoachingMastery

Professional
While Roscoe had a bomb serve using a low toss and horizontal shoulder tilt, there are problems associated with this form...not to mention that there were other pros who had just as fast of a serve with the opposite technique. Few knew that Roscoe's fastest serve was tied with Craig Harter who was a pro out of southern California. (His more famous sister, Cathy, played for the LA Strings in the 70's.) I knew Craig and hit with him when I was in high school and his toss was very high and he had a shoulder tilt that was significant. He served at 128 mph, the same as Roscoe's fastest serve at the time.

The problems I see as a teaching pro and coach with the low toss include:

As pressure in matches mount, players tend to toss lower and make contact lower. With a low toss, hit at just the right moment, you can achieve a contact point that is appropriate for the serve. However, any variation in this toss pattern, especially if the toss gets lower, players are forced to change their contact point to accommodate the lower toss. If the toss ends up higher than the apex of contact, then the player will be out in front of the serve, having to decelerate the stroke to accommodate the aim. Higher tosses, while certainly can be abused and have their own issues, offer the player the ability to reach higher on command instead of being forced, by a low toss, to reach only as high as the toss happened to be.

The argument that a higher toss makes the timing of hitting a ball that is dropping more difficult, is really absurd. The ball is falling at less than 5 mph. When was the last time a player had difficulty hitting any ball traveling this slow? Even a ball tossed to a forehand or backhand is moving twice this fast at their slowest speeds.

I've witnessed countless players who use a low toss get into a tight match and the first thing that occurs is their serve toss gets lower and their contact point drops. The result is usually a serve that does not have the right spin nor the right contact point to gain the right axis of spin. In addition, these players tend to get under the ball and I've seen their serve break down over and over under pressure, to the point of double faulting far more, limiting the quality of both first and second serves, and ultimately, lose confidence. The problem with a low apex is that there is nowhere to go if the toss isn't perfect. Even an inch or two too low will throw off this serve immediately.

There are exceptions to this as Roscoe was a quality player who made it to the pro ranks. Yet, he didn't last very long nor did he really have very many wins against players with different serves and different games.

I caution the advice offered when the advice is the exception rather than the rule as it applies to skilled player development. For every low toss among top players, there are dozens of higher tosses, and most are equal to being better servers overall. Yes, there are those who indeed toss much too high. Two feet above apex is in my opinion too high. A foot to a foot and a half is within the criteria of being able to maintain a serve toss under pressure that won't diminish the serve potential.
 

Raul_SJ

G.O.A.T.
A problem arises if the elbow is low wrt the shoulder tilt. In Pete and Roger's case, the elbow is in line with the shoulders, not lower than this line.

Yes, from the pics in Post #3, it looks like Federer's and Sampras and Tanner's elbows are all in line with the shoulder tilt.

Sampras has a slightly greater shoulder tilt than Federer? Is this because Sampras employs a more extreme "Arched Bow" position, stretching the obliques?
Perhaps Chas can comment on the role of the obliques/arched bow position in facilitating greater cartwheel action.
 
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Raul_SJ

G.O.A.T.
Roscoe Tanner had one of the strongest serves of the 1970's. This era was the time of the 'Big Game' - Serve & Volley Tennis. So his technique was probably oriented toward getting to the net after his serve. He had a very low toss. Tanner was a leftie.

Tanner also utilized tremendous ground force. Recall seeing a video where he was measured close to 2X his body weight on a weighing scale while serving.
 

comeback

Hall of Fame
Tanner just had great forward lean and racket head speed combined with perfect timing with those natural gut strings. His first flat serve was usually more effective down the middle; the lowest part of the net so little margin of error..He lacked the big hard spin and his 2nd serve was mediocre
 

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
A post on the toss height and timing. Thread subject on rhythm on the serve.
The 'rhythm' of the serve is another undefined tennis term.

The timing of the serve is strongly dependent on the toss height.

This is due to the fall of gravity. The ball has to rise to the top of the toss and then fall to the height of the ball at impact - that time takes -

Free fall in gravity (there are calculators on the internet):

D = 1/2 gt^2

D distance traveled down in fall, g - acceleration gravity, t - time

Enter height of toss above ball impact height to get fall time.
http://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1224852055
---------------------------------------------------
For the ball to rise above impact height, stop at the peak height and then fall down to impact takes twice the free fall time t.

There are also times for 1) the toss to rise to reach impact height (small) and 2) the toss release time which can be varied by the server, ignore these for now and just consider the time that the ball is rising and falling above impact height.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Toss height above impact height VS time to rise above impact height, peak and fall to impact height:

0 ft - 0 second
1 ft - 0.5 second
2 ft - 0.71
3 ft - 0.86
4 ft - 1.0
6 ft - 1.2

10 ft - 1.6

15 ft - 1.9
-----------------------------------
Metric
0 m. - 0 second
0.5 m. - 0.64
1 m. - 0.90
2m. - 1.3

Sam Groth and Roscoe Tanner have very low tosses from around 1 ft to 0 above impact. Sharapova has a very high toss. The average? 2-3 feet?

(Rosco Tanner said that he thought that the quick serve was a big advantage especially by surprising the receivers. I believe that he learned it at a young age by smacking leaves on a tree. See autobiography.)

Players who have very low tosses move very fast and do not pause around the 'Trophy Position'. Players with average toss heights often keep moving through the Trophy Position. Players like Sharapova stop and wait at the TP for the ball to drop. The players can vary the time of toss release and toss release height. Varying the height would probably not make much timing difference except for very low tosses. There is a lot more timing variety before TP than after TP.

It would be interesting to see what is going on with timing and tosses of high level servers. If anyone finds some measurements on toss heights being used by high level servers please post. There was a tournament in Spain last year (?) that offered toss heights and videos.

I discovered that the Trophy Position is just a momentary position of a continuous motion for many servers such as Sampras, Raonic, probably the majority of strong servers. However, especially with high tosses, Trophy Position is a place to pause and wait. Ironically, still pictures of servers look identical whether they are moving through TP or pausing there. For a large number of servers, the time between Trophy Position and impact will have much less variation than the time between ball release and impact due to toss height variation. That implies that any 'rhythm' similarity between servers must be more or less after the Trophy Position.

I notice that most drills for developing 'rhythm' on the serve do not include the internal shoulder rotation motion, upper arm rotation, as can be seen in the videos of the drills. ??
 
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Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
Tanner also utilized tremendous ground force. Recall seeing a video where he was measured close to 2X his body weight on a weighing scale while serving.
The force of "2X" body weight is average 1X body weight on each leg.

If you stand on one leg you get that same 1X force.

I wonder if the force plate measured the backward forces that drove Tanner forward?
 
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SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
Tanner also utilized tremendous ground force. Recall seeing a video where he was measured close to 2X his body weight on a weighing scale while serving.

Considering that Roscoe didn't employ a whole lotta knee bend and didn't come very far off the ground, a force of 2 g's is somewhat remarkable. Not sure that I's call it tremendous however. From what I've read, normal walking will produce a force of 1.5 g. Running can produce g forces from 2 to 3. Jumping can produce forces greater than this. From the video below, it appears that somewhat more that 2 g of GRF is produced when pushing off the ground for a jump. Upon landing, however, more than 5 g is generated.


FYI -- roller coasters typically produce forces of 2 g to 6 g.
 

Raul_SJ

G.O.A.T.
Considering that Roscoe didn't employ a whole lotta knee bend and didn't come very far off the ground, a force of 2 g's is somewhat remarkable. Not sure that I's call it tremendous however. From what I've read, normal walking will produce a force of 1.5 g. Running can produce g forces from 2 to 3. Jumping can produce forces greater than this. From the video below, it appears that somewhat more that 2 g of GRF is produced when pushing off the ground for a jump. Upon landing, however, more than 5 g is generated.


It looks like the Vic Braden "force plate" is measuring the force from one leg. Vic is amazed that Rosco weighs 170 but able to generates 349 pounds on the "force plate".

 
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Raul_SJ

G.O.A.T.
"You Can't Shoot a Cannon From a Canoe"
Vic Braden

On the attached video Vic Braden and Dr. Gideon Ariel discuss the serve with Roscoe Tanner. At the time of the filming Roscoe had the fastest serve in the world. One must stay in contact with the ground until the second to last segment of the kinetic chain decelerates which accelerates the last segment. All forces exist in pairs. The first action or force simultaneously exerts a force in equal magnitude in the opposite direction. Newton's third law: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

Australian researcher, bio-mechanist Bruce Elliot, concluded with one of his studies,"The last segment of the kinetic chain on the serve generates 52% of the power supply." Notice how far in front Roscoe tosses. Back in the day, like today, people missed the point. Roscoe's low toss was always the topic of "tennis talk." Conversations then and now over the toss turned into arguments. One of the best tips for the serve is to toss in front.

The tape is a blast from the past and the facts of physics last from one era of tennis to the next.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10152532676815566&id=233886670565
 
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Raul_SJ

G.O.A.T.
The force of "2X" body weight is average 1X body weight on each leg.

If you stand on one leg you get that same 1X force.

I wonder if the force plate measured the backward forces that drove Tanner forward?

I'm not clear on this. I thought simply standing on two legs generates 1G on the force plate.
Vic Braden says he is amazed that Roscoe is generating 2G, while standing on one leg...

You Tube Comments:
The force moves through the kinetic chain, starting at the ground. A 170 lbs. man generating 350 lbs. of ground force, without jumping, is amazing. It is a very fast, muscular push downward.
 
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SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
It looks like the Vic Braden "force plate" is measuring the force from one leg. Vic is amazed that Rosco weighs 170 but able to generates 349 pounds on the "force plate".

http://www.arielnet.com/videos/show/adi-vid-01080/espn-roscoe-tanner

A bit puzzled by Gideon's display. It appears that it starts with Roscoe's static weight and drops down to 0 for a while before rising back up to a slight peak before settling down for a while before rising up to the 349 lb peak. Shortly after the peak it drop to 0 again -- probably when Roscoe in no longer on the pressure/force plate.

However, Roscoe starts with one foot on the plate. The plate would not measure his full weight at that point since some of his weight is on the other foot which is not on the plate. Roscoe employs a pinpoint stance. So, for a while, he has both feet on the plate. I'm not sure, but it doesn't seem the either of his feet hit the plate when he lands.
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
I'm not clear on this. I thought standing on two legs generates 1G on the force scale.

Vic Braden says he is amazed that Roscoe is generating 2G, while standing on one leg.

It doesn't matter if I stand (statically) on one foot of two -- I will exert the same force on the ground (my total weight). OTOH, with 2 feet on the ground, each foot will carry half my weight if I have my weight distributed evenly.

If Roscoe stands with one foot on the plate and the other one on the floor, the plate will measure only part of his total weight.
 
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Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
While Roscoe had a bomb serve using a low toss and horizontal shoulder tilt, there are problems associated with this form...not to mention that there were other pros who had just as fast of a serve with the opposite technique. Few knew that Roscoe's fastest serve was tied with Craig Harter who was a pro out of southern California. (His more famous sister, Cathy, played for the LA Strings in the 70's.) I knew Craig and hit with him when I was in high school and his toss was very high and he had a shoulder tilt that was significant. He served at 128 mph, the same as Roscoe's fastest serve at the time.

The problems I see as a teaching pro and coach with the low toss include:

As pressure in matches mount, players tend to toss lower and make contact lower. With a low toss, hit at just the right moment, you can achieve a contact point that is appropriate for the serve. However, any variation in this toss pattern, especially if the toss gets lower, players are forced to change their contact point to accommodate the lower toss. If the toss ends up higher than the apex of contact, then the player will be out in front of the serve, having to decelerate the stroke to accommodate the aim. Higher tosses, while certainly can be abused and have their own issues, offer the player the ability to reach higher on command instead of being forced, by a low toss, to reach only as high as the toss happened to be.

The argument that a higher toss makes the timing of hitting a ball that is dropping more difficult, is really absurd. The ball is falling at less than 5 mph. When was the last time a player had difficulty hitting any ball traveling this slow? Even a ball tossed to a forehand or backhand is moving twice this fast at their slowest speeds.

I've witnessed countless players who use a low toss get into a tight match and the first thing that occurs is their serve toss gets lower and their contact point drops. The result is usually a serve that does not have the right spin nor the right contact point to gain the right axis of spin. In addition, these players tend to get under the ball and I've seen their serve break down over and over under pressure, to the point of double faulting far more, limiting the quality of both first and second serves, and ultimately, lose confidence. The problem with a low apex is that there is nowhere to go if the toss isn't perfect. Even an inch or two too low will throw off this serve immediately.

There are exceptions to this as Roscoe was a quality player who made it to the pro ranks. Yet, he didn't last very long nor did he really have very many wins against players with different serves and different games.

I caution the advice offered when the advice is the exception rather than the rule as it applies to skilled player development. For every low toss among top players, there are dozens of higher tosses, and most are equal to being better servers overall. Yes, there are those who indeed toss much too high. Two feet above apex is in my opinion too high. A foot to a foot and a half is within the criteria of being able to maintain a serve toss under pressure that won't diminish the serve potential.

Thanks for the detailed descriptions of what you have observed as a coach. You even have first hand experience following serving, your friend pro Craig Harter and Roscoe Tanner in the 1970s!

Very low tosses aren't widespread as you point out. Toss heights and timing issues of the top servers are interesting from the biomechanics viewpoint.
 

julian

Hall of Fame
It doesn't matter if I stand (statically) on one foot of two -- I will exert the same force on the ground (my total weight). OTOH, with 2 feet on the ground, each foot will carry half my weight if I have my weight distributed evenly.

If Roscoe stands with one foot on the plate and the other one on the floor, the plate will measure only part of his total weight.
It opens another question-is the ground force reaction bigger for a platform stance than a pinpoint one?
 

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
The interesting thing is to separate the vertical ground forces from the horizontal ground forces.

The original force plate measurement of Tanner is not clear as to whether only the vertical or vertical and lateral (mostly backward) forces were measured. The force plate video that SystemicAnomaly displayed in Repy #25 labels the force display as "Vertical Ground Reaction Forces".

Did Tanner apply more of his jumping forces in the horizontal direction? See his body tilt while feet are in contact with the ground. The video frames, first estimate, tend to show that his head did not go up much but went forward. If the forces available from his leg muscles were used more in a forward direction what does that do to his body acceleration?

After the jump, is this body tilt more forward than usual? The backward force measured on a 3D force plate might be higher?
EA3100858A94485391C4F273DBB208A1.jpg
 
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Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
That is one of the questions I have. After the ball is released, I thought the tossing must continuue rising in order to get the full benefit of shoulder over shoulder rotation... At impact, he looks to be in a standard tilted position... But the hitting shoulder is not in a steep tilted position at the start of the motion(near trophy position?) ... So apparently, the steep shoulder tilt position at trophy is not necessary for generating power? Or maybe he does achieve a similar Federer/Sampras position but
it is too quick to be picked up from that video clip.

220px-Roscoe_Tanner.jpg


FedPeteTrophyElbow.png

........................

Sampras has a slightly greater shoulder tilt than Federer? Is this because Sampras employs a more extreme "Arched Bow" position, stretching the obliques?
Perhaps Chas can comment on the role of the obliques/arched bow position in facilitating greater cartwheel action.

It is easy to look at videos and see where certain things are, arms, racket, ball. Muscles can't be seen but what a few of the main muscles are doing for stretching and shortening can be inferred from arm and racket positions. For example, the lat's stretch shorten cycle for ISR on the serve can be clearly understood, or elbow extension using the triceps to straighten the arm.

But the trunk has many motions and muscles that can't be seen in videos and that might be acting together at the same time. Obliques? The legs push on the pelvis through the hips and raise and rotate the pelvis and the trunk together. These hip and trunk motions are complicated and uncertain to see in high speed videos.

I believe that 'hip thrust' and the 'archer's bow' position and may stretch these trunk muscles and maybe others probably especially for Cartwheel. The position of the tossing arm stands out so it is often discussed but I'd say the tilt of the shoulders is more important. Tanner seems to have less tilt.

In the stroke reference books by Elliott et al, they breakdown motions for the serve as Leg Thrust, Cartwheel, Trunk Twist, Somersault and briefly mention that all or some of these have the effect of moving the shoulder upward and forward. One reference says that of these motions Cartwheel quality seems to be most correlated with the higher paced serves. If interested you should read these two references. Available ITF book store.

There is a second Tennisplayer.net article on setting up internal shoulder rotation. The article fills in some blanks, discusses and illustrates these issues with videos.

Here is a video on the lat muscle. The purpose of the video is weightlifting and it is not easy to follow. A small percent of the information is very useful for understanding the shoulder on the serve. Look at the lat muscle shown in red for some minutes at the start of the video. Consider its attachment points on the back and that its tendon comes around to the front of the upper arm (humerus). Consider the effects of shoulder tilt on the lat muscle while viewing that illustration. Consider the effect of shortening the distance from the shoulder to the hip on the lat.
 
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Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
Note - Big Mistake, I did not notice that the video camera lens was zooming during the 3 frames shown in the OP. I still believe that Tanner moves forward more than usual. This is the first time that I have noticed zooming during a stroke video.
 
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RetroSpin

Hall of Fame
"You Can't Shoot a Cannon From a Canoe"

Interesting phrase that I first heard being used by celebrity golf guru Sean Foley, aka the guy who really messed up Tiger Woods' swing.

First off, I'm not sure it's correct. Assuming you could get a cannon in a canoe, the idea is the canoe doesn't provide a sufficient resistive force against the recoil of the cannon. Really? I have seen cannon firing off old pirate-type wooden ships and the cannon were mounted on wheels and flew back as they fired. Apparently the mass of the cannon provides sufficient inertia to allow it to function.

I also have trouble seeing how a device firing a projectile powered by exploding gunpowder is a useful analogy to a tennis (or golf) swing.

Bottom line is I have qualms about accepting theories from would be gurus who can't even get an analogy right.
 

CoachingMastery

Professional
"You can't shoot a cannon from a canoe"...

I remember at a USPTA convention, one of Vic's protégé pros said this exact statement in one of the lectures. Another pro retorted, "Tell that to the Navy" to a resounding chuckle among the pros in attendance.

Loved Vic to death but his teaching had some elements that defy what top players did and even the very physics he was trying to use to dispel "myths" as he called them.

First of all, I had to laugh when I watched Vic's video on this concept of jumping on the serve. He used players jumping on a tiny trampoline to "demonstrate" how slow players served when they "jumped"... These players were so concerned about falling off this small tramp and twisting or breaking an ankle, it was a complete failure in trying to justify his belief.

The cannon/canoe concept is so out of context that it has nearly no application to the serve. The idea of a cannon with a sizable cannonball being shot from a canoe is silly as the force exerted by the cannon and the sizable mass of the cannon ball will negate the limited friction of the canoe against the water which would offer almost no reactive force.

A tennis ball relative to the mass of the player, the mass of a moving racquet, and the velocity of that racquet prior to impact will have almost no negligible counter force on those applied masses hitting the ball.

If the statement had validity, then a player hitting a 120mph serve should be forced backwards like the aforementioned canoe. Like the Navy, when we serve, we apply a sizable force to a small object, (tennis ball for the server, what-ever caliber projectile from the battleship). In addition, we initiate significant velocity within the pre-contact serve that has a ground-force acceleration component prior to contact.

Thus, when the rule was changed in the late 60's (about having to have at least one foot on the ground while making contact with the serve), it was found that the acceleration and associated thrust within a powerful serve lifted us off the ground. It is almost without exception that every pro is well off the ground at contact because of this.

As charismatic and likeable as Vic was, many so-called 'myth-buster' explanations were well off the mark.
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
It opens another question-is the ground force reaction bigger for a platform stance than a pinpoint one?

Pressure plate studies done in the 90s indicated a very slight increase for pinpoint stance. Individual mileage may vary -- it may be dependent on the implementation by each particular server.
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
"You can't shoot a cannon from a canoe"...

I remember at a USPTA convention, one of Vic's protégé pros said this exact statement in one of the lectures. Another pro retorted, "Tell that to the Navy" to a resounding chuckle among the pros in attendance.

Loved Vic to death but his teaching had some elements that defy what top players did and even the very physics he was trying to use to dispel "myths" as he called them.

First of all, I had to laugh when I watched Vic's video on this concept of jumping on the serve. He used players jumping on a tiny trampoline to "demonstrate" how slow players served when they "jumped"... These players were so concerned about falling off this small tramp and twisting or breaking an ankle, it was a complete failure in trying to justify his belief.

The cannon/canoe concept is so out of context that it has nearly no application to the serve. The idea of a cannon with a sizable cannonball being shot from a canoe is silly as the force exerted by the cannon and the sizable mass of the cannon ball will negate the limited friction of the canoe against the water which would offer almost no reactive force.

A tennis ball relative to the mass of the player, the mass of a moving racquet, and the velocity of that racquet prior to impact will have almost no negligible counter force on those applied masses hitting the ball.

If the statement had validity, then a player hitting a 120mph serve should be forced backwards like the aforementioned canoe. Like the Navy, when we serve, we apply a sizable force to a small object, (tennis ball for the server, what-ever caliber projectile from the battleship). In addition, we initiate significant velocity within the pre-contact serve that has a ground-force acceleration component prior to contact.

Thus, when the rule was changed in the late 60's (about having to have at least one foot on the ground while making contact with the serve), it was found that the acceleration and associated thrust within a powerful serve lifted us off the ground. It is almost without exception that every pro is well off the ground at contact because of this.

As charismatic and likeable as Vic was, many so-called 'myth-buster' explanations were well off the mark.

Well stated. I had the same take on Vic. I gained a lot of insight and learned quite a bit from Vic and his brother, Dan, in the 70s and 80s. However, there was always some things that I didn't buy with his methodology and conclusions. I remember a video tape on badminton that he released in the 90s. He was way off on the mark on that one. He didn't really deliver on the insight or proof on that title of the tape suggested.
 
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CoachingMastery

Professional
Well stated. I had the same take on Vic. I gained a lot of insight and learned quite a bit from Vic and his brother, Dan, in the 70s and 80s. However, there was always some things that I didn't buy with his methodology and conclusions. I remember a video tape on badminton that he released in the 90s. He was way off on the mark on that one. He didn't really deliever on the insight or proof on that title of the tape suggested.

Yes, he did many things that increased tennis...although, he also emerged when tennis was on the rise, so I think there was a correlation between his so-called influence, and the fact that millions of players were playing tennis. I too saw his badminton video. As a junior, I played with several nationally ranked badminton players and had there been a ranking for juniors, (10 -13 years of age), I would have been ranked. He had no clue to high level badminton technique nor practical training applications.

While he had a couple things that were close to being accurate, I have to say that his teaching eastern grips on the volley and serve, staying on the ground and stepping through with the back leg on the serve, "air the armpit" on the two-handed backhand, and his insistence on keeping the elbows out on the volley were just absurd from so many areas.

I used to have dinner with Vic and he would argue these things trying to sound so scientific and I would just say, "Vic, really...how many players have your personally trained to become top ranked?" of course, he could only say, "I had Tracy Austin." I would laugh as I had talked several times with Robert Landsdorp and Tracy about how they worked together from the age 6 on. I seriously doubt that Vic's work with Tracy from 4 - 5 made her the player she became...not to mention, she didn't end up using most of Vic's adages during her professional and top junior career.

That doesn't take away Vic's charismatic and warm demeanor as he was sincerely one of the nicest guys in the industry. (Even when he disagreed with pros!) But, I would argue that he also prevented many able-bodied players from reaching their potential due to the limitations of some of his teachings as so many people believe he was the bees knees as far as instructional teaching! Vic made many things SOUND logical...until you dug just a little deeper.

I'm sure there will be those who disagree with me...but, hey, I knew him personally and watched him teach live for years. And, I have trained over 100 top state, national and a few world-ranked players...many more than he did. I think I know a little bit about teaching the game too! However, I would never label something as a MYTH as he did so often. He couldn't possibly correct himself due to his insistence that everything else was a "myth".
 

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
A high speed video of Roscoe Tanner's serve is shown in the article. See the 8th video.
http://tennisandhealth.com/?page_id=567

If you click the play-pause button as quickly as possible it appears that single frame stop action can be done. The racket is lost for a time in the trees. Too bad that the interesting position of the racket face leading to impact can't be see that well.

This could be an effect of video compression or other video artifacts. Probably a 16 mm high speed film from the 1970s was transferred to an interlaced video file (double image is often a sign of interlaced video). Then that interlaced video file was farther processed, possibly more than once, and compressed by the last upload. ?

Still, it's the first high speed video of Tanner's serve that I have found.
 
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LeeD

Bionic Poster
Analyse all you want, but no analysis is going to help any of US hit a serve like old Roscoe.
Same with Sampras, Goran, Roddick, or Groth.
You either have it, and you know by your second year, or you don't, and have an average serve the rest of your tennis shelflife.
 

JohnYandell

Hall of Fame
I continue to be fascinated by the fascination with Roscoe Tanner. It's like Marilyn Monroe. Gone but still magnetic in some strange obsessive way. He had a very fast serve obviously but if we were to measure his spin values today my bet would be that they would be low compared to other top players. Maybe he created 5000 times his body weight on those force plates--uh, do we have measurements for Pete or Roger or anyone else?
Finally that toss thing. Crazy. Maybe 2 or so players like Curren and Ivanisovic had the super low tosses. Versus hundreds and hundreds of elite players who tossed 6 inches to 2 feet above contact or higher...
some guys with really live arms like that low toss thing but the lack of real knee bend or body rotation combined with the extreme difficulty of the timing makes his motion one of the least viable possible models in my opinion. BTW there is a great high speed clip of Tanner on Tennislayer and his motion has also been exhaustively discussed there in the Forum.
Lee you are right but if you want the best average serve you can have copy Roger not Roscoe...
 

RetroSpin

Hall of Fame
John Yandell, I agree but his motion is interesting. It's kind of the outer extreme of what is possible in terms of low toss and quick motion. It's pretty useful to be able to duplicate it when the sun is right in your eyes though.
 

LeeD

Bionic Poster
MUCH easier to emulate Tanner's serve over Fed's.
Me lefty. Natural low toss. Like to move in to service line position after serving. Can't hit within 40 mph of Tanner's best. OTOH, competition is no where near Tanner's.
 

WildVolley

Legend
John Yandell, I agree but his motion is interesting. It's kind of the outer extreme of what is possible in terms of low toss and quick motion. It's pretty useful to be able to duplicate it when the sun is right in your eyes though.

This is true. I've done something almost like the Tanner-motion when I just can't dodge the sun. I keep my head down, toss the ball in front of me and bring my eyes straight up to the low ball and smack it. At least it keeps me from being blind if the ball comes back. In other cases, I've ended up showing my whole back to the court in a poor McEnroe imitation, but that serve is all spin.

I find that Goran's serve is much less radical than Tanner's. The amazing thing about Goran's first serve was how difficult it was for opponents to read. Watching video of his matches, you could tell that opponents were often just guessing as to what corner was going to be targeted. I haven't seen enough of Tanner playing to know whether he had the same ability to disguise his targets.
 

JohnYandell

Hall of Fame
Yeah the sun thing--how do those pro players hit the exact same serve--or so it seems? Every player is gonna make his own decisions. Roscoe is always gonna be an option for some...
 
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