Digital Atheist
Hall of Fame
Yes wrist, in an earlier post I asked if he ever had wrist pain.
Serve Video Review
- Thread starter mptennis
- Start date
Jono123
Professional
Your serve has a lot going for it. A smooth abbreviated swing and good racket drop. However your ball toss is not in front enough seeing weight transfer forward. So you're hemorrhaging power.
There are smaller things to address but that's what stood out for me.
Yes, I've put up the racquet until I'm feeling better. In the meantime just reading and watching videos so next time I get on the court I at least have some knowledge and drills to focus on.
MGArchitect
Rookie
Lots of good input here, also a pretty good base to start from. I have two recommendations for your process though.
1) move the basket farther away from yourself or even closer to the back fence because it looks almost like you are trying to avoid hitting it with your racquet. (This will help with the suggestion about arm angle)
2) bounce the ball a couple more times or go a little slower for the preparation phase. This helps to get the momentum going correctly by rocking back first and then moving forward - you seem to be already starting moving forward when the motion begins
1) move the basket farther away from yourself or even closer to the back fence because it looks almost like you are trying to avoid hitting it with your racquet. (This will help with the suggestion about arm angle)
2) bounce the ball a couple more times or go a little slower for the preparation phase. This helps to get the momentum going correctly by rocking back first and then moving forward - you seem to be already starting moving forward when the motion begins
Digital Atheist
Hall of Fame
I edited my earlier post so it references the wrist and is clearer.
For me, the number one issue is that you are tossing straight up over your head, which is causing you to brush up like you are doing a kick serve, or slice when the ball toss/contact is more to the right.
I would start by tossing further into the court. This will force your body to be more open at contact and swing more down and forward. I like this recent video from Intuitive tennis which explains it better.
I would start by tossing further into the court. This will force your body to be more open at contact and swing more down and forward. I like this recent video from Intuitive tennis which explains it better.
Chas Tennis
G.O.A.T.
The kick serve toss is not to over the head, that is another tennis myth. The ball is impacted close to over the head, that is what is often seen in high speed videos. But the part that is often not noticed is that the head moves forward between the toss release and impact.
Kick serve from Fuzzy Yellow Balls.
Slice serve.
Flat serve.
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Chas Tennis
G.O.A.T.
You can compare your video to the pro single frame and right above or below the pro video on the forum.
1) Place cursor on Youtube slide bar. Drag it back and forth to see the pattern of the stroke. Compare your pattern to the pro's.
2) Vary Youtube settings to speed 0.25X, (click gear icon) use period & comma keys to go forth and back. Again & again...
3) To single frame on Youtube, stop video, go full screen, and use the period & comma keys.
To select a video, place cursor on the video and hold down the ALT key and click with the left mouse key, otherwise the video starts playing when you select it. You can go full screen and come back down and the video stays on the same frame.
4) Comparisons need similar camera angles. Find your model server in a high speed video from the same camera angle. The closer the camera angle is, the more accurate the comparison is. Or find a model server and duplicate the camera angle for your serve video.
1) Place cursor on Youtube slide bar. Drag it back and forth to see the pattern of the stroke. Compare your pattern to the pro's.
2) Vary Youtube settings to speed 0.25X, (click gear icon) use period & comma keys to go forth and back. Again & again...
3) To single frame on Youtube, stop video, go full screen, and use the period & comma keys.
To select a video, place cursor on the video and hold down the ALT key and click with the left mouse key, otherwise the video starts playing when you select it. You can go full screen and come back down and the video stays on the same frame.
4) Comparisons need similar camera angles. Find your model server in a high speed video from the same camera angle. The closer the camera angle is, the more accurate the comparison is. Or find a model server and duplicate the camera angle for your serve video.
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It seems like my toss isn't over my head, I move into it as you describe. However I still think my main issue is the right elbow being way too high, the arm is nearly completely vertical. I think I can solve this by adjusting the toss to be a little further to the right.
I'm sure I'm subconsciously trying to avoid hitting it. I've actually hit it several times before.
I hadn't thought about trying to slow down the preparation, I'll give it a try. Thanks!
I had a chance to get some practice in today. I tried to focus on a number of things including:
and
.
- Getting the hitting elbow lower as to not have such a vertical swing (after watching the video I realize I have a long way to go)
- More methodic preparation
- Squaring shoulders to court at the time of hitting
- Keeping the wrist loose
- True continental grip
- Better toss position
Digital Atheist
Hall of Fame
That is definitely an improvement on the previous wrist position (first image); compare to the 101mph serve @ 1:16 as a good example, since it appeared to be legitimately faster than almost all of the others.
Keep at it, you aren't far away at all and your deceleration/follow-through is much better.
Keep at it, you aren't far away at all and your deceleration/follow-through is much better.
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Did you use a tool to generate the images or was it all manual? The framing is so consistent.That is definitely an improvement on the previous wrist position (first image); compare to the 101mph serve @ 1:16 as a good example, since it appeared to be legitimately faster than almost all of the others.
Keep at it, you aren't far away at all and your deceleration/follow-through is much better.
Digital Atheist
Hall of Fame
I have a keyboard shortcut for selecting regions so I just shift + prt sc, then manually select each relevant frame, making sure to include the red YT play bar as an alignment reference. Then GIMP and manual adjustment (using keyboard shortcuts to move images sideways and preserve alignment) is the only way to allow each frame to be visible while overlapping so close. In my experience, even when doing a tight crop of each frame and joining them, the resulting final image can be rather wide (especially if there are more frames than yours). I would rather do the extra 3 minutes work since I think it serves the purpose better!
If there are more than 10 images, I would usually download the video and then use Avidemux to auto generate the relevant frames, before importing into GIMP.
badmice2
Professional
A lot of improvements.
A few things to consider: see if you can make more time to load the knee bend longer, in doing so, it should also give you some time to coil your hips.
on your stance release, try and get your left hip to follow into the direction of your serve. Ie if you’re serving out wide (ad court), your hip should follow towards the ball.
Dragy
Legend
Did you notice you footfault every single time? This is not just illegal, but also marks an issue with your prep and toss. For instance, you cannot try to toss farther in front when you already need to slide your front foot as you do.
Check this video, it might seem not directly related, but I bet it will help a lot simply doing this:
(What I mean toss as you shift forward, not earlier)
Yes I noticed, it was a big eye opener when I first reviewed that video. Thanks for the suggestion.
I'm gonna have to think on this one, mechanically it's not instantly making sense to me. If my body is rotating from right to left I'm not sure how to turn move my hip back towards the right side of the court.
badmice2
Professional
You’re supposed to go right to left, but you should end up with you unit (as in unit turn) facing across the court, not to the left of the court.
You can think of it this way, If you simply stand sideways at the start, it would be roughly a quarter turn when you’re done delivering your serve. The “coiling” starts at the racket take back and roughly ends when you contact the ball, not thereafter. In doing so, you as a unit should be moving forward in unisons towards the direction of your shot.
Wanted to post an update in the off chance someone stumbles upon this. I was really trying to coil and load the back foot, though honestly I don't see any difference in the results compared to the previous videos. I feel like I'm leaving a lot of power on the table, but can't seem to access it. Maybe I'm wrong.
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10sbeast888
Professional
Your arm and racquet are too vertical at contact in this image. This can stress the shoulder (impingement) and limit your RHS. In the image below, notice how the R arm is angled somewhat to the R while the racquet is angled to the L
OP you are swing up on edge, which is commonly taught.. but you are missing a key component - the power loop.
with the loop this angle should occur naturally, because the head is looped down and out, so it will come back to the inside.
Digital Atheist
Hall of Fame
Your'e not wrong. Look at your body weight when you finish, especially your back leg. That's an indicator something is very wrong. might need a side view to check toss location. You also stay way too sideways throughout the entire motion, which is seriously inhibiting your ability to utilise core rotation and that is a power killer for sure.
Raonic says at contact the hitting shoulder should be behind the non hitting shoulder (to prevent early rotation) but very shortly after the hitting shoulder needs to overtake the hon hitting shoulder. That's why you see pros warming up like this, and it's something you need to master before moving on to the full serve:
Here is Pete doing the same thing:
Practice walk through serves since they force you to move forward into and after the strike (and if you don't rotate properly that can't happen). No jumping! Don't worry about getting them in either just yet if you are looking to unlock the missing power component. In fact, aim for the baseline or even the back fence initially and slowly bring it back closer to the service line.
P.S. Your initial racquet drop is good and imo it's the fact you stay sideways for so long that is killing your power and causing the incorrect swing path, in addition to weight transfer issues. I will do frames tomorrow, but for now it is bedtime!
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I'll try out the walking serves a bit, hopefully this afternoon. I am curious what you'll think as you click through the frames. I went frame by frame and it seemed like at contact my body was mostly pointed to the side, like you say, but when I went frame by frame on a Federer serve video he also seemed to be perpendicular to the court at contact:
Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding something.
10sbeast888
Professional
before we worry about power... I saw the landing pattern is very scattered..
very likely you have the face open too early in the swing.
this guy has a couple of ideas to keep the face closed. e.g. have the racket facing the ground when you lift up to trophy... and there is another video (you have to do the digging) where he talks about using the back side of the racket to accelerate out of trophy.
your toss is consistent enough, so get the racket face under control.... otherwise you will not be able to use any extra power.
very likely you have the face open too early in the swing.
this guy has a couple of ideas to keep the face closed. e.g. have the racket facing the ground when you lift up to trophy... and there is another video (you have to do the digging) where he talks about using the back side of the racket to accelerate out of trophy.
your toss is consistent enough, so get the racket face under control.... otherwise you will not be able to use any extra power.
10sbeast888
Professional
found it for you.... should be able to get the scattered landing under control, then you can go after more power.
I've watched this video several times. One of the issue with watching YouTube coaches is that they don't all agree. So I was implementing the "face to the ground" thing for a while, then I stumbled upon other videos, perhaps pro-player analysis videos that seemed to suggest doing it a different way.
10sbeast888
Professional
understood... there are many ways to ensure not to open too soon.
perhaps try the other video with the back side of the strings to the ball.... it's pretty cool you can record all the landing spots. I suspect with a closed face for longer you should be able to get a tighter pattern of spray.
Digital Atheist
Hall of Fame
Maybe a little! Your serve is actually still quite decent, and I think it might be more about your perception or the mindset that you need to stay sideways through the entire swing, and that is just plain wrong.
As an FYI Federer stays quite sideways on almost all of his serves and more than most, so you need to remember that. Here are frames from the Fed video above you linked, and I also did Raonic since he is a platform server with a bomb who is also quite sidesays at contact. Observe their racket path after contact and their shoulder/body/back leg position upon landing.
That's a T serve on the deuce court for reference. I chose your 83 mph serve near the start, and it looks decent, but you are still using your wrist too much to compensate for a lack of core/forward component (observe your landing compared to the 2 above).
And as I said, that looks decent and you are close.
Thank you so much for this. I'll try and get a side view the next time I get over to the court. I guess it depends on my toss location, but I really see two options for being less sideways at contact:Maybe a little! Your serve is actually still quite decent, and I think it might be more about your perception or the mindset that you need to stay sideways through the entire swing, and that is just plain wrong.
As an FYI Federer stays quite sideways on almost all of his serves and more than most, so you need to remember that. Here are frames from the Fed video above you linked, and I also did Raonic since he is a platform server with a bomb who is also quite sidesays at contact. Observe their racket path after contact and their shoulder/body/back leg position upon landing.
That's a T serve on the deuce court for reference. I chose your 83 mph serve near the start, and it looks decent, but you are still using your wrist too much to compensate for a lack of core/forward component (observe your landing compared to the 2 above).
And as I said, that looks decent and you are close.
1. Toss ball into the court more so it forces my right side to move farther into the court
2. Adjust my timing (perhaps increase the toss height or just delay it) so I've rotated more by the time I make contact.
Is that right? Again the side view will likely show more of the story but it seems like ensuring my toss is inside the court will also force me to move forward.
Personally I never liked the idea of over/underrotating in the serve. I don't think anybody internally visualizes throwing motions as "rotating". And IMO trying to have the exact "perfect" amount of rotation can get really in your head.
IME the better cue is to think of propelling my shoulder towards contact, which for the serve would be mostly upwards, a bit inside the court, and a bit to the right. With this I can use my torso as much as I want without having to worry about overrotation.
IME the better cue is to think of propelling my shoulder towards contact, which for the serve would be mostly upwards, a bit inside the court, and a bit to the right. With this I can use my torso as much as I want without having to worry about overrotation.
Digital Atheist
Hall of Fame
There are plenty of tutorials out there about overrotation, how it is bad, and how to prevent it. One such drill is the power X finish, which can definitely be a useful cue for those who ARE opening up too early. It is also detrimental to those who don't know how to use their upper body correctly because it suffocates any type of proper shoulder over shoulder, cartwheeling, or body rotation (or whatever you want to call it, which is fine by me).
But you will find on here some people consciously think about inhibiting or preventing any rotation since they think it's bad, and then you get the OPers result. Which actually isn't that bad, but it is preventing torso weight transfer. Here is a more extreme example of someone who tries to stay sideways, never ever getting the hitting shoulder through, because that's what they've seen and read.
Serve Advice Request
It's been a long time since I video'd my serve and finally picked up a swing stick and swingvision and am dedicated to doing some analysis this summer and drilling (groundstrokes coming soon!). I know there's a ton of room for improvement. For context, I'm currently ~3.5 and my serve tends to be...
tt.tennis-warehouse.com
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Digital Atheist
Hall of Fame
Maybe a little! Your serve is actually still quite decent, and I think it might be more about your perception or the mindset that you need to stay sideways through the entire swing, and that is just plain wrong.
As an FYI Federer stays quite sideways on almost all of his serves and more than most, so you need to remember that. Here are frames from the Fed video above you linked, and I also did Raonic since he is a platform server with a bomb who is also quite sidesays at contact. Observe their racket path after contact and their shoulder/body/back leg position upon landing.
That's a T serve on the deuce court for reference. I chose your 83 mph serve near the start, and it looks decent, but you are still using your wrist too much to compensate for a lack of core/forward component (observe your landing compared to the 2 above).
And as I said, that looks decent and you are close.
Just to help you understand what they are doing, look at Fed's back hip in frames 4 5 and 6, and note how it is rising and coming around sightly. Also, it should be clear he isn't as sideways in frame 6 as frame 4 with the hitting shoulder having moved forward a decent amount.
Then take a look at Raonic in frames 5 6, and 7. Same thing with his back hip rising and coming around, and frame 7 isn't nearly as sideways as frame 5, with the hitting shoulder having once again moved forward quite a bit.
Now compare your frames 5 6 and 7 and note your back hip and your entire torso stay almost stationary (sideways) throughout, but worse is that your hitting shoulder does NOT move at all until near landing (that's way too late). That could in large part be because your ball toss is too far behind you, but I really don't know. A side view would answer that but so will walk-through serves, because you won't be able to comfortably do them if the toss isn't far enough forward.
Note Fed's shoulder/hip alignment at contact in frame 6 is closer to your alignment on landing in the 2nd last frame (10). Also note that at contact, their arm is in front of their head slightly with the head to the side (arm is reaching forward) and yours looks like it might be behind you, which is why I think your toss is probably too far back.
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Yeah that's the thing - the corrective cues for over/underrotation can work, but don't really help people understand what needs to happen. As a strawman case (not saying this is what's happening here):
"you're underrotating, do this cue"
"ok how's this"
"you're overrotating, do this other cue"
"how do I know how much to rotate"
"coach will tell you"
If this is what I think it is (exaggerating the toss arm and hitting arm both finishing across the body), then I've got some personal gripes about that too haha. I don't have any refutation for it's efficacy, but it just doesn't make any fundamental sense to prevent rotation by providing more counterrotation.
Not that anybody needs to know why something works or doesn't work but still...it just feels like it can be unnecessarily confusing when there's better alternatives
This is extremely helpful, thank you. Not exactly sure when I'll be to the courts again, but when I do I'm going to try both the walking serves and also getting a side view. One additional question I have is concerning my starting stance. On my most recent practice session (the latest video) I rotated my feet farther away from the baseline, so the front foot was parallel with it and the back foot was slightly angled away from the baseline, somewhat towards the back fence. I did this because with my flexibility (or lack therefor) it was the most comfortable way to coil and shift me weight to my back leg. Normally my stance had the front foot angled toward the baseline and the back foot parallel with it, but I wasn't getting much coil at all. Do you have any thoughts regarding that?
10sbeast888
Professional
every shot in tennis should be built, from the hand down to the ground. in the REVERSE sequence of the K chain.
therefore, the core rotation being relatively early in the chain, should be worried about later in the build.
OP seems to be well coordinated, perhaps this is not even an issue.
so in the sequence of from the hand down to the ground:
grip - check;
wrist flexion - maybe an issue, maybe not, let's park it.
elbow/shoulder area - as I pointed out this is the biggest issue, right now.... watch that video about the power loop, this should fix the wrist flexion..... because right now your racket going straight up... this causes the lack of an angle between the handle and the forearm at impact.... also causes the momentum to bring the head straight down after impact, causing excessive wrist flexion.... if you power loop from the outside, the racket will come inside for the impact, the going outside again during the follow thru.
as you drive up from the ground and the hips/core rotate, the racket should NOT sink deeper into the back scratch by stretching the triceps. your motion aint too bad, but is still too much inside compared to the pros. the loading should be the power loop to the outside causing the shoulder to rotate externally, the so called ESR loading.
now we can talk about rotation a little. when the above is fixed, the rotation will likely resolve itself, as now the rotation will have the correct purpose.
the other benefit of the power loop, or the out-in-out swing path, is that there is a lot of speed from the pronation, the racket flips quickly from left to right. the result is you may be less accurate on the direction, but more accurate on depth... this will likely help on your scattered landing patter, as a straight up then down swing path you have right now has the racket face going from extremely open to extremely shut very fast, making it difficult to control depth.
the service box is painted longer on the depth than width, but the actual landing area is much more forgiving on the width side, there is only a narrow strip depth wise between hitting long and hitting into the net.... so the loop swing, to some extent, takes advantage of the actual shape of the valid landing area.
so to summarize - fixed the arm/shoulder swing path first.
therefore, the core rotation being relatively early in the chain, should be worried about later in the build.
OP seems to be well coordinated, perhaps this is not even an issue.
so in the sequence of from the hand down to the ground:
grip - check;
wrist flexion - maybe an issue, maybe not, let's park it.
elbow/shoulder area - as I pointed out this is the biggest issue, right now.... watch that video about the power loop, this should fix the wrist flexion..... because right now your racket going straight up... this causes the lack of an angle between the handle and the forearm at impact.... also causes the momentum to bring the head straight down after impact, causing excessive wrist flexion.... if you power loop from the outside, the racket will come inside for the impact, the going outside again during the follow thru.
as you drive up from the ground and the hips/core rotate, the racket should NOT sink deeper into the back scratch by stretching the triceps. your motion aint too bad, but is still too much inside compared to the pros. the loading should be the power loop to the outside causing the shoulder to rotate externally, the so called ESR loading.
now we can talk about rotation a little. when the above is fixed, the rotation will likely resolve itself, as now the rotation will have the correct purpose.
the other benefit of the power loop, or the out-in-out swing path, is that there is a lot of speed from the pronation, the racket flips quickly from left to right. the result is you may be less accurate on the direction, but more accurate on depth... this will likely help on your scattered landing patter, as a straight up then down swing path you have right now has the racket face going from extremely open to extremely shut very fast, making it difficult to control depth.
the service box is painted longer on the depth than width, but the actual landing area is much more forgiving on the width side, there is only a narrow strip depth wise between hitting long and hitting into the net.... so the loop swing, to some extent, takes advantage of the actual shape of the valid landing area.
so to summarize - fixed the arm/shoulder swing path first.
I'm sorry, could you elaborate a bit more on this? When you say "too much inside" what do you mean? Looking at the frames that Digital Atheist kindly posted, could you reference the relevant frame(s) and explain where you're saying the racket should be? I'm thinking you mean my forearm and/or shoulder should be more externally rotated, but from the power loop video I was thinking that rotation just happened around frame 5, very shortly before contact.
10sbeast888
Professional
you are on the right track.
who is the blue shirt in the pictures from @Digital Atheist ...in that sequence the picture right before the impact has the racket head to the outside.... your sequence does not have that position.
this channel seems to explain this concept the best... he has several vids about this.
also check pro serve from the back view, in slow mo you can see the loop to the outside before it goes up to impact..
again, this is partly why I'd say don't worry too much about the core rotation for now.... the loop to the outside is caused by the core rotation as well as the elbow leading forward.... once you have the loop, your rotation may just fix itself.
edit - covered in detail here.
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I was able to sneak away from work for long enough to try a few of the suggestions. Apologies for the long videos, I don't expect anyone to watch through all of them but they represent pretty much the entire session. And to be clear it's not three views of the same serves, I moved the camera each time.
Rear view:
Side view:
SwingVision view:
Rear view:
Side view:
SwingVision view:
Digital Atheist
Hall of Fame
You might be right. I think it might be the other way around and as soon as he stops thinking about staying sideways through the entire motion (which he apparently does), then his body will naturally come around and that Raonic racquet flare will happen (maybe!).
He will have to experiment a little and see what works but those first walk-through serves above are already much much better on all fronts. Good work @mptennis!
Frames:
Frame 3 has your racquet slightly more to the outside which is good. BUT the next few frames demonstrate a slight waiters tray (early opening of the racquet face). Frame 7 looks good and that is an important position. You might also want to check that grip since it could be slipping around a little closer to a forehand. However, Frame 9 has no stepping or walk-through at the end like Fed and Sampras, which means you still aren't using your core enough going into the strike. You need to exaggerate this since you are so used to having almost no weight moving forward after contact and it will feel strange, but like I said above, that is a good start. Basically, this will involve a little bit of folding or "snapping" forward at the waist, instead of staying perfectly upright throughout. Look at Raonic and Fed above and see how their upper body is leaning forward on landing (not perfectly straight up). That happens because their body has contributed to accelerating the arm/racquet into the ball.
All in all that is good work!
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10sbeast888
Professional
visible progress!
towards the end of the hit the excessive flexion has changed to a finished to the outside.. much better.
and the landing pattern is much tighter now also.... you do get more misses into the net, likely due to some trace of old habit of compensating an open face - which should improve as you practice more... the pros miss on the tape or inches long... we amateurs should just have an amateur version of that pattern lol.
Digital Atheist
Hall of Fame
Yes it is what you think! Useful for people that don't tuck their tossing arm in order to help get the upper body to accelerate the arm, but can cause some other major problems, like that extreme example from BBender.
@mptennis, on that side view the serve at 5:35 is really moving in the right direction. Just be careful that contact isn't too much behind you and the hitting arm needs to be forward at contact and not like a basketball sky hook (a couple early on were like that but 5:35 onward is great). Be aware that you will need to keep reminding yourself and monitoring so there is no regression (exagerate the step-through, which should be a natural part of the decelaration process).
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tennis_flyer
New User
@mptennis this is a really great high-quality video of your serves. I am developing a platform that allows experts to provide video feedback on exactly the sort of information you are asking for. It's called Tweex, and it allows you to send in a video clip of your serves and receive personalized advice from a coach at a very affordable price. The idea is that the coach can quickly identify some high-level things you can work on in order to improve. I have my first coach signed up, and it would be really awesome if you could submit your serve video to him and see what sort of feedback you get. You can find his information and submit the video through his link on Tweex:
Cal Loveridge
Originally from Derby, UK, where he won multiple state junior titles, and was ranked top #100 nationally, Cal moved to the US to pursue college tennis. He played at nationally ranked school Lees McRae college for two years, earning conference honors, before transferring to Newberry College. Cal...
tweex.pro
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