Serving Video

[benxuan]

Hello everyone,

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151093643125739&set=vb.538535738&type=2&theater

you might want to give some comments on my serving. Was practicing on 2nd serve. I will keep my NTRP secret as of now. I have lost the video softcopy and i only have them in my facebook now. I will put up some video on rally/match play soon when my "better" camera is up.

Please give some advice. Other wise i won't be here anyway. I am 5ft9 btw.

Cheers!

 

[benxuan]

If you notice my trailing leg reminds you of any ex pro player. do comment who you think looks like. Hahaha. i have been trying to get rid of that habit.

 

[Swissv2]

your...right leg does funny things when you serve :shock:
I can assume you are not really able to get a lot of power into your serve as you want.

 

[ATP100]

Watch your head at ball contact.
The first thing I would have you work on is to watch the ball.

 

[LeeD]

Pretty good swing.
Nice pivot off the left leg, I think McEnroe also pivots off his front foot.
Some will say to raise the toss hand higher after releasing the ball, for a more traditional looking serve, but I also tend to drop my toss hand early, due to shoulder problems on both sides.
A lower elbow at trophy allows you to hit upwards at the ball, increasing first serve percentages and allows for higher bounces on second serves. Your current elbow seem kinda high, like MartinaNavritilova, robbing you of the archer's bow and ability to hit upwards at the ball.
Also, try to delay your hand coming thru after you hit the ball. By slowing down your hand, and increasing rackethead speed, you allow the head of the racket to catch up to your hand, giving you more snap and curing the long serve when you're hitting hard. Every pro with a good serve does this, after hitting the ball, the hand is still above their head, while the racket is gone from hitting to straight down at the ground....hand still over the head on the followthru.

 

[benxuan]

your...right leg does funny things when you serve :shock:
I can assume you are not really able to get a lot of power into your serve as you want.

Taylor dent did this funny leg thing as well and he can serve 147mph. Haha just my thought though im trying to get rid of it for awhile. Habit...

Watch your head at ball contact.
The first thing I would have you work on is to watch the ball.

I do admit watching the ball slightly a sec longer will increase the percentage. Will improve on that.

 

[benxuan]

Pretty good swing.
Nice pivot off the left leg, I think McEnroe also pivots off his front foot.
Some will say to raise the toss hand higher after releasing the ball, for a more traditional looking serve, but I also tend to drop my toss hand early, due to shoulder problems on both sides.
A lower elbow at trophy allows you to hit upwards at the ball, increasing first serve percentages and allows for higher bounces on second serves. Your current elbow seem kinda high, like MartinaNavritilova, robbing you of the archer's bow and ability to hit upwards at the ball.
Also, try to delay your hand coming thru after you hit the ball. By slowing down your hand, and increasing rackethead speed, you allow the head of the racket to catch up to your hand, giving you more snap and curing the long serve when you're hitting hard. Every pro with a good serve does this, after hitting the ball, the hand is still above their head, while the racket is gone from hitting to straight down at the ground....hand still over the head on the followthru.

Will give it a try. thanks for the advice!

 

[charliefedererer]

1. Leave your tossing arm up longer. You get it up, then start to drop it slowly too soon. Leaving it up longer, then do the next tip.

2. "You've got to drop the left shoulder!"
The front shoulder should drop the left shoulder straight down (and of course the hitting shoulder comes straight up.)
Jim McClennan describes how he sees all the "amatures" just swinging the shoulders around horizontally, with no where near the vertical action they should have [this also puts strain on the rotator cuff]:
Preventing Rotator Cuff Injury http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTRvxaBMh8s

You can see in this Sampras serve sequence that his shoulder angle is almost vertical in pic one (And keeping that tossing arm straight up helps keep it that way).

The left shoulder is dropped straight down so that by ball contact (pic 7) it really is straight down.



3. When you learn to "drop the left shoulder" your upper body weight will be directed forward at the end of your serve.
You will stop spinning around and kicking your left leg out to the left as a result of this excess spinning motion not being offset by forward motion.
You then will need to learn to land on your left leg, and kick back with your right leg for balance:
Leg Kick on Tennis Serve http://blip.tv/fuzzy-yellow-balls/leg-kick-on-tennis-serve-1190196


Good luck!

 

[benxuan]

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151237640115739&set=vb.538535738&type=2&theater

after months of training. enjoy! do let me hear yr critics!

 

[benxuan]

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151237641445739&set=vb.538535738&type=2&theater

 

[Chas Tennis]

Video

Your image is too small on the video. Better videos if you video from behind the serve so that you can see if the ball hits in. Or along the baseline, camera closer, so that your image is bigger.

Some auto exposure control cameras will shorten the exposure time for higher illumination levels resulting in less motion blur. Direct sunlight has about 100X as much light as artificial lighting so videoing in direct sunlight might shorten exposure time and motion blur a lot.

That camera position does show the ball motion pretty well.

 

[benxuan]

Almost a year now, any improvement?

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151561097975739&l=6209720143622048918

Cheers!

 

[luvforty]

is it just me, or do you swing too late -

impression is the ball drops too low and you are rushed... can you go after the ball a little earlier?

 

[Govnor]

yeah, your feet are virtually on the ground again when you make contact. Climb up to the ball, don't let it come all the way down to you.

 

[benxuan]

is it just me, or do you swing too late -

impression is the ball drops too low and you are rushed... can you go after the ball a little earlier?

Yes I know what you mean. Sometimes I mix around with a higher toss as well.

 

[charliefedererer]

Good serve. Good live arm.

Just so you know - the placement of the video camera makes it hard to evalute your serve.
Two different angles - one from directly in back and one from the side - make it a lot easier to see the body and arm motions.


Just a slightly higher serve toss, and slightly more into the court, will let you get bigger body movement into your serve - both more rotation and more archer's bow/cartwheel into your serve.

Those like you who just pivot around their back foot, rather than exploding up and into the court, don't have enough archer's bow/cartwheel in their serve.

You can clearly see the movement I would recommend you work on in this video of Soderling:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a56pvP1i6x8

Do that, and you will have more of a "sonic serve": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajoZ0f7hw-A

And because you have thrown your body up and out, you will need to land in a different manner:
Leg Kick on Tennis Serve http://blip.tv/fuzzy-yellow-balls/leg-kick-on-tennis-serve-1190196


I hope this helps.

 

[RoddickAce]

yeah, your feet are virtually on the ground again when you make contact. Climb up to the ball, don't let it come all the way down to you.

Also, the weight transfer forward can improve as the front of the left foot barely crosses the baseline after the serve right now.

With Fed & Roddick illustrated below, the heel is well past the baseline.

Partial reason is that you (op) are falling to your left too much as you serve.

 

[benxuan]

thank you all for your advices, will post some new video up soon together with my game.

Definitely helps alot!

Cheers!