Struggling With Service Motion (video)

[Goffinfan46]

Hey everyone,
I'm struggling with the trademark bad serve (no pace, spin, consistency), and don't really know how I can change my motion to improve.

I would greatly appreciate if someone could take a look and let me know what I'm doing wrong.

Here are my videos (slow-mo)

Many thanks in advance
Tom

 

[Dansan]

Briefly skimmed the vids...I mean, looks like you got potential.

However, you could be just "overdoing" the motion with too much going on - and need some work on getting the right racquet face angle before, at, and through contact. Appears you are making contact flat and downward. You have a racquet drop and forward momentum (perhaps too much forward momentum)- but you are hitting "down at the ball" instead of "up at the ball". A flat serve is fine - but you'll have to make high contact with more wrist snapping down instead of the whole arm. Flat serves you are still accelerating "up" at the ball before contact.

You may want to simplify your motion and build from there, take a little off. Really focus on the angles at contact. Would be really helpful to have a teaching pro demonstrate the nuances in person

 

[eah123]

The secret sauce is topspin. If you learn how to hit a really good kick serve, then hit your flat serve with a tiny bit of kick (topspin). That will let you maximize racquethead speed without worrying about hitting long, and give you good net clearance.

 

[ballmachineguy]

It’s not terrible. Your weight shouldn’t be so much on the back foot when you start the toss. No need to swing your butt so far back. Also, bend the knees as your toss arm goes up. Waiting until the ball is in the air is too late and causes your leg drive to be weak.

 

[johnmccabe]

Hey everyone,
I'm struggling with the trademark bad serve (no pace, spin, consistency), and don't really know how I can change my motion to improve.

I would greatly appreciate if someone could take a look and let me know what I'm doing wrong.

Here are my videos (slow-mo)

Many thanks in advance
Tom

You got a lot of good things in that motion. I wouldn't feel bad about it at all.

If you are relatively new player, you'll have to decide what your goal is and what the most efficient way is to develop your serve. You'll hear different opinions like whether or not to use legs, whether or not to learn spin serve first vs improve your flat serve first.

If you have a good coach and can afford regular private lessons, then trust the coach and trust the process. If not, you'll have to know what suggestions to take from here.

 

[LeeD]

It's fine.
You have to learn toss location differences for flat, topspin, slice, and toss location AND body setup for kick/twists.

 

[johnmccabe]

some observations on the technique side. you have some pronation. try to use more internal shoulder rotation and have the hitting face of the racquet point towards the right-hand side fence after contact. do a few shadow swing and see if you can use a slightly deeper knee bent to get your feet higher in the air at the supposed "contact point". If you can do that without a ball, maybe there is a coordination issue preventing you making a higher contact point. try to speed up your motion after toss to gain more time and launch higher. If the fast rhythm doesn't work for you, try toss a little higher. another small thing is your racquet face is a little open going into the racquet drop. It's not right/wrong. at least I find it helpful to increase racquet head speed a little bit after I fixed that.

 

[tex123]

Hey everyone,
I'm struggling with the trademark bad serve (no pace, spin, consistency), and don't really know how I can change my motion to improve.

I would greatly appreciate if someone could take a look and let me know what I'm doing wrong.

Here are my videos (slow-mo)

Many thanks in advance
Tom

Bottom video (1:36) - Looks like you're going for smoothness in your motion in your upper body. In the process, you've lost your kinetic chain. Your upper body is initiating the motion followed by your lower body. Do you see it? What you want to do transfer the energy from ground to the sky i.e. lift up with your leg first which in turn initiates your upper body uncoil. Remember, your body is going up. You seem to be going forward.

Get your old racket or a ball. Hold it loosely. Throw it with all your force towards the ceiling. What did your body do naturally? Your legs straightened first. Then your upper body and then your arm. All the energy went up. Serve is no different. Just imagine throwing your racket up. Forget about your full service motion, stance, trophy etc for a bit. Just focus on getting your energy transfer right.

 

[Chas Tennis]

Read thread on Thoracic Extension - AKA 'chest facing up'

Forum search
Thoracic Extension Serve
Member: Chas Tennis

Compare your Thoracic Extension

Warning: - Bending the back may be too stressful for you.

If you find other references on TE & the serve, please post them in the thread.

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Forum Search: internal shoulder rotation serve Chas

Read my threads and in the last 3 years - find threads especially on comparing strokes frame-by-frame in Youtube videos.

Forum Search: Ellenbecker shoulder impingement (this relates to the angle that Ellenbecker recommends to reduce the risk of impingement and that nearly all or all ATP servers use. )

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It is most important with high speed video of tennis strokes to show certain things. With the serve the whole tennis world missed the thing to catch on video until 1995 with the multicamera experiments published by Elliott, Marshall and ______.

Shoot in bright sunlight with sharp shadows.
Get a closeup of the shadows at the elbow.

DON"T PLACE THE CAMERA ON THE GROUND FAR FROM THE SERVER and use 10% of the frame. GET A CLOSE-UP OF THE ELBOW & ITS SHADOWS.