Tips for fixing racket drop leak/loading in wrong position

[Winstonitis]

Hello

I have been trying to fix my serve and recently switched my takeback to more abbreviated form from classic style since it immediately improved my 1st serve consistency.
Anyhow I have noticed that I always have had racket drop leak in all kinds of serves (kick, slice and flat)

To fix the issue I have tried:
Lag serve --> lead to just more hurried serve or higher toss
different takebacks
lower toss --> lead to more pace but was more inconsistent

Has any1 here experienced similar problem and/or found a solution? Should I just give up with the matter?
Any other critique/recommendations on my serve?

Thank you in advance

 

[ChaelAZ]

Thanks for posting the video. The helps a ton for everyone to see what is going on.

Honestly, if you can consistently serve around the power level you are showing, you are probably good for most rec tennis. That said, if you are just wanting to give yourself the best serve possible with correct technique (giving you more options in variety of serve), you will have to go down the path of waiter's tray serve. Go to Youtbe and do a search for "waiter Tray Serve" and it will start by helping you see the most glaring issue to me. What you do from there is up to you really.

Cheers!

 

[LeeD]

Point racket straight up to the sky.

 

[Winstonitis]

Thanks for posting the video. The helps a ton for everyone to see what is going on.

Honestly, if you can consistently serve around the power level you are showing, you are probably good for most rec tennis. That said, if you are just wanting to give yourself the best serve possible with correct technique (giving you more options in variety of serve), you will have to go down the path of waiter's tray serve. Go to Youtbe and do a search for "waiter Tray Serve" and it will start by helping you see the most glaring issue to me. What you do from there is up to you really.

Cheers!

Honestly I can get 10-20% more pace with better hit/less fatigue but that is trivial. So my serve is the dreaded waiters tray? I can still hit quite a lot top spin or side spin. Isn't that impossible with waiters tray?

 

[ballmachineguy]

You need to get your right elbow further behind you when you toss. Look at an “elbow the enemy” video. You put it behind you at racquet drop but it needs to get there earlier - when you toss - then keep the racquet head high until you decide to hit. That is when you drop the racquet head down your back. Then, leave the ground at the moment the racquet head is at its lowest point.

 

[Chas Tennis]

Several motions of the serve cause external shoulder rotation (ESR) and that stretches the muscles that do internal shoulder rotation (ISR). There are many other motions in the serve too. I've posted on ISR many times with videos.
Search Forum & Google: Chas Tennis ISR internal shoulder rotation.

You just place your racket into the 'racket drop position'. But for every position seen in a frame of video, there are also velocities of the body parts and racket and - very importantly - muscles that have been pre-stretched like rubber bands and are ready to produce racket head speed. You are going to positions but the speeds and stretches are not on your mind. You simply place your racket into the racket drop position without other necessary sub-motions that you can see in videos. Compare the timing of your racket drop and the jump. The service motion is a lot of stretching muscles over some time, 100s of milliseconds and then shortening those stretched muscles in a very short time, for example, 25 milliseconds of ISR to ball impact. See Stretch Shorten Cycle.

Compare your serve to high level serves, one above the other and single frame. To single frame advance on Youtube use the period & arrow keys. Always select the video with alt key + left mouse click, otherwise the video starts playing. Go to the frames closest to impact and move back and forth single frame comparing similar racket positions. You can go full screen and come back down and the video stays on the same frame. For most accuracy compare videos from very similar camera angles.

Bottom video has 4 second pauses with text. Play through the pauses.

See thread on Thoracic Extension of the Spine and the Serve. The bottom 2 videos are explained.
https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/ind...-extension-of-the-spine-and-the-serve.656318/

See video "Rotator Cuff Injury" by Todd Ellenbecker. The upper arm angle to the shoulder should be limited to reduce the risk of impingement. Video on Tennis Resources. Search forum: Ellenbecker impingement rotator cuff Whiteside
by member - Chas Tennis

My advice would be to study the basic biomechanics of the serve until you understand it a little better. Try doing the video comparisons and list all the differences that you see.

Hello

I have been trying to fix my serve and recently switched my takeback to more abbreviated form from classic style since it immediately improved my 1st serve consistency.
Anyhow I have noticed that I always have had racket drop leak in all kinds of serves (kick, slice and flat)

To fix the issue I have tried:
Lag serve --> lead to just more hurried serve or higher toss
different takebacks
lower toss --> lead to more pace but was more inconsistent

Has any1 here experienced similar problem and/or found a solution? Should I just give up with the matter?
Any other critique/recommendations on my serve?

Thank you in advance

 

[PKorda]

serve motion is not bad, it doesn't look like a waiter's tray bc i think you're using continental grip but your motion is similar to waiter's tray in that you're opening up your hand. keeping palm down in take back is pretty important, 'elbow the enemy' video referenced above is good place to start.

 

[eah123]

Your issue is that you never achieve a proper trophy position with the elbow back and racquet tip aimed forward at an angle. Instead, you take your racquet back to the "back scratch" position and pause, negating any momentum you could get from using a full backswing. You may as well start from the back scratch position and would get the same result.

If you want to achieve correct serve mechanics, I think this drill from Jeff Salz is one of the best for your situation.

You may need to do 1000 reps or more, so get a ball hopper and fill it with practice balls! Good luck.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

You might consider starting from the "salute" position that Ryan of HAT demonstrates in the video above. Maybe stick with that for a few weeks until the leak is cured.You might even try the half-grip, half serve that Jeff Salzenstein demos in one of his videos

EDIT: Looks like someone just posted Jeff's video a few minutes ago. Try that for a while and then move on to Ryan's serve.

 

[Winstonitis]

Several motions of the serve cause external shoulder rotation (ESR) and that stretches the muscles that do internal shoulder rotation (ISR). There are many other motions in the serve too. I've posted on ISR many times with videos.
Search Forum & Google: Chas Tennis ISR internal shoulder rotation.

You just place your racket into the 'racket drop position'. But for every position seen in a frame of video, there are also velocities of the body parts and racket and - very importantly - muscles that have been pre-stretched like rubber bands and are ready to produce racket head speed. You are going to positions but the speeds and stretches are not on your mind. You simply place your racket into the racket drop position without other necessary sub-motions that you can see in videos. Compare the timing of your racket drop and the jump. The service motion is a lot of stretching muscles over some time, 100s of milliseconds and then shortening those stretched muscles in a very short time, for example, 25 milliseconds of ISR to ball impact. See Stretch Shorten Cycle.

Compare your serve to high level serves, one above the other and single frame. To single frame advance on Youtube use the period & arrow keys. Always select the video with alt key + left mouse click, otherwise the video starts playing. Go to the frames closest to impact and move back and forth single frame comparing similar racket positions. You can go full screen and come back down and the video stays on the same frame. For most accuracy compare videos from very similar camera angles.

Bottom video has 4 second pauses with text. Play through the pauses.

See thread on Thoracic Extension of the Spine and the Serve. The bottom 2 videos are explained.
https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/ind...-extension-of-the-spine-and-the-serve.656318/

See video "Rotator Cuff Injury" by Todd Ellenbecker. The upper arm angle to the shoulder should be limited to reduce the risk of impingement. Video on Tennis Resources. Search forum: Ellenbecker impingement rotator cuff Whiteside
by member - Chas Tennis

My advice would be to study the basic biomechanics of the serve until you understand it a little better. Try doing the video comparisons and list all the differences that you see.

I definitely agree with you with these problems you mentioned. The problem for me is more like how to do it. Whenever I try to stretch my muscles it is just killing all my momentum. I don't experience any pain though. Before the vid I had been serving for 3h (you can see my soaked back of the shirt ) Maybe I have to take closer look still and try to compare.

 

[Winstonitis]

Thank you for replies.
I actually have seen the both Salz videos mentioned here. Have to take a closer look again since I just today switched to the abbreviated takeback so previously didn't mby pay enough attention to the videos.
I actually tried the elbow the enemy but it seems I have been incorporating it wrong. Instead of just trying to keep the elbow up I have to also have the palm down.
Have to try that next time. if that doesn't work then probably have to try the half serve drill.

 

[Curious]

Ignore all the tips already given.
I’m pretty sure this is the reason!! You have a rare condition in your shoulder called winstonitis in rheumatology and it forces one to do this:

Btw that’s the most beautiful unnecessary movement I’ve seen in tennis.

 

[Chas Tennis]

I definitely agree with you with these problems you mentioned. The problem for me is more like how to do it. Whenever I try to stretch my muscles it is just killing all my momentum. I don't experience any pain though. Before the vid I had been serving for 3h (you can see my soaked back of the shirt ) Maybe I have to take closer look still and try to compare.

One of the main ways to stretch muscles is to use inertia. You have your body, arm and racket in specific positions - that you see in high level stroke videos and you accelerate in the way seen in the video. For example, the Thoracic Extension video shows that the legs accelerate the body and shoulder up, and this is one reason that the racket goes to the drop. As this acceleration from the legs and the inertia of the forearm & racket, elbow around 90 degrees, produce forces, the arm is seen in videos to go to racket drop. First, see this in the high speed video that I posted. See the timing. Don't try to understand and describe it in words before studying the videos. There are a very limited number of sub-motions.

Ask questions when you look at the videos.

I studied the serve and misunderstood it completely for 35 years, until ISR was pointed out in a TT forum thread in 2011. I practiced the wrong technique for 35 years! Even the experts did not understand the part played by ISR until 1995. In the 1970s, nobody said to me to look at ISR.

You do not seem to do ISR leading to impact but more after impact. You are doing elbow extension for racket head speed.......... Stroke motions last about 1-2 seconds and videos show images of the body. No hurry, we can have a look.

Understand the Ellenbecker recommendation. I searched many links and have put them in past posts.

 

[Winstonitis]

Ignore all the tips already given.
I’m pretty sure this is the reason!! You have a rare condition in your shoulder called winstonitis in rheumatology and it forces one to do this:

Btw that’s the most beautiful unnecessary movement I’ve seen in tennis.

Hah you clearly haven't heard about preparing the air for your serve. Easy +25mph









It is little weird that I started doing that subconsciously when I switched to abbreviated takeback. Probably trying to stay loose and keep elbow up or smthing.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Hah you clearly haven't heard about preparing the air for your serve. Easy +25mph









It is little weird that I started doing that subconsciously when I switched to abbreviated takeback. Probably trying to stay loose and keep elbow up or smthing.

Air conditioning? Are you able to significantly reduce air drag with this ritual?

 

[Winstonitis]

Air conditioning? Are you able to significantly reduce air drag with this ritual?

Air conditioning? Imagine some1 arriving to court with portable ac. One country kinda used this trick in javelin throw olympics or world championships. Whenever it was their countrymans turn they would open all the stadium doors behind the thrower

Yes I only need to master the timing of this ritual so there will be no drag at all!

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Air conditioning? Imagine some1 arriving to court with portable ac. One country kinda used this trick in javelin throw olympics or world championships. Whenever it was their countrymans turn they would open all the stadium doors behind the thrower

Yes I only need to master the timing of this ritual so there will be no drag at all!

Wondering if you can humidify or dehumidify the air to suit your playing style / preference.

Your Olympic javelin story reminds me of one of the first pro badminton tournaments that I watched on video. I believe it was the Beijing Open in the late 1980s. It was either a final or a late round match.

The match consisted of a top Danish player vs a top Chinese player. The crowd sitting behind the court consisted of all Chinese supporters. Everyone sitting in that section had two T-shirts, one white and the other was a black or dark color.

Whenever the Danish player was on the side of the court facing the crowd, everyone there, in the stands, were wearing white. This made it much more difficult to see the white shuttle against a white background. When the Chinese player was playing on the court facing the crowd, everyone had changed to their dark t-shirt -- making it easier for their guy to see the shuttle.

I also recall the crowd was particularly hostile toward the Danish player. Several times the chair umpire had admonished the crowd for their behavior.

 

[Winstonitis]

Wondering if you can humidify or dehumidify the air to suit your playing style / preference.

Your Olympic javelin story reminds me of one of the first pro badminton tournaments that I watched on video. I believe it was the Beijing Open in the late 1980s. It was either a final or a late round match.

The match consisted of a top Danish player vs a top Chinese player. The crowd sitting behind the court consisted of all Chinese supporters. Everyone sitting in that section had two T-shirts, one white and the other was a black or dark color.

Whenever the Danish player was on the side of the court facing the crowd, everyone there, in the stands, were wearing white. This made it much more difficult to see the white shuttle against a white background. When the Chinese player was playing on the court facing the crowd, everyone had changed to their dark t-shirt -- making it easier for their guy to see the shuttle.

I also recall the crowd was particularly hostile toward the Danish player. Several times the chair umpire had admonished the crowd for their behavior.

Oh yeah I can already see the humidity controlling being the next big thing. Some think it is the ATP style fh, Nope you need to learn to control the humidity to gain advantage


Yeah similar thing. This javelin incident was also in the early 2000s or late 1990s. Prob these days these tricks are not tolerated anymore though

 

[Raul_SJ]

You just place your racket into the 'racket drop position'. But for every position seen in a frame of video, there are also velocities of the body parts and racket and - very importantly - muscles that have been pre-stretched like rubber bands and are ready to produce racket head speed. You are going to positions but the speeds and stretches are not on your mind. You simply place your racket into the racket drop position without other necessary sub-motions that you can see in videos. Compare the timing of your racket drop and the jump. The service motion is a lot of stretching muscles over some time, 100s of milliseconds and then shortening those stretched muscles in a very short time, for example, 25 milliseconds of ISR to ball impact. See Stretch Shorten Cycle.

Proper timing of knee extension will help facilitate a steeper racquet drop. It is true. Note that the velocity of racquet head will be zero at final drop position, before moving upwards.

OP achieves a rather steep drop position despite leaking and improper knee timing. Let's say another server with proper timing achieves the same drop position as OP.

You are saying that the two identical drop positions, would not be equivalent because the drop employing with proper timing will have pre stretched different muscles and will achieve greater RHS going up from the drop.

 

[TennisCJC]

Study Serena serve. She lags the racket arm and keeps her racket hand and racket head low when toss up is fully extended upward. She starts the drive up from there. Russian Mikhail Youzhny also kept his racket head pointed down and low when fully extended toss arm up. You can find video of Serena and Mikhail on YouTube. Trying to following their model would help. I suggest just placing the racket head back and down and tossing from there without moving it much and then go into your serve swing through the loop and up to contact.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Note that the velocity of racquet head will be zero at final drop position, before moving upwards.

Not exactly. The racket head should not stop during the loop at all. In fact, it should continues to accelerate (tangential speed increase in magnitude).

The vertical speed of the racquet goes to zero at the bottom of the drop loop. But the horizontal speed and the overall speed is still increasing as seen in the image above of a Sampras 2nd serve. The blue dots above are data points of equal time intervals. The increased spacing between data points means that the racquet tip is increasing in velocity.

Proper timing of knee extension will help facilitate a steeper racquet drop. It is true

Yup, this is true. The legs extending as the racquet drops facilitates ESR (and a stretch of the internal rotators). Legs should be fully extended at the bottom of the racquet drop.

 

[Chas Tennis]

Proper timing of knee extension will help facilitate a steeper racquet drop. It is true. Note that the velocity of racquet head will be zero at final drop position, before moving upwards.

OP achieves a rather steep drop position despite leaking and improper knee timing. Let's say another server with proper timing achieves the same drop position as OP.

You are saying that the two identical drop positions, would not be equivalent because the drop employing with proper timing will have pre stretched different muscles and will achieve greater RHS going up from the drop.

I doubt that the racket drop for the high level service motion and the OP's body positions are identical. You can use the video comparison to check that out.

There is another complication. Thoracic Extension shortens the length between the attachments of the lat muscle. That reduces the existing stretch in an important way at an important time. See thread - Thoracic Extension of the Spine and the Serve. If anyone find details of the biomechanics at the Thoracic Extension sub-motion of the serve please post the links. Baseball pitching is similar to the tennis serve, maybe some baseball pitching has researched this issue?

If we had a slow gif loop of the Thoracic Extension sub-motion, from leg thrust to racket drop stopped, maybe we'd see something? Another gif from racket drop stopped to impact plus 2 frames.

 

[Chas Tennis]

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

This picture only shows the up-down component and the forward-backward component of the racket motion. But the camera only records accurately in 2D up-down and forward- backward when recording from the side. The dimension toward-away from the camera is always shrunken or completely hidden.

This camera angle is different. It is not square to the side of the serve and the camera is viewing down. (The camera views parallel to the plane of the hand path motion.) With Toly's great composite technique, showing parts of many video frames in one picture, it shows the true 3D nature of the serve that a camera viewing squarely from the side misses.

This picture shows the 3D nature of the service motion.

The racket drop of a high level serve is to the side of the body, not squarely in the middle of the back as the OP does. He may have viewed videos from the side and misinterpreted them. ?
Change the camera viewing angle and you can see where the racket is relative to the back. Some instructions may also say 'racket drop behind the back'. Others have noted that that is not correct.

 

[Winstonitis]

Study Serena serve. She lags the racket arm and keeps her racket hand and racket head low when toss up is fully extended upward. She starts the drive up from there. Russian Mikhail Youzhny also kept his racket head pointed down and low when fully extended toss arm up. You can find video of Serena and Mikhail on YouTube. Trying to following their model would help. I suggest just placing the racket head back and down and tossing from there without moving it much and then go into your serve swing through the loop and up to contact.

I actually tried this type of lag serve but it didn't lead to a very good succes. I just subconsciosly compensated with higher toss or faster motion but the leak was still there. Also I lost around 30-50% of power for some reason. Gonna try the elbow the enemy/or half serve drill that was suggested tmrw if the public courts near me are vacant

 

[Winstonitis]

One of the main ways to stretch muscles is to use inertia. You have your body, arm and racket in specific positions - that you see in high level stroke videos and you accelerate in the way seen in the video. For example, the Thoracic Extension video shows that the legs accelerate the body and shoulder up, and this is one reason that the racket goes to the drop. As this acceleration from the legs and the inertia of the forearm & racket, elbow around 90 degrees, produce forces, the arm is seen in videos to go to racket drop. First, see this in the high speed video that I posted. See the timing. Don't try to understand and describe it in words before studying the videos. There are a very limited number of sub-motions.

Ask questions when you look at the videos.

I studied the serve and misunderstood it completely for 35 years, until ISR was pointed out in a TT forum thread in 2011. I practiced the wrong technique for 35 years! Even the experts did not understand the part played by ISR until 1995. In the 1970s, nobody said to me to look at ISR.

You do not seem to do ISR leading to impact but more after impact. You are doing elbow extension for racket head speed.......... Stroke motions last about 1-2 seconds and videos show images of the body. No hurry, we can have a look.

Understand the Ellenbecker recommendation. I searched many links and have put them in past posts.

You mention I am doing elbow extension for RHS. I totally agree with you seeing that on the video. I think one of the reasons causing this could be that probably my strongest muscle of body (relatively compared to others) is triceps. In military I could easily do 30 pull ups with reverse grip when most of the ppl could do 0-3 but with normal grip I can only do 10ish.

Edit: Meaning I somehow compensate with lack of power in rotator cuff

Just an interesting thought what maybe the underline cause for this

 

[Raul_SJ]

The legs extending as the racquet drops facilitates ESR (and a stretch of the internal rotators). Legs should be fully extended at the bottom of the racquet drop.

OP apparently is using Conti grip but flipping into WT error on the way to drop -- close to trophy position or maybe even slightly before.
Once that happens, is the serve doomed? Or is it recoverable on the way up? i.e. proper Big L and edge on approach to contact.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

This picture only shows the up-down component and the forward-backward component of the racket motion. But the camera only records accurately in 2D up-down and forward- backward when recording from the side. The dimension toward-away from the camera is always shrunken or completely hidden.

This camera angle is different. It is not square to the side of the serve and the camera is viewing down. (The camera views parallel to the plane of the hand path motion.) With Toly's great composite technique, showing parts of many video frames in one picture, it shows the true 3D nature of the serve

How about 4D? Why stop at 3D?

It doesn't really matter. The 2D image shows exactly what I needed to show for the point I was making. No need to use a sledgehammer when a simple mallet will do.

Frankly, some of Toly's images give me a headache. Not always easy to decipher exactly what is going on with some of his renderings. Fine to use it when it makes sense.

But why complicate it when the extra info doesn't really add anything to the point being made? More is not always better. It can often be counterproductive

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

@Chas Tennis

Should we abandon Newtonian physics for our everyday calculations about the the physical world -- even tho it will provide satisfactory answers for most of our needs? Must we always consider Einstein's notions of curved, relative space-time)? Should we go even further and consider QM, string theory, etc? Overkill? What would toly do?

 

[Raul_SJ]

The racket drop of a high level serve is to the side of the body, not squarely in the middle of the back as the OP does. He may have viewed videos from the side and misinterpreted them.

True but there is some significant variation.
Ryan has his students wear a birthday hat. The racquet should knock off the hat. He says that the motion of some servers like Groth will knock off the hat -- the drop will not be down the middle of the back, but relatively close. He says others like Sampras and Shapo will not come close to knocking off the hat.

 

[Winstonitis]

Alright some update
went to the court to try the tips. Couldn't take vid since there were alot of other people as well. Some notes:
With the proper leg drive timing and starting the "elbow the enemy" during the toss my serve had quite alot of topspin (without trying to hit kicker) or if toss was little right then I had some slice.
Pace was prob 50% of the serves in vid.
I misshit ball quite often.
My serves went to left or long most of the time.

Tried the half serve drill : at the time had lost 4/6 balls so didn't bother to do it too long with 2 balls)
Half serves had quite a lot of pace but often went to net (prob have to just do this more)

I tried my wifes Wilson pro staff LS with handle size 2 sizes smaller than mine (doing the elbow enemy and focusing on proper leg drive timing) I could achieve 80% compared to video, but still the serves had rly much top spin.
In the end got challenged to a match by random dude so ofc. had to go play a set
Anyway have to experiment more and see if I can match the right technique with the results

 

[Chas Tennis]

How about 4D? Why stop at 3D?

It doesn't really matter. The 2D image shows exactly what I needed to show for the point I was making. No need to use a sledgehammer when a simple mallet will do.

Frankly, some of Toly's images give me a headache. Not always easy to decipher exactly what is going on with some of his renderings. Fine to use it when it makes sense.

But why complicate it when the extra info doesn't really add anything to the point being made? More is not always better. It can often be counterproductive

I like issues that can be settled with frames of video. 2D images of 3D tennis strokes has caused many misinterpretations and false conclusions on the forum.

I think it is important to make people aware.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

I like issues that can be settled with frames of video. 2D images of 3D tennis strokes has caused many misinterpretations and false conclusions on the forum.

I think it is important to make people aware.

One problem is that we are working with 2D medium here for the most part. 3D representations (or pseudo-3D) can sometimes be useful but, other times, results in confusion or TMI.

Often we can't see the forest cuz all those damn trees are in the way. The fundamental or primary points are oft times lost or clouded simply because the reader is overwhelmed with an overload (excess) of information.

Often, less is more.