Toss straight up in front of you and hit it down into the box

every new tip has to be wild and crazy!
Crazy is the right word for claims that parralel toss is a bad idea ;)
Set_2060.jpg

Have posted this in the past numerous times. This image is a representation of (equally-timed) data points for a Sampras serve. The blue dots show the position of the tip of Sampras’ racket as recorded by a video camera.

Note that the racket in this image was added to the plot of points to show where contact was made. From this we can see that RHS was greatest (data points further apart) immediately prior to contact. Immediately after contact, we see that RHS has decreased (as a result of contact).

Further, we see that the tip of Pete’s racket continues to move upward (slightly) after contact. This is a sure sign that he’s imparted some topspin to this serve. Note that this may very well be a 2nd serve.

This serve image & data was taken from tennis research study conducted by Dr Jani Pallis, Dr Duane Knudsen and other notable tennis scientists. John Yandell may have participated in this research study. The image above was taken from a TennisServer article that show data representations for 6 different Pete Sampras serves. Two, if not three, of the serve data shown is for flat serves.

For NONE of the Sampras serves shown, is the racket moving in a downward direction at contact. At contact, the racket tip is still moving upward. In 2 or 3 images, however, the swing path is nearly horizontal at contact — but NEVER down.

Listen, Sampras was tossin parallel to the baseline He had no idea about good serves :D

Sorry started reading this thread more and more Theres alot funny things here.
Wow! So many self claimed tennis experts in this place! Are they all shorter than 170cm? :unsure:

You rely on words, I rely on actions.


Funny because Youre top self claimed tennis expert here Especially when we compare Your Words to Your actions.
 

Fintft

G.O.A.T.
Most coaches teach tossing arm 45 degrees towards the net post or tossing arm moving parallel to baseline.
This promotes a proper coil. Practically every server with a straight ahead toss will fail to achieve a proper coil.
Very awkward to toss straight ahead and then coil away.
I coil first, before I toss...
 

Better_Call_Raul

Hall of Fame
I coil first, before I toss...
At the instant the toss is released the coil should have already occurred (at least most of the coil, if not all of the coil).
Tossing arm straight ahead on release is not conducive to a proper coil. Most will struggle with it. Hence the common coaching cue of tossing arm 45 degrees to net post upon release.
Or tossing roughly parallel to baseline at release like Fed.
 
At the instant the toss is released the coil should have already occurred (at least most of the coil, if not all of the coil).
Tossing arm straight ahead on release is not conducive to a proper coil. Most will struggle with it. Hence the common coaching cue of tossing arm 45 degrees to net post upon release.
Or tossing roughly parallel to baseline at release like Fed.
Depends on toss.height. And yes could be problematic but not imposiblle

 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
Crazy is the right word for claims that parralel toss is a bad idea ;)

Listen, Sampras was tossin parallel to the baseline He had no idea about good serves :D

Sorry started reading this thread more and more Theres alot funny things here.


Funny because Youre top self claimed tennis expert here Especially when we compare Your Words to Your actions.
You come to this world only once. Don’t be a parrot speaking what you’re told only. Think outside the box a little.
 
You come to this world only once. Don’t be a parrot speaking what you’re told only. Think outside the box a little.
OMG haha
First of all i toss at 13/14 right now even if i was thaught to toss parallel over 35 years ago when i played real tennis.

And still its a great idea to toss parallel in 2025 Just look at Mpetchi Perricard serve.

Problem is You have to understand its really stylistic Works for You? Great But telling isn't a good idea when some.of the greatest servers ever like Edberg Sampras Federer Ivanisevic Perricard did that's is just funny.

 
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Curious

G.O.A.T.
OMG haha
First of all i toss at 13/14 right now even if i was thaught to toss parallel over 35 years ago when i played real tennis.

And still its a great idea to toss parallel in 2025 Just look at Mpetchi Perricard serve.

Problem is You have to understand its really stilistic Works for You? Great But telling isn't a good idea when some.of the greatest servers ever like Sampras Federer Ivanisevic Perricard did that's is just funny.

Again, think outside the box a little. How likely is it to catch the ball at ideal contact point when you toss it straight up vs when the ball is travelling on an arch? Sampras and Federer can be extremely talented. What about the other millions of rec players?
 
Again, think outside the box a little. How likely is it to catch the ball at ideal contact point when you toss it straight up vs when the ball is travelling on an arch? Sampras and Federer can be extremely talented. What about the other millions of rec players?
99% of these milions still toss an arch more or less

Tossing parallel.its just extreme version of that. And for some people It would be easier
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
99% of these milions still toss an arch more or less

Tossing parallel.its just extreme version of that. And for some people It would be easier
The tossing arm more in front, the toss being more straight up (milder arch) is possible and advantageous imo. You know, tossing parallel to the baseline and also into the court is even more tricky for the average person. Not tossing into the court is a very common issue even at higher levels of rec tennis. Moving away from parallel to the baseline helps greatly with that.
 

Dragy

Legend
Wow! So many self claimed tennis experts in this place! Are they all shorter than 170cm? :unsure:

You rely on words, I rely on actions.

Good serves with beautiful upward swing (y) You are really talanted with this element, and practice pays out.
 

Dragy

Legend
Again what I’m talking about is which direction/angle the racket face is moving THROUGH the ball. It’s very obvious the racket travels up first (as you also pointed out that it’s a circular motion). Hitting down is about the movement of the racket face at and after contact. So yes, down for the flat, up for the kick, forward/down for the slice.
Film yourself from the side actually making serves on-court, 240 fps, and lets direct it.

I bet feel vs real.

Nothing wrong with feel that works. But what you describe is very questionable as an instruction. How long do you think it takes to swing THROUGH the ball? It’s fraction of a second. It’s not what you can control. Whatever you perceive as THROUGH contact actually will be from like Big L to “full pronation”, if not bigger. You only time the impact within this part of swing, and repeat it as ingrained — intuitively.
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
Film yourself from the side actually making serves on-court, 240 fps, and lets direct it.

I bet feel vs real.

Nothing wrong with feel that works. But what you describe is very questionable as an instruction. How long do you think it takes to swing THROUGH the ball? It’s fraction of a second. It’s not what you can control. Whatever you perceive as THROUGH contact actually will be from like Big L to “full pronation”, if not bigger. You only time the impact within this part of swing, and repeat it as ingrained — intuitively.
Top spin forehand, is it feel or real that the racket is hitting through the ball upwards? Why so different on the serve? I don’t really care how people interpret it. I toss the ball up and smack it down into the court in that video.
 

Dragy

Legend
Question. Will you guys be able to hit the ball down into the court from the service line?
Personally — yes, will be able. But fastest, hardest smash will be when I swing into the ball and manage to time racquet pivot well. Much closer to “wrist snap” actually :-D
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
Personally — yes, will be able. But fastest, hardest smash will be when I swing into the ball and manage to time racquet pivot well. Much closer to “wrist snap” actually :-D
I’ll take a video tomorrow of smacking down into the box from service line and progress to the baseline gradually. I’ll do the side view too as you suggested, 1080p 240fps.
 

10sbeast888

Hall of Fame
Film yourself from the side actually making serves on-court, 240 fps, and lets direct it.

I bet feel vs real.

Nothing wrong with feel that works. But what you describe is very questionable as an instruction. How long do you think it takes to swing THROUGH the ball? It’s fraction of a second. It’s not what you can control. Whatever you perceive as THROUGH contact actually will be from like Big L to “full pronation”, if not bigger. You only time the impact within this part of swing, and repeat it as ingrained — intuitively.

lol I thot @Curious already gave up on the 'new discovery'.

Feel vs. real: Everybody describes different parts of circular motion.

C is not a coach.. (yet).

Instructionally, the' cookbook' for serving is well established, and many coaches can teach well. There is nothing to discover, really.
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
SA, one question.

Can Curious hit with the racket head down on the ball and produce a valid serve?

Looks like he just proves that in the clip above.

Or, do you think factually the racket head is going up up to the impact point?
He does NOT prove his claim in his video. (Not possible to tell, in his video, when the racket face starts to move in a downward direction). It’s an illusion.

While his racket face does move in a downward direction, I maintain that does not happen until the ball has left strings. But cannot say this for sure either — not from his video.

In order to prove his point, he should provide a views from the side recorded at a high frame rate.

This is what I did with the Adam Kennedy (6000 fps) video. The high-speed capture (data points) of Sampras serve also does not show Pete swinging down on the serve.

Are we to believe that @Curious can swing down on the ball for his flat serve while Adam, Pete, Nick & other elite servers do not?
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
Wow! So many self claimed tennis experts in this place! Are they all shorter than 170cm? :unsure:

You rely on words, I rely on actions.

But your actions do not prove your claims.

My resume: ~179 cm. Have played / competed in tennis for most of 5 decades. Coached tennis for 25+ years. Started learning about tennis biomechanics in the late 1980s. Started researching tennis physics some 30 years ago.
 

zill

Legend
Duh! Less downward from the baseline.

Ok we have an expert to clarify this situation 10:38.



More about the person who made this claim above.
 
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SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
Ok we have an expert to clarify this situation 10:38.



More about the person who made this claim above.
@Curious

Over 6’7” (201 cm) as a minimum height for hitting down on the serve sounds quite reasonable. My own guesstimate was 205 cm. Note that most servers of this height also come off the ground a decent amount.

Mark Kovaks is a very well respected tennis scientist. I have seen & studied quite a few of his tennis research studies in the past 2 decades.
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
I say I’m hitting down on the ball.
The racket goes down as it hits the ball.
The ball goes down straight after being hit (luckily the fence bar was right there as a reference point).
Yet, people think it must be my imagination. Ok!


 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
We discussed side view video, didn’t we?
Lucky I took the side view video. Can’t believe the toss is much less into the court than I’d thought. Need to improve that so that I can hit even more down on the ball!;)


 

Dragy

Legend
I say I’m hitting down on the ball.
The racket goes down as it hits the ball.
The ball goes down straight after being hit (luckily the fence bar was right there as a reference point).
Yet, people think it must be my imagination. Ok!


Interesting, it looks like ball goes more steeply down than Federer’s flat serve here (the very first one):


Also are you aware you hit that with slightly open racquet face?

aDqv4I1.jpeg
 
See how much into the court does even a tower need to toss the ball.



I say I’m hitting down on the ball.
The racket goes down as it hits the ball.
The ball goes down straight after being hit (luckily the fence bar was right there as a reference point).
Yet, people think it must be my imagination. Ok!


Instead of theorizing and looking for some shortcuts think about how much Your serve and Your game in generał could improve from working on lowerbody

Especially if as You said You wanna toss more inside the court
 

zill

Legend
I say I’m hitting down on the ball.
The racket goes down as it hits the ball.
The ball goes down straight after being hit (luckily the fence bar was right there as a reference point).
Yet, people think it must be my imagination. Ok!



Interesting, it looks like ball goes more steeply down than Federer’s flat serve here (the very first one):


Also are you aware you hit that with slightly open racquet face?

aDqv4I1.jpeg

Your racquet face is slightly facing up as expected.
 
My comment was about the serve. Yes, legs are overrated.

Hahahaha Youre posting Kyrgios warming up his arm to próve that no 1 fundamental of serve is overrated? No wonder youre tall 4.0 player strugling with 160kmh serves


Stop trolling Everybody EOT
 
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Curious

G.O.A.T.
Look again, your racquet face is tilted upward by the tiniest amount. Gravity would overwhelm any upward force you exert at the ball at the time.
Why doesn’t gravity do the same to my bloody bh slice floaters? :D
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
Lucky I took the side view video. Can’t believe the toss is much less into the court than I’d thought. Need to improve that so that I can hit even more down on the ball!;)


As expected, your video does NOT show you swinging down on the ball. Yes, the ball does start falling after it leaves the strings. No one here has contested that. It falls, rather than rises, for several reasons that have already been discussed -- gravity, the ball is already falling prior to contact, topspin, racket face is nearly vertical at contact, and swing path is nearly horizontal at contact.

The contention has been the swing path during the contact phase -- just prior to contact & during contact. In this and all other videos, the swing path is NOT in a downward direction until AFTER the ball has left the strings.

In your video, the ball is on the strings for only one (maybe two) frames. Racket face appears to be ever so slightly open at contact (rather than closed) -- nearly vertical. And the swing path for those 1 or 2 frames is nearly horizontal -- not downward.

When the racket swing path starts moving downward, the ball is already off the strings. Hence you are not swinging down on the ball
 

Curious

G.O.A.T.
As expected, your video does NOT show you swinging down on the ball. Yes, the ball does start falling after it leaves the strings. No one here has contested that. It falls, rather than rises, for several reasons that have already been discussed -- gravity, the ball is already falling prior to contact, topspin, racket face is nearly vertical at contact, and swing path is nearly horizontal at contact.

The contention has been the swing path during the contact phase -- just prior to contact & during contact. In this and all other videos, the swing path is NOT in a downward direction until AFTER the ball has left the strings.

In your video, the ball is on the strings for only one (maybe two) frames. Racket face appears to be ever so slightly open at contact (rather than closed) -- nearly vertical. And the swing path for those 1 or 2 frames is nearly horizontal -- not downward.

When the racket swing path starts moving downward, the ball is already off the strings. Hence you are not swinging down on the ball
I’m not expecting to change your opinion of 50 years that’s set in concrete. Let’s move on.
 
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