johnmccabe
Hall of Fame
Low toss, fast rhythm, no pause is the most effortless motion when I was experimenting. Glad I found it early in the process of building my serve and stuck to it.
Toss straight up in front of you and hit it down into the box
- Thread starter Curious
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Passingshot78
Rookie
johnmccabe
Hall of Fame
No. Not really. 2 minute tennis guy does that all the time. It's harder to well coordinate all the motions than beating that specific timer. I settled on that motion before I figured out how to control the toss and low toss caused less problems during that stage. I modified toss height for learning different types serves later.
Passingshot78
Rookie
One interesting thing: Shortest players on tour Schwartzman Baez Nischioka and Guston all toss high I measured and all have 1.0-1.1 from toss release to contact Im about their height 170 cm Need to record my serve and measure that
Passingshot78
Rookie
Mini Kyrgios.
Very fast hand but what's most impressive imo is he toss in pretty still position
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
None of these guys are hitting down at contact. The path of the racket is going upward just before contact, swiping from bottom to top of the ball to create topspin. The resultant downward direction of the ball just off the racket face is a combination of gravity (ball dropping slightly) and racket travelling into the court as well as up, putting mostly forward momentum on the ball. If you hit forward and low to high on the ball, with the face closed to the path, it will go forward and down. If you were to hit deliberately downward (face and path both downward), you would need to make contact at about 12ft high to avoid the net.
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ShinMezame
New User
Power equals work over time. P=W/t
With a higher toss, you are not supposed to rush to get into a coil and then pausing to hold it before the ball drops, you are using the higher toss to give yourself more time for your body parts to slowly get in a big coil or more time for your body to unleash that big coil sequentially through proper kinetic chaining.
When you give yourself less time through a lower toss, you are forcing your body parts to do more work, aka muscles expend more energy, in order to get that same amount of power.
People who toss high and then waste time holding are not being efficient, and that's a real problem there. But it does take a decently long time to get all your body parts in position and then launch them if you want to feel comfortable on your serve and not strained, unless you are super athletic.
Please stop spouting truth… this is ttw, it’s not welcome here.
johnmccabe
Hall of Fame
I'm not much taller than that. Low toss works fine for me. When I switched to racquet with higher launch angle, I toss even further into the court and it feels great! My 12 year old son is shorter than that and also has a relatively low toss. There is plenty of room for the ball to curve down.
The main challenge is coordinating rest of the motion with low toss. I don't think low contact point is the main reason for shorter guys to avoid low toss.
There are plenty of good coaches against low toss. I'm not trying to convince anyone.
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Passingshot78
Rookie
Agree I wish i have lower toss and theres alot do obvious benefits of this toss
Unfortunetelly my serve rythm is what It is. When i toss lower i rush my serve and cant properly load.
Today i recorded my serve and mseasured time between toss release and contact and its 1 Second. Lkeninsiad before i wish It was less
johnmccabe
Hall of Fame
You have a great motion. Start knee bend with the toss, not after the toss. Check out ruud slow motion.Agree I wish i have lower toss and theres alot do obvious benefits of this toss
Unfortunetelly my serve rythm is what It is. When i toss lower i rush my serve and cant properly load.
Today i recorded my serve and mseasured time between toss release and contact and its 1 Second. Lkeninsiad before i wish It was less
Passingshot78
Rookie
Ruud is not only bending but also falling into the court while tossing. Both things combined can mess toss badly.. And theres nothing worse for serve than this
johnmccabe
Hall of Fame
Don't have to copy everything he does. That's what helped me figure out the rhythm. I did want to copy him, but never got even close to the exact same motion. I never could copy any pro exactly.
Passingshot78
Rookie
That's my point with extreme serve motions They often require special phiisical abilities, or milions of reps. Everyone should do what is really comfortable/fits his body while trying to stick to some fundamentals like grip, leg drive, coil, foreward movement, contact point etc
10sbeast888
Hall of Fame
even pros cant copy pros... of all the guys copying Pete, only 1 got close.
ballmachineguy
Hall of Fame
Way too much effort in getting rotated before arm is sent to contact. Where you send your arm controls how much you rotate. That forced rotation actually slows your rhs.Agree I wish i have lower toss and theres alot do obvious benefits of this toss
Unfortunetelly my serve rythm is what It is. When i toss lower i rush my serve and cant properly load.
Today i recorded my serve and mseasured time between toss release and contact and its 1 Second. Lkeninsiad before i wish It was less
You’re in pretty good shape at trophy, but by the time you reach max drop, you’ve already opened up.
What the shoulder wants to do for power has happened before the racquet is heading up to contact. You’ve only got arm left.
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Passingshot78
Rookie
I agree 100% i know overrotation is the biggest problem here. Sometimes i meet with me friend ex competition player to relearn some things after my 29 years break from playing and we always end up fighting with this problem
But theres no real effort in getting rotated Maybe It comes from way stronger right leg I stoped tennis at age 14 after multiple fractures in left leg/ankle. One year rehab and still there was a muscle atrophy.
But only solution is more physical prep with this leg
Edit: i wtaching De Minaur playing Michelsen right now. He serve pretty opened still hitting 200 kmh easly. Very fast arm
Edit2 : interesting that hardest server curentlly is doing kinda the same thing:
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Dragy
Legend
Sure, there’s nothing wrong with opening as you go into drop when serving flat, or slice (just that slice will go more to the left of where you are opening towards).
They stay more sideways either on topspin/kick serves, or when they go hard off more overhead toss + adding some diagonal spin rather than sidespin. Hard but arcing.
You don’t want to serve with your arm swinging forward while your shoulder stays back. Now with the timing of the opening — you may want to experiment. You definitely don’t want to open slowly and gradually, so you need to rapidly uncoil and have your core muscles support the upper torso from lagging behind. It sometimes is interpreted as “ab crunch”.
ballmachineguy
Hall of Fame
I didn’t say a word about not opening or trying to stay sideways. It is how he is accomplishing the opening that is wrong.
Your first sentence is wrong. There is a bit of hitting shoulder coming forward by virtue of the elbow coming up when the racquet drops, but not conscious. Creates a huge power leak opening up during drop.
Dragy
Legend
Drop is a way to achieve shoulder coil - to stretch pec and lat via ESR. ESR is powered by shoulder being accelerated up and around, and forearm+racquet inertially staying back = dropping. Whether it's more up and over or more around is just a matter of angles, toss location and swing shape.
ballmachineguy
Hall of Fame
Just like the fh, the shoulder does not move to contact until the drop is nearly complete. Early in drop, mid-drop would be too early and not allow for the arm to take advantage of the momentum the shoulder initiated.
Dragy
Legend
Videos of pro players prove otherwise. Shoulder starts moving up and around immediately as legs start driving the body up and hand+racquet (hopefully, if there’s no leak) pass behind the torso plane. Shoulder and elbow get aligned early and rise together, obviously.
PS I accept you may be speaking your own language again, if so — I don’t get it, again.
ballmachineguy
Hall of Fame
You may want to look at those videos again. The legs start driving so as to push the racquet DOWN to its lowest position before the shoulder drives up. Of course, if the legs are pushing off the ground, every part of the body is rising. That would include the hitting shoulder. The belly button too. But, you are not seeing the shoulder do it’s shoulder over shoulder or moving to contact UNLESS you see the non-hitting arm pull down. That is what you should be looking for. That usually stays up closer to when the feet leave the ground.
Dragy
Legend
Here's what I see. From lowest trophy set and loaded all the way until feet just leaving the ground. It's one continuos motion supported with leg drive. And this one is with quite overhead 12 o'clock toss - with more "calm" 1 o'clock toss it will be noticeably more around.
But even here, it's quite evident that shoulder (aligned with upper arm/elbow) is moving up and around as racquet goes into drop.
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ballmachineguy
Hall of Fame
Where’s the pic of it going “into” drop? You have trophy and completed drop.
Here's what I see. From lowest trophy set and loaded all the way until feet just leaving the ground. It's one continuos motion supported with leg drive. And this one is with quite overhead 12 o'clock toss - with more "calm" 1 o'clock toss it will be noticeably more around.
But even here, it's quite evident that shoulder (aligned with upper arm/elbow) is moving up and around as racquet goes into drop.
Dragy
Legend
Going into drop is right in the middle. It’s continuous, single motion. You can find it easily from video.
PS It’s actually a continuous single motion all the way up to “Big L”. Some will say it’s all one swing at the ball, but I find it useful to understand “throwing acceleration” and “racquet head delivery” phases — connected, but distinguishable.
Passingshot78
Rookie
Not sure but i looks like this guy arm is moving to contact way before drop is nearly complete
ballmachineguy
Hall of Fame
Well, they changed the argument midstream. I said the guy was opening up early instead of waiting until it opened naturally when the hands path created any rotation. You can see by Sinner’s body position (pick your body part), he hasn’t rotated much even getting to full drop. Pete doesn’t either.Not sure but i looks like this guy arm is moving to contact way before drop is nearly complete
