What exactly does a "heavy shot" mean?

JohnYandell

Hall of Fame
Pete,
it's not that comprehensively unified as we were shooting on Arthur Ashe year 1, exciting and chaotic but we got a lot that had never been recorded before--not sure you could do that much with it, but... We have average rpms. and range of rpms off the racket--those came from frame by frame analysis of high speed video. And corresponding average velocities off the racket--those came from the radar guns. We have some data on spin after the bounce and how much surprisingly the bounce increased rpms. We have some data on the deceleration of speed over the flight of the ball from another study of Sampras (also the first of it's kind in live play...) It's in the Heavy Ball section of Tennisplayer. You can sign up for a free month read it and cancel with no charge should you desire. If you want to discuss, email me at videotennis@metricmail.com I might give you a password...
 

sureshs

Bionic Poster
I have never hit a heavy ball in my life, but have been on the receiving end several times. A heavy ball pushes your racket behind and sideways.
 

sureshs

Bionic Poster
It is interesting that an advanced player can start feeding you heavy balls even during half-court mini tennis warm-up. Even with a compact swing, he will do something to the ball that you cannot do.
 

PistolPete23

Hall of Fame
Pete,
it's not that comprehensively unified as we were shooting on Arthur Ashe year 1, exciting and chaotic but we got a lot that had never been recorded before--not sure you could do that much with it, but... We have average rpms. and range of rpms off the racket--those came from frame by frame analysis of high speed video. And corresponding average velocities off the racket--those came from the radar guns. We have some data on spin after the bounce and how much surprisingly the bounce increased rpms. We have some data on the deceleration of speed over the flight of the ball from another study of Sampras (also the first of it's kind in live play...) It's in the Heavy Ball section of Tennisplayer. You can sign up for a free month read it and cancel with no charge should you desire. If you want to discuss, email me at videotennis@metricmail.com I might give you a password...

That's really cool stuff! Amazing you guys pioneered the work. Sports data with increased granularity is revolutionizing not just tennis but even more the mainstream American sports like basketball and football. As a tennis fan and data nerd, I've been wanting to get my hands on this type of "next-gen" data for a while. I'm not surprised that the bounce increases rpm for topspin though it's certainly not intuitive :); the friction imparts more angular momentum to the ball, analogous to brushing a statically spinning sphere to make it spin faster. But conservation of energy holds true and there will still be a net loss of kinetic energy in the form of ball speed decrease. I bet for slices, the RPM decreases dramatically after the bounce (but maybe ball velocity increases? :unsure:). Anyway, when I have time I might shoot you an email for further discussion.
 

sureshs

Bionic Poster
That's really cool stuff! Amazing you guys pioneered the work. Sports data with increased granularity is revolutionizing not just tennis but even more the mainstream American sports like basketball and football. As a tennis fan and data nerd, I've been wanting to get my hands on this type of "next-gen" data for a while. I'm not surprised that the bounce increases rpm for topspin though it's certainly not intuitive :); the friction imparts more angular momentum to the ball, analogous to brushing a statically spinning sphere to make it spin faster. But conservation of energy holds true and there will still be a net loss of kinetic energy in the form of ball speed decrease. I bet for slices, the RPM decreases dramatically after the bounce (but maybe ball velocity increases? :unsure:). Anyway, when I have time I might shoot you an email for further discussion.

Do you know what spin a slice (underspin shot) has after the bounce? It will blow your mind.
 

PistolPete23

Hall of Fame
Now thinking about it some more, it makes a lot of sense why spin would lend itself to the ball being heavy, and also why a heavy shot can feel "less" heavy when returned with a slice. When you return topspin with topspin, it requires extra effort to switch the polarity of the spin direction. But when a topspin shot is returned with a slice, the spin direction of the ball doesn't change, only the direction of the ball. It would be a really interesting study for me to look at the sequence of RPMs between the rally of two pros hitting with topspin. For example, after Nadal crushes the ball with heavy topspin, does the return shot of his opponent carry the same RPM as usual or decreased RPM? Would love to see this kind of data for Nadal vs Thiem.
 
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sureshs

Bionic Poster
Now thinking about it some more, it makes a lot of sense why spin would lend itself to the ball being heavy, and also why a heavy shot can feel "less" heavy when returned with a slice. When you return topspin with topspin, it requires extra effort to switch the polarity of the spin direction. But when a topspin shot is returned with a slice, the spin direction of the ball doesn't change, only the direction of the ball.

That is why many 1 handed BH players of the past made their living by just slicing. But today, the slice is pounced upon, and so players like Stanimal, Thiem, GasK and later Federer have had to master the BH topspin to tackle Nadal.
 

sureshs

Bionic Poster
@sureshs I did not know there were tennis conferences haha. It would be a dream come true to attend one of these.

USPTA and USPTR and USTA do nothing else. They just hold conferences to give each other awards, socialize, and pretend to listen to the technical presentations. @JohnYandell is a frequent speaker I believe.

Just join the USPTA and become a recreational coach like me (membership fee plus $50 for a 8 hour video to watch). You will be flooded with conference invites all the time. Some are local, others coincide with major events like IW or USO.
 

PistolPete23

Hall of Fame
USPTA and USPTR and USTA do nothing else. They just hold conferences to give each other awards, socialize, and pretend to listen to the technical presentations. @JohnYandell is a frequent speaker I believe.

Just join the USPTA and become a recreational coach like me (membership fee plus $50 for a 8 hour video to watch). You will be flooded with conference invites all the time. Some are local, others coincide with major events like IW or USO.

There's a big annual conference for sports analytics hosted by MIT that my team has attended in the past (but not me :( ). I know it's mostly basketball and football at that conference but I wonder if there are any tennis symposia as well.
 

tennis4me

Hall of Fame
4me,
The heavy ball isn't a myth. We were the first ever to quantify spin in pro tennis and what we found were the rpms associated with various velocities. The same kind of data they show on TV now. (No one has recently mentioned the origins of the work...)
In any case a club player might hit 3000rpm but at 50mph. Or he might hit 85mph with less than a 1000rpm. The real heavy balls are the ones that combine high velocity with high spin levels. But you could argue this is relative to the level of play as well.
My apology John for misquoting the article title. Of course it's not a myth. I didn't think so and your article didn't portray it as a myth but had very good scientific analysis of the heavy ball. The article was actually titled "Mysteries of the Heavy Ball". I enjoyed reading those articles.
 

bobombom

Rookie
Sorry for the revival of an old thread, couldn't quite find what I was looking for utilizing the search function.

Just as a query, I am looking to see which type of ball people tend to have a harder time with: high launching with lots of spin vs low launching with an equivalent amount of spin.

I tend to hit a high loopy ball that kicks high with my current racket, but was wondering what life would look like if I lowered the launch angle with a comparable amount of spin.

Would the kick vector flatten out (logically it would, right)? Which shot do most people find more uncomfortable to return?
 

Dragy

Legend
Sorry for the revival of an old thread, couldn't quite find what I was looking for utilizing the search function.

Just as a query, I am looking to see which type of ball people tend to have a harder time with: high launching with lots of spin vs low launching with an equivalent amount of spin.

I tend to hit a high loopy ball that kicks high with my current racket, but was wondering what life would look like if I lowered the launch angle with a comparable amount of spin.

Would the kick vector flatten out (logically it would, right)? Which shot do most people find more uncomfortable to return?
If you talk about a ball you hit to a player, and he has enough time to set up for the shot, they will mostly struggle against combo of depth, pace and bounce. Pace becomes most efficient when you hit from inside the baseline, and they have little time to adjust. And also when you hit away from them. If they have a lot of time to react, depth and action at bounce are what make the ball challenging to hit back.

If you hit lower with spin, but faster, so that depth is still there, it may be better than slower arcing ball. If you just send it lower, the balls bounces shorter, and they have time to prepare. So if hitting from behind the baseline, hitting deep CC safe rally ball, I'll be looking for good shape&pace combo, like 60% of each, and send it high enough so that it goes all the way to the middle of NML or slightly deeper. Quality of ball first, then depth via height - for this particular question.
 

bobombom

Rookie
If you talk about a ball you hit to a player, and he has enough time to set up for the shot, they will mostly struggle against combo of depth, pace and bounce. Pace becomes most efficient when you hit from inside the baseline, and they have little time to adjust. And also when you hit away from them. If they have a lot of time to react, depth and action at bounce are what make the ball challenging to hit back.

If you hit lower with spin, but faster, so that depth is still there, it may be better than slower arcing ball. If you just send it lower, the balls bounces shorter, and they have time to prepare. So if hitting from behind the baseline, hitting deep CC safe rally ball, I'll be looking for good shape&pace combo, like 60% of each, and send it high enough so that it goes all the way to the middle of NML or slightly deeper. Quality of ball first, then depth via height - for this particular question.
Thanks a bunch. So I hit a pretty heavy ball, and tend towards a high net clearance heavy dipping ball, but I noticed during a recent tournament that I started sailing my balls long after a bit of arm fatigue. My current racket has a pretty generous string spacing, but was thinking about a tighter pattern. Just wasnt sure if I would lose out by transitioning away from high kicking groundstrokes in favor of lower balls. Typical post tournament equipment blame game behavior. If I perseverate too long, I may end up with new rackets.........
 

movdqa

Talk Tennis Guru
Thanks a bunch. So I hit a pretty heavy ball, and tend towards a high net clearance heavy dipping ball, but I noticed during a recent tournament that I started sailing my balls long after a bit of arm fatigue. My current racket has a pretty generous string spacing, but was thinking about a tighter pattern. Just wasnt sure if I would lose out by transitioning away from high kicking groundstrokes in favor of lower balls. Typical post tournament equipment blame game behavior. If I perseverate too long, I may end up with new rackets.........

Take up running so that you can last longer. Then think about equipment changes.
 

Dragy

Legend
Thanks a bunch. So I hit a pretty heavy ball, and tend towards a high net clearance heavy dipping ball, but I noticed during a recent tournament that I started sailing my balls long after a bit of arm fatigue. My current racket has a pretty generous string spacing, but was thinking about a tighter pattern. Just wasnt sure if I would lose out by transitioning away from high kicking groundstrokes in favor of lower balls. Typical post tournament equipment blame game behavior. If I perseverate too long, I may end up with new rackets.........
You can play whatever type of shot with any racquet. You would want to consider new racquet if you start hitting flatter and it gets wild, error-prone with your current one. It may happen, it may not.

If anything, try higher tension, less lively strings, round ones.

In the meantime, who can stop you from getting a new racquet if you want one?
 

Morch Us

Hall of Fame
which type of ball people tend to have a harder time with: high launching with lots of spin vs low launching with an equivalent amount of spin

Depends on other factors. Generally it all gathered under the terminlogy "shot selection"

In general
High launch angle: gives you more time (for recovery and next ball), gives opponent more time, more margin for error, opponent may not be able to hurt you even if the shot is not perfect, less chance for a clean winner even when you have the opening.
Lowerlaunch angle, gives you less time (for recovery and next ball), gives opponent less time, less margin for error, opponent can hurt you if the shot is executed with less quality, more chance of a clean winner when executed with quality and placement.

So you could see that there are some advantages in using higher launch angles when in a neutral position, and using lower launch angles when in a position to attack. But again, there are more factors to consider for the right shot selection.

Also higher launch angles has obvious advantage when in defence, but when have a chance to counter attack within defence lower launch angles might have some advantage.
 

Jono123

Professional
Its the weight & mass on the ball, the transfer of energy which will make a 300g frame flutter like a chick stick.
 

socallefty

G.O.A.T.
I guess “heavy ball” is more of a casual slang than a scientific term. If someone receives a ball that is higher pace than they are used to, they will say it is a heavy ball. Similarly, if you receive a ball at a pace that you are used to but with much heavier spin, you will say that it is a heavy ball.

At the pro level, everyone hits hard with high pace and when some players are talked of as hitting a heavy ball, it usually means that they hit with much more spin on average than the other pros.
 

Fintft

G.O.A.T.
Depends on other factors. Generally it all gathered under the terminlogy "shot selection"

In general
High launch angle: gives you more time (for recovery and next ball), gives opponent more time, more margin for error, opponent may not be able to hurt you even if the shot is not perfect, less chance for a clean winner even when you have the opening.
Lowerlaunch angle, gives you less time (for recovery and next ball), gives opponent less time, less margin for error, opponent can hurt you if the shot is executed with less quality, more chance of a clean winner when executed with quality and placement.

So you could see that there are some advantages in using higher launch angles when in a neutral position, and using lower launch angles when in a position to attack. But again, there are more factors to consider for the right shot selection.

Also higher launch angles has obvious advantage when in defence, but when have a chance to counter attack within defence lower launch angles might have some advantage.
But also, isn't a lowerlaunch angle riskier (to hit into the net)?
OP: you are saying that your high launch angle balls sail long as the match progresses, but couldn't that be due to other factors, such as late prep?
If you are not using full bed poly, you may want to give it a try, before changing racquets.
 

Morch Us

Hall of Fame
From anywhere, it is just geometry.
If you are hitting a ball at 5 feet high contact point from 3 feet distance to net, hitting it with 15 feet net-clearence would arguably be more riskier than hitting it with 1 feet net-clearence.
 

Fintft

G.O.A.T.
If you are hitting a ball at 5 feet high contact point from 3 feet distance to net, hitting it with 15 feet net-clearence would arguably be more riskier than hitting it with 1 feet net-clearence.
Of course. Mind you I was an Olympiad in math and physics contests.
We are talking about launch angle due to the string bed though, usually from the BL
Plus the net is your biggest enemy, also as hitting long is easier to fix.
 
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