Why does this slice serve video not use pronation?

[TimeToPlaySets]

Skip to around 8:00
The red shirt guy showing the slice serve does NOT do pronation.
He says "curves the racket around the ball", like how every coach says.

Instead, he is basically doing an overhead with Conti (palm always facing inwards)
Are you also supposed to pronate and flip the racket face backwards for an overhead?
I do my overheads the same as slice serve. No pronation.

Is pronation only for flat serves?
I saw a video saying pronate for all serves.

 

[SinjinCooper]

 

[TimeToPlaySets]

Nope.

Frame by frame on rowvid.
http://rowvid.com/?v=rn2Kmj4oLEg

Watch the serve at 8:53 when he's close to the camera.
The racket disappears after contact, but when it reappears,
his palm is facing inwards, not outwards
In that serve, you can also see that the racket never squares.
He keeps it closed, with palm facing inwards.
Pause at the finish, and you will see his palm, not the back of his hand.
Palm still facing inwards.

He's clearly doing the traditional "carve the outside" move taught by most coaches.
Not pronation style serve.

 

[jm1980]

Nope.

Frame by frame on rowvid.
http://rowvid.com/?v=rn2Kmj4oLEg

Watch the serve at 8:53 when he's close to the camera.
The racket disappears after contact, but when it reappears,
his palm is facing inwards, not outwards
In that serve, you can also see that the racket never squares.
He keeps it closed, with palm facing inwards.
Pause at the finish, and you will see his palm, not the back of his hand.
Palm still facing inwards.

Pro tip: use the comma (,) and period (.) to go frame-by-frame on Youtube

That being said, always pronate on your serves regardless of what kind of serve it is

 

[Chas Tennis]

jm1980, Thank you, thank you!!!

I have been trying to do stop action single frame on Youtube for the last few years. I did not know about the "," and ".".

. advance one frame

, goes back one frame.

 

[TimeToPlaySets]

Then the video coach is wrong?

 

[atp2015]

Then the video coach is wrong?

The carve around the ball does not bounce and pros won't use it. The modern slice is really slick serve (slice + kick) as taught by Ian which requires pronation.

 

[jm1980]

Then the video coach is wrong?

You can probably get away with it at 3.5 (maybe even win most points), but you're robbing yourself of a lot of pace. So your placement with this has to be very good

 

[Fabolous-vs]

A tutorial from today about pronation and why it is happening and needed on any serve.

 

[SinjinCooper]

Nope.

Frame by frame on rowvid.
http://rowvid.com/?v=rn2Kmj4oLEg

Watch the serve at 8:53 when he's close to the camera.
The racket disappears after contact, but when it reappears,
his palm is facing inwards, not outwards
In that serve, you can also see that the racket never squares.
He keeps it closed, with palm facing inwards.
Pause at the finish, and you will see his palm, not the back of his hand.
Palm still facing inwards.

He's clearly doing the traditional "carve the outside" move taught by most coaches.
Not pronation style serve.

He's pronating. That's why I posted the image where he's, you know, pronating. It's blurry, but you don't have to see the racquet -- you can tell by the position of his shoulder, elbow, and wrist.

On a low level slice, such as the one being shown in that vid, you slice around the ball, then your arm pronates in the follow through. It does this quite naturally, to protect itself, since forcing the arm through that slot without pronating puts a ton of stress on the rotator cuff. Body won't allow it, and rotates the arm to relieve tension on the tendons. To slice that way without pronating naturally, you have to hit with your arm extended really directly overhead (which you do NOT want to do). Since the ISR occurs after contact here, the racquet must be going significantly slower at contact, and you only get very modest pace. (Not necessarily a bad thing.) This is how you were hitting your serves in the vid I clipped stills from in your last doomed thread.

On a high level slice, such as the one in the omnipresent Rafter vid (first serve is a slice to the body), you pronate into the slice, to maximize racquet head speed at point of contact.

That allows contact with a great deal more head speed, but requires much better timing.

Stop telling us what guys are and aren't doing. We're the ones who know. You're the one in the position of ignorance, which is why you need to ask these questions in the first place.

 

[ValarDohaeris]

Another good video explanation from Ian on how not to "carve" for slice serves.
Hope you watch and get it before deleting this thread

 

[TimeToPlaySets]

OK, so now there are two different types of pronating. The at contact style, and the one at the very end of your follow thru. Clearly, the former is a trained choice, while the latter just happens naturally.

But as you yourself just said, follow thru pronation does not improve your serve pace, so who gives a damn about that? Anyone can tell I'm referring to AT CONTACT pronation, which is a whole opposite way of serving

The guy in the video is NOT pronating AT CONTACT. is he teaching the wrong way to hit the ball?

 

[Deleted member 23235]

can't really see the video...
but when i hit a pure slice, it does not feel like i'm pronating (ie. toss./contact to extremely on my right side)
that said, i never use pure slice, because it's a sitter, and most folks at 4.0+ can eat that up.... (or occasionally as a changeup, but i'm probably still hitting topslice, albeit with more slice than top)
only when i hit some component of topspin (ie. topslice to varying degrees, kick, top) or flat, do i feel myself pronating (therefore i always pronate)

for a beginner, i think the carve-around (no pronation) slice serve is good to learn gross motor skills of serving (ie. freeman vid where he starts but hitting underspin, then moving the contact progressively higher)...

but when starting to go beyond pure slice, to topslice, adding the pronation is the next stage of the evolution...

at least this was my progression of learning... i'm keen to hear what other serve experts think.

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

can't really see the video...
but when i hit a pure slice, it does not feel like i'm pronating (ie. toss./contact to extremely on my right side)
that said, i never use pure slice, because it's a sitter, and most folks at 4.0+ can eat that up.... (or occasionally as a changeup, but i'm probably still hitting topslice, albeit with more slice than top)
only when i hit some component of topspin (ie. topslice to varying degrees, kick, top) or flat, do i feel myself pronating

for a beginner, i think the carve-around (no pronation) slice serve is good to learn gross motor skills of serving (ie. freeman vid where he starts but hitting underspin, then moving the contact progressively higher)...

but when starting to go beyond pure slice, to topslice, adding the pronation is the next stage of the evolution...

at least this was my progression of learning... i'm keen to hear what other serve experts think.

I was never taught pronation when learning how to serve. I'm now trying to incorporate it.

Furthermore, if I'm trying to serve wide on the Deuce or T on the Ad [I'm a righty], it seems logical to NOT pronate because I want to impart right to left spin and pronating would seem to contradict that.

I admit ignorance on the subject.

 

[meltphace 6]

I was never taught pronation when learning how to serve. I'm now trying to incorporate it.

Furthermore, if I'm trying to serve wide on the Deuce or T on the Ad [I'm a righty], it seems logical to NOT pronate because I want to impart right to left spin and pronating would seem to contradict that.

I admit ignorance on the subject.

As a righty you want to impart left to right spin for a slice serve. Watch the video that has been posted by ValarDohaeris in #11.

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

As a righty you want to impart left to right spin for a slice serve. Watch the video that has been posted by ValarDohaeris in #11.

Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology, then. What I'm calling a slice tails off to my left, pulling a Deuce court returner out wide and an Ad court returner towards the middle. Regardless of what name I use to describe it, I'm thinking that tailing motion is best accomplished by NOT pronating. I don't want my wide Deuce serve curving back towards my opponent; I want it tailing away.

 

[meltphace 6]

Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology, then. What I'm calling a slice tails off to my left, pulling a Deuce court returner out wide and an Ad court returner towards the middle. Regardless of what name I use to describe it, I'm thinking that tailing motion is best accomplished by NOT pronating. I don't want my wide Deuce serve curving back towards my opponent; I want it tailing away.

Pronation happens anyway. Watch the video.

Note the different angle between forearm and racquet when you compare slice to kick serve. Again, pronation happens on all those serves.

Hallelujah.

 

[jm1980]

Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology, then. What I'm calling a slice tails off to my left, pulling a Deuce court returner out wide and an Ad court returner towards the middle. Regardless of what name I use to describe it, I'm thinking that tailing motion is best accomplished by NOT pronating. I don't want my wide Deuce serve curving back towards my opponent; I want it tailing away.

For the ball to tail to the left, you have to strike it left to right

 

[SinjinCooper]

I was never taught pronation when learning how to serve. I'm now trying to incorporate it.

Furthermore, if I'm trying to serve wide on the Deuce or T on the Ad [I'm a righty], it seems logical to NOT pronate because I want to impart right to left spin and pronating would seem to contradict that.

I admit ignorance on the subject.

God bless. That's the only factor that matters. I recommend you film yourself from the right side and take a look. As I recommended to TTPS, take a magic marker and put a big black X on your wrist, so you can see it even if your camera's FPS is crappy. I suspect you're pronating quite fully already, just that your timing is a bit sub-optimal.

I suspect you hit that type of serve I'm calling "lower level." Please don't take it as a slight. I only mean that once you understand how to incorporate pronation/rotation into the serve fully, you'll be able to do the same thing with greatly increased RHS.

What you WANT, in a perfect world, is for your racquet to begin its pronation (via the action of ESR) AS it glances across the ball, while moving left-to-right simultaneously. (See Rafter first serve above.)

But the kind of serve you describe almost inevitably sees the racquet face come across the ball sharply, left to right (probably with some element of front to back, as well), goes spinning off fairly slowly, and then when you're busy watching where the serve is going, your arm will pronate/go through ESR all on its own, after the vital part of the stroke is already completed. Your arm probably won't let you get away without doing this, unless either (A) you're not extending your arm fully at all, or (B) you're hitting REALLY straight up overhead, like with your elbow practically pressed against your ear. Neither is likely, since you usually see those issues disappear on the way to 3.0. Far more likely is you're just not noticing it because it's happening after the important part of the serve rather than during.

A vid is worth a trillion words, here. Film yourself and see.

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

God bless. That's the only factor that matters. I recommend you film yourself from the right side and take a look. As I recommended to TTPS, take a magic marker and put a big black X on your wrist, so you can see it even if your camera's FPS is crappy. I suspect you're pronating quite fully already, just that your timing is a bit sub-optimal.

I have quite a bit of serve video but have been concentrating on other things [like changing from a "foot drag" to a platform stance]. I haven't even been paying attention to whether the ball went in.

I must be pronating because I can clearly see the "knife edge" position prior to contact but I don't think any of those serves were intended to be slices. I'll have to do an "all slice" video session.

I suspect you hit that type of serve I'm calling "lower level." Please don't take it as a slight. I only mean that once you understand how to incorporate pronation/rotation into the serve fully, you'll be able to do the same thing with greatly increased RHS.

No offense taken. I fully realize there are some big flaws in my technique. I marked the serve as the area of biggest improvement needed to get to the next level and pronation is obviously going to be an important part of that.

What you WANT, in a perfect world, is for your racquet to begin its pronation (via the action of ESR) AS it glances across the ball, while moving left-to-right simultaneously. (See Rafter first serve above.)

But the kind of serve you describe almost inevitably sees the racquet face come across the ball sharply, left to right (probably with some element of front to back, as well), goes spinning off fairly slowly, and then when you're busy watching where the serve is going, your arm will pronate/go through ESR all on its own, after the vital part of the stroke is already completed. Your arm probably won't let you get away without doing this, unless either (A) you're not extending your arm fully at all, or (B) you're hitting REALLY straight up overhead, like with your elbow practically pressed against your ear. Neither is likely, since you usually see those issues disappear on the way to 3.0. Far more likely is you're just not noticing it because it's happening after the important part of the serve rather than during.

A vid is worth a trillion words, here. Film yourself and see.

Ironically, I learned pronation after I quit tennis and took up volleyball. If I'm on the left side and want to spike extreme CC, instead of rotating my entire upper body, I pronate and swing away from my body. Nobody taught me this; I just picked it up through experimentation.

Conversely, if I'm on the right side and want to hit a roll shot CC, I supinate and curve across the ball at maybe the 1:30 position and it tails away to my left. I made a career out of hitting that shot against big blocks but slow defenders.

I took the same physical constructs back with me to tennis when I resumed. At least, that's what I THINK I'm doing. Video may show otherwise!

Thanks for the feedback.