Your Strokes:
Todd Haydon Serve

Analyzed by John Yandell

This month we take a look at Todd Haydon's serve, using a piece of video which Todd sent in along with a question. He'd read some of the other Your Stroke pieces that advocated a more circular backswing, such as the analysis of tour player Paul Goldstein (Click Here) or of his fellow subscriber, John Daly (Click Here.)

Should he, Todd asked, try to open up his wind up more on the model of a player like Mark Philippoussis? And the answer is yes. Because as the video shows, he has major problems with his racket position at various points in the swing.

In fact Todd's video is such a perfect example of the two most common problems with the serve in club tennis, I decided to use it for Your Strokes. I see these exact problems when I do clinics in the Bay Area and around the country -- even in the one I did for English coaches last year at Wimbledon. Even though we've addressed these issues before, they are so widespread and hold back so many players, I think it's worth taking a fresh look.

If you take a frame by frame look at Todd's motion, the two problems he shares with so many other players are an incomplete racket drop, and a contact point that is too far to the right.

Todd's racket never reaches anything close to what we've called the pro racket drop position, with the racket falling along the player's right side and the tip pointing downward at the court.

You can see this position in the motion of all good servers at all levels. Pete Sampras is a great example as is Andy Roddick, but all the players reach a similar drop, for example Roger Federer as shown here. Federer's drop is not quite as extreme as Pete's or Andy's, (Click Here) and that probably makes it a better model for the average player.

Watch how the racket falls along his right side with the tip pointing at the court. If you drew a line across his strings, and another line across the front of his torso, they'd be at about a 90 degree angle. But compare that to Todd. At the deepest point in the drop, his racket tip is pointing across his back at about a 45 degree angle.

What does that mean? That Todd's racket won't go directly upward and forward to the ball. It will move to contact on a diagonal. In addition there will be far less rotation of the hand and arm in the upward swing--and in Todd's case the proof of this is that there is literally zero pronation in his followthrough.

The cumulative effect is a lot less racket speed, and also, less direct transfer of the energy from his swing upward into the ball. Compare his upward swing in the animation to the animation of Federer.

This problem with his swing line is also related to the second major--this is the positioning of his ball toss. The toss and the contact point are too far to his right side. It's Todd's problem, and it is very common in club tennis.

Note that at contact his racket is literally straight up and down. This effectively precludes him from generating a topspin component. As we have seen repeatedly, the pros and other top players make contact with the racket tip beveled back to the left, so the strings are crossing the ball at a diagonal that can impart an element of forward rotation. It's amazing but I have filmed dozens and dozens of players at all levels with similar issues.

So what are the solutions? First, as Todd himself surmised, to open up the backswing and take it back in a more circular path. This means keeping the elbow straight longer, at least until the arm and racket are pointing straight back at the back fence.

Why? Because from my experience it requires a much more flexible shoulder to create the full drop with an abbreviated motion in which the elbow bends sooner.

If the elbow bend starts early, the players seem to rely more on the backwards or external rotation of the upper arm in the shoulder joint to make the pro drop position--and that works fine for Pete or Andy.

But most players don't have anywhere near this flexibility. So what they need is an elbow position that is higher and further forward to create this drop. You can see a good example of this in the wind up of a player like Stan Wawrinka. Wawrinka keeps his elbow straight until his arm is basically pointing at the back fence, and still ends up with a very good racket drop. But if you look at his elbow position, it's a little higher and a little more forward that the great servers.

You see other players such as Andre Agassi and Feliciano Lopez with similar if less extreme backswings. And as we've seen before, Mark Philippoussis or even John McEnroe are also great models. You can click around in the Stroke Archive and check these out in more detail.

There is a simple drill you can do to get the feeling of how this more circular wind up really works. What you want to do is swing your arm freely in a circular motion. Just keep it going around a few times. Visualize how the racket tip points back to the back fence, and then how it points upward at the sky. Make your arm as loose as possible and let the motion flow.

When you have the feeling of this windmill motion, now simply let the racket fall from the very top of the windmill. Imagine the racket tip pointing straight up at the sky and then just completely relaxing the elbow. Let gravity take your arm and racket, and let them fall. You'll find they fall into a perfect, full racket drop position.

Even if you only end up shortening your wind up somewhat--which is fine if you still make the drop--this is the image and feeling you want--of the racket falling all the way down along your side.

Ball Position

So assuming Todd uses this drill and the pro models and improves his drop, the other factor he needs is this: a ball position more to his left so he can create the right contact point. To do this, obviously, his toss has to change. Again we've looked at this issue many times and many ways, going back to the Sampras serve articles, (Click Here) and the Myth of the Toss. (Click Here.)

The flight of the toss needs to be on an arc from the player's right to the player's left, as we can see in the Federer animation. Note the position of the ball at the release. Now see that it has traveled possibly 2 feet or more on a curve to the left at the time Roger makes contact.

So the old idea of dropping the arm straight down and then tossing the ball directly upwards in more or less a straight line doesn't reflect what actually happens.

To create this arcing motion, Todd needs to extend his tossing arm further, and visualize this arc of the flight of the ball, from his right to his left, but still slightly forward and into the court. This is important so the contact stays at the front edge of the body.

Because of the additional motion in the new backswing, it's also likely Todd with need to toss the ball higher to give himself more time to get to that fuller racket drop position.

I've seen players make amazing, virtually instantaneous jumps in ball speed, consistency, and ability to hit spin from making these exact two changes. So maybe Todd will write in or send us a new piece of video so we can see how that's going. And for the rest of you out there who aren't satisfied with your serving effectiveness, get out the video camera and film yourself from the rear view. Now analyze the racket drop and the contact point and you may have the blueprint for a big improvement in your own serve.