Understanding Andy Roddick’s Serve Part 1: Page 2

Andy’s unique stance, weight distribution, and leg drive.

Stance and Legs

Let’s start by taking a look at Roddick’s stance, and let’s see how this is related to the use of his legs. Unlike the supersonic movement of his hand and racket around the contact, these elements aren’t invisible–but you do have to look closely to see them with the naked eye. All the top players have some differences in their stances, many of which are idiosyncratic or ritualistic and/or irrelevant to the actual bio mechanics of their motions. But with Roddick his narrow starting stance makes a difference in the way he uses his legs in the serve.

Roddick starts with both feet almost parallel to the baseline, with the front toe at a slight angle. What makes this different is that the feet are only a few inches apart. The back, right foot is also offset behind about 6 inches to his left. It appears that the tip of the toe of his back foot is roughly lined up with the middle of his front ankle. I don’t think we’ve filmed another player with a similar stance. But what is more unusual is what happens to this stance…