John Yandell: The Myth of the Pinpoint Stance

Does the Pinpoint Stance have any real advantage for servers such as Hewitt or Rusedski? In the Myth of the Back Leg we exposed the myth that modern players step into the serve with the back foot. What our high speed footage showed was that virtually all good servers actually land on the front foot with the back leg kicking backwards in the opposite direction. This pattern of leg action, which I call “the coil and the hop,” results from the deep knee bend in the modern game. But what about players who use the so-called “Pinpoint Stance”? In the Pinpoint Stance, players bring the back foot up underneath them before they push off the court. We can contrast this motion to the “Platform Stance” in which the back leg stays in position as the motion uncoils. This is the stance used, for example, by Sampras and Agassi. Is the Pinpoint a way to get even more power into the serve? Doesn’t it let you push off with both feet? Interestingly, players who use the Pinpoint end up finishing the motion in exactly the same way as players using the Platform. After first bringing the back leg forward, they all…