Roger Federer Serve Locations: Deuce Court

Even watching slow motion, the technical differences in serve placements in the deuce court seem invisible. In a previous article we looked at how Roger Federer varied his upward swing in the ad court to produce serves wide and down the T. (Click Here.) Now let’s turn to the same issue in the other box. What are the differences in the motion to serve the corners of the deuce court? When we looked at the ad court, we saw that were slight differences in the timing of the rotation of the arm and racket. On both serves this rotation was massive, with the arm and racket rotating counterclockwise and turning over around 180 degrees. This rotation was driven by the forward, internal rotation of the upper arm in the shoulder joint. As the elbow straightened the hand, arm, and racket continued to rotate as a unit. If you watch the bottom edge of the racket, you can see that it turns over roughly 90 degrees as it moves to the contact and then roughly another 90 degrees as it moves out in the followthrough finishing on edge with the court. (For more detail on how this works, Click Here.) Watch…