The Serve: Where Are We Now? Part 2

So in the first article in this series, The Serve: Where Are We Now, (Click Here) we looked at the core commonalities in the swing path of all good serves.

Now let’s dive into the numerous, bewildering variations on other elements, starting with the stances, but including body rotation, tossing arm motion and toss height. To make it a little less complex, we will deal with first serves—with more about the second serve in a future article.

Platform Stances

There are two major stance variations: platform and pinpoint. But for each variation there are multiple subvariations

Some of the greatest servers of all time have been platform servers: John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Milos Raonic, and Andy Roddick to name some. Novak Djokovic and Denis Shapovalov are two other platform servers.

But there are variations in the placement of the feet among platform servers, some slight differences, some more radical. All have the front foot parallel to the baseline or very close–but differ in the placement of the back foot.

McEnroe had probably the widest stance with his back foot maybe 2 to 3 feet behind the front foot and less than a foot behind the baseline. The toes…