Your Strokes: Evan Chiang Serve

Rotation of the upper arm, hand and racket—critical, misunderstood factors in power and spin. Evan Chiang was already an accomplished player when he decided to come to San Francisco to work with me. He had been a ranked junior and played Division II college varsity tennis. But his serve had always been his least effective stroke. Now, coming back to the game after a few years, he decided that he wanted that to change. Working together with Evan, we made some structural changes in his motion that have also helped other players I’ve worked with. The first was widening his starting stance somewhat and offsetting the angle of his rear foot more on the model of Roger Federer. The second was improving his racket drop by opening up his backswing and making it slightly more circular. The result was that the racket fell further along his right side, with the tip truly pointing down at the court. (To see how this worked for a touring pro, Click Here.) These adjustments set the stage for the third change that I want to focus on here: improving his hand and arm rotation and controlling the role of the wrist. As the arm…