Interactive Forum July 2023 Jannik Sinner Serve

[johnyandell]

Sounds like Darren... Personally I think a move in the wrong direction...

[stroke]

[QUOTE=stotty;n101519]It's official. Sinner has reverted to pinpoint. Not full pinpoint I guess as the feet are still a little spaced and don't fully clip up together. I am not sure how much it resembles his original serve before he experimented with platform. It would be nice to compare the three: the original serve, the move to platform, and the current serve. I haven't seen that much of Sinner this Wimbledon but in his quarter final match his 1st serve percentage was 55%. He was hitting it real hard and placing it well also.

The truth will rest somewhere in the stats. We all love platform on the forum and Sinner stuck with it for a quite while, but did the stats show a benefit of switching to platform? Or maybe he just couldn't get on with platform. It would be nice to chat

[llll]

i am sorry i have not read thru every post
darren cahill in a segment on espn noted among the changes they had made in sinners game was going to the pin point stance but he did not state why.
i read in the beginning that several of you had noticed this change
is there a concesus as to why it was done?
the benefit?
is it better for everyone?
thanks in advance

[doctorhl]

An automated, height adjustable, overhead ball drop would be nice to use to help dial in the rthym of the toss and swing before actually tossing for service. Like you experienced, the "Dog racket ball bounce technique" simulating the ball toss was a disaster!

[jimlosaltos]

Jim, has the Dog dislocated his shoulder in your picture, just a distorted camera view, or a rubber man ISR?

I believe you're seeing The Rubber Band Man in operation.

That's from a very good match he had vs Fed at Indian Wells. Pushed Fed hard before Fed, running along the back wall ,retrieved a smash, and in the nasty wind, Dolgopolov missed the second overhead. I remember it well.

Dog used to do a drill where he would put a ball on his strings, pull the racket out, hit the ball down to bounce it off the ground, then hit his serve as the ball was on its way up.

I can't even get the ball in the right place tossing it <g>.

Super natural snap/ flex.

[doctorhl]

Jim, has the Dog dislocated his shoulder in your picture, just a distorted camera view, or a rubber man ISR?

[jimlosaltos]

Jim, Got any serve footage of Schwartzmann or other height challenged players to compare landing points and contact height? At 5'8", I am looking for excuses.

Hah! You're the same height as me. From a tennis perspective, my sympathies and condolences <g>.

Never seen Schwartzman live, but here are a couple of height-disadvantaged players that do or did extremely well serving. Don't have the impact point, sorry, and these photos are from years back, but perhaps they are of interest.

Ricardo Berankis is listed at 5 ft 9 in, sort of a more muscular Leyton Hewitt. At his peak he could reach 130 mph. Got to number 50 or so in world

Benjamin Becker, 5 ft 10 inch, could reach 135 mph, NCAA player, then ATP 30 or so.

Best of the diminutive lot serving wise is one of my personal favorites, The Dog, Alexander Dolgopolov. Supposedly 5 ft 10 in -- on his tippy toes, I suspect. At his peak he was the only sub-six-foot player in the top 10 in aces. Had his pro career cut short of Gilbert's syndrome, an autoimmune disease with fatigue symptoms much like what has plagued Venus Williams. Could hit 135 mph or short wide slice that sent opponents into the side wall. Now, I've had differences on here about his elevation serving. He has hit his snap serve almost out of his hand with no jump, but I, personally, think he takes major air on some of them. Others differ.

I call Dolgopolov 'the Rubber Band Man', must be a ball of fast-twitch muscle.

Berankis of Lithuania, 2011

filedata/fetch?id=101527&d=1689181238&type=thumb

Dog, 2014
filedata/fetch?id=101529&d=1689181260&type=thumb

Becker, 2011

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[stroke]

It's official. Sinner has reverted to pinpoint. Not full pinpoint I guess as the feet are still a little spaced and don't fully clip up together. I am not sure how much it resembles his original serve before he experimented with platform. It would be nice to compare the three: the original serve, the move to platform, and the current serve. I haven't seen that much of Sinner this Wimbledon but in his quarter final match his 1st serve percentage was 55%. He was hitting it real hard and placing it well also.

The truth will rest somewhere in the stats. We all love platform on the forum and Sinner stuck with it for a quite while, but did the stats show a benefit of switching to platform? Or maybe he just couldn't get on with platform. It would be nice to chat with him about it.

I used to like Monfils service motion. He at one time had kind of a Roddick narrow platform set up. Then he went to what Sinner is now doing, starting with a severe closed stance and moving to the the narrow platform, as he moves up his back foot on the toss. Just an observation.

[stotty]

It's official. Sinner has reverted to pinpoint. Not full pinpoint I guess as the feet are still a little spaced and don't fully clip up together. I am not sure how much it resembles his original serve before he experimented with platform. It would be nice to compare the three: the original serve, the move to platform, and the current serve. I haven't seen that much of Sinner this Wimbledon but in his quarter final match his 1st serve percentage was 55%. He was hitting it real hard and placing it well also.

The truth will rest somewhere in the stats. We all love platform on the forum and Sinner stuck with it for a quite while, but did the stats show a benefit of switching to platform? Or maybe he just couldn't get on with platform. It would be nice to chat with him about it.

[doctorhl]

Someone asked about John Isner's landing point, or how far into the court he hit the ball? Sorry I can't remember who to tag, but there is a TPN Tour Portrait with info on that at this link:

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members/tourportraits/jim_fawcette/serve_contact_height/

Basically, Isner is such an outlier I don't know how to project his motion onto anyone much shorter, but here is one image from that album.

I did a video years and years ago where I got on a step-ladder and looked down into the serve box from Isner's impact point. Took a picture then of the front half of the service box. It's like mortals spiking an overhead from the service line.

filedata/fetch?id=101474&d=1688924605&type=thumb

Jim, Got any serve footage of Schwartzmann or other height challenged players to compare landing points and contact height? At 5'8", I am looking for excuses.

[jeremy93]

Some have talked about the major knee bend. Notice how his back leg looks to have quite a bit more knee bend. I believe this is because the stance is so closed (from the perspective of the back foot being so far towards the add alley and the front foot relatively so far away towards the deuce alley). I think the more closed a stance is the larger the relative difference will be of each legs amount of knee bend. Notice, as a result (it seems to me), near the lowest point in the knee bend the back foots heel is more thn a little higher off the ground than the front foots heel.

[jimlosaltos]

Here's a tiny screen cap from that vid with the "before" stepping position.

filedata/fetch?id=101480&d=1688930294&type=thumb

[jimlosaltos]

Just checking out Janicks serve against Halys. Not sure if you would call it a pinpoint. He is sliding his back foot up to about a foot behind his front before he launches. He is more square to the net and not as deep of a kneebend. Looks easier than the other motion

Good question: Here's a direct link (at bottom) to Sinner serving from Wimbledon's own vid this year/week. He's tiny here, no slow motion, at the far end, but you can see him step up. Did he switch back to pinpoint? It's not what he was doing in 2021, if I remember correctly, more conventional pinpoint. Don't blink or you'll miss it. So ...

Screen Caps. Teen, tiny, sorry but best I can find. Hey, it's not TPN

I'll put the "before" step image in a response. Uploading 2 isn't working for me right now.

2 of 2 right foot right behind left.



Video here: If you use the "Gear" icon in the lower right, you can slow down playback as low as 25%, which might help.

https://youtu.be/QCP0ll6wTvM?t=171

[jimlosaltos]

Someone asked about John Isner's landing point, or how far into the court he hit the ball? Sorry I can't remember who to tag, but there is a TPN Tour Portrait with info on that at this link:

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members/tourportraits/jim_fawcette/serve_contact_height/

Basically, Isner is such an outlier I don't know how to project his motion onto anyone much shorter, but here is one image from that album.

I did a video years and years ago where I got on a step-ladder and looked down into the serve box from Isner's impact point. Took a picture then of the front half of the service box. It's like mortals spiking an overhead from the service line.

filedata/fetch?id=101474&d=1688924605&type=thumb

[jimlosaltos]

Per Wimbledon: "

• Through the 3rd Round, Sinner has won 77% of points while serving, 2nd among players in the field of 128