Interactive Forum: Dec 2007 Federer Serve Upward Swing

[julian]

I found it

julian,
did you see the other thread on the "upward serve positioning" motion which also contains videos that illustrate the point about uncoiling prematurely?

I found it

[crosscourt]

Excellent footage and stimulating debate. I recall Rusedski saying a few years ago that he thought that a high elbow and and late extension were very important. The next question is how to facilitate that. There is something crucial in the angle and laying back of the shoulder. It also amazes me that Federer seems to have stopped looking at the ball before contact.

cc

[airforce1]

One big step in hitting this important position is to be aware of it and its importance.

This is one of the teaching techniques, that as USPTA coaches we are shown.
To help the student be aware of a position they need to achieve, then give them some drills and feeds to let their body find a way to do it.

[ralph]

Drill to encourage pronation

Rick Macci has a drill to promote pronation on the serve. The server stands in the middle of the left service box. Cones are positioned across the net in the opponent's left service box at the side "T". A pro tosses an overhead feed. The hitter attempts to hit the lob to the side "T". To do so, one must hit with an inside out swing and significant pronation. I have tried to do this off my own toss, too. Any value?

Ralph

[airforce1]

This deep drop, late extension technique encourages pronation as from that positon, with the powerful extension, pronation may be the only way to get the face of the stick in the proper aspect.

[crosscourt]

One big step in hitting this important position is to be aware of it and its importance.

This is one of the teaching techniques, that as USPTA coaches we are shown.
To help the student be aware of a position they need to achieve, then give them some drills and feeds to let their body find a way to do it.

Can you tell us what sort of drills these are?

cc

[airforce1]

Well with serving, you need to be exact about where u want the toss, drill on tossing just like you are going to serve, but don't actually go up and hit. For this one focuses on the toss placement and getting the racket in position. I always refer to Pete as the gold standard on this and used John Y's article about Petes serve. There is a section where he writes about how Pete launched back slightly, as well as out into the court. This position puts you in great position to go into the toss with power and gives plenty of room for the rotator cuff. Vic Braden wrote about the hand position being more on edge during racket drop and rise, vs having it sit back there like holding a platter. This platter position can really slow down your racket speed, so that is something to watch against during serving drills.

Another drill is to serve as though you are trying to see how high and far you can sling (throw) your racket up at your toss. This should help you greatly with your racket drop depth and delayed forearm extension, as you can instinctively feel how those 2 things would help u to throw your racket higher and further!
As U blast up into the ball with your racket on edge, much like a karate chop or proper volley ball spike, you will need to use some pronation to bring the strings to bear on the ball. If you have really taken a max rip, with low drop and forearm delay, then this pronation will be nice and strong, driven by the head speed.

Actually serving a volley ball and working on these same elements is a great drill too. It gives u a bigger ball and takes out the racket to simplify things so u can focus on your body position and movements.

My daughter went out for volleyball and was immediately the best server on the team even though it was her first year. Funny thing was that her tennis serve started to get better as well from the cross training.
I think this is neat with all the girls playing volleyball these days. Boys have always been thought to have the advantage serving due to all the throwing they do, but if we can get some of the volleyballers playing tennis, they might even have a technical advantage over boys throwing and the height of some of these players wouldn't hurt their serve either! Volleyballer really learn to get low too which seemed to help my daughters ground strokes.

[julian]

volleyball serves

Well with serving, you need to be exact about where u want the toss, drill on tossing just like you are going to serve, but don't actually go up and hit. For this one focuses on the toss placement and getting the racket in position. I always refer to Pete as the gold standard on this and used John Y's article about Petes serve. There is a section where he writes about how Pete launched back slightly, as well as out into the court. This position puts you in great position to go into the toss with power and gives plenty of room for the rotator cuff. Vic Braden wrote about the hand position being more on edge during racket drop and rise, vs having it sit back there like holding a platter. This platter position can really slow down your racket speed, so that is something to watch against during serving drills.

Another drill is to serve as though you are trying to see how high and far you can sling (throw) your racket up at your toss. This should help you greatly with your racket drop depth and delayed forearm extension, as you can instinctively feel how those 2 things would help u to throw your racket higher and further!
As U blast up into the ball with your racket on edge, much like a karate chop or proper volley ball spike, you will need to use some pronation to bring the strings to bear on the ball. If you have really taken a max rip, with low drop and forearm delay, then this pronation will be nice and strong, driven by the head speed.

Actually serving a volley ball and working on these same elements is a great drill too. It gives u a bigger ball and takes out the racket to simplify things so u can focus on your body position and movements.

My daughter went out for volleyball and was immediately the best server on the team even though it was her first year. Funny thing was that her tennis serve started to get better as well from the cross training.
I think this is neat with all the girls playing volleyball these days. Boys have always been thought to have the advantage serving due to all the throwing they do, but if we can get some of the volleyballers playing tennis, they might even have a technical advantage over boys throwing and the height of some of these players wouldn't hurt their serve either! Volleyballer really learn to get low too which seemed to help my daughters ground strokes.

Do you mean vooleyball float serves or volleyball topspin serves or both?

[airforce1]

I'm sorry, I thought this-

"serving a volley ball and working on these same elements"
would make it clear that I was referring to a high elbow, delayed extension, pronating hand, three quarter topspin, power serve.

By the way, I'm not sure that is the latest and greatest in volleyball serves. My father was a volleyball coach and taught me to serve and spike in this manner back in the day and I passed it along to my daughter with some nice success.

Also as a note, John Yandell's article I referred to earlier is under tour strokes and then under left launch. Djokovic seems to have some left launch as well, but not as much as Pete. Looking forward to seeing the video on him.

[julian]

serve

I'm sorry, I thought this-

"serving a volley ball and working on these same elements"
would make it clear that I was referring to a high elbow, delayed extension, pronating hand, three quarter topspin, power serve.

By the way, I'm not sure that is the latest and greatest in volleyball serves. My father was a volleyball coach and taught me to serve and spike in this manner back in the day and I passed it along to my daughter with some nice success.

Also as a note, John Yandell's article I referred to earlier is under tour strokes and then under left launch. Djokovic seems to have some left launch as well, but not as much as Pete. Looking forward to seeing the video on him.

The book "Pass,set,crush" by Jeff Lucas maybe a good reference about vball topspin serve-a subtle point was that topspin does NOT have exactly the
same meaning in vball and tennis - a ball is "covered" more in vball.The comparison is a bit difficult because no racket in vball

[julian]

floating serve

I'm sorry, I thought this-

"serving a volley ball and working on these same elements"
would make it clear that I was referring to a high elbow, delayed extension, pronating hand, three quarter topspin, power serve.

By the way, I'm not sure that is the latest and greatest in volleyball serves. My father was a volleyball coach and taught me to serve and spike in this manner back in the day and I passed it along to my daughter with some nice success.

Also as a note, John Yandell's article I referred to earlier is under tour strokes and then under left launch. Djokovic seems to have some left launch as well, but not as much as Pete. Looking forward to seeing the video on him.

The floating serve (as an opposite to topspin) is considered to be more difficult to receive in vball.The issue will become important in a year or so.
I do NOT mean to make you concerned

[airforce1]

I think I get your point mostly, but topspin means a lot of different things in tennis as well.

I'm sure you are more up on this, but not sure the vball community is quite as developed in their views and discussions on technique as tennis is. You would think so being an Olympic sport and all; maybe they are;

but maybe they have a few "experts" giving their descriptions and everyone falls in line. We had that going on in tennis for years and then Vic Braden and
John Yandell started doing so much to break down many of the myths that were accepted for decades. I can't really speak to vball other than using it for some cross training drills.

I greatly appreciate your comments on correct Vball, but to get the flavor of our approach is that it centers around what is good for tennis. When we worked on a Vball serve, we did it just like a tennis serve and it worked well.
I think it is a very good training tool precisely because no racket is involved. Having no lever (racket) to have to manipulate and a larger ball to learn to work, offers a great opportunity work on the approach and really simplifies things.

I'm sure I have a ton to learn about Vball if I was more interested, but After going from new on the team, to mvp, in one season, my daughter gave it up to focus more on tennis. I hated for her to lose the cross training and the state championship her team was headed for, but at age 16, both require a pretty strong, year around commitment and it was her call.
thanks again,

[julian]

Serve and injuries

I think I get your point mostly, but topspin means a lot of different things in tennis as well.

I'm sure you are more up on this, but not sure the vball community is quite as developed in their views and discussions on technique as tennis is. You would think so being an Olympic sport and all; maybe they are;

but maybe they have a few "experts" giving their descriptions and everyone falls in line. We had that going on in tennis for years and then Vic Braden and
John Yandell started doing so much to break down many of the myths that were accepted for decades. I can't really speak to vball other than using it for some cross training drills.

I greatly appreciate your comments on correct Vball, but to get the flavor of our approach is that it centers around what is good for tennis. When we worked on a Vball serve, we did it just like a tennis serve and it worked well.
I think it is a very good training tool precisely because no racket is involved. Having no lever (racket) to have to manipulate and a larger ball to learn to work, offers a great opportunity work on the approach and really simplifies things.

I'm sure I have a ton to learn about Vball if I was more interested, but After going from new on the team, to mvp, in one season, my daughter gave it up to focus more on tennis. I hated for her to lose the cross training and the state championship her team was headed for, but at age 16, both require a pretty strong, year around commmitment and it was her call.
thanks again,

At some moment Vic Braden was talking about shoulder injuries related
to power serve.Some coaches thought that some crosstraining will
help to prevent some of these injuries.However the idea kind of died.
No more posts from julian

[airforce1]

We got a kick out of seeing pics of Sharapova down under throwing the football to warm up her shoulder for serving. This is something we have been doing since 03, taking the football to all our tourneys. Sometimes we throw pop flies for something different.
Riding a bike and/or running are regularly used before and after matches, as well as for stamina.
Weight lifting is very specialized, but very common.

I guess I won't ask you a question since that was your last post on this, but I'm at a loss to see where you see that cross training his died. If anything, it has become so ingrained that maybe the term has died and now its just "training".
Maybe some expected cross training to start taking up a bigger space in a players workouts, replacing some of the hitting that is traditionally done.
While clearly there is now a bigger space for non tennis specific training, it hasn't appeared to replace anything.
And to be clear, I was not advocating that anyone "needs" to use vball, just throwing it out as one of the things we had used successfully. Everyone must sift thru the tools available and pic the ones that work for them at that time. At a later time, players may find different things to be helpful for them at that stage in training.

[airforce1]

observations

We had a ton of discussion on the subject of racket drop and elbow extension delayed in sequence. Thanks for the many supportive emails and private msgs that were sent my way about these serving observations. Given that, we can be sure many of the instructors on this site have been watching for this with their students.

I realize that looking at students has the flaw of their stage of development, they often have so many improvements to make that racket drop alone will not always be the marker it is with the pros. It's usually a given with the pros that they can develop some power with their leg drive, internal and external rotation, along with a pretty good toss, so they mostly just need to tweak in these areas. Not so with Jrs and students, as they tend to have many more power zapping habits.

But still there is a curiosity if you instructors are seeing your faster servers demonstrate good racket drop?
Another question would be if others can have success building around this aspect of the serve that we have been able to enjoy? I'm pretty convinced that the teaching of proper drop gives meaning and utility to the other aspects of the serve motions.
thanks