The Serve Set Up and Stance

[don_budge]

Set up, aim, fire!

Hi Don, I am not exactly sure what you are asking. Can you ask the question a different way? Thanks!

Sorry Jeff...I guess for once I was too brief in my remark. In teaching the service I put heavy emphasis on the set up...for a couple of reasons.

1 The way that a student sets up to serve is going to have an important influence on their motion.

2 The set up is going to in a large degree have an influence on their "aiming" at the target.

The front foot is 35 to 45 degrees to the baseline and the back foot is 90 degrees. There is an imaginary line at the end of the toes that goes directly to the target or possibly just left of it for a right hander or just right of the target for a left hander. Much as a golfer might line up. For me the serve has some interesting common characteristics of the golf swing and in golf the set up is basically determined by the two factors that I wrote above. I teach my students to create this line to the deuce court and to create this line to the ad court, depending as to which side they are serving to.

Most players seem to line up this imaginary line at the end of their toes the same way to the deuce and ad courts. They seem to maintain the same stance to both courts as if they were going to serve in the two different directions with the same set up. The focus on the serve seems to mainly be on the ability to create speed and force...and I wonder about control and precision also.

Much is made of the mph...I am equally concerned with pin point placement (the ppp) so aiming is paramount too. Thanks for your response...I knew you would!

[jsalzz]

Or...perhaps your bad technique determines your bad tendencies. This is more than likely the case. When you serve and volley something about the way that you are going forwards to the ball encourages you to make a good and proper swing at the ball. We are not born messed up. We are taught to be.

Btw...one question for the author. They never seem to bother to answer me but I continue to ask. This guy will answer though. What about the line at the end of the feet...from the end of the toes? Does this line have any implications or ramifications regarding your aiming at a pinpoint location for your service placement? Is the same alignment good for both the deuce and ad courts or should you adjust your feet accordingly?

Hi Don, I am not exactly sure what you are asking. Can you ask the question a different way? Thanks!

[GeoffWilliams]

raonic oh serve
fed oh serve
harrison oh serve
becker oh serve

[GeoffWilliams]

I first filmed Sampras during the 1989 Philly indoor, where he beat Lendl for his first title, and watched and filmed him thousands of times since then. My take on Sampras comes from hours of slow motion studies over a 20 year period.

sampras serve oh

sampras french open

No one really talks about the energy used, or the type of energy used by any given shot or pro shot. To produce a world class shot, your energy has to be very fast, and very relaxed. You can watch film all day, and practice all day, but if your energy is not just as polished, you will never gain pro result.
The Sampras stance starts with all the weight on the rear foot, which makes it simpler to move his center of mass, gravity wise, into and up. He hunches over and forward, with arms relaxed, and frame up at start of motion, yet, all his weight is backwards on rear foot and front foot de weighted, even as all his focus is forwards. His serve is all about moving his center of mass and trading rear position for forwards position, in a very smooth and relaxed way. Look at the last over head frame picture in the Mercedes Benz tournament, and you can see just how twisted his core is. His chest is facing the back fence, and he has begun his leg drive upwards, yet, his frame is still pointing downwards and back! Raonic and Harrison look almost identical in this same position, but they don't coil sideways quite as much, with back to net, and chest to rear fence. No server in history had as much core twist as Sampras.

He tosses and turns shoulders, externally abducts his shoulder in a very relaxed way. Did anyone ever see him catch a bad toss? No. His toss is super accurate, step one. As he goes into a knee bend 18" downwards as his whole body mass moves forwards, bowing the left hip way out over the baseline, leading hip much higher than rear hip, and this allows a very large coil/shoulder over shoulder sideways. He creates a near almost 90 degrees to the ground with his shoulders, as his right side back scrunches up into a tight ball.

His racquet arm delays the frame drop, not yet even to vertical, before the leg drive begins, and his elbow then collapses very fast, forwards into a straight/up/down angle with a huge back arch, which he maintains through the whole shot. The large arch allows a greater coil with a higher elbow. Then his leg drive forces his shoulders into a parking meter coin slot forwards, and the back arch quickly moves to the left side back, father forward than any other server in history, so his contact point is often 4' inside the baseline! The back arch then switches from rear wards to forwards, moving his entire body very fast from a rear cock to a forward scrunch. Fed is only about a foot in front at contact, and Becker about 2 and a half feet and Raonic is only about 2 and a half feet at contact in front of the baseline..

Then his arm pronates around the elbow, so the wrist stays locked with the forearm, and the forearm snaps around a lightning fast 180 degrees or more, forging a longer lever arm due to the delayed wrist break and the locked wrist at contact, forming a much long lever arm at contact, and now the hip over hip shoulder over shoulder completes, with the 90 degree angle now completely reversed, so that his shoulders exchange positions entirely, everything rotating around the elbow. And now the shoulders are straight up and down forwards, with leading shoulder the lower one now.

The locked wrist also gives a very stable and accurate platform for accuracy, at the cost of some pace, but allowing him to hit aces on the lines at 120mph vs. 144mph. More accurate under pressure, than anyone else in the world's history. Why is that? The far forward contact point, the deceptively simple form, the locked wrist, combine with the delayed trophy drop allow his serve to have a greater kinetic path way, a longer, smoother, more accurate path way, than any other in history. This keeps the back arched even through contact, allowing the elbow and frame greater motion under his elbow. This combines to create a "vicious whip lash", as he describes in his autobiography. The whip lash is all based on that simple, locked wrist, giving his shot a long rifle accuracy, vs. a .22 caliber shorter lever, that most servers use. The smooth relaxed rhythm of the locked wrist during contact causes automatic accuracy. He said to Justin Gimelstob, "I turn my shoulders, I bend my knees, and I put it on the line.", when Justin asked him,

"Hey, hey, Pete, how do you serve so well?" Thanks a lot Pete. That really helps me.

He also stops his shoulder at the top of the stroke, during contact, and internally rotates it, transferring all its motion to the locked wrist, and forearm twist. The entire motion of the shot then causes the frame to snap over violently, the frame bed which contacted the ball now facing towards the side fence after contact. His serves are never flat, always spin serves, but 120mph spin serves, and 108mph on seconds. The forearm during contact snaps forwards, and the stopped shoulder, causes the forearm to then snap around way past contact point, always imparting a lot of spin: 2200-2800 rpm on firsts, and 4000-4800 on seconds, creating a curving vicious heavy ball that the top returners often returned, but popped up for easy volley put a ways. It's the heavy spin, that caused his serve to rapidly "kick" off to the side, which put the ball out of the sweet spot at the last mili second.

The chong stance also starts it all, and then the J toss, into a parabolic arc, 3' higher than contact, at start going down to groin area, and then curving out front to an 11 oclock position or 12, farther left than any other server. After the toss, which is 3 feet higher than contact, he simply turns his shoulders so his chest is facing the back fence. This far left contact allows greater access to the back hand side of returners.

The hitting structure then forms a V, with the elbow the lower pointed end of the V, and then a < > with his head in the center of the rotating V. The speed of the V is increased by the delayed trophy drop as the frame faces the back fence, until after the leg drive. The leg drive is driven from the rear foot forward, forcing the left hip out, all done before the frame ever even reaches vertical over his head. The V collapses while his back stays arched, even as he drives forwards, rotating his shoulders, while the V remains intact until the last mili second. The forearm then snaps up and around the elbow, and the V straightens out, and reattains its shape after contact, which acts as a rotating stopping point for kinetic transfer of motion. Like a pitcher, who coils all the way back towards the plate, he coils all the way back towards the net before leg drive, twisting his core incredibly, form shared by Raonic, and the leg drives the left hip forwards way out over the baseline. The pitcher also lays his wrist back all the way, and leaves it there coiled for as long as possible. They are throwing 100mph without a racquet lever arm! Sampras also lays the frame back until after leg drive forwards and up. But he only goes up as a consequence of moving the shoulders into the parking meter slot, and the V bullets forwards into contact point. This arched back and parking meter slot at contact, allows far greater forwards contact into the baseline.

The combination of the collapsing elbow, and the back scrunch trading from right rear to front left side of the back, happen so fast and smoothly it fools the eye. The range of motion of the shot is huge, due to the far rearwards start, the back arch trading places so far out in front, yet all done so fluidly and relaxed and fast. Not only does the back arch trade positions, but the shoulders trade, the V trades, so it all about reversing the rear positions into the forwards positions. But the angle of the V and wrist at contact are automatic, and locked in a way, providing incredible accuracy. All he has to do is focus on which part of the ball to hit, and the angle. Since the toss is super accurate, the motion is locked into this accuracy as well.

Sampras had little leg kick back. He was in a hurry to get to the net, and a large kick back slows that down.

So the things I never see anyone talk about are: his very far forward contact. His locked wrist/forearm lever being longer. The double V. His energy used for the serve. The dipsy doodle movement his knees make as he changes direction from sideways, to forwards on leg drive. Raonic does it too. His extreme twisted chest to the rear fence. His delayed frame at trophy. His elbow collapsing very fast towards his head. HIs weight in stance being all the way back, yet his back hunched over and entire focus forwards. His back being arched the whole time, including contact, which allows his contact to be so far out in front. His use of spin on all serves. The cause of his accuracy: the longer lever arm, of his shoulders/forearm/wrist, straight up and down to form one long lever during contact. HIs elbow moving back wards just after the shot, creating a whip like effect.

[johnyandell]

I think the thing that I got out of this was the point that both stances were set up to create relaxation in the arms--and yeah of course you want to be relaxed. Jeff just connected the dots in a way that hadn't exactly occured to me. I have adapted that slightly different Federer stance myself--love the feeling in really letting those arms hnag!

[don_budge]

Chicken or egg?

I think the choice in technique depends on the best way to offset our own bad tendencies which are very individualized. For example, when I serve and volley, I find my first serve percentage goes up. We are all messed up in a unique way.

Or...perhaps your bad technique determines your bad tendencies. This is more than likely the case. When you serve and volley something about the way that you are going forwards to the ball encourages you to make a good and proper swing at the ball. We are not born messed up. We are taught to be.

Btw...one question for the author. They never seem to bother to answer me but I continue to ask. This guy will answer though. What about the line at the end of the feet...from the end of the toes? Does this line have any implications or ramifications regarding your aiming at a pinpoint location for your service placement? Is the same alignment good for both the deuce and ad courts or should you adjust your feet accordingly?

[privas]

Thanks!

Nice. Enjoyed it. I think I will teach my 8- and 9- year old kids the platform stance. More simple, as you note. However, as I have gotten older I have begun to shift to the other stance where I drag my back foot forward. At 46 years old this takes some stress off my shoulder to generate pace and helps my body move forward into the court, as opposed to falling to the left from years of bad technique with my overdone slice serve. I find that I tend to bring my head down too fast, especially on my second serve. When I drag the back foot forward, this keeps my head up longer ... I don't know why. I think the choice in technique depends on the best way to offset our own bad tendencies which are very individualized. For example, when I serve and volley, I find my first serve percentage goes up. We are all messed up in a unique way.

[vrc10s]

Video kept breaking up & then gave an error message - tried it a couple of times with same results. Might be a problem with using tablet, don't know.

It worked fine for me on my daughters I pad.

It was good but very basic information.

[nokomis]

Video kept breaking up & then gave an error message - tried it a couple of times with same results. Might be a problem with using tablet, don't know.

[johnyandell]

Let's hear your thoughts on Jeff Salzenstein's latest video - "The Serve Set Up and Stance"