Your strokes ball toss

[rainey]

I enjoyed reading this month's "your strokes" on the ball toss. But I have an observation on Olivier's service motion. John, you state his biomechanics are good, and he has a good racket drop. Yes, he does have a good racket drop, but he seems to achieve this racket drop bringing his upper arm forward and sideways too soon in his motion, and bending his elbow way beyond 90 degrees. In fact, his elbow bend seems to be at around 140 degrees at full racket drop. And his upper arm is already forward. Compared to the pros, his racket is too close to his back and he is already robbed of upper arm and shoulder power. I noticed this exact motion in my 14 year old son. After reaching the cocked postion, he brings the upper arm forward and flexes the elbow way past 90 degrees. The racket drop is great, but the serve cannot generate high power because of the poor upper arm position. The pros do not do this, and they keep the racket far behind them, and and explode with upper arm and shoulder motion. I am trying to stop my son from doing this. Do you see this as a problem? Am I over coaching? Are there any fixes to this problem? Right now, I am telling his to keep his racket far behind him, not to worry about a full drop just yet, and bring his upper arm up and to the side during his serve motion. Your thoughts.

[johnyandell]

This is a really interesting question. You are correct about the position of the upper arm and the difference with the pros. But most people are physically incapable of achieving this.


The issue is shoulder flexibility. If you can get the elbow basically inline with the torso and horizontal and rotate backwards in the shoulder joint to reach the full drop, then you have world class shoulder flexibility. That can always improved of course, at least somewhat. But the point of the racket drop is to create the right path to the ball.

Without that racket path, in my opinion, the energy isn't directed correctly. A lot of players can't even get as much drop as Olivier even with a raised and forward elbow position.

Not sure where you son is on this, of course. Could be a rushed wind up or just somewhat limited range of motion or technique or some combo of all three.

[rainey]

I'm glad you understand my point. One theory I have is that going for a full racket drop may be counter-productive for some learning players. As a teenager I had a great arm throwing a hardball. I would see newspaper photos of major league pitchers throwing a ball with the arm in a bizarrely exernally rotated position. I never tried to mimic that position. I threw a ball really hard and cranked up my best. If it happened that I vaguely resembled that postion, fine. But I just threw and threw over and over. When I got into tennis, I developed my serve mostly by getting down a good ball toss. When the toss was good, I cranked my serve harder and harder, and began to develop a deeper and deeper racket drop. Probably never had a full one. Could it be that by emphasising a full drop, we are interfering with the natural development of the serve stroke in some players, especially those that never tossed a baseball or football really hard? You had mentioned Dementieva as an example of the problems of a back scratcher. I looked at your stroke archive again. Her upper arm follows the same pattern as Olivier and my son, even more. Her stroke is off, and she is trying to do the right stroke too hard. Your thoughts?

[johnyandell]

I disagree. In my opinion it's actually the opposite. Trying to force the external rotation is the mistake that leads to stiffness and possibly injury and actually loss of power.

But the main thing is that the angled racket position makes it impossible to come to the ball on edge. That's Dementieva's problem, although if you notice it's more on the first serve, and more in the deuce court, especially when she hits wide.

What I think players need to feel is the relaxed drop of the racket with the tip pointed perpendicular to the court. I've worked with quite a few high school players who are perfect examples of this, particularly girls. No way they have the strength for the low elbow but they can get the pro drop position and now learn to hit up correctly and hit some spin.

[bottle]

Early and Late Legs

The upbeat director David Lynch, so dark in his films, has said, "If you don't write down your ideas you'll feel like killing yourself."

Okay, so my thinking here is about how best to serve with limited range
of shoulder motion-- exactly what is being discussed. But maybe my
limitation is greater, I don't know. Having tried many things, I returned to a Vic Braden model of delayed leg extension.

This leads me to more diagonal rather than vertical models of serving (as
viewed from the side). It also leads to tossing way out front, "about two feet in front of the baseline," Don Budge would say.

Don't do things right and you'll hit the ball straight into the bottom of the net. And doesn't this old-fangled notion defy almost everybody's (if not my) favorite tennis principle, the kinetic chain?

Not at all. In fact, one is better apt to transfer fast-moving sap or energy up through the various body segments from foot to tip of racket. Limited
range meant an essential link was nonexistent or runted.

Using Scott Murphy's and Brian Gordon's model of a gamma loop, one can
slowly cock the racket to vertical as the total body sinks and coils forward.

This resulting poised yet low position then has the word "throw" written all over it. Some different verb might apply better for the majority of tour servers filmed on this website (perhaps "serve"). All of them are more flexible, however: Their situation is different. Perspiration on their racket
flies straight up in the sky.

If the limited server can hit good overheads, why not add a couple of feet
to the serve-- extra room out front in which to accelerate racket edge
at the ball?

You won't have a great serve (Budge didn't), but like him you might have a good one. For me personally, lifting my elbow as high as Budge's (as in the two Budge serving filmstrips here) simply doesn't work. But if I keep elbow low at first and only get the arm compressed and contorted in a shrink-wrapped package very late, more out front, the ball clears the net with good pop.

If one uses Gordon's idea of bending legs quickly momentum rushes down into the court and rebounds up the tree that is you. My offcourt description of my legs now goes: "Break, brake, hold, extend."

Sequential rotation of feet to knees segment, of knees to hips segment, of upper body segment is all practically as fast as Muhammad Ali throwing a jab
deep from his foot.

It happens during the "hold" part of my leg description and works fine for being somewhat horizontal.

This is what I'm now doing-- happily-- making final thrust off of a flat front foot because of ankle injury incurred from less sensible senior serves.

Tallness, like Budge's, and highness of toss also helps put this yeoman's
shot consistently deep into the service court.

As with any serve, much is personal and ideosyncratic. I stand by the idea,
however, of a severely stiff-shouldered person putting more of their serve out front.

[bottle]

The Most Contrarian Serve Ever

It sandpapers everyone, even your opponent.

This is all quite new. Everything is just one possibility.

REVISIONS from previous entry: 1. Cock the racket but not to vertical. Just barely bend the arm. 2. Shrink-wrap the arm behind you, down low,
so as to create a maximum length line of hand travel slanting all the way up to the ball two feet out over the baseline. 3. Change "ideosyncratic" to "idiosyncratic."

MAIN TEXT:

Dead stick the left arm then dead stick the right arm. (Dead stick means "pause." The pool cue draws back, pauses, shoots like Steve Mizerak
or Alison Fisher, the Duchess of Doom).

Don't push the legs simultaneously-- you must skate first. That means there's no early resistance in front leg, which is relaxed. And front leg resistance will be closer to leg extension-- will already have started but
with no movement, building on Brian Gordon's principle of pre-load applied
elsewhere.

Loosening the front leg while keeping weight back will naturally lift front heel
a little. Get thrusting hip out a little with good knee bend. This STARTS weight shift and further winds hips, increasing the circularity of your essentially linear, low skate movement-- both elements to be welcomed! Upper body winds too. "Swim" in upper body is being kept minimal for now.

The first weight shift forward is more minimal than in mainline vertical serves but still exists. But the thrusting rear foot chimes in to complete it. Left heel hitting the court is the signal for transverse stomach muscles and upper arm twisty muscles simultaneously to fire (but elbow is still staying back).

If you deadstick the arms you can count to 3,5,10,14, anything before you toss. You can drive your opponent nuts in other words. "When is this serve coming?" But in pressure situations (almost all the time no doubt) the greatest favor you can do for yourself is to syncopate: drop both arms, turn racket out, toss ball, start shift, serve. 1234FIVE.

The main characteristic of this serve is that it no longer worries about getting the racket tip low. You want it low, but "low" here is a much more relative term.

So kind of swirl the racket around in a little puddle down low, all of this caused passively by muscular forward contraction.

Fire with your elbow incredibly low. Around and up and straight knifes the racket edge. Keep elbow totally bent and in for as long as you can.

Stop shoulders with extending left leg and countering hand and good old willpower. The WHOLE arm (both major halves) flies out like an arrow toward the ball, having been sidearmed or maybe even underarmed.

You submitted to the radical redesign of this serve because you wanted more upper arm twist (throw) like Sampras. Well, it's available now, so use it.

Imagine throwing a stone this way over a warehouse or better, do it.


A note on tennis writing. Everyone makes the mistake of wearing ideas out until they're dead. THEN they write about them. They want to look good.
Don't blame them too much.

Using the previous entry as my mental guide, I played a set against an even opponent, who drop-shotted every serve until the score was 4-1 . At that point I cocked less, which consequently lowered my elbow still more, and I won the set 7-5, but I'd tell you if I lost, too.

Get back foot perpendicular to target. Keep that foot low and flat and skate.

I say, never write unless you're excited about something and let the inevitable mistakes be damned.

[bottle]

I Renounce

most of the ideas in the previous entry, having lost in a tiebreak to
the same player. I went from the sidearm serve back to a higher
elbow version, then used both, etc., etc.

I think, maybe, one idea emerged, more vivid for my having experimented
with it in opposite types of serve.

That's the Brian Gordon notion-- or rather distillation from great research
on a number of players-- that one best throws by pre-loading the upper
arm.

I'm talking about Mr. Gordon's ongoing articles on tennis serve at this
website-- a remarkable body of work, with enough there to keep anybody
busy for ten years, and with incredibly revealing 3-D animations and
charts and "science" along with great communication and honest, effortful
attempts to explain and make clear.

If I'm going to continue to fool around with my serve-- and why not when if nothing else I enjoy the fooling around for its own sake-- I expect to return many times to Mr. Gordon's articles, which offer all kinds of new stuff.

And one idea that immediately jumped out for me, as I tried to suggest,
because of my limited shoulder range, is pre-load of the upper arm.

Anyone who has ever had trouble producing upward spin without a loss of
pace might consider this information-- not a cure-all but a helpful factor.

If we start throwing with our upper arm still rotating backward (while all of our muscles work in the opposite direction) we won't have compromised
racket angle so much as the arm flies up to the ball.

Gordon discusses and demonstrates pre-load much better than I could, including the safety aspect (you want some leg thrust still to be occurring when the backward twisting upper arm abruptly snap-twists the other way).

[bottle]

Back to the Drawing Board

But in studying Roger Federer, a great server despite reputed limitation of shoulder range, there seems to be no "throw" at all down low behind his
back (fast axled twist of the upper arm). Upper arm twist is saved until the whole arm is straight with racket head way up in the air parallel to court and edge on to the ball.

What I appear to see, during his hurling example of an upper body cartwheel is loose arm centrifugating though perhaps held in so it then snaps out faster, followed by several forms of muscular extension to complete his high five.

Note: I will never apologize for studying Federer's strokes although I have been accused of being an autograph seeker or worse. I had good luck imitating his forehand and backhand over a couple of years-- came up with better stuff than my own "signature" strokes-- so why not try to imitate his serve, too (once more)?

[bottle]

Servus Flatfootus

When I think of all the serves I've ever faced, I realize that some of the most interesting have been senior serves. That of Senator Paul Laxalt, a student of Helen Wills Moody, for instance: Compact, spinny, a little unpredictable.
Not something to blow you away, but how often is he an ad down?

My own constantly evolving number has moved away from Federer as model to a tall, blond member of a local high school team. I might get arrested for imitating her, but let me tell you, her whole, willowy body bends from head to toes and it all gets on the ball. I watched her serve four aces in a row in a doubles match. The members of the opposing team, both in uniform, never moved, just blinked. Afterwards, she happened to come by where I was sitting, and I don't know her name.

"Your opponents weren't handling your serve too well," I said.

"It makes me too confident," she said.

"You can never be too confident as far as I'm concerned."

Since I have left ankle problems, I decided I wanted, like her, more double leg thrust, and the next time I went out to experiment, drew my legs closer together. Also, since I'm an oarsman, I wanted to simulate old-fashioned, fixed rowing shoes before they were modified to come up at the heel.

And, since my head was full of new science from Brian Gordon including
charts and 3D animations, I wanted to go to somebody opposite-- completely subjective, brash and opinionated. That would be Mark Papas at "Revolutionary Tennis," a free website. Among the ideas I culled was this: When lowering your hand as part of the toss, you can, if you want, imagine a spring resisting you. And this: When tossing or holding the arm up you can bend your right shoulder around toward the left fence without this movement affecting the left shoulder in any way (a particular option in arching).

My serve at the moment in five counts: 1. left hand down and up pretty much in the time it takes racket hand to drop down; 2. right shoulder moves
round toward left fence; 3. and 4. assume trophy position with hand coming up no higher than chin, as straight length of the body bends from the knees, sinking and moving gently forward, but in my case with feet still flat; 5. serve from ground up with the right leg moving about four inches to left leg's every one. The right leg does get up on its toes before you fly. I call this lower body cartwheel to prepare for the upper body cartwheel everybody knows about. Also, double-driving legs is good for kicking bend into upper body preserving racket angle while loading the shoulder rotors-- which passive motion you can resist or "pre-load" (see Brian Gordon). At the same time, with no conscious effort from you the elbow comes naturally upward to shoulders line (see Scott Murphy).

[bottle]

Servus Flatfootus 2

Don't drop racket but do start both hands down together. You may not even have to worry very much about the racket speed going down if you slant back toward rear fence a little. The extra distance will improve synchronization with the full down-and-up of tossing hand (up faster than down because of the spring); if it doesn't, adjust speed. Never mess with speed of toss, though, once you have it working well. The toss is the toss and takes precedence over everything.

The slight slant back (excellent!) will make count two feel good. In fact, slant to where count two feels best and then adjust stance if you have to. Honor count two! It's a unique move that can feel great. The right shoulder, let's say from the center of the back, winds around toward left fence without jarring left shoulder. And thanks to Mark Papas for communicating that idea.

[bottle]

Making a Flat-Footed Serve Work-- 3

The shoulder move has been too much of a lone thing-- integrate it; the timing of toss-and-point will improve.

Count-- if you believe in counts (I do when learning or nervous but at no other time)-- can be five, four, three, whatever works best.

If five, then count one now includes spring-resistant toss and point with
hitting shoulder bending back from center of body so as not to affect the
front shoulder alignment. I see this special shoulder thing (really just a new emphasis in "arching the back") happening from release of ball.

With a high toss in which ball will fall maybe a foot you could coil then.
Wait in other words for ball to change direction before you start forward.
Or start just before ball changes direction-- somewhere around there.
Ultimately, it's got to be done by feel so maybe it's silly to calibrate
too exactly.

Now this conflicts with Mark Papas who insists that everyone should
be moving forward as they toss. Heck, I take from him, and everyone,
the parts I want.

Three counts to adopt trophy position seems a long time-- but that's
good. Slow coil, fast strike: I am a snake.

1(234)FIVE.

[bottle]

Platypus 4: Working with Design Ideas

Examine the tennis idea that right arm, physiologically, all too often interferes with smoothness of toss. This speculative idea postulates that the less right arm does, the better the left arm moves.

Reverse order then of racket arm drop and arching of right shoulder. The time interval in which both happen will remain the same. Is there any other logical reason that one should precede the other beyond habit and the old saw: "hands down together..."?

The feel of this experiment will be interesting-- all "spring" to start. The old spring idea of tossing, as expressed by Mark Papas, envisions not a big coil spring from a car or pickup truck lying on the court, but a thin, curved spring that runs from tossing hand back into leg. The extra energy one derives then goes first in an outward direction consistent with tossing arm seen as a pump handle. If all this imagery seems too much, ignore it.

To pursue the idea, though, let first move be a unified feeling of springiness. The left arm springs in its peculiar way as the right arm springs in its peculiar way-- from trapezoidal motion primarily on the right side of your back.

Right arm then gets to draw down as you point up at the ball after the release: a powerful windup, throwing feel, but don't bend the knees yet.

It's all just one count-- the first.

On court: Stay tall, with weight back. Slow the shoulder action; slow it way down. Then just let the two arms assume position: one up, one down.

Will this later lowering of arm blend easily into what's coming next-- the assuming of trophy position? What's the relationship of tennis and architecture anyway? Considerable.

At the court: Not quite as confident and accurate. Do I really want to devote my limited five per cent of learner oleodendricytes to making such a minor change? Sure. Live dangerously. The change will lead to ultimate good.

[bottle]

Platypus 5

The ideas keep flowing, each dependent on another that came before, and today's is a bigger one. Some people have called them uncertainties. I don't. They're coming once every other day which allows space for a match in which to test them in between.

I'm starting now like Pancho Gonzalez with arms relaxedly straight and out wide to the side and ball on the racket shank just in front of the hitting hand.

This allows a foot and a half wing motion, and, three to six inches of same arc extremely low arm motion coincident with lifting part of the toss and point.

These few last inches of draw-down really do make you feel like you're about to throw your racket over a warehouse.

The shift from what I've done forever-- start with slightly bent arms and ball on throat of racket seemed in my office a shaking of the fundament and a threat to the benefits of all previous experience that I ever might have accrued.

Out on the court, however, the change was no big deal, just got more out of what I already was doing. The "wing" motion or special arching, measured by the racket travel it produces, must go faster now than the tossing arm pressing in toward the leg, so that both of these "springy" phenomena can be perfectly coordinated.

Pancho Gonzalez, of course, did nothing of the sort. Like Pancho Segura, he didn't believe in drawing the hand down to initiate the toss. They knew that anyone can do it but it isn't necessary.

I, however, am doing it, and with the use of an imaginary spring previously described. Why? Because this can produce tosses that hook toward the left fence, like all the great upward spinning fast serves on the tour today.

I like everybody else have observed these hook-as-they-fall tosses, have even been preached to on the necessity of them, but have been unable to find specific guidance about how to do them other than using a high release.

So I've had to work toward an original solution.

I find no change in my count (when I do count) in producing this evolving serve. The first count extends all the way to tossing arm pointing up at the ball. The next three counts cover the body coil coincident with arm assuming low trophy position. The fifth count is the actual serve, in which I try to keep elbow back or aligned with both moving shoulders so that the axle-like property of upper arm twist will be preserved.

[bottle]

The Pancho Gonzalez Toss

I just checked the three priceless film strips of P.G. serving
in the stroke archive of this website. In two of the three
sequences, there was some lowering of the left hand to
initiate the toss, and in the third, that part may have been
cut off by the film.

The amount of the lowering, however, is minimal-- much less
than in a typical tour serve of today.

[bottle]

Platyfoot 6

A shorter, quicker lowering of tossing hand from the Pancho Gonzalez address position seems to work just fine, and less is more.

The tossing arm will be up sooner, which certainly doesn't mean one should bring it down sooner.

The basic rhythm of the serve can be exactly the same as described in previous posts, relegating the end of count one to end of final lowering of racket with independent arm motion of three or six inches.

Nothing else to change. The temptation to follow the extraordinarily flexible Gonzalez' higher construction must be resisted. From Gonzalez beginning glide racket head in a single descending plane way low like Jack Kramer (both guys serving can be seen in this website).

Personal characteristics are everything in designing one's own serve to replace one-size-fits-all notions so often the bane of tennis.

To review:

A. Because of ligament problem must fire off of flat front foot-- if do this there will be no swelling the next day. Back foot can still (and should) fire
off of toes.

B. Limited shoulder flexibility means that using the low trophy position advocated by Scott Murphy makes special good sense. In this system, twisting back the arm naturally raises the elbow. The extra motion of such technique, which would be clever for anyone any place, compensates for limited range by improving timing and smoothness. It just offers more element for the restricted server to work with.

C. TALLNESS (Sing "Born Tall") means one can toss farther out front, again compensating for limited shoulder rotor muscles range at back end.
This limitation doesn't exist in front. Proof of this argument: A limited
range server can bang a short overhead across several adjacent courts.