Your Strokes:
Phil Picuri: Serve

Analyzed by John Yandell

This month's Your Strokes features the serve of another one of our international subscribers Phil Picuri. Phil lives in Switzerland and is lucky enough to play on red clay at his club in Lugano--looks like one more great place in the tennis world I need to visit.

Phil is active on the site and posts regularly in the Forum. I like his posts because he asks concise, general questions about technique that I can answer by referring to our pro footage. Recently though he asked me specifically how to get a better racket drop on his own serve.

My answer was that I would have to see video of his motion, and he sent in this clip. As Phil told me, the video isn't exactly broadcast quality. But I could see enough to have an opinion, and I have to agree with him about the racket drop. It's incomplete. Maybe about a 60 or 65 on a scale of 100.

Phil's serve is interesting because it points out one of the fundamental dangers in trying to learn something from studying the top players. The truth is sometimes you can do as much harm as good. To be honest, Tennisplayer can be codependent in this process, because it gives you access to so many different technical stroke patterns from so many players.

Isn't that what is so great about the Stroke Archive? True! But the problem is knowing what to make of what you see, whether to incorporate it, and if so, how to incorporate it. Just because a pro player you love has a great shot, that doesn't mean you will benefit from copying it frame by frame. It can be the reverse.

And I think that's what may have happened with Phil's serve. In his email Phil told me he'd decided to try to increase his racket head speed by going to a more abbreviated backswing like Andy Roddick. OK, you could infer from the article that the abbreviated wind up was part of the reason that Andy had such incredible racket speed.

But remember the point of the windup is to create the racket drop. It's the racket drop, not the windup, that is the most important key to racket head speed on the serve. Every good pro server makes a fabulous racket drop along the right side of the body, regardless of backswing shape.

Now, did Andy Roddick added a dimension to this, with his altered power position and increased suppination at the drop? It seems that way, something the Advanced Tennis articles on his motion address in detail. (Click Here.) But in those articles I also make several disclaimers about the difficulty and advisability of copying Andy's windup. The point is that if you don't have the racket drop, it's virtually insane to try to add the advanced elements in Andy's motion. You can't enhance what you don't already have.

But I'm not really surprised that a lot of players just ignored that warning and plunged ahead. I got an email recently from a subscriber asking me how to develop the "New Serving Model," outlined in the Roddick articles. He had overlooked one fact, which is that the title of those articles ended with a question mark.

Now I'm not saying that somewhere there isn't a junior player who is going to use that motion to hit 165mph. Or that there isn't a 3.5 league player somewhere with the shoulder flexibility of Andy Roddick who might lead his team to a national championship. Just the fun of the experiment may be worth it to certain players. But for most player's it's a cautionary example, at least if you are really interested in results. We can see this in Phil's motion. The other point is that when you are trying to improve your technique, the use of video is essential. Otherwise you have no way of evaluating what is actually happening. This is what Phil did, and correctly concluded that he needed work on his racket drop.

So what makes Andy's windup so difficult to copy? The main reason is that he moves from his power position to his racket drop mainly by rotating his upper arm backwards in the shoulder joint. For those of you who like the biomechanical terminology, this is called external rotation. Look closely at the video. Watch that his upper arm and racket aren't really moving independently. The whole arm and racket rotate as a unit backwards and counterclockwise. That's bionic shoulder flexibility. Most other great players have that or something close--Sampras is another example. Go to the power position and try it yourself if you want to make sure you aren't Andy.

The point is that if you are not Andy, and you copy his wind up, then you have virtually no chance of achieving a full racket drop in the same way he does. Is that what you really want--some cosmetic similarity to Roddick, but without the vital racket drop position?

To Phil's credit, what he really wanted was a better serve. That's why he tried the shortened windup in the first place. But watch what happens to his arm and racket. He doesn't go straight up like Andy. But early in the windup he starts to bend his elbow and raise the hand to try to take the short cut to the racket drop.

This where his (merely human) shoulder flexibility lets him down. He can rotate his arm backwards somewhat, but not nearly enough to get the tip of the racket pointing directly at the ground, one of the key checkpoints in the pro racket drop position. And from there, of course, his racket head acceleration is going to be quite restricted going to the ball.

So what's the solution? It may not seem modern, trendy, and/or glamorous, but the best way for 99% of all players at the club level to increase and/or maximize their racket drop is with the circular or pendulum windup. Mark Philippoussis is a classic example. John McEnroe is another. Why? Because you won't have to rely on external rotation to create a racket drop. The circular wind up will allow you to drop the racket more naturally, letting your elbow bend and the hand and racket head to fall in the process.

The key position is with the arm and racket virtually in a straight line pointing directly behind you to the back fence. The arms drop, the racket goes down, and then start backward and upward until the arm and racket point straight back. From there the bend in the elbow will take the racket up, then over and down to the racket drop. Your arm should feel very relaxed, as if you just letting the racket fall into position from the force of gravity. Yes--there will still be backwards or external arm rotation--but you won't have to force it. Trying to make your arm rotate backwards just won't work, and actually tightens up the whole motion.

Your external rotation will be exactly as much as your own shoulder flexibility allows. The rest of the drop will come from the bend at the elbow. Most players will end up with more elbow bend and a higher, slightly more forward elbow position, compared to the pros. This will be true compared even players like Philipoussis with more circular motions. And that's just fine. The fact is Philippoussis has great external rotation and probably could do a more abbreviated motion if he wished. That's why you don't see much difference in the total amount of bend at the elbow compared to Roddick. He probably doesn't need it. Luckily though Philippoussis still uses the classical wind up motion that serves as a model for everyone else.

John McEnroe as another great model, regardless of your views of his personality, court antics, or skill as a commentator. In fact the motion on the backswing of the 47 year old McEnroe is much closer to reality than Roddick will ever be for most players.

Forget about Mac's sideways stance and just watch the shape of the backswing. Again the arm and racket drop down then move up and back until they point almost directly behind him. In Mac's case, the arm and racket are parallel to the baseline and pointing at the side fence. Now watch the bend in the elbow raise the racket and take it over the top. Note that John still has a great drop, but it's a little shy of Roddick or Flipper. Still if Phil--or anyone else out there struggling with this issue--can match this position, they will get effortless, natural power on the serve.

You can even take the key image further. You can do an exercise that I call an "overcompensation" that allows you to really feel how the circular backswing works. I do this all the time with my students and the results are awesome. Just swing your arm and racket freely in a circle from the shoulder. Now imagine the time of the racket point down, straight back, then straight up at the sky. Now just let it drop! If you relax your arm, the momentum of the swing combined with gravity will take you over the top and you'll get a great natural drop.

So Phil there you go. I hope this gives you a direction, a rationale and some great imagery. Keep us posted in the Forum about how it goes!