Pro Strokes:
Alexander Zverev Serve

Analyzed by John Yandell

Alexander Zverev is a great player who at times appears to have a great serve. He blasts aces and first serve winners.

Other times he hits streams of double faults. In his lose to Andy Murray at the Western and Southern Open this year, he hit 10 aces but 10 double faults, including 5 doubles in his last 2 service games.

One theory is that his inconsistency is mental. Alexander himself has said his serving is better when his father and coach is happier. If that's true his father must have been really unhappy in New York.

But if we look closely at his technical motion, I think there is another explanation. Zverev has basic technical problems in his torso rotation that makes his motion different from other elite players.

Could Zverev Improve?

So what is going on and what specifically could Zverev do to improve his technique, assuming he actually had any interest? The problems are not dissimilar to those of another young Russian player whose serve we have analyzed, Andrei Rublev (Click Here.)

There are two related technical issues. First, Zverev has very little body turn away from the ball in his windup. Second he is over rotating his torso during the upward swing so it is virtually parallel to the net at contact. These issues are in turn related to his starting position and his stance.

Zverev starts his motion with the front foot pointing almost directly at the net. As the motion starts he angles the toes upward, then turns his foot and puts it down so it's about parallel to the baseline.

Now look at his back foot. He moves it back as the front foot starts to tilt up. It's widely offset in two directions. First his stance is now wider than shoulder width. Second his back foot is way behind him, far to his left, maybe a foot or so to the left of the heel of his front foot.

The next thing Zverev does is bring his back foot up, not as far as Rublev, but still slightly to the right of his front foot. His push off from this point stance appears good in one sense. The feet leave the ground at the same time, a key positive point in Dr. Ben Kibler's analysis of the role of the legs in elite serving. (Click Here.)

But look at his shoulders as he starts the motion. They are open to the net at an angle of about 45 degrees.

As the motion starts, they turn away from the ball, but only about that same 45 degrees, ending up perpendicular to the net.

His racket path from drop to pronation looks good. But look at the shoulders at contact. They are wide open, completely parallel to the baseline.

My view is that this exhausts or eliminates the input of the torso into the motion. Brian Gordon says 75% of the torso rotation speed is still there at contact on the forehand and I am sure there is some percentage number associated with that on the serve.

Under pressure instead of just letting the body uncoil in sequence, this tends to make players try to do more with the hand and arm.

What's the Model?

We've seen Roger Federer as the model in how to use the legs and torso together in, for example, the analysis I did with Tyler Zink. (Click Here.) I also suggested this in the article on Rublev.

Shoulders square at the start of the motion. 45 degree turn away from the ball. Shoulders still somewhat closed at the contact.

Zverev could use that model. Maybe that's the best possible technical option. But for Zverev that would mean moving from his pinpoint stance to a platform. That would be a big change in the feeling of the motion.

It would be worth trying. But with a simple change he could keep his pinpoint, increase his torso rotation and correct the timing of the rotation through contact.

Interestingly we see a perfect example of how that would work in our film of Ugo Humbert in the Interactive Forum from a couple of months ago. (Click Here.)

His pinpoint stance is even wider than Zverev's. But unlike Alexander, he starts with his shoulders square to the baseline.

Humbert then turns his shoulders along the line of his stance, so that they reach about that same 45 degree angle turn away from the net as Federer.

The shoulders then rotate forward or around as the swing progresses. Look at the contact. His shoulders are still partially closed and are still rotating.

This continues until they finally reach parallel to the baseline when he lands. He does this all while keeping that extreme pinpoint stance.

The longer I study pro tennis, the more impressed I am with the phenomenal technique of elite players. In most cases.

But it also stuns me that some players still have glaring technical flaws. These aren't cosmetic. They often seem directly related to the effectiveness or lack of effectiveness of certain strokes.

Zverev is a classic example. It's the same for Milos Raonic's two-handed backhand. (Click Here.)

Is this a lack of understanding on the part of coaches? That's part of the story. Most tour players that become tour coaches aren't really technical students of the game.

But it can go beyond that. I have spoken with multiple coaches and shown them footage of their players. Even when they agree on the problem and the possible solutions, they are usually reluctant to take that understanding to their players.

My own direct interaction with Milos could explain why. Last year in Miami I ran into him coming by himself out of the stadium. I stopped him, introduced myself, and said I was interested in becoming a consultant for Team Raonic, no charge.

He gave me his direct email and so I wrote to him with some explanation of what I thought and offered to fly somewhere to work with him on court. I never got a response. A few months later out of curiosity I wrote him again. Same no response.

Of course not every player and/or coach has that reaction. The first side by side analysis I ever did for an elite player was for John McEnroe, who you might assume would be the world's most reluctant possible student.

He had a phenomenal result, using video of his own motion in 1984 to recover his serving effectiveness in his last tour run and generously wrote a forward for one of my books. (Click Here.)

Carlos Rodriguez used our high speed footage of Agassi's forehand and Sampras's serve to reshape Justine Henin's technical game before she started winning Slams, including moving to a platform stance. (Click Here.)

Todd Martin did the same thing for Novak Djokovic, using Tennisplayer footage to recreate his original motion after a failed attempt to implement a radically abbreviated backswing literally destroyed his serve for a few months.

Tons of other success stories at all levels as well. Sure it's always really exciting to get a chance to work with a truly elite player, but the lack of response from some of those players and coaches doesn't really bother me. It's the fascinating complexity of strokes and figuring it all out that makes Tennisplayer so satisfying and so much fun.