Tour Strokes:
Jensen Brooksby Serve

Analyzed by John Yandell

Jensen Brooksby has been creating a stir. His strong results in Washington and at Newport were followed by 3 match wins in the U.S. Open before taking the first set off Novak Djokovic and losing in 4 in the round of 16. His ranking has shot up to 81.

During the Novak match his serve got a lot of comment from John and Pat McEnroe. His top speed on his first serve was around 115mph. The consensus was that for a guy 6'4" with huge groundstrokes it should higher. During the broadcast, Andy Roddick texted Mac and said if Jensen came to Texas he could "fix" his serve in 4 days.

Enhanced?

My opinion is it doesn't need to be "fixed." I say enhanced. Recently we had a chance to film some super slow motion footage of Jensen's serve. Here is what I saw.

First of all it looks obvious that Andy Roddick was Jensen's model, because of the abbreviated backswing. It's a perfectly good model if you have great shoulder flexibility, which it appears Jensen does. (For an article on a former pro who couldn't make that work and gained 10mph when he opened up his backswing, Click Here.)

You can tell Jensen's backswing is ok because his upward swing to the ball and into the followthrough is sound. The racket falls along his right side.

The rotation of the arm and racket is 90 degrees to contact, and this rotation continues out into the followthrough with the racket face turning over another 90 degrees so the racket face is on edge or perpendicular to the court. To me this is a key fundamental and no serve can be maximized without it.

The upper arm and racket rotation are the primary source of racket speed and Jensen has that. Nothing to "fix" there.

Other Elements

But if we look closely at some other elements in Jensen's serve we can see some differences with Roddick. My opinion is that bringing those more in line with the Roddick model could create extra mph.

These elements have to do with his stance, his body rotation and his leg drive, and maybe the timing of his entry into the backswing. Let's start with the stance.

Both players have narrow starting stances. Their feet are less than a foot apart, basically parallel to the baseline and somewhat offset.

But there is a difference in the offset. Roddick's right, rear foot is several inches further to his left. His front heel lines up with maybe the front third of his rear foot. With Jensen the front heal is lined up more like with the middle of his rear foot.

Seems like a minor difference, and maybe it is. But look what happens when the motion starts.

Roddick starts with his shoulders slightly open to the net. But then he rotates them away from the ball along a line drawn across the edge of his toes. At the end of this rotation his shoulders are about 45 degrees to the net.

Compare that to Jensen who starts more or less square to the net and doesn't turn away much if at all. That means less forward rotation of the hips and shoulders into contact.

Although Roddick's forward rotation isn't equal to a player like Roger Federer, it's still significant. So it would be very interesting to see Jensen play with this factor.

Knee Bend

The other major factor that I think could make a difference is the knee bend. Both players are using narrow platform stances.

But there is a difference in the angle and position of the legs at maximum knee bend. Watch how Roddick's legs go straight down with his knees moving parallel to the baseline and out toward the sideline.

Compare that to Jensen. His back right knee tilts toward his front leg and the sole of his shoe partially rolls off the court.

This affects the leg drive. Whereas Roddick's feet push together and leave the court at about the same time, Jensen's rear foot leaves the court first and at a rotated angle. That means less leg drive. More leg drive means more mph.

Early Entry

You can also see that on some serves, Jensen's racket enters the backswing before the push with legs. According to Brian Gordon and others, this can reduce the external rotation of the hitting shoulder in the backswing and the speed of the upward internal rotation.

Compare that to Andy who has the arm and racket to his right probably further than any player when the leg drive starts. And in fact you can see that he has tremendous external rotation.

His racket doesn't just fall along his right side like Jensen, it actually sweeps to his right at an angle toward the sideline. This of means additional internal rotation in the upward swing and more racket speed.

Would any of that happen naturally if Jensen tweaked the other factors with his shoulders and stance? It might.

But the art of coaching is often knowing what to experiment with first. My opinion is that the first thing should be the stance, the shoulder rotation and the knee bend.

It might be that improving those factors would automatically affect the timing of Jensen's entry into the backswing, since it would add some fractions of time toward the start of the motion. Experiments worth doing!