Serve comparison: 3 coaches, 3 pros

What is it that distinguishes a good serve from an outstanding serve? where are the secrets? Where to look at? The first task is to find objective data. The second task is to understand it.

Here we are going to compare our serves (Brenton, Richard and mine) with Federer, Roddick and Sampras.
In the future I will post more pros serves and and some of their data which might be very interesting.

The coaches:

07/05/10 ------------------------05/03/10





The pros:

















Here are some interesting facts about the different serves from Brenton, Richard, Andre, Federer Roddick and Sampras :

Point of release of the ball on the toss:

Roddick: above the head

Brenton: above the head

Sampras: just above the head

Andre: just above the head

Federer: just above the head

Richard: eye level

Time the ball is on the air (between the release and contact):

Richard: 1.1 seconds (220 frames)

Federer: 0.96 seconds (193 frames)

Sampras: 0.91 seconds (182 frames)

Brenton: 0.73 seconds (147 frames)

Roddick: 0,73 seconds (146 frames)

Andre: 0.72 seconds (145 frames)


Time with both feet on the air:

Federer: 0,35 seconds (71 frames). Start 19 frames before contact. Finish 51 frames after contact.

Roddick: 0,35 seconds (70 frames). Start 23 frames before contact. Finish 47 frames after contact.

Brenton: 025 seconds (50 frames). Start 18 frames before contact. Finish 31 frames after contact

Sampras: 0,24 seconds (48 frames). Start 20 frames before contact. Finish 27 frames after contact.

Richard: 0,24 seconds (48 frames). Start 13 frames before contact. Finish 34 frames after contact

Andre: 0,175 seconds (35 frames). Start 14 frames before contact. Finish 20 frames after contact.


On the time of release, where is the player looking at:

Brenton: he is looking up, to where is going to toss

Richard: he is looking up, to where is going to toss

Andre: he is looking up, to where is going to toss

Federer: at his opponent!

Roddick: at the ball

Sampras: at the ball

The secrets of the ball toss - the 2 arcs

Every now and again we may find a new common element that all the pros do for a certain stroke and that is a great discovery that allow us to understand the game so much better.

A few years ago after reading John Yandell's article about the myth of the toss I've learned that all the pros toss the ball for the serve with an arc. In other words, for a right handed player the toss goes from the right to left. It is a simple and easy discovery but it is one of the most important elements for the development of a good serve. It is one of the aspects that Brenton needs to improve on his game. I know is working on it...

A few days ago I was analyzing my own serves and discovered that I was tossing the ball in an arc but the ball, after it was released from my left hand, was going back towards the baseline. Then as I was experimenting new serves I started to toss the ball in an arc but the ball was going forward. As a curiosity I've studied the toss of the pros and what I found was very surprising:
We can say that the pros toss the ball with two arcs right to left and back to forward. Again another simple discovery but with huge repercussions. I was very surprised because I knew some players toss the ball with the left arm parallel to the baseline, like Sampras, Agassi, Safin and of course you think that with the arm parallel to the baseline the ball should be straight and parallel as well. But no, even those players toss the ball forward and it didn't change for either first or second serves.

Knowing as a fact that all the pros toss the ball with a forward arc, allowed me to improve my serves greatly. I understood that one of my faults was that on the toss I was releasing the ball to late, higher than all the pros and that was bringing the ball backwards. I felt a great difference of speed and leg drive on my serves straight away.

Visual learning

In order to understand the best way to execute any skill or technique we have to look exactly to what the pros are doing. There are certain things that all the pros do differently. Other things that there is a certain tendency in the pros game. And then we have the commonalities that all the pro players do, maybe with one or two exceptions.
Understanding those common elements of technique in all the pros gives us the knowledge and power to improve our own game.
When I'm analyzing my own or someone's strokes I isolate one certain element of the skill and compare it with all the pros. What is it exactly that I'm doing that all the pros aren't doing? That way my analysis will be as objective as possible. For instance I will not waste my time to explain why I prefer Federer's forehand grip to Nadal's or vice-versa. I'm more interested in knowing what are their common elements in their forehands.

Andre and Dave's backhand's

Agassi's serve

Dave's Backhand

Here we have Dave Brown with his topspin backhands.

04/06/10


When watching the videos for the first time the general view is that Dave has a good level of mastery on his backhand. The better the player is, the harder it is to analyze his strokes. With the HS video we can zoom in and find out where are the problems. We can only change and improve the imperfections of our technique when we know exactly what they are.

04/06/10



Dave starts his motion with a unit turn (great improvement!). His racket head is kept close to the left shoulder and the right hand goes up while David turns his shoulder.

04/06/10



The position of the right elbow on the full turn is indicating that he is not getting enough body turn.Actually from the side view if you freeze on the full turn you can see that the right elbow is just a little bit behind the right shoulder and they are almost parallel to the baseline.

04/06/10



After the full turn as David starts to bring the racket down towards the forward swing. On the next video the hands describe a loop coming down together and that seemed very strange when I first saw it. As I was comparing it with my own swing and other pros I've realized that what the pros do differently is that on the down swing they keep the right hand more leveled and drop more the left hand and racket head.

The next videos with a higher contact ball David doesn't do the same sort of loop with both hands and that aspect looks much better. Actually on the higher balls, in the beginning of the forward swing just before he releases his left hand David is getting his racket positioned almost parallel to the baseline much more than on previous shots.
04/06/10



A critical element on David's backhand is that on the drop when the left hand is released from the racket, the racket head doesn't get low enough before going forward towards contact, especially on the lower balls. It can be a consequence of not getting low enough with the knees before accelerating to the ball. Perhaps Dave can keep the left hand just a little bit longer on the racket and that might allow the racket to come lower.

However on this higher balls David's extension is not quite as good as on the low balls. His eyes are on the contact point and as they follow the ball during the follow through so his head is not still and it helps to bring the left shoulder forward.

04/06/10


It is not easy to analyze someone's shots specially if the player has a high level of mastery. The problem comes down to language. It is extremely hard to describe a tennis shot and it is so much easier to understand it through pictures or videos where the images get memorized on our brain. No matter how accurate my analysis are at the end they are just my perspective at the time. The videos are what really counts.

Improving my serve

I've been really keen to improve my serves in the last two weeks and I recorded myself again and what I've discovered was very surprising.

This was my serve last August, the same I've posted before:




The main aspects that I wanted to improve was to keep the right leg back without bringing it forward keeping the right hip more perpendicular to the net at contact, to have more shoulder rotation at the start of the wind up. I've also concentrated on keeping my weight more on the back leg until at least the completion of the toss .

This was not a bad serve, I kept the right leg more time on the ground but still it collapsed and my hips at the contact were almost parallel to the net. The flight of the ball on the toss was arced but vertical:

03/06/10



The next serve was a bit better.I've loaded a lot of weight on the back leg on the windup and kept the right leg behind without collapsing it. At contact my hip is much more perpendicular to the net. The problem was that the ball at contact is still over my head and very little in front of the baseline. The flight of the toss was a bit forward but arced:

03/06/10


The next serve wasn't very good. Didn't correct the problems there. Notice how the flight of the toss is backward, meaning that the ball as soon as it is on the air is going a bit back:

03/06/10


Again one more interesting serve. Although the ball goes backwards on the toss and I hit it just over the line of the baseline I managed to keep my hips more perpendicular and my right leg back. I am getting somewhere:

03/06/10


On this serve I've tried a new shorter windup. My backswing is much shorter and the racket goes up earlier. I think it gives me more racket acceleration although it forces me to change other aspects. The ball goes back, the hip was more horizontal at contact but I feel the backswing is better:

03/06/10


Big change on the next serve. I'm experimenting a bit and with the high speed video it is easy to see the differences. On this one I've turned my shoulders before the toss. The tossing arm is going parallel to the baseline, just like Sampras used to do it. The difference was that Sampras, on the toss, must release the ball earlier otherwise he wouldn't be able to hit it in front of his head (still need to confirm that).
I was very happy with the result. My legs didn't collapsed at all, My hip is much more perpendicular to the net. However the contact seems to be a bit behind the head and just a bit in front of the baseline. The good thing is that what I need to do next is becoming more and more clear...

03/06/10


Two days later, after watching all of my previous serves I've noticed that I need to toss the ball more in front. In fact the flight of the toss on all of the pro players that I have observed is arced and goes forward, the contact point is further in front than the point of release of the ball on the toss, even for second serves. I was not aware of that. I think it is a big thing.
This next serve is a great improvement. The flight of the ball goes forward and at contact I'm hitting the ball much more in front of the baseline. However the contact is still not in front of my head. The hips were more perpendicular:

05/06/10


Almost the same as before. As I was serving this last three serves (including the previous one) I visualized Federer's serve and although I can explain why there is something about the way I start my motion that reminds me of Federer,(if only the final result could remind me of him). That's how powerful visualization can be.

05/06/10



and another one:

05/06/10




Conclusions:

Recording my serve on high speed video allowed me to have a great awareness of what I'm really doing. I am very happy because I know what I need to do. Players sometimes take years to correct these problems and I am changing it in weeks. The changes are huge and surprisingly it didn't take me so many serves as I thought I would need. it is a proof that we can all do those changes if we put our mind into it. The hardest part is knowing exactly where the problem is, and that's where the HS video is gold.


What I need to do after watching all of my videos is to try and keep the flight of the toss going forward and that means releasing the ball of my hands a bit earlier. I want to make sure that at contact the ball is not so close to the baseline and a little in front of my head. I will keep experimenting with the shorter backswing. It is a great improvement and the video allowed me to know exactly where and how to improve. I can't wait to go on court again...