The Richard Gonzalez Serve...
Still occupied. The powers that be are not listening. Just like tennis power that be...they didn't listen either and look where we are now. I never gave up...I don't know how.
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Who are the best pro examples today of serve fluidity?. -
Superb question doctorhl. Where is the fluidity in the modern service motion?
There is none. To my knowledge there is nothing that strikes as being fluid. Serves are designed to "shock and awe"...like an attack on a soveriegn country under the guise of protecting your own. There is very little tactical acumen in play. stotty makes a poignant observation regarding the John McEnroe delivery. No kick back. Why? Because he is scooting to the net lickety split, as quick as he can. McEnroe's serve was fifty percent power and fifty percent tactics. Much as the Stan Smith video I posted along with this video. Smith had a beautiful and fluid motion as well. Both Gonzales and Smith were following a majority of their serves to the net.
I remember saying the same thing stotty is saying in his post. The kick back is a by product of the braking and retreat behind the baseline. Modern serves are all about speed with less regard for tactical manuevering. In my book this is another example how the modern game is fundamentally different from the classic game. To me this is devolving. Brute force replacing thoughtful tactical serving.
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Sampras kicked back slightly. (https://youtu.be/LC99glR53wE) Servers kick back their hitting side leg to stop their hip rotation, which is a key part of the accelerate-decelerate action of sequential links in the serve's kinetic chain. His kickback is not as extreme as other server's. He abbreviates it because he must get his right foot around, into the court. His serve-volley footwork is rarely seen among high-level players. It's LAND-STEP-SPLIT, which is the only way he can land his split step as close to Agassi's ball contact as possible, which allows him to take more steps toward the return than if he used the typical LAND-STEP-STEP-SPLIT footwork.
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Very insightful, BJ. Fascinating to see how this plays out with a great server like Sampras.Comment
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Consider how likely it is for a pro to miss a forehand when in position on an easy ball – one miss in 50, one in 100? Somebody probably knows the exact statistic, but I think we can all agree it’s low. Now consider how likely it is for a pro to miss a first serve – it’s more like 3 in 10, so 30 in 100. Thirty times more likely to miss…
To understand the serve, one needs to understand why the miss rate on a serve is so much higher than the miss rate on a forehand.
It’s because of relaxation. A high-quality serve requires a level of relaxation far in excess of that required for a forehand, and that’s why it’s more likely to miss. Relaxation goes up, control goes down.
A student of this site has no excuse for not knowing the precise biomechanics of the serve. I am grateful to Bruce Elliot, Brian Gordon and John Yandell for teaching me. And in fact, if you look hard enough, the point I am trying to make is buried within the articles on TennisPlayer.
I’m sure that readers of this post are totally familiar with terms like “kinetic chain”, “stretch shorten cycle” and “proximal distal sequencing”. But I’m not sure that all of those same readers know what it feels like to harness these terms effectively.
If you execute all the proper steps of a serve motion, from proximal to distal in a wave from legs to hips to torso to shoulder to arm to wrist, you are not guaranteed to produce a high-quality serve. This is because that wave of muscle contractions needs to be preceded by a wave of muscle relaxation. In this way, the currently contracting muscle group loads the next-to-be-contracted-but-currently-relaxed muscle group. That is how to maximise the effect of the stretch shorten cycle - loading the next-to-fire muscle group through eccentric contraction. In my mind, this is a technical description of oft-used terms like fluidity and frictionless.
I believe that the ability to master this wave of relaxation ahead of muscular contraction is what sets high quality servers apart. I also believe it’s why some great servers can’t communicate what the hell they are doing to lesser mortals. It is a very particular feeling to manage the sequencing of relaxation, and difficult to describe. It is fluidity and it is frictionless. It is a matter of setting the body up to do what it can do, and then letting go.
Anyway, that’s what I think about the serve.
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Extremely well played glacierguy. Man...the word relaxation kept leaping out at me. Practicing my eight iron and my six iron in the stable. The more I relax the better swing speed I achieved according to the device that gives me swing speed, ball speed, smash factor and distance in yards for every shot. At the end of my session my swing speed for my six iron was close to 80 mph and my distance was hovering in the high 160's and breaking in 170 at times. Good numbers for a 72 year old...I would say. When I hit it flush and read the monitor, I would say, "good number".
Gladys Heldman writes a beautiful and thoughtful introduction to Richard Gonzales' book called "Tennis". Simple "Tennis". She starts her introduction with the words..."Pancho Gonzales is the most natural player who ever lived." No truer words were ever spoken. Apparently he never had a tennis lesson. She goes on to say..."He never had a formal tennis lesson and yet his strokes are classical."
"The Gonzales service is a natural action that epitomizes grace, power, control and placement. The top players sigh when they see the smooth, easy action. There is no trace of a hitch and no unnecessary movements. I have never seen a serve so beautifully executed. The toss is no higher than it has to be and it is timed so that he is fully stretched when he hits it. The backswing is CONTINUOUS and the motion of the backswing blends into the hit and continues into the follow-through without a pause.
Pancho is not a heavy spin server. His first serve is almost flat and the second has a modicum of slice or roll. Slice is produced by moving the racket face across the ball from left to right. American twist is given to the ball by moving the racket face from left to right and over the ball with a pronounced wrist snap-the ball is halfway between the slice and twist and gives the ball forward spin rather than spin to the left or right. The slice or roll that Gonzales gives to the ball is just enough for the control on second serve. The slice serve gives more forward thrust than the American twist and also makes it possible to serve the ball deeper in the service court.
The strongest part of Gonzales' serve is his ability to put his first service into play when the chips are down. At 0-40, 15-40 and 30-40 his batting average on first serves must be .950. It is incredible to have so high a percentage while still hitting hard and almost flat. The number of aces served on these important points is also astounding. No other player has been able to perform this feat so regularly."
The golf swing and the service motion are remarkably similar. Backswing, transition and forward swing. Impact...follow through. glacierguy's comments are sound fundamentally correct words describing much of what is happening in either motion. When asked the question about, "who has a fluid motion in the modern game", it is a short list or one. Roger Federer from setup to follow through. Even though the similarities of both motions are in separate universes, you will find that all golf swings are pretty similar as they all adhere to the same fundamentals described by Gladys Heldman and glacierguy. Yet in modern tennis every single serve looks to be "homemade" in some regard. Whereas in the classic game...the tennis serves resembled each other across the board, plus or minus.
The service motion and the golf swing are designed for a dual purpose...aiming and power. The goal is zero sum compromise of either factor. Thus you have...the smash factor. The efficiency of the swing. For instance...when hitting a six iron 173 yards, that's a pretty darned optimal motion for me now. The thing is...is 180 yards possible? The question is...where does this extra mileage come from. Grease? Fluidity? Relaxation? Contraction? Sequence? All of the above...? It requires a lot of thought and a lot of trial and error. It's the Holy Grail.
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From a previous thread with accompanying eleven frames of still pictures of the sequence of motion:
In describing the motion of the Richard Gonzales service motion from a set of still pictures it is important to describe the motion although identifying the static positions can be helpful. If given a set of 11 pictures we can blend them or connect the dots we can successfully begin to understand what exactly it is that makes this motion so effective and perhaps describe it to a student so that it makes sense to them.
Frame #1...Gonzales in his ready position. Ready position is standing relatively relaxed and notice the position of the racquet head. Actually I believe that this is not the initial position that he has started from as his tossing hand has already descended. But from his ready position he is in position so that his racquet arm can swing freely backwards. Pay close attention to the shape of his racquet, his wrist and hand, and his arm.
Frame #2...The racquet head has already past the point of the lowest point in the swing and the racquet arm has begun to lift. Both hands are lifting simultaneously. Most important is that the racquet arm and racquet are in exactly the same shape that they were in the frame before. It is difficult to see from the still frames but this motion is actually a turning of the shoulders and Gonzales is allowing gravity to dictate the path of the racquet head and gripping the racquet only tight enough to hold the structure in the same shape. On a scale of one to ten I would guess that the pressure on the grip is about two or three. It is important that there be a complete absence of tension throughout the swing.
It is only the weight of the racquet head and the slight turning shoulders that have swung the racquet back this far.
Frame #3...Once again take notice of the structure of the racquet and arm. It has not changed one iota from the initial look in the starting position. Now the racquet head is “climbing up the hill” with a further turning of the shoulders and only enough lifting from the arm as is necessary to get the thing to the top of the hill. The slow and languid backswing is a reflection of the topography. Going up hill, gravity is making things a bit slower and heavier. His shoulder are aiming at the target. The tossing arm is going upwards from his side at this point but this is a bit misleading and he has not released the ball. If he releases the ball here he is going to have to do some manipulation with the toss to get it in front of him to go forwards to propel himself to the net.
Frame #4...Gonzales is at the most critical juncture of his swing in this frame. Notice how the knees are bending and he is just beginning to lean backwards slightly. These are leads that the racquet head is going to follow as it reaches the zenith of the backswing. The highest point. It looks to me here that the arm and racquet structure has undergone minimal change and this is another indication that the body rotation has supplies nearly all of the inertia to get the racquet where it is in the backswing. This is incredibly important...because this is what this great motion owes its silky rhythm to. Incredible engagement with all of the body parts acting together with gravity dictating the speed of the motion.
Frame #5...The racquet head has begun it’s descent into the loop behind his back. This is the point where all of the incredible racquet speed is being developed. As he leans further backwards the racquet is given further room to “drop” behind him. The shoulders have also completed there rotation here as if there was a frontal view you would see that his left shoulder is turned to the right net post. Again it is important to note there there is minimal tension in the arm, wrist and hand (the grip) as the arm and racquet structure collapses under the position of the racquet head. This loop behind his back is like the loop in a roller coaster ride where the intense g-forces are building in order to send the racquet head screaming towards the ball.
Frame #6...Three things are occurring simultaneously here. First there is the leg drive and secondly there is the rotation back of the shoulders. These two components are initially driving the racquet head down into its deepest descent behind his back. The action forwards (and upwards) has begun in earnest.
Frame #7...Here the legs have done their work and the shoulders continue to rotate and it is the arm that is coming into play at this point. Still maintaining a relaxed and loose grip on the racquet the arm and racquet are being catapulted towards the ball with the throwing motion of the arm. The most important thing here to note is that all of this motion has been leading up to this climactic moment. It is the relaxed composure that allows all of this free swinging. Any “conscious effort” to apply muscle to this equation is going to be self defeating with the aspiration of hitting “harder”. To hit harder you must swing freer. Less effort actually equals more potential energy in the racquet head.
Frame #8...The moment of truth is the impact of the racquet head on the ball. The racquet head is moving at the fastest speed here. All of this motion has added up to this collision. The trajectory of the racquet head is moving up to the ball and the face is going across the back of the ball to give it spin. Spin being the most actionable objective in the service motion. By subtly manipulating the angle of the wrist spin is applied in more or less amounts. While speed is certainly a very important element in the power of a serve it is spin that will more efficiently contribute to placement and variety of delivery.
Frame #9...The racquet head and arm appear to have been shot over a barrel. The trajectory of the racquet head has cast a wide circle in front of Gonzales and it is obvious from the leaning position of his body he has only one thought going on and this thought is one of heading towards to the net to capitalize on a weak return from his opponent. All thoughts of his service motion are behind him because at this very split moment he knows what exactly his serve is going to do and what effect it is going to have on his opponent. He has already calculated on the different varieties of service returns this particular opponent may have a chance at and he is going to the point where he has calculated where the percentage return shall be. He has ruled out a certain part of his court and he is going to cover and put himself in the best position possible to assume total command of the point.
Frame #10...Back foot swinging through. On his way to the net.
Frame #11...First step in the journey to the net. Cat...pouncing on prey.
The thing that makes this motion a radical departure from the motions of today…is only one thing. He is headed to the net. You can talk about any rule changes in the foot fault rule all that you want. It is only that he is headed to the net. Of course nobody is headed to the net these days. Are they?
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More thinking...more practicing. An excellent post. "Wave or relaxation ahead of muscle contraction". I'm not working on serves, mind you. I'm toiling with its mysterious cousin...the golf swing. Which I have been comparing to the service motion as an "upside down golf swing" for many years here on the forum. Now it is vise versa. The golf swing is an "upside down service motion". The completion backwards principle otherwise know as peering into the looking glass. One of the most valuable of tools in learning. Fluidity. Frictionless. Flourish.
"The Gonzales service is a natural action that epitomizes grace, power, control and placement". So opined Gladys Heldman years ago when accessing the service motion of Richard Gonzales. Notice she uses my definition of power in a similar wording. What is power? Yeah...it isn't all speed. But speed is a vital component. Control is power. In order to maximize your service performance, you need to control that racquet head. The racquet face. That being an extension of all of the components of your swing...your body. Your mind for that matter. Power...just think of it. Control is power. The three elements of control are...speed, spin and placement.
In the stable focusing on the relaxation aspect of swinging a golf club. Hands so relaxed...like holding onto a bird Sam Snead once said. Feeling that clubface. The same is true in serving...feeling the weight of the racquet head. Anyways...today it was nine iron and seven iron. I struggled with the nine iron for a while. Then I was able to relax. The more I relaxed...the more I could coil. The more I coiled...the more explosive motion I could make at the ball. The little gizmo was reading out high 130's for distance for the nine iron. The seven iron required less struggle. I just applied the technique I worked on with the nine iron. High 150's (yards) and cracked the 160 barrier a number of times. I was grimacing on hits of less than 152, which is interesting because a couple of weeks ago that was cause for celebration. So now I am thinking...is 145 attainable for a nine iron? How about 165 for the seven iron? So it goes...on and on. Droning in the stable. Repeating. Accessing. Applying individual concepts and ideas. In order to achieve maximum flow. Fluidity. Frictionless. Effortless power...aka speed.
Now for a walk with the wolf. Adios amigos.
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Dear don_budge, I knew you'd get it. I was thinking of you the whole time I wrote that post. I messaged you just after writing it, but you haven't seen it yet. Keep swinging.Comment
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glacierguy & don_budge: Could unaware excessive hand tension screwup that proximal to distal sequencing that is so important? My recollection of childhood motor learning of holding an implement for learning a strking skill in any sport was excessive hand tension. I think it was an effort to reduce vibration until I found the sweet spot. Thus I became an "arm muscler". The golf swing and tennis serve in particular (as well as in badminton,squash and even baseball) were severely limited looking back over time.Comment
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Too much tension in the gripping of the racquet will most likely spread to other parts of the arm and shoulder which will inhibit proper loading of muscles - an overly tense muscle cannot be loaded as effectively as a relaxed muscle.
Tension doesn't "screwup that proximal to distal sequencing". You can still do everything in the right order, but you won't be harnessing the full potential of the muscles.
The current fashion on the ATP tour is to start the service motion with the wrist in a flexed position (droopy hanging down). This just acts as a cue to remind the server to relax the arm and is helpful but not necessary. The wrist doesn't have to be flexed for the arm to be relaxed, but what matters is that the arm is relaxed.
(And BTW, this is all old stuff. If you are interested, check out the work of Prof. Yuri Verkhoshansky from 50yrs ago. I was first put onto him by tenniscoach1 of this parish. Here is a short quote from Verkhoshansky, which is a bit of a clumsy translation but says "The essence of Jumping Skill is the ability to execute the landing-take-off movements with the correct muscle relaxation-tension pattern in order to: Apply the active push-off force effort at the correct moment of time, efficiently using the force of involuntary muscular contraction during the rebound provoked by the stretch reflex and elastic energy recoil.")Last edited by glacierguy; 03-29-2026, 10:44 PM.Comment
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This eloquent description contains the puzzle at the heart of the serve: 'Any “conscious effort” to apply muscle to this equation is going to be self defeating with the aspiration of hitting “harder”. To hit harder you must swing freer.' .
One cannot consciously extract maximum power from a contracting muscle. Just think about that. One must instead create the conditions for that muscle to be loaded and then immediately fired (contracted). That is what I am trying to convey when I said "It is a matter of setting the body up to do what it can do, and then letting go." It is the body that can produce the power, not conscious effort.
I have said too much.
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And if you want to ask any more questions, better be quick - my subscription ends April 2nd.Comment
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This post back in April of 2019...an oldie but a goodie. In this thread we were discussing a member's serve motion and I was using an old post to try and set up the idea of the racquet head traveling along a frictionless track. The hand tension question is a question for the ages. The heart wants what the heart wants. In humans...generally speaking we want to hit when in reality what we need to do is swing. The hand and wrist keep the racquet on the track and supplies the impetus when the motion calls for subtle acceleration. The wrist is best described as supple. Interesting enough...the track is just as important as grip pressure. If you are unsure of the track...the question of grip pressure is mute. Excessive hand or grip pressure is counter productive in this regard. I can't tell you guys how much this has done for my golf "SWING".
The best investment I have made in a number of years was purchasing a net to hit into out in my stable. I am now able to take any instruction that I find online and take it immediately to the practice mat. I go out several times a day for sessions. Forty-five minutes to an hour. I rev it up to the level that I want to be at and then try to maintain it for some swings. Then I go and relax and exercise some. I am focusing on my wrists, hands and forearms. Twofold reasons...prehabilitation (avoiding injury) and grip strength. So I am relaxing and at the same time increasing my grip strength so whatever pressure I am applying is increased with my strength. It takes a lot of strength to maintain the clubhead or racquet on the track while your body is going through all of the necessary motions of loading and unloading.
So you need grip strength in order to maintain control of the racquet head, keep it on the track of the swing and to apply the necessary acceleration when the time is right. Yesterday I had the five-iron revved up to 180 yards give or take four or five. An amazing sensation of trying to load up maximally and then to release all of that energy at the ball. After several in the mid 180's...my greedy heart is thinking 190 yards. A strange thought for such an old man.
Here's another strange thought. Hitting serves against the wall. Here is where you can pick up some speed much as I am hitting into a net. I recommend this before attempting to use this speed in the aiming process on court.
Roller Coaster of Love...remember that tune?
Phil...I have been studying your video over the last couple of weeks and gleaned everything I can from it. The one view has its limitations and the still sequence of your serve adds some insight as well. The only sure way to do this thing is in person...care to fly over to Sweden for a couple of lessons. Just kidding.
The service motion is a bit complex and it involves quite a bit of motion from all of the different parts of the body...so we try to simplify things by creating a model we can relate it to in simple terms. The model that I use is the "berg och dallbana"which translates literally into English from Swedish as the "mountain and valley course"...but it means "roller coaster". A roller coaster is an amusement park ride that is perfectly designed using the law of gravity. The design is so perfect that the ride feels that it is wildly out of control and traveling at incredible speed...but is so amazingly in control that the owners of such rides are betting everything they have that the ride will not spin out of control and kill a bunch of innocent people on a Saturday afternoon. This is the safe and secure principle we shall attempt to modify your backswing to in order to get you going forward into the ?hit? with perfect and effortless energy. We are going to be using gravity as our main source of energy...to create a perfect, yet simple motion...a roller coaster of a serve.
Here's the thing, Phil...about the set up and backswing. This is a real challenge without having you in front of me to study for a while. To set you up to begin your motion I would like you to create a line directly at your target with the toes of your two feet which are approximately shoulder width apart. Imagine this line going forwards towards your target and all the way back of you to the fence. This line will serve as our "track" for the backswing. I would like to see you bent slightly at the waist so that your arm can "swing" from your shoulder without your body getting in the way. Finally, I would like you to line your racquet up to your target as well, on the same line as the line that your feet created. Point your racquet at the target and hold it about waist high supported by your left hand. Weight distributed from between 60/40 to 70/30 from the front foot to the back. Great...now we have you lined up, and taking aim.
Here we go...hold on to your hat! One thing that we must clarify before we go into any kind of explanation about the motion is the pressure of your grip. Sam Snead referred to the grip on his golf club as holding it with only so much pressure as you would hold a live bird. We only hold on with our hand tight enough to not let go of the racquet. We maintain only enough pressure in the entire arm, forearm and wrist to swing the arm and racquet back into position in one piece without disturbing the exact position that it is in at the setup position. We must eliminate all sources of tension and resistance when we are attempting to use pure gravity to dictate our motion. From this relaxed and confident position at setup we need only to release the racquet with our left hand that is supporting it, and allow the weight of the racquet head to merely fall upon the line of the track all the way back to the fence until it reaches a position at the top of the hill. From the starting position, the roller coaster car begins its decent down the first hill until it reaches the bottom where it will begin its assent slowly up the second hill all the way to the top. Remember the track is along the line that we created with our feet towards our target and it extends all the way back. Keep the racquet on this track. By allowing gravity to dictate the direction and speed of our backswing we will create the position back in our swing where the laws of gravity make the most sense and the least number of things can go wrong. In fact nothing can go wrong...just like the roller coaster. By dropping the racquet head and allowing the weight of it to travel smoothly in front of you and only using the energy of your weight transferring to the back foot by slowly turning your shoulders and allowing your arm to freely swing back into position, we create a position where the racquet will naturally drop behind us at free fall speed into what you are referring to the "pro drop" position.
Now this is where things get a bit interesting...and exciting. Thinking about this point of the motion where the racquet makes a loop starting at free fall speed, behind our backs and how it relates to a roller coaster, we can imagine where the cars of the ride go into a loop and the riders are actually upside down on the track with only gravity to keep them glued to the track. This is where the riders of the roller coaster are screaming at the top of their lungs and their faces are contorted with the g-force that is plastering the tissue of their faces to their skulls. It's in the loop, baby! This is where the drive of the legs, the turning back of the shoulders and the thrusting or throwing motion of the racquet combine to exponentially create an incredible amount of speed with very little effort. You can imagine that the line a piece of pencil would draw if it was attached to the tip of the racquet...this is your track for the roller coaster of your serve.
The backswing is where I observe the source of your issues. It looks to me that if we can get you into position you can make the move forward if you can maintain a loose grip on the racquet and the relaxation in your arm to create a whip like sensation.
Just one more thing...it looks to me in frame #3 you have tossed the ball right out of the picture and in frame #4 it is returning to earth. I think your toss is a bit high...which would lead us to the next lesson, how and where to toss the ball.
A description of the Pancho Gonzales serve:
The Gonzales service is a natural action that epitomizes grace, power, control and placement. The top players sigh when they see the smooth, easy action. There is no trace of a hitch and no unnecessary movements. I have never seen a serve so beautifully executed. The toss is no higher than it has to be and it is timed so that he is fully stretched when he hits it. The backswing is continuous and the motion of the backswing blends into the hit and continues into the follow-through without a pause..
Like you...I am a huge admirer of the Gonzales serve...and he obviously knew his "metaphysics".
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