Have a Question for Me?

[arturohernandez]

Arturo,
You are the only complaintent. I just think depending on the article one format or the other works better.

Okay. Then please keep the text/video combination as much as possible. It is infinitely better. I never watch the pure videos that are put up. But I consistently reread the written ones with the embedded videos.

As always, thanks for the great content. I just made a tweak to my daughter's serve based on your women's serve article. Basically, like Henin, just turned her a bit more by taking the left leg back more. Now the early entry is gone and her serve is much heavier and reliable.

The articles gives me something to think about almost every month!

[John Yandell]

Thanks for the input. PS glad the Henin model worked out!

[don_budge]

Hi John...I can only view my last 5,000 posts. Can you open up my window so that I can see the rest?

[John Yandell]

I doubt it! But I wrote our programmer to see what he says. As you recall I hard deleted a couple of contentious discussions.

[don_budge]

I doubt it! But I wrote our programmer to see what he says. As you recall I hard deleted a couple of contentious discussions.

Thanks John...I would almost be willing to bet he can. It looks to me as if it was programmed to show exactly 5,000 posts...I wrote 6,452 so if he would limit it to 7,000 it would show all of my posts. I don't believe it had anything to do with the thread you deleted. Best regards...don_budge.

[John Yandell]

Will let you know.

[John Yandell]

Try now.

[don_budge]

Try now.

Nailed it. You're the man! Thanks.

[John Yandell]

Ok!

My coach tells me to hit the ball from 7 to 1 on the kick serve..he tells me to imagine it on a beach ball.. and he keeps on telling me to feel that I am carving from the inside bottom of the ball to the upper outside of the ball.
This to me feels I am supinating the wrist and not pronating. From what I see in your site, it seems the opposite, at contact, I should be pronating. Is this correct, to pronate at contact?
Besides the different path, does the pronation occur earlier on the kick serve than the flat serve?
Thank you

[John Yandell]

I disagree with your coach. It's not pronation technically though, it's internal shoulder rotation and yes the timing can vary. In the Teaching Systems section the articles on the serve should answer all your questions with video examples!

https://www.tennisplayer.net/articles/

[John Yandell]

One more point. You can't carve around the ball--although I was taught that as a junior as well. The ball is only on the strings for 1/250 of a second. The strings make contact at a single point. There is no time to move them anywhere.

[hmclarke]

Hi John, new subscriber here. I'm a tennis coach that writes a newsletter called 'A Thread of Order' -- mainly on ATP stuff: match analyses, technique of players, etc. I'm interested in technique, and what interests me is the change in technique we've seen in the top men players over the last ~15 years. I've also observed a trend toward lighter racquets from the top players (pre-1990 born players average ~357g and 364SW, post-1990 born average ~343g and 342SW. Both balances are the same ~324. This is from databases and just a smattering of players so take it with a grain of salt, but I do think it is a trend).

Your 'dynamic slot' that we see in slow-motion footage interests me as my hunch is that the more we 'flip' the racquet, the more 'noise' we introduce into the crucial accelerating part of the forward swing. Yes, the swing is technically 'shorter' or more compact by keeping the racquet on the hitting side and using the stretch-shortening cycle, and can perhaps generate more speed/acceleration, but what about racquet face control?

Federer used a higher and longer takeback in 04-07 with the racquet less on the outside (less 'flip'? as you might say?) compared to ~2015 onwards. My hunch is that it was shorter but more prone to mistiming the ball when he changed to that lower and more to the side forehand that is exhibited by Sinner and Sock now etc.

In my eyes, the baseline game is about control, not power. More racquet speed = better for serving, but I'm not sure the same can be said for groundstrokes (caveats of course).

The same for the backhand. Do we really want the racquet head 'outside' the hands? A lot of great 2HBH's get further inside or more perfectly in-line with the backfence (ie the flip is reduced by not letting the racquet head get too far outside or not at all/from the inside). Medvedev, Zverev, Djokovic (certainly in periods he has swung from way INSIDE on his backhand. like here for instance. Nadal, etc. Nishikori, Safin, Nalbandian. I think they have reduced flip compared to players that are further outside like Auger-Aliassime, Roddick, Rublev, Berrettini, ALcaraz etc.

Ditto for getting the left elbow breaking the plane on the two hander in the takeback. We see it get behind their torso often in Safin, Medvedev, Zverev etc. Is this a crucial no no if they aren't swinging the actual racquet head too much behind their body?

My instinct is that we simply want to find a balance between racquet head control and racquet head speed, and that players that reduce the flip, use a higher take-back (ie., gravity rather than muscle stretch-shortening) may have a slight edge in timing the ball.

Nalbandian, Davydenko, Djokovic (he's swinging shorter swings now compared to his peak 10 years ago), Delpo forehand don't have all that much flip but excelled on faster surfaces still, so not sure if it is a poor fit for being 'rushed' etc.

Love the site. A lot of great content. Thanks.

[John Yandell]

Yeah all good questions and not sure I have answers. Obviously a lot of technical variety at the top. If you work through Brian Gordon's articles they are the most powerful ones arguing for "ATP" style. But at lower levels I think there are more core problems like the turn and the extension.
Thanks for posting and keep it up.


Did you get here thru the FreeXmas emails? Just curious.

[hmclarke]

Not through xmas email...One of my subscribers mentioned the site and I had a look. A lot of great footage here! Thanks for the reply.