Evolution of tennis serve: 1919 to Sampras

[gzhpcu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QL1sglyouU

Gerald Patterson -> Donald Budge -> Rod Laver -> Pete Sampras

Thought this might be of interest, especially Patterson's serve...

Apart from not being allowed to jump back then, his serve looks pretty modern: left arm parallel to baseline on toss, great racket drop, great pronation... finish out to the right, looks like he hit a kick serve...

[GeoffWilliams]

Nice one! Beautiful motion on the Patterson shot.

[stotty]

Both Patterson's arms are moving at the same speed. From Budge onwards we get the left arm tossing the ball faster then the racket arm movement, leading to sloping shoulders.

I found the clip very interesting, Phil...another great find...shame I can't read Spanish!

[gzhpcu]

Stotty,
The commentary is in Portuguese. Basically, it says that during the Patterson era if you look at the position of the legs, you see that no one knew that the importance of the knee bend allowing the legs to push against the ground was important to generate power.

That Budge did not turn hips and and trunk enough.

That Laver shows a big difference by turning his shoulder much more, and getting his left shoulder lower than his right shoulder in the trophy position.

Sampras then bends his knees to create groundforce, gets lots of shoulder rotation, and that the left shoulder is a lot lower than the right shoulder in the trophy position.

[stotty]

Yes, I can see there is a big technical jump in each clip...makes you wonder what the next technical jump will be!

[GeoffWilliams]

Spinning back handed serves! Check out my art. on the back hand overhead in the aug. issue!

[gzhpcu]

Kramer versus Brown. Kramer's famous serve style...
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=49152

[EdWeiss]

Reverse Forehand

Nice reverse forehand in the footage from Jack!

[gzhpcu]

Nice reverse forehand in the footage from Jack!

See, there is nothing new...

[John Yandell]

Agreed about that reverse. Another great find by Phil. Also loved the Paterson serve btw.

[EdWeiss]

Here

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=84898

[EdWeiss]

Meant to say here is some more Kramer footage. You can see his famous sidespin forehand in this footage and it is in slow motion (as is his equally famous serve) Interestingly, he waits on the ball in pretty much a unit turn position until the ball bounces (it was a slow ball) and then goes into the rest of his swing - no early racket back. So pretty "modern" in that regard. Shows that the great players just figure things out.

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=84898

[gzhpcu]

Here is Elsworth Vines versus Crawford. Elsworth Vines was known for his powerful serve. He hits reverse forehands too...
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=4059



Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Look at how he points his chest towards the ball, racket drop and back arch...

[stotty]

I've seen a handful of clips of Vines serving. It's a great serve for its time...better than Tilden or Budge IMO.