Retro time: Lew Hoad Serve

[gzhpcu]

Just love Lew Hoad's serve:

Picked up these stills and patched them together from a British Pathe clip:

[gzhpcu]

It has all the elements of a great serve:

- high left arm on toss
- great hip torsion
- chest pointing towards the ball
- great pro racket drop
- impact point to the left of right foot
- cartwheel, tilted shouder at impact (left shoulder down)
- hitting up and to the right
- great pronation

[gzhpcu]

from Sports Illustrated....




and here is the article that goes with it...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1130151/index.htm

[stotty]

It has all the elements of a great serve:

- high left arm on toss
- great hip torsion
- chest pointing towards the ball
- great pro racket drop
- impact point to the left of right foot
- cartwheel, tilted shouder at impact (left shoulder down)
- hitting up and to the right
- great pronation

Wonder if it went in

Seriously, though, he had an excellent serve...can't think of anyone today with even a similar action/style.

[gzhpcu]

Wonder if it went in

It did... look here:

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=34493

Got it from the first serve he hit in the clip...

[stotty]

It did... look here:

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=34493

Got it from the first serve he hit in the clip...

Gosh, it did! One thing I could never fault you for is attention to detail, Phil.

Wouldn't it be great if every player at Wimbledon 2011 were made to play with a wooden racket, so we could get an insight into what the modern game would look like compared to Lew's day?

I say give all the entrants a Dunlop Maxply for all four Grand Slams in 2011. What do you think, Phil?

[chuck62]

mphs

Have you seen anything on how fast he served ? It seems like such a simple motion. Was this after 1959? It looks like his foot is off the ground at impact.

[gzhpcu]

Have you seen anything on how fast he served ? It seems like such a simple motion. Was this after 1959? It looks like his foot is off the ground at impact.

It was 1954...

[gzhpcu]

Here is a video clip of Hoad serving...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxmU2uiua3E

[tennis_chiro]

He moves his left foot

Here is a video clip of Hoad serving...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxmU2uiua3E

I didn't realize he moved his left foot so much on the toss. Kind of reminds me of Arthur Ashe, of course he had about 3 steps. I don't much care for the elbow below the line of his clavicles, but what a pure motion!

don

[gzhpcu]

Here are some frames from the video...

[tennis_chiro]

Awesome.

Here are some frames from the video...

I take it back about the low elbow. It's the way he brings it up. The other view shows that the elbow was really in a classical position. Very Sampras-like in the way he faces the back fence on the backswing. Just awesome. Too bad he lost that big toe when he did. It would have been interesting to see him stay at his best a little longer. Or for open tennis to have happened a little earlier.

don

[stotty]

Hoad's serve is very deceiving when seen from certain angles. The elbow looks very low on some clips. The rear view is the best way to see it to see why it was so good.

I coach a boy of 16 whose arm-action is kinda similar to Hoad's. When i say arm action I mean the point at which the elbow breaks behind his back. The boy serves around 100mph - quick for a 16 yr. old. Like Hoad, his elbow looks low when viewed from certain angles.

I attach a rear view of the boy's serve.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEN3e1r8s-w&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

[gzhpcu]

Too bad he lost that big toe when he did. It would have been interesting to see him stay at his best a little longer. Or for open tennis to have happened a little earlier.

don

What's this about his big toe? All I know from reading "My life with Lew" by Jenny Hoad, was that since a teenager he had back problems and that during his head-to-head tour with Gonzalez he got a herniated disk and doctors said he could never be cured. So he played with pain-killers thereafter... He was also the only player Gonzalez truly respected, and he once said "Lew was the only one who could beat me when both at our very best".
Another good read is "Golden Boy" by Larry Hodgson and Dudley Jones.

[stotty]

Never heard of this big toe problem either