Retro time: Pancho Gonzalez serve

[gzhpcu]

[stotty]

Poetry...as good as any serve ever!

[gzhpcu]

Absolutely, of all the retro serves I posted, I like his the most! In fact, I find it really the most beautiful ever...

[gzhpcu]

[stotty]

Just think how good it would have been if in those players didn't have to keep one foot on the ground....if he could have launched upwards....wow

[gzhpcu]

Here is a rear view of Pancho hitting a slice serve...

[gzhpcu]

Retro time: Hoad versus Gonzales match....

Here is a fairly long clip:
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=63905

[gzhpcu]

Pancho had such a great serve, that they tried various changes on the pro circuit, to take away his advantage. One was the "one serve" only rule - made no difference to Pancho, he still dominated, then the "three bounce rule" (you could not go to the net before the ball bounced three times...), and Pancho just got even stronger with his groundstrokes and still dominated.

[EdWeiss]

Pancho

Great post Phil. On the one serve rule, I read that it actually helped Pancho because he was so confident and good with his second serve that he could not only get it in all of the time but also still hurt the other players with it. However the other pros double-faulted under the pressure of having one serve only. I have found that a good drill for players is to make them play a set with just one serve. Really gives you a good barometer of how your second serve is.

[tennis_chiro]

Another admirer

Pancho had such a great serve, that they tried various changes on the pro circuit, to take away his advantage. One was the "one serve" only rule - made no difference to Pancho, he still dominated, then the "three bounce rule" (you could not go to the net before the ball bounced three times...), and Pancho just got even stronger with his groundstrokes and still dominated.

Phil,
I think there was another handicap where they had the server start a yard behind the service line. Also didn't change the result.

But I think it is fair to say there are a lot of admirers of the Gonzales delivery. But there is perhaps one out there that is not recognized. I thought of it watching Rafa's delivery today. Rafa's initial rock back is a little less than Pancho's, but after that, I think it is pretty similar. Of course, he is a lefty. It would be interesting to see how Rafa's serve would look as a righty compared to Gonzales. Can you flip that around, Phil? Also, I think his motion is slightly different now from what we have here in the archives. He is constantly changing it.

don brosseau

[tennis_chiro]

Another version

Great post Phil. On the one serve rule, I read that it actually helped Pancho because he was so confident and good with his second serve that he could not only get it in all of the time but also still hurt the other players with it. However the other pros double-faulted under the pressure of having one serve only. I have found that a good drill for players is to make them play a set with just one serve. Really gives you a good barometer of how your second serve is.

Another version of the second serve drill I use to create a little more aggressiveness is to allow the players just one or two second serves per game. This creates a little more judicious use of the first serve.

don

[gzhpcu]

Here you go Don... got this serve from the Nadal - Dogolopov match this week... both are hitting slice serves...

[tennis_chiro]

nice

Here you go Don... got this serve from the Nadal - Dogolopov match this week... both are hitting slice serves...

If he had to keep one foot on the ground, it would look even closer,but that's pretty good. I think the backswing and action prior to the first photo here would also compare very favorably.
don

[gzhpcu]

Here is another short clip of the great Gonzales serve...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyhFo3hvGPI

I am totally fascinated by his serve...

[gzhpcu]

Just got a great documentary video with some rare footage (even of a 16 year old Gonzales serving!) called "Pancho Gonzalez Warrior of the Court". You can order it on the web.

Actually, he did not like being called "Pancho", which was a disparging name for mexicans, so from now on I'll call him Richard Gonzales...