Serving Mystery: Hit Up Or Hit Down?

[bdole]

I'm thinking Rafa chose his rearward contact point to further emphasize the lefty curve on the ball. More effective for him than pure speed. And he's going to stay behind the baseline unless the opponent short balls him, so why lean in and get out of position?

[John Yandell]

Could be! But if you look at his landing in the hs archives he lands at least as far in the court as Federer.

[stotty]

Rafa's is definitely a more laboured serve than Roger's. Having a toss less forward can't be of any benefit in terms of velocity.

It was a good observation of John's. I hadn't noticed this aspect of Rafa's serve despite watching it many times. It is amazing what you other things don't see when you attention is focused on another aspect of a stroke.

For maximum weight transfer and efficiency I think it better to have the toss further in front like Roger.

[stroke]

Nadal does seem to get an unusual amount of swing on his serve. I remember Agassi once commented on this after an early career match vs Nadal he had about the spin component of it(saying it had more on it, was more effective than it appeared).

[arturohernandez]

John, I have a slightly different question. It seems to me that getting the racket to face slightly down at contact can be quiet challenging given the drop and the rotation needed to create a proper finish (i.e. pronation as they like to call it). I have seen girls that hit with a rather pancake like grip and yet have a very nice rhythm. I am going to have to film one of these one days. The amazing thing is the ball goes in. But I am guessing that the external rotation of the shoulder and hence of the racket is much less than it should be.

So the tricky part for me is to rotate the racket from drop to finish up and out and at the same time making sure the ball doesn't go to the back fence.

If one focuses on the extreme rotation of the racket from drop to finish, would it make sense to kind of exaggerate the racket facing down.

Or maybe one could try a grip more toward an eastern or even strong eastern backhand just to get people to actually have to rotate the shoulder and finish out.

Not as the way the serve will eventually be hit but as the way to make sure that one doesn't short circuit the external rotation of the shoulder.

It is still amazing to me that any person can rotate the shoulder that much and make contact with the ball and keep it in the court.

[John Yandell]

Arturo,
Think you may be over thinking this. Model the drop. Model the full arm rotation in the extension of the swing. Get the toss in the right place. The up and down elements will magically happen.

[arturohernandez]

Hi John,

BTW, we did a lot of modeling of the arm rotation. So maybe this is just a tweak.

Maybe it is overthinking but it does seem to me that their is a fear of the serve going out and that visualizing hitting down by hitting over the edge of the ball gets rid of this fear.

It just feels less threatening to think that I am driving the ball down somehow.

And as I feel less threatened my body just naturally goes up.

I played doubles on Saturday and was able to comfortably produce a nice spin serve.

Today I was serving literally at close to 90% on practice points.

I have never been able to do this before because the balls would go slightly long on second serves which led to a reduction in pace.

First serves used to be fast but not as reliable.

Your video helped immensely even if the solution is not exactly what you would have recommended.

Whatever works, right?

[John Yandell]

Agreed! And great news about the result.