Interactive Forum October 2022: Carlos Alcaraz Serve

[John Yandell]

Isner has that much or more.

[doctorhl]

Great photo. Just hard to believe that much rotation!

[jimlosaltos]

Jim- That service image of Rafa racket edge is great and helps visually explain ( to me at least)the role of ISR in last millisecond adjustment of racket face. Now, if someone could satisfy my tennis video voyeurism and get lucky enough to capture the images of a Federer type extreme slice ball bounce skidding compared to a regular slice bounce. A hitting partner said he could read the ball imprint after the bounce when I hit the slice just right. It took 1000 FPS for me to capture the convincing images that a golf putt travels forward a short distance before starting to turn. JY in a previous article did show us some slice comparison video of post bounce height.

More on ISR. Dug around for these ancient photos I mentioned. They show John Isner and Rafa rotating their arms so far their palms point straight up after serving.

Now, that's internal shoulder rotation. Repeating myself, but for someone as muscular as Rafa or as big as Isner, that's impressive flexibility IMHO.


From 2012 for Isner, 2015 for Rafa,

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[jimlosaltos]

Jim -

Thank you very very much for your photo's and statistics, it's great information. What is your new camera you use for these photos? I know the Alcaraz serve was taken with the Sony RX10 mark 4 at 240 frames per second. You can get it in 4 to 7 second burst, depending on the quality you want.

Sean

Glad you liked them. For my latests photos & video from Indian Wells and San Jose this year I used an early Nikon Z9 and multiple lenses. While the Z9 is a great, perhaps breakthrough, camera I wouldn't recommend it for most people. It comes with a built in "grip" with a large battery, which makes it heavy and bulky. There are so many options it literally took me days to set up, and I keep changing that set up. It's as high maintenance as a cat. The storage cards it requires -- for several high-end features, not everything -- alone cost more than the Sony camera you mentioned <g>. The Z9 is only worth it for someone that needs the SOTA auto-focus, high shot rates, and long battery life.

The October Tour Portrait was taken earlier with a Nikon Z7, which costs far less and is easier to carry. Those pictures are every bit as sharp and have equal color rendition. The difference is in which pictures one can get. Photos of Rafa during the "sandstorm" semifinal with Carlos, I don't think I could have gotten with any other camera than the Z9.

But, how often does one shoot in a sandstorm <g> ?

[doctorhl]

Jim- That service image of Rafa racket edge is great and helps visually explain ( to me at least)the role of ISR in last millisecond adjustment of racket face. Now, if someone could satisfy my tennis video voyeurism and get lucky enough to capture the images of a Federer type extreme slice ball bounce skidding compared to a regular slice bounce. A hitting partner said he could read the ball imprint after the bounce when I hit the slice just right. It took 1000 FPS for me to capture the convincing images that a golf putt travels forward a short distance before starting to turn. JY in a previous article did show us some slice comparison video of post bounce height.

[seano]

Jim -

Thank you very very much for your photo's and statistics, it's great information. What is your new camera you use for these photos? I know the Alcaraz serve was taken with the Sony RX10 mark 4 at 240 frames per second. You can get it in 4 to 7 second burst, depending on the quality you want.

Sean

[jimlosaltos]

In second 17 of your 41 sec video, the hand still hasn’t rotated yet. I would like to see more images from second 17 to ball contact. So much naturally happens during that short period.( same in golf/ baseball pitch when hands begin to rotate until contact/ release, but I rarely see that time period visually expanded except in a lab).

doctorhl while I can't deliver the granular images around the impact point that you want, I dug out a few that might interest you -- last second "on edge" comparison of Rafa and Carlos.

Here's Alcaraz where you can see him opening the racket face to the ball well before impact. Compare that to the images that follow of Rafa.

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Here in a still image from video where Rafa's racket seems on edge right to the point of impact.

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Here's a progression composite. One can see in the right-most frame that Rafa's racket is just starting to rotate though even though -- at this slightly downward camera angle -- the tip of the racket seems to have already reached the ball.

In fairness I wouldn't jump to definitive conclusions without more images & video, and one type of serve might vary from another, etc. But I'd bet Rafa snaps more sharply, more rapidly through contact than Carlos.

Rafa and John Isner are also the only players I've photographed that will, on some serves, rotate their shoulder and arm so far their palms face straight up to the sky on follow through. It's amazing that someone as muscular as Rafa and as big as John can be that flexible.

Photo stuff for anyone that might care: Rafa images from video at perhaps 4k / 120 fps but I had to downsample it to HD because few editors could open the then-new Z9's N-RAW images at that early date. Shutter speed might have been 1/120th sec.? Probably 100-400 mm S lens. Alcaraz image is a still using a 500mm lens 1/2,500th of a second. All my photos (c)jfawcette from Indian Wells. Might have been from their semifinal match.

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[doctorhl]

I know what you mean. I piddled around with 250, 500, 1000 FPS with my dinky camera and even tried a homemade boom setup to try to capture the hand, but couldn’t get anyone to help me. Difficult to do all that with one person( I even had to be the subject and start/stop/review remotely). As someone told me,...that ‘s what grant money is for....to do stuff no one is interested in except captive audiences at conferences who need to spend down federation/ university budgeted travel money to attend( LOL).

[jimlosaltos]

In second 17 of your 41 sec video, the hand still hasn’t rotated yet. I would like to see more images from second 17 to ball contact. So much naturally happens during that short period.( same in golf/ baseball pitch when hands begin to rotate until contact/ release, but I rarely see that time period visually expanded except in a lab).

Yes. The camera was capturing 120 frames per second (.JPEG stills for one of the posts, video for the other). Most high end mobile phones can do video at 240 fps (albeit at lower resolution, and good luck getting a close up of the hand).

It might take 1,000 FPS to capture the motion you want.

The camera I think John is currently using ( Sony DSC-RX100 IV ? ) can get 1,000 fps but then resolution goes down as the frame rate goes up.

Maybe we can talk John into the project. Somehow talk an ATP pro into serving for the video and have a camera about at impact level focused on the hand and racket.

I lack those powers of persuasion <g>

Thanks for the input.

[jimlosaltos]

Great stuff, Jim...all of it. You do this stuff like no other.

The serve is one the shot of his I don't like. He muscles it down and to me that's rarely a recipe for a good serve. It tends to go wrong right at the start during the wind-up phase for me. He doesn't turn his shoulders away from the net anywhere near enough. Also it's so much better to have relaxed 'trailing' racket head during the wind-up than have the racket head cocked and stuck up in the air as Alcaraz does. Then there's the hitch around the trophy position which just about everyone jumps up and down about...certainly doesn't help.

Thanks. You made my morning <g>.

Interesting analysis.

[jimlosaltos]

Jim- I'd much rather see that as the short clip that comes across my smart phone than the other crap that they think I want to see hahaha. I thought the timing was perfect!

Great. Thanks for your input.

[jimlosaltos]

On Tuesday, I watched Goffin beat Alcaraz 7-5, 6-3 in Astana. At no point did Goffin look troubled by the Alcaraz serve.

I had exactly the same thought.

Similarly, when Sinner beat Alcaraz at Wimbledon, the big kicker to Sinner's backhand did nothing. So much reach to go with a great backhand return.

[doctorhl]

In second 17 of your 41 sec video, the hand still hasn’t rotated yet. I would like to see more images from second 17 to ball contact. So much naturally happens during that short period.( same in golf/ baseball pitch when hands begin to rotate until contact/ release, but I rarely see that time period visually expanded except in a lab).

[doctorhl]

Jim, your stills time and pace seems about right to my eye. I especially like the 41 second service frontal view which is excellent in capturing the leading edge of the racket aimed at the ball immediately before contact. That image, in my opinion, helps beginners to realize that opening of the racket face at the very last millisecond to make contact is created by forces generated from external rotation of the shoulder through to the hand. One does not need to try to consciously force that movement. A natural throwing motion developed early in life would seem to help fluidity.

[stotty]

Great stuff, Jim...all of it. You do this stuff like no other.

The serve is one the shot of his I don't like. He muscles it down and to me that's rarely a recipe for a good serve. It tends to go wrong right at the start during the wind-up phase for me. He doesn't turn his shoulders away from the net anywhere near enough. Also it's so much better to have relaxed 'trailing' racket head during the wind-up than have the racket head cocked and stuck up in the air as Alcaraz does. Then there's the hitch around the trophy position which just about everyone jumps up and down about...certainly doesn't help.