As I mentioned in a recent post, I’m on a mission to transform my serve from a weakness to a weapon. It’s a process that’s involving a lot of patience: I’m breaking down every aspect of the serve and, in the process, trying to break some deeply ingrained habits.
Last week while out in Denver I had a great private lesson with the awesome Jeff Salzenstein, a former top 100 ATP player and Level 1 USPTA-certified pro whose internet-based instructional videos are outstanding.
Jeff shared a simple philosophy that I think is dead-on:
If your body learns the correct start and end position for every stroke, it will figure out everything in between more naturally
For serve, it all starts with getting the “trophy position” right — that position made famous in the ATP logo.
You can see what my trophy pose looked like before my lesson in this video shot a week prior:
As always, video helped me see the truth, as I thought my body was doing something very different.
WRONG: Notice especially:
1) Straight arm/ failure to bend the elbow, creating tightness in the shoulder and impeding proper racquet drop and acceleration
2) Shoulders level instead of tilted (right shoulder/hitting arm should be significantly lower) to maximize power potential
3) Chest is too “square to the fence” (perpendicular to net), which also detracts from potential power
Contrast this with what a model trophy pose should look like (Jeff Salzenstein’s) – the image taken from one of Jeff’s incredibly helpful instructional videos I got access to after subscribing to his “Tennis Serve Secrets Program.”
RIGHT: Model trophy position (Jeff Salzenstein)
In our private lesson, Jeff spotted this in about 3 seconds and manually adjusted me until I felt the right position. Here’s a clip of me trying to find the right pose immediately afterwards, with Jeff making some fine-tuning adjustments:
I’ve been practicing hitting this pose every day and it’s starting to become more natural: when I get it right, my serve has so much more pop with so much less effort.
Finally – here’s a collage of photos I’ve taken of top players at the US Open and Wimbledon that I look at every day for inspiration.
* Photo credits: I took all photos, including cover photo of Novak Djokovic, at the US Open and Wimbledon 2011-2012.
Mar 24, 2015 @ 17:06:17
“If your body learns the correct start and end position for every stroke, it will figure out everything in between more naturally”. This is an old argument in tennis and other sports, which is basically another way of saying that there is a set of reference points that you can meet, you the stroke will fall into place. Using reference points is the most simplistic way to teach movement in sport, and perhaps it’s good to know that there are much more dynamic methods that uses models of movement that you may find more effective. Reference points are simply too static for many people to radically change the feeling of a new movement, but it makes teaching easy for people because dynamic models of movement take A LOT of experience to teach and communicate. Go to teaching pros with track records for material: Pat Dougherty is a logical start, given that he basically was the brains behind Bollitieris teaching methods at IMG, and, love ’em or hate ’em, have they ever produced a lot of good players over the years! And he has made some classic material on the subject (including the original Sonic Serve video from the 90s). On youtube he is known as ServeDoc. Have fun with it!
Mar 24, 2015 @ 16:01:40
Wow, I’m amazed at how microscopic the adjustments are that Jeff makes in that video…looks like it’s a matter of degrees and inches. Who knew… very useful.
Jul 26, 2017 @ 15:27:11
And most.of those microscopic adjustments are probably going to make things more difficult to learn. Teach the macro and the micro works itself out.
I had a 49 year old. Beginner student who learned a very advanced top spin serve in about 6 months by learning from a macro perspective.. I also have an advanced 19 year old who was taught too much detail and still has not mastered the same serve after 5 years of trying.
“You Throw Like a Girl” (and You Serve Like One Too)
Jul 24, 2014 @ 13:18:58
[…] didn’t fully embrace this reality until a couple years ago, when I set out to focus on improving my serve. Since then, I’ve learned that I’m just going to keep hitting walls with my serve until […]
Feb 13, 2014 @ 00:41:20
I am 3.5 trying to get to 5.0 one day.
I put 2 hours a day, 5 days a week and take weekly lessons from a tennis pro.
Funny I have the same exact issue you showed in your video re the serve.
Elbow too high in the trophy position.
When trying to do it without the ball everything is near perfect. As soon as I need to toss the ball and find my timing, my right elbow starts climbing up which abbreviates the serve motion, and makes it powerless and inconsistent.
I even tried to start tossing the ball and hitting it when I’m already in the trophy position to no avail since I’m unconcientiously bringing the elbow up again to try to adjust my timing in hitting the ball. Extremely frustrating. Thank god for “Coach’s Eye” and my good friend who videos me so I can see the naked truth.
Decided to forget serving and start practicing the toss before anything else.
Did you have issues keeping your elbow low in the trophy position when tossing the ball?
If you fixed it, may I ask how did you do it?
Thanks,
Doron
Mar 24, 2015 @ 17:54:43
Doron, i think your comments are on the right track vis a vis the shadow swing. I’d say, do not try to copy the pro trophy position, quite the opposite. Figure out how to generate lots power with almost no body movement first. Don’t bend your legs. Don’t lean back. Don’t find reference points. Don’t do any of this, it’s a distraction from the real task, which is the act of striking. Using simply “cylinder drills” that takes the body out, this is how much serious serving coaches start out AFAIK, or try to fix core problems.
The trophy position is an effect, not a cause. If you try to make it a causal thing, you’ll could be looking for a needle in a haystack, but if your concept of the hit is correct, the trophy position should evolve from that naturally. I did have to fix my own badly broken “trophy position” aka takeback for striking, so I do believe in Salzenstein approach to some degree, but realize that it could be a very small component of a much bigger picture. Like if you swing with just your arm, no amount of trophy position adjustments is ever going to fix that. It’s too core, too macro of a problem.
A good video is Peter McGraw, formerly from Tennis Australia, he has an excellent 1 hour video on how they teach kids how to serve over there, it’s about 10 years old, super low quality, but with a very specific set of progressions that are highly detailed. I think if you Google “Technical Fundamentals DVD” & Peter McGraw, you may find it somewhere. You’ll see in this video an massive amount of power being generated with a) No tropy poistion, an b) almost no body movement, but with excellent timing and understanding of what the NATURE OF THE HIT actually is. Think Bruce Lee and the one inch punch. 😉
My 2014 Tennis (and Life) Resolutions
Dec 31, 2013 @ 12:54:53
[…] leap forward on my serve. If you’ve been following this blog you’ll know that I set the goal to transform my serve from weakness to weapon over a year ago — but I’m still not there. I’ve purchased online serve courses from Florian Meier […]
Dec 12, 2012 @ 21:17:30
Hi P.J.,
I launched my blog!
It is not all there yet. I am still playing around with it. But I put up my first post anyway. I figure I will make it look nicer as I go along. From watching your video I think we have a lot in common.
Best,
Arturo
Dec 13, 2012 @ 10:14:14
Arturo, can’t wait to see it. Please send the URL whenever you’re ready to share and I can post it on the Roadto45 Facebook page (www.facebook.com/roadto45). Also, please consider doing a guest post on this blog – I have another player in the community who will be doing one this weekend on lessons from his journey with some video and photos. Would be great to have you share some of yours too! P.J.
Dec 10, 2012 @ 11:11:36
HI P.J.,
I am very sympathetic to the slow building. I am still working out the kinks on the blog page. I suspect it will be a few more days while I work out getting myself familiar with wordpress. I hope to have something up soon and send you a note when it is in a functioning state.
Relaxation is so hard to do before the serve. It is amazing to see how well high level players are able to do this.
Best,
Arturo
Dec 10, 2012 @ 11:14:34
No rush Arturo, look forward to seeing the site once you get it up and running! P.J.
Mar 24, 2015 @ 17:27:33
The “slow building” approach with such micro adjustment to the trophy position, which is by no means a required fundamental, is a long hard and potentially fruitless approach to learning how to strike an object with easy power and control. Better, perhaps, is to understand what a leveraged hit feels like by grabbing a hammer, and driving some nails into a piece of wood, then replicate this feeling with your racquet. What is a leveraged hit exactly? Look at the relationship between your hand, arm, and the the hammer’s handle. Watch some pro baseball or cricket or soccer. Spend some time on a trampoline (Anything but the tennis court!) Feeling leverage is the key to effortless power in all strokes. Sometimes, no amount of reference points is going to help you find this feeling, but experimenting with dynamic movement away from a, say, a bad toss or the desire to hit the ball into the service box could do it rather quickly.
Too much time on the tennis court can be a deadly place if dynamic movements and feelings are not yet fully developed! There is a reason why 95% of all adult players remain at 3.0 or 3.5
Dec 06, 2012 @ 14:10:36
Hi P.J.,
Tomaz Mencinger from feeltennis suggested I take a look at your site. I can definitely sympathize. My serve has become such an odyssey that I decided to create my own site to discuss what I learned in more detail. I served for a while from the trophy with no windup. It is a little strange but it helps to eliminate anything that might be leading one down the wrong path in the windup. I am just curious how hard it has been for you to get to the trophy position. I remember struggling with this a lot and can still feel my elbow dropping at times. From the looks of it you don’t have a low elbow problem but I am wondering if you feel like the old serve motion comes back at times.
Sincerely,
Arturo
Dec 06, 2012 @ 14:27:48
Hey Arturo, Absolutely still a work in progress for me– and I think you’re right that when trying to desconstruct the service motion it’s helpful to start from a correct trophy position with no wind up until that trophy pose become completely innate and “memorized” by the body: otherwise, old habits easily creep back in. In fact, I’ve found progression exercises generally to been super helpful (e.g., start simply by striking the pose over and over and filming to be sure I’m hitting it; then try striking it with a ball toss (but not a full swing) and filming to make sure nothing’s changed; then finally trying to do it with a ball toss and swing to contact and verifying again). The most important principle that’s been helping me get the transition to the pose right has been the idea of RELAXED arm and grip (and using deep breath in helps)… I’m trying to train my body to love the feel of getting to and being in that pose, and that seems to be helping me get from starting to correct trophy position. Please send me the link to your site to discuss what you’re learning so I can share with all the followers on the Road to 4.5 Facebook page! (http://www.facebook.com/roadto45). Best, P.J.
Dec 03, 2012 @ 14:54:53
PJ – I am so impressed with your dedication! And it’s incredible how helpful video is as a teaching tool. It’s funny how it can FEEL like you’re doing one thing, but then you watch and see you’re doing something completely different:)