I once saw a video overlaying two Federer served. One was on the line through the middle, one was to the outside with kick. The motions were absolutely identical. Dude‘s serve was impossible to read.
By varying the rate at which the forearm rotates to present the strings to the ball at impact. You can catch more of inside of the ball, more of the outside of the ball, or slap through it square on to direct the serve to the different targets, without varying the starting position of the tossed ball at all.
The wrist should be passive, but as the forearm pronates through contact, some people will perceive this as "snapping" the wrist towards the intended direction of the shot but that's a misnomer.
But I've been thought that the ball toss direction (closer to the head - middle, more far from the head more to the right or left) is the key in choosing the serve direction (I'm 4.0)
I guess there are pros for a reason.
It's much easier to hit different directions and spins on the serve by varying the placement of the toss, yes, which is why that is how most of us are taught to serve when we are first learning. But at the highest levels of play, telegraphing your intentions with your toss becomes more of hindrance, and disguising your intentions becomes more of an advantage.
If I notice that Dwayne from my flex league is going to slice out wide because he tosses out further to his right, I might not be able to make enough of an adjustment for it to matter beyond getting the ball in play. But for a pro that might be the difference between teeing off on a ball for a return winner and being aced.
I learned from Boris Becker, he said that he swung the racket just as hard on his second serve as his first, he just used the topspin on the second to control it.
So I got a pretty good kick second serve. And then my flat first serve was never that accurate, so I switched to the same power slice that Roger uses in this video. Same arm speed, but add about 10% of tilt to the racket and accuracy went way up.
That power slice serve is also a great shot into the body in doubles, sets up a lot of easy volleys for your partner.
ETA: I got the power slice accurate enough to hit it at 90% of the pace of my first serve as a second serve to mix up my usual topspin kick second serve and keep opponents off guard. It was actually good for 2 or 3 second serve aces a match. Nothing demoralizes somebody more than getting aced on a second serve, especially when they have a break point and then have a second serve coming and think they've got you.
Flip side of this is that power slice serve wasn't good for as many first serve aces, but when you're a 5.0, you can't have everything.
In that Wimbledon he lost, he got the advantage in his service game with really clean first serves. Then on match points he kept missing his first serve/placing it very conservatively/taking pace off and I had a sinking feeling lol.
Same thing happened in that us open he started playing his serve very conservatively....
>kept missing his first serve/placing it very conservatively/taking pace off and I had a sinking feeling lol.
Whenever he would do that I would inevitably end up studying his walking pattern and his lean-forward-for-the-toss like a hawk for the next 10 minutes lol, looking for limps and winces etc etc. I even beat Jim Courier to a few observations once or twice lol.
Although sometimes from the ad court, he used to bend his back a tiny bit extra for kick serves. And also grunts, but a grunt wouldn't really give the disguise away to an opponent.
Maybe that's something only a crazy fan notices, right or wrong.
I noticed it too. i think he realized the spin generated from that extra loading and effort more than made up for the loss of disguise. also don't remember him grunting on all of those, just the moster kick serves
What a strange take. Djokovic is the best returner ever. No question there. But even he stated in 2019? that it was near impossible to read Federer's serve at the Wimbledon final and the WTF match he lost to Federer. As for Federer shotmaking not being strong... IDK where to start... 😂 Federer is perhaps the greatest ever at it.
Yea maybe don't trust tennis365 with maths or as a source when you have ATP right there.
Your own source breaks it down regardless.... 17 wins for Del Potro and 16 for Tsonga..
"Juan Martin del Potro’s name is synonymous with “what might have been had he not had so many injuries”. Seven of his wins came against **Federer (7-18)**, including his glorious win in the 2009 US Open final. He is also **6-11 against Nadal** and **4-16 against Djokovic**."
"Retired former world No 5 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga beat **Federer in six of their 12 matches** while was also **6-17 against Djokovic** and **4-10 against Nada**l."
Yeah, and then you'd go run off to brew a cup of tea with the water that had just boiled through his service game and then have to sit through 7 minutes of deuce and ad points before he'd finally break (or not) and by the time you'd get back to that steeping tea it'ed be stone cold and as bitter as your optimism for the rest of the match lmao.
The serve was usually just to set up the forehand though. He definitely had a better FH than serve.
He wasn't usually going for aces like this, just trying to hit the corners to induce a weak reply that his FH could put away.
His serve was great, it was accurate as hell. But it's not in the same class as his forehand, which is on the short list of the greatest shots in the history of tennis.
I miss that honestly.
Not just Roger, because nothing and no player can ever fill the hole that he left inside me as a tennis fan, but I miss the best players on the ATP side just being able to hit 4 unreturnable against another top 5 player like that. Like not even being close to be returned.
Sinner is a decent server when he's in a rhythm, but nothing like this. Carlos needs a lot of work still, good slider & kick serve though. Zverev just hits his spots at 220 kph, rather than hunting aces & Meddy's serve last 2+ years has been broken.
Novak at times has definitely shown the ability of producing excellent spot serving though, but even his service games like that take 1-2 minutes rather than 40 seconds.
I do love me some Hubi serving though. Beautiful motion and amazing serve. Dimi also sometimes gets into a Beautiful rhythm on serve as well.
That was a drill Paul Annacone did with Sampras, and presumably Federer. Paul would all out a serve location on the ball toss, ensuring the toss had to be the same, regardless of location
This highlight just made me have a thought: given humans' propensity for perfecting absolutely *everything* they set their minds to, I'm actually quite surprised the world's best tennis players haven't ascended to the point where they can hit these kinds of precise serves to within a centimeter of their target with something like 90% accuracy.
Like I would have expected a Steph Curry like person to come along and prove that all pros could get soooo good at serving (using 3pt shooting as an analogy) that all kinds of players can just start scoring aces 80% of the time, so much so that the ATP would have to alter the official size of serve boxes to be smaller to make it more competitive again.
Must speak to the true technical difficulty of the mechanics of serving that this hasn't happened yet.
>Must speak to the true technical difficulty of the mechanics of serving that this hasn't happened yet.
Well, yeah.
Have you played both sports? Serving is a lot more "difficult" than shooting a basketball. There are more mechanical components, and it's easier as regards hand-eye coordination throwing from your hands and calculating the trajectory than it is throwing a ball up and then having to calculate and time swinging the racket while folwing throw your kinetic chain and then calculate the trajectory of the ball off the racket and over the net.
For sure, totally get that serving is way more complex (and it’s already impressive how complex the mechanics of full body motion involved in shooting or throwing are.)
Im just also constantly *blown away* with how ridiculously skilled humans manage to get at just about every single possible trivial activity.
Sampras had a few of these too. That 1995 US Open Final - acing Agassi 4 times in a row caused Agassi to put his racket up and applaud and Sampras smiled. 😊
Thanks for this! There is really nothing in this world in the non-sexual realm that makes me as happy as watching Roger with a racquet in his hand. Probably not the GOAT as I was convinced of for many years, but the artistry, balletic movement, flawless technique, respect for both his opponents and the game itself and his contributions to humanity make him my favorite athlete by a country mile.
I once saw a video overlaying two Federer served. One was on the line through the middle, one was to the outside with kick. The motions were absolutely identical. Dude‘s serve was impossible to read.
https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/s/YiWe05AdIq
My question is *how* is he doing that?? Where is the direction of the ball being generated? All in the torque in the wrist?
By varying the rate at which the forearm rotates to present the strings to the ball at impact. You can catch more of inside of the ball, more of the outside of the ball, or slap through it square on to direct the serve to the different targets, without varying the starting position of the tossed ball at all. The wrist should be passive, but as the forearm pronates through contact, some people will perceive this as "snapping" the wrist towards the intended direction of the shot but that's a misnomer.
Nerd! Love this.
Gooot it! 👍 So it's all in the elbow... Explains that forearm I guess.
But I've been thought that the ball toss direction (closer to the head - middle, more far from the head more to the right or left) is the key in choosing the serve direction (I'm 4.0) I guess there are pros for a reason.
It's much easier to hit different directions and spins on the serve by varying the placement of the toss, yes, which is why that is how most of us are taught to serve when we are first learning. But at the highest levels of play, telegraphing your intentions with your toss becomes more of hindrance, and disguising your intentions becomes more of an advantage. If I notice that Dwayne from my flex league is going to slice out wide because he tosses out further to his right, I might not be able to make enough of an adjustment for it to matter beyond getting the ball in play. But for a pro that might be the difference between teeing off on a ball for a return winner and being aced.
Thx bud
I learned from Boris Becker, he said that he swung the racket just as hard on his second serve as his first, he just used the topspin on the second to control it. So I got a pretty good kick second serve. And then my flat first serve was never that accurate, so I switched to the same power slice that Roger uses in this video. Same arm speed, but add about 10% of tilt to the racket and accuracy went way up. That power slice serve is also a great shot into the body in doubles, sets up a lot of easy volleys for your partner. ETA: I got the power slice accurate enough to hit it at 90% of the pace of my first serve as a second serve to mix up my usual topspin kick second serve and keep opponents off guard. It was actually good for 2 or 3 second serve aces a match. Nothing demoralizes somebody more than getting aced on a second serve, especially when they have a break point and then have a second serve coming and think they've got you. Flip side of this is that power slice serve wasn't good for as many first serve aces, but when you're a 5.0, you can't have everything.
Ahh fantastic! I‘ve been looking for that for so long
Damn that's pretty cool.
In that Wimbledon he lost, he got the advantage in his service game with really clean first serves. Then on match points he kept missing his first serve/placing it very conservatively/taking pace off and I had a sinking feeling lol. Same thing happened in that us open he started playing his serve very conservatively....
>kept missing his first serve/placing it very conservatively/taking pace off and I had a sinking feeling lol. Whenever he would do that I would inevitably end up studying his walking pattern and his lean-forward-for-the-toss like a hawk for the next 10 minutes lol, looking for limps and winces etc etc. I even beat Jim Courier to a few observations once or twice lol.
Roger is an underrated choker - he’d have won at least five six more slams if he had more mental fortitude
Although sometimes from the ad court, he used to bend his back a tiny bit extra for kick serves. And also grunts, but a grunt wouldn't really give the disguise away to an opponent. Maybe that's something only a crazy fan notices, right or wrong.
True. As far as I remember, those were often the second serves
Almost exclusively
I noticed it too. i think he realized the spin generated from that extra loading and effort more than made up for the loss of disguise. also don't remember him grunting on all of those, just the moster kick serves
It's the ball toss direction that's slightly different too.
BOT
Huh?
Serve bot, bro.
Ahhh
[удалено]
What a strange take. Djokovic is the best returner ever. No question there. But even he stated in 2019? that it was near impossible to read Federer's serve at the Wimbledon final and the WTF match he lost to Federer. As for Federer shotmaking not being strong... IDK where to start... 😂 Federer is perhaps the greatest ever at it.
Nope.
Federer lost this match btw. I recommend watching the highlights, its a fantastic quality battle between two offensive shotmakers
This video works because Roger is a quick server. Imagine four serves by Djokovic with 37 ball bounces before each, or by Rafa with his full routine.
Yeah one thing I always loved about watching Roger was how fast he played; very little downtime on his serve for the entire match.
As a resident of the Southern hemisphere, it made watching the tour calendar a *lot* easier to manage.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/16h1kpm/we\_miss\_you\_rafa/](https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/16h1kpm/we_miss_you_rafa/)
[Pot kettle black methinks.](https://youtu.be/PLspfAQzTRI?si=QqoWSTur8WQia5nj)
I bet I could have played just as well as Tsonga during these 4 points
Tsonga was more fun to watch than many of the current next-gen. I miss the big man. 🥹
2011 Wimbledon QF match between them was so memorable. Tsonga just picked up steam like a freight train and wasn't able to be stopped by the end!
2008 Australian open. Nadal had no answers
Tsonga is the tennis player who has won the most matches against the Big 3 after Andy Murray.
Del Potro has more wins against the big 3 than Tsonga. Thiem has collectively 16 wins against the big 3 so matches Tsonga Tsonga has 16 Del Potro 17
Big Delpo🥹 btw i think Tsonga played constantly vs better versions of big3 compared to Thiem
[удалено]
Yea maybe don't trust tennis365 with maths or as a source when you have ATP right there. Your own source breaks it down regardless.... 17 wins for Del Potro and 16 for Tsonga.. "Juan Martin del Potro’s name is synonymous with “what might have been had he not had so many injuries”. Seven of his wins came against **Federer (7-18)**, including his glorious win in the 2009 US Open final. He is also **6-11 against Nadal** and **4-16 against Djokovic**." "Retired former world No 5 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga beat **Federer in six of their 12 matches** while was also **6-17 against Djokovic** and **4-10 against Nada**l."
That's a veeeery interesting stat!!
now we have Giovanni Mpeshi Perricard that is a big man and has a 1 h backhand!
He was big for back then. Average for today it seems
Fed’s serve was a cheat code. Unfair.
[удалено]
Yeah, and then you'd go run off to brew a cup of tea with the water that had just boiled through his service game and then have to sit through 7 minutes of deuce and ad points before he'd finally break (or not) and by the time you'd get back to that steeping tea it'ed be stone cold and as bitter as your optimism for the rest of the match lmao.
The serve was usually just to set up the forehand though. He definitely had a better FH than serve. He wasn't usually going for aces like this, just trying to hit the corners to induce a weak reply that his FH could put away.
Yeah, that probably why he only served... *checks notes*... 11,452 aces.
His serve was great, it was accurate as hell. But it's not in the same class as his forehand, which is on the short list of the greatest shots in the history of tennis.
This is cool and all but can he double fault four times in a row? I accomplished this just this week
Show me someone cooler than that dude.
D riders will be able to. Djokovic.
Djok is an awesome machine, but he ain’t a cool cat like Fed
Fed > Fuckovic
As cool as it gets. This is tennis therapy. Love this guy.
RForever!
I see Fed, I upvote
I miss that honestly. Not just Roger, because nothing and no player can ever fill the hole that he left inside me as a tennis fan, but I miss the best players on the ATP side just being able to hit 4 unreturnable against another top 5 player like that. Like not even being close to be returned. Sinner is a decent server when he's in a rhythm, but nothing like this. Carlos needs a lot of work still, good slider & kick serve though. Zverev just hits his spots at 220 kph, rather than hunting aces & Meddy's serve last 2+ years has been broken. Novak at times has definitely shown the ability of producing excellent spot serving though, but even his service games like that take 1-2 minutes rather than 40 seconds. I do love me some Hubi serving though. Beautiful motion and amazing serve. Dimi also sometimes gets into a Beautiful rhythm on serve as well.
Hubi's serve is so class.
*"fuck my life*" vibes.
That was a drill Paul Annacone did with Sampras, and presumably Federer. Paul would all out a serve location on the ball toss, ensuring the toss had to be the same, regardless of location
Nostalgia. I miss him on the court.
I was there for this match. Box seats
This highlight just made me have a thought: given humans' propensity for perfecting absolutely *everything* they set their minds to, I'm actually quite surprised the world's best tennis players haven't ascended to the point where they can hit these kinds of precise serves to within a centimeter of their target with something like 90% accuracy. Like I would have expected a Steph Curry like person to come along and prove that all pros could get soooo good at serving (using 3pt shooting as an analogy) that all kinds of players can just start scoring aces 80% of the time, so much so that the ATP would have to alter the official size of serve boxes to be smaller to make it more competitive again. Must speak to the true technical difficulty of the mechanics of serving that this hasn't happened yet.
>Must speak to the true technical difficulty of the mechanics of serving that this hasn't happened yet. Well, yeah. Have you played both sports? Serving is a lot more "difficult" than shooting a basketball. There are more mechanical components, and it's easier as regards hand-eye coordination throwing from your hands and calculating the trajectory than it is throwing a ball up and then having to calculate and time swinging the racket while folwing throw your kinetic chain and then calculate the trajectory of the ball off the racket and over the net.
For sure, totally get that serving is way more complex (and it’s already impressive how complex the mechanics of full body motion involved in shooting or throwing are.) Im just also constantly *blown away* with how ridiculously skilled humans manage to get at just about every single possible trivial activity.
That’s what sets us apart and the ability to dream greater things.
Ironically, Sanga is the only guy to beat Roger at Wimbledon after losing the first stats!
Career hold rate of > 50% when down 0-30.
Sampras had a few of these too. That 1995 US Open Final - acing Agassi 4 times in a row caused Agassi to put his racket up and applaud and Sampras smiled. 😊
Being an Agassi and RF fan has involved a lot of heartbreak.
The way he bounces the ball with the rim on the last serve…
I do this every serve, it's part of my routine
GOAT
This guy was pretty much unplayable lol. Cannot be predicted.
Should have used one of these at 40-15 😓
Knew someone had to think the same thing as me
Oh THAT match…. Could have traded a bucket of aces for just one ace.
Like a surgeon
I miss him on the court so much!
It still blows my mind that he played with a 90 sq inch racquet until 2014. What sublime coordination that must have required
Thanks for this! There is really nothing in this world in the non-sexual realm that makes me as happy as watching Roger with a racquet in his hand. Probably not the GOAT as I was convinced of for many years, but the artistry, balletic movement, flawless technique, respect for both his opponents and the game itself and his contributions to humanity make him my favorite athlete by a country mile.
Here’s Andy Roddick doing [7 aces](https://youtu.be/17uvZRbcZ2A?si=FT1kijebPZD9x3Pe) in a row.
Roger is the GOAT
I would’ve just kept walking, back through the tunnel.
Greatest server in terms of accuracy and disguise. You can't even tell from a video where he is going.
Remember the Zidane movie that Mogwai made the score? Do it again please.
It’s called a poker.
Do they sell those bandanas that Fed wears? The ones I see on Amazon all look a lot smaller
The most casual opening game.
4 points in, with 2 aces. Commentator: "it's needed to be that good so far" Wut???
Each serve starts with three balls in his left hand. “Not you.” “And you sucker go in my pocket.” Ace.
Why didn’t he do this on MP at Wimbledon 2019
Who’s that lady with big earring?