Why I Prefer the Pinpoint Stance

[dimbleby69]

Before focus shifts to Pat’s latest contributions (May Issue), I have a couple of questions or queries in regard to the first article. And before that I’ll say thanks for a very stimulating piece (in the context of much of the content about serving on TPN, you could substitute the word provocative for stimulating!).

No.1 From the article (under the heading The See-Saw) :

“The font leg is the preferred support and driving fulcrum that the shoulder mechanics need as they elevate the body upwards.” When I watch the animation of Zverev in the article it seems to me that after moving his back foot up, he resettles significant weight on that foot and gets a good push up off it at the same time as the push off the front foot. If you look at both thigh muscles, at the moment of launch there is great muscle definition visible, whereas of course it’s only visible in the front thigh while the back foot travels forwards. Is Zverev unusual for pinpoint servers in doing this? The foremost biomechanist we read on these boards is of course Brian Gordon and he says that the biggest chunk of racquet head speed comes from external-to-internal shoulder rotation and you set the body up for this by having a push off the back foot sufficient to raise the back hip quickly and with it the hitting shoulder. I appreciate that Pat isn’t writing as a biomechanist but is sharing vast experience as a successful coach, and the concepts he uses to teach his students. But I remember seeing a video of a coach doing a drill with a talented junior (from a Spanish speaking country, I think) who was a pinpoint server, and he said to him “remember to keep 55% of your weight on the back foot”, which I think could only mean 55% at launch. Pat, do you think that this is in fact the case, but just isn’t a helpful concept for the student, or do you think the biomechanics don’t work like this? Or do biomechanics hold less interest for you than what you’ve simply found works best?

No.2. This is more of a self-interested question.

Brian Gordon states that “You can have a great serve [with pinpoint] there just isn’t any biomechanical advantage to it”. Now I used to serve pinpoint but partly because I was focusing on thrusting my hip forward I eventually produced chronic sciatica in my front hip and had to teach myself to serve platform. Then I found material on TPN to back up some of the solutions I found. BG really is at 180 degree position across from you as he prefers his students to serve platform but will adjust if they really can’t do it. Pat, you must have had the opposite experience. I would be really interested to hear what concepts, drills or tips you could give to platform servers to stop their legs from working against them, and get themselves in the optimal readiness for launch. You make a repeated point about having the chest pointed upwards and that in the pinpoint the lower body can accommodate this. Does platform obstruct this? Have you ever found a workaround?

Thanks again for your article

regards
Rob

Lehechka another crushing pinpoint server taking out Nadal today,,,he was stellar

[neilchok]

John,

Thanks! Let me look at this. Yes I heard rumors that Pete could hit dimes places in the service box in a couple serves. I feel strange that people's serves are so low percentage, around 60%. I think Pancho was serving pretty hard, but not sure. Let me try to get a video of me serving, a little camera shy .

Neil

[John Yandell]

Neil,
Wow that's a lot of questions. On your serve I cannot say anything with out video. The way players think they are serving is often way different from what they actually do. On your other points I Iike Rick's drill which he got from Brian Gordon. But you may or may not need it. Pancho played in the days of wood rackets and serve and volley and one foot on the ground when serving so I wouldn't stress over that. Dimes no. The 4 corners yes. Drills? Would someone else take over on that??

[florin]

Missed on the first read: “Furthermore, following this author, the feet up technique produces a greater ground reaction force than the feet back technique (2.1 times body weight compared to 1.5 times body weight)”.“the stronger upward momentum after bending with this stance allows them to hit the ball at a higher point, finding better angles and placement on the serve, to move the ball further away from the opponent when opening the court.”

[florin]

I don’t know if is related but “Moreover, these data are similar to those of Renoult (2007), who analysed the two stance techniques during the 2007 French Open and the results showed that 72.4 % of the players used the feet up technique.“ and “as according to Martin (2015) expert players using the feet up technique generate on average more ball speed (173 km/h vs. 166 km/h)” from https://itfcoachingreview.com/index..../view/372/1127 …one thing that i cannot make any connection, why higher toss for junior’s means higher speed? does pinpoint stance increases the height of your contact?

[stroke]

Thanks for the feedback....it's conceptual teaching that evolved years ago as a result of the feedback from my extensive video series I did for Nick B. People didn't retain the words so much but always spoke of the conceptual concepts I introduced. I then took the same approach on court instead of sequential teaching that we grew up with from motor drive sequences in magazines. Simpler way to teach effectively and it crosses language barriers much better.

We can often hyper focus on producing perfection in our students too early on which prolongs confidence producing successes and their will to strive for achieving closer to perfection. When they understand the concepts of great serving and work hard many aspects begin to fix themselves. Andre was an eye opener for me to work with when I was much younger and he was a teenager. I quickly realized he was one of one in so many ways that I needed to stop looking for little details that might not be perfect and instead, studied his every move to come up with ways to best convey and teach it to lesser talent.

Your "Serve MPH" video and "Strategic Serve Placement and Spin" were great instructional videos. To me, the best serve videos I have seen.

[patdougherty]

Thanks for the feedback....it's conceptual teaching that evolved years ago as a result of the feedback from my extensive video series I did for Nick B. People didn't retain the words so much but always spoke of the conceptual concepts I introduced. I then took the same approach on court instead of sequential teaching that we grew up with from motor drive sequences in magazines. Simpler way to teach effectively and it crosses language barriers much better.

We can often hyper focus on producing perfection in our students too early on which prolongs confidence producing successes and their will to strive for achieving closer to perfection. When they understand the concepts of great serving and work hard many aspects begin to fix themselves. Andre was an eye opener for me to work with when I was much younger and he was a teenager. I quickly realized he was one of one in so many ways that I needed to stop looking for little details that might not be perfect and instead, studied his every move to come up with ways to best convey and teach it to lesser talent.

[stotty]

Hi to Pat, John, and everyone. It is very cool to get high level coaches like you guys giving your opinions on things! I am from San Diego, and there was a person I knew who was a really good player, 11 to 12 UTR, better in doubles who got a major spinal injury (Ivan Smith). And I know I saw Pat's name on the list of people in the gofund me page, who gave a sizable donation!!!

So super appreciative of all your guys technical experience, and sharing it for free!!!

I was wondering what you guys think about Andy Roddick's serve. I have kind of switched to that serve motion. I tried to add the service racket lag (with racket down, when tossing arm up, but found my serve percentage went down). After getting access to this website, I was shocked to see Andy moves his front foot back a bit!!! I have tried this for the last three weeks, and even had a bunch of balls going through the fence!! It seems so easy, and makes you really focus on using your legs.

Also was wondering what you guys believe on what Rick Macci talks about the biggest issue on the serve is the racket leak occurring too fast. He has a drill where he suggests keeping your racket up, and just focus on jumping.

Also two last questions, it seems Pancho Gonzales says you need to be at 70% first serve percentage. He thinks if you are lower than that, you need to either slow speed down, or add more spin. It seems a lot of pros are only at 60% or so.

Lastly do you think Sampras and other top pros could hit dimes placed on the other side of the court on serves? Is this true? Lastly any drills you guys have for serves that would be super helpful. Some I know are serving from behind the fence, serving on your knee, serving from one court down to kick it into service box next to you.

Why don't you post a clip of your serve. You might get some decent tips on how to develop it.

[stotty]

Sany starts for Harvard now and Top as a sophomore has been number 1 for Princeton since day one. Both very smart and coachable driven players we occasionally get the pleasure to develop from a very young age

That's impressive work with Sany. I really enjoyed watching the clip. She has a lovely loose arm and her capacity to hit spin at such a young age is pretty amazing. Spin and placement are such huge factors in good serving in my view because then the server is truly controlling affairs. Obviously that clip was a long time ago and Sany has gone on to achieve a good level since then

It was interesting for me to watch Top's clip because you work differently to me. Coaches often come at serves in different ways and prioritise different things. I would have had Top's elbow popped up a little higher at the throwing action phase and probably encouraged a more pronounced break at the elbow too. Top was very young back then and no doubt you went on to do a good deal more development with him. I would be curious to see what his serve is like now.

You come at serves differently to most coaches so your series on Tennisplayer will be interesting to see.

[neilchok]

Hi to Pat, John, and everyone. It is very cool to get high level coaches like you guys giving your opinions on things! I am from San Diego, and there was a person I knew who was a really good player, 11 to 12 UTR, better in doubles who got a major spinal injury (Ivan Smith). And I know I saw Pat's name on the list of people in the gofund me page, who gave a sizable donation!!!

So super appreciative of all your guys technical experience, and sharing it for free!!!

I was wondering what you guys think about Andy Roddick's serve. I have kind of switched to that serve motion. I tried to add the service racket lag (with racket down, when tossing arm up, but found my serve percentage went down). After getting access to this website, I was shocked to see Andy moves his front foot back a bit!!! I have tried this for the last three weeks, and even had a bunch of balls going through the fence!! It seems so easy, and makes you really focus on using your legs.

Also was wondering what you guys believe on what Rick Macci talks about the biggest issue on the serve is the racket leak occurring too fast. He has a drill where he suggests keeping your racket up, and just focus on jumping.

Also two last questions, it seems Pancho Gonzales says you need to be at 70% first serve percentage. He thinks if you are lower than that, you need to either slow speed down, or add more spin. It seems a lot of pros are only at 60% or so.

Lastly do you think Sampras and other top pros could hit dimes placed on the other side of the court on serves? Is this true? Lastly any drills you guys have for serves that would be super helpful. Some I know are serving from behind the fence, serving on your knee, serving from one court down to kick it into service box next to you.

[patdougherty]

Sany starts for Harvard now and Top as a sophomore has been number 1 for Princeton since day one. Both very smart and coachable driven players we occasionally get the pleasure to develop from a very young age

[stotty]

Glad that we are getting discussion on this! I am a platform guy myself, but you can't say there aren't great pinpoint servers and I am just trying to learn something from Pat. Gonna start a series with his views from the ground up.

Sounds good to me.

For me, I would like to know how Pat applies his knowledge. How does he develop great pinpoint servers in his junior players? What traps do we as coaches need to look out for? The two stances are going to co-exist for an eternity so let's embrace both and learn to teach both equally as well.

I took a look at Sany's development on YouTube and that is certainly impressive.

[John Yandell]

Glad that we are getting discussion on this! I am a platform guy myself, but you can't say there aren't great pinpoint servers and I am just trying to learn something from Pat. Gonna start a series with his views from the ground up.

When you begin with "finally a voice of reason" you set the tone for my response. Regarding base of support, it is of negligible value when striking upward to hit a serve. If you find platform works best for you and any of your students then have at it. It's just not what I've taught to many big servers today.