Marketa Vondrousova -Troubled service 3.0
Highly talented Czech leftie Marketa Vondrousova (*1999 / CZE), former ITF Junior World #1, had quite a quick start on the WTA Tour while winning her first tour event, a US$ 250 K in Swiss Biel, at the Spring of 2017, just a few months short of her 18th birthday. Marketa’s touch/feeling for the ball and game as well as her fast feet are great assets, her technique is then in some areas rather suboptimal while often missing on the optimal body energy integration into the strokes as this can be well seen in many of her forehands and backhands, which are often missing higher level of stability, mainly under pressure. Such problems are then very common with highly talented young players, and maybe even more often with the leftie players.
Marketa’s service has on one side (often) a very good long-axis pronation as well as an excellent head stability and eye control of the impact zone, but on the other side, it suffers from a rather extremely high toss, which leads to a limited body energy dynamic of the stroke. In the photos below, from Marketa’s lost 1st round 2018 Wimbledon match, we can see mainly the following issues: 1/ the “tired from waiting” tossing/right arm is falling down rather too early in the respect of the optimal body tension, 2/ the slowed down push-off activity seems to be reducing the general body forwards momentum and the dominant/left hip is thus kicking back during the impact. Based on this, the optimal energy transfer in the helix form, which could be most probably well achieved otherwise, is being significantly reduced. The result is in both limited efficiency as well as in the reduced margin of such a service.
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – deuce side – 1 of 12 – toss, loading in an early pinpoint stance – 2018 Wimbledon – London / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – 2 of 12 – toss/loading – 2018 Wimbledon – London / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – 3 of 12 – toss/loading – the very high tossed ball is finally appearing on its way back “from the space” – 2018 Wimbledon – London / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – 4 of 12 – start of the push-off – 2018 Wimbledon – London / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – 5 of 12 – push-off continues, the racket is approaching the cocking position, tossing arm came down rather too early in respect to the ball height – 2018 Wimbledon – London / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – 6 of 12 – lift-off with a perfect head/eye stability towards the impact zone – the tossing arm is already down, even though the racket didn’t achieve the ideal cocking position yet – 2018 Wimbledon – London / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – 7 of 12 – lift-off 2/racket acceleration from the cocking position – 2018 Wimbledon – London / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – 8 of 12 – shortly before the impact – the dominant/left hip starts to move back – 2018 Wimbledon – London / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – 9 of 12 – impact – perfect head stability and eye control – the dominant/left hip continues the slight motion back – 2018 Wimbledon – London / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – 10 of 12 – follow through 1 with a solid pronation, which then seems to be rather disconnected from the motion of the body core – 2018 Wimbledon – London / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – 11 of 12 – follow through 1 – well-controlled long-axis pronation, but the body energy involvement is limited – 2018 Wimbledon – London / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – 12 of 12 – follow through 1 – end – the hips are still behind the baseline – the disconnect between the limb action and the core is well visible – 2018 Wimbledon – London / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – add side – 1 of 5 – impact – great eye control and head stability – 2018 Wimbledon / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – add side – 2 of 5 – excellent fast pronation, but the dominant/left hip is kicking back – 2018 Wimbledon / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – add side – 3 of 5 – follow through 1 – solid long-axis pronation, but the body energy seems to be rather disconnected – 2018 Wimbledon / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – add side – 4 of 5 – end of follow through 1- 2018 Wimbledon / UK
Marketa Vondrousova (*99 / CZE) – 1st service 3.0 – add side – 5 of 5 – follow through 2/landing – hips/body center of gravity are still behind the baseline – 2018 Wimbledon / UK
This article covers certain aspects of Marketa Vondrousova’s service and service in general only! Further photos, more details (inclusive improvement possibilities/ideas) about her service and other strokes as well as about the strokes of other players are available upon request at drmgb11(at)gmail.com. Some significant details of this kind, necessary for a peak tennis performance as well as for a sustainable tennis training/development in general, are being discussed also in the seminar “TENNIS 3.0 – Future of the Game”, which is available worldwide upon request – www.tennis30.com / www.tennis30.cz
Photos (July 2018) & text (September 2018) copyright by Dr. Martin G. Baroch. Any further publication of either any of the photos & and/or texts with the explicit written permission issued by the author/copyright owner only!!
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