Julia Goerges – Dangerous Service 3.0
(PHOTOS UPDATED) – Talented German player Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) has reached a new singles career-high of WTA #14 in November 2017, just a few days after her 29th birthday, and as it seems, her rising in the WTA rankings could continue even further in 2018. Julia has shown her big potential in 2011 already when she won the WTA Premier event in Stuttgart but after her three successful years (2010-12), quite a decline came in 2013 when this former WTA top 20 singles player fell even out of the top 50. Julia, who had some solid doubles result in between (rising to #12 in doubles in 2016), was then able to reverse this trend in a big way in the second half of 2017. Was she able to win merely 2 WTA events in her career until the end of September 2017, she won with Moscow, Zhuhai and then Auckland almost unbelievable 3 consecutive significant WTA events from October 2017 until the first week of January 2018!!
While looking at Julia’s stokes, the service, despite certain rather complicated looking idiosyncratic action in the take-back/backswing, must be considered as her biggest weapon. Besides Julia’s almost ideal body build with long extremities, mainly two aspects play a big role here: perfect eye control of the tossed ball as well as of the impact zone based on a very stable head position and a well-controlled targeted pronation with practically perfect body energy unloading against the target. Below, I am sharing some of the details, which make Julia’s service to a clear Tennis 3.0 stroke! She is then, besides the qualities of her 1st service, also one of the few WTA players with a very efficient topspin service, which she mostly uses as her 2nd service.
The video below is from Julia’s winning match during a smaller WTA even in Swiss Biel in April 2017. The following photos are from her losing match against Christina McHale (USA) at the 2013 US.Open, from the last 2 games of this match. At this particular moment, Julia was not at her best, but the images shot “from above”, from the famous gallery of the former Grandstand are quite unique and show the above described from the best perspective. Deeper below are the photos from a practice during the 2015 US.Open.
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – 2nd topspin service 3.0 in a curious winning match-point against Oceane Dodin (FRA) at a WTA tournament in Biel / Switzerland – April 2017 – Typical for Julia is rather a high well-controlled toss, stable head position / perfect eye control of the tossed ball and a complete stroke energy consumption in the direction of the target. Her 2nd topspin service has then, mainly in the final portion of it, quite some similarities to this stroke as played by Samantha Stosur (AUS).
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – 1st service 3.0 in a match – 1 of 3 – racket is approaching the impact – perfect eye control of the tossed ball and a very high reach with an almost optimal center of gravity mobilization are making an efficient use of the energy from the circular body motion possible – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – 1st service 3.0 in a match – 2 of 3 – follow through 1 = targeted pronation – eyes are still looking up!!!, perfectly targeted energy unloading out of the circular motion supported also by a good control of the non-dominant (left) arm – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – 1st service 3.0 in a match – 3 of 3 – landing far in the court combined with follow through 2 = relaxation of the hitting arm – practically the entire energy was consumed already (racket doesn’t go behind the body), helpful in this process is also the quite very high kick with the right leg – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – 2nd topspin service 3.0 in a match – 1 of 4 – start – calm in a wide platform stance – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – 2nd topspin service 3.0 in a match – 2 of 4 – cocking phase with a perfect head position and eye control – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – 2nd topspin service 3.0 in a match – 3 of 4 – follow through 1 with the racket angle typical for a major topspin – eyes are still looking towards the impact!!! – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – 2nd topspin service 3.0 in a match – 4 of 4 – follow through 2 = relaxation/landing far in the court – the entire stroke energy was spent already, fantastic eye and head position control – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – 2nd topspin service 3.0 in a match – 1 of 2 – start in a comfortable wide base with a quite extreme backhand grip – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – 2nd topspin service 3.0 – 2 of 2 – end of follow through 1 = targeted pronation – eyes are still looking up towards the impact – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – Serving action 3.0 – 1 of 3 – 1st service – approaching the impact with a perfect eye control of the tossed ball, which seems to be rather too much back in this case – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – Serving action 3.0 – 2 of 3 – 1st service – end of follow through 1 aka targeted pronation – mainly as the pronation was rather suboptimal (unfinished) here, the ball went into the net – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – Serving action 3.0 – 3 of 3 – 2nd topspin service following the 1st service shown above – follow through 1 with clear topspin racket motion going from 7 to 1 – perfect head/eye control – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – Serving action 3.0 deuce side – 1 of 2 – 1st service – follow through – eyes are still looking up – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – Serving action 3.0 deuce side – 2 of 2 – 2nd topspin service following the 1st service shown above – typical topspin follow through – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – Serving action 3.0 add side – 1 of 2 – 1st service – follow through 1 – perfect eye control and body posture, but the arm appears a bit stiff, which leads to a slower pronation and thus to a limited body energy unloading – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – Serving action 3.0 add side – 2 of 2 – 2nd topspin service following the 1st service shown above – typical topspin follow through with a perfect extension, eyes are still looking up – 2013 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2013
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – 1st service 3.0 in a practice – 1 of 1 – follow through 1 aka targeted pronation – well-controlled body/head as well as non-dominant (left) arm position and excellent eye control of the impact zone – 2015 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2015
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – 1st service 3.0 in a practice – 1 of 1 – follow through 1 aka targeted pronation – perfect rotational body energy unloading against the target – 2015 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2015
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – 2nd topspin service 3.0 in a practice – 1 of 2 – push-off/cocking – excellent body/head and eye control – 2015 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2015
Julia Goerges (*1988 / GER) – 2nd topspin service 3.0 in a practice – 2 of 2 – follow through 1 aka targeted pronation going more to the outside (right) as typical for the topspin service – 2015 US.Open – New York / USA – August 2015
This article covers certain aspects of Julia Goerges’ service and tennis service in general only! Further photos, more details 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 top 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 (August 2013 & August 2015), video (April 2017) & text (January 2018) copyright by Dr. Martin G. Baroch. Any further publication of either any of the photos, videos and/or texts with the explicit written permission issued by the author/copyright owner only!!
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