One of Stan's biggest weapons is, since the junior years already, his signature one-handed backhand 3.0, which he plays on a big radius with very dominant long-axis supination, as can be seen below. Such a dominant stroke trajectory of the helix form (3-D action) leading to optimal...
His Service 3.0 is an almost ideal stroke with a high level of the racket stability in the space, thanks also to the underlying helix form. The next main deciding aspect is the (in most cases) nearly perfect body energy unloading against the target based on the well-controlled (targeted) long-axis pronation. The photos below show that (in a contrary to the rather dangerous myths about the necessity to swing the racket by the non-dominant (her left) foot, as preached for decades in most of the tennis books and by most of the tennis coaches), Roger stays....
In general, the biggest difference from the service action is that while playing the overhead most of the players are using for the racket take-back the faster upper loop. The time-efficient preparation for the overhead consists of three actions ("triple overhead action") being taken almost simultaneously, immediately after a quick initial change of the grip into the backhand/continental position - 1/ pointing at the incoming high ball (lob) with the non-dominant hand, 2/ pivot while stepping back and slightly around with the dominant-side leg/foot and....
....his service, which I would currently consider as probably the cleanest Service 3.0 with a perfect helix form on the ATP Tour. Copil surely profits in his service from a tall body with long extremities but at 191 cm (6'3'') he can be considered as not that extremely tall player when comparing him to the likes of John Isner, Milos Raonic or Marin Cilic. It was clearly visible in his two-set winning Basel match against the significantly taller top 10 player Marin Cilic (CRO) who brings with his 198 cm (6'6'') even more impressive bodily parameters to the court, that an almost perfect technique leading to an optimal...
Serena's service during the 2018 Wimbledon Championships while also adding few images from far back in 2003. It is interesting to see that her core service fundamentals have been quite the same in 2003 already and this speaks for the quality of her coaching before that. In short, Serena's service is very simple, well-focused at the decisive elements (not quite clear to many in the tennis field) and practically free of any potentially disturbing idiosyncrasies. Some of the main decisive elements to be mentioned are a relaxed balanced starting position, a very stable quite high toss, a delated...
Wang has an almost ideal tennis body with long extremities. For her age, she has already quite highly developed tactical varieties and is well capable of an attacking all-court game, which she applied quite successfully also during her recent US Open campaign. Her overall tactical possibilities are then in my opinion slightly limited by certain technical weaknesses in her strokes. In this article, I would like to look at her forehand. Wang is playing her forehand in a very aggressive manner, but this stroke is prone to rather frequent mistakes, mainly due to the...
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...
Then over the years, the forehand has brought Petra some winners, but often also rather a quite serious amount of errors as some of the Forehand 3.0 principles have been often missing in her game. It was the reason why I have repeatedly criticized her forehand, (also) here on this site, in the past and why I have mentioned some hints towards possible improvements, also to Petra's surrounding, mainly since the later part of the 2015 season. It might be just a pure coincidence, but especially after...
Naomi correctly fulfills all the essential Service 3.0 (of Tennis 3.0) requirements. Certain distinct improvements bringing higher margin and better efficiency would be still possible though. Some of the main aspects to work on are mainly around the rather arm-power forced pronation, which is quite normal when proper pronation was introduced to the player later in the career but should still become a bit more fluid (with better contraction-relaxation coordination) over the time to make an optimal....
One of the most misleading tennis instructions is the imperative suggestion to lead the racket after the impact across to the non-dominant leg (left with the right-handed player) in the follow through of the service motion....
