Tag:pronation

Roger Federer – Secrets of his Service 3.0

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....

Bianca Andreescu – Solid Service 3.0

While looking at Bianca's strokes, what strikes the eye first is her clean Forehand 3.0 technique. The "cultural differences" in the approach to the forehand belong, in my opinion, to the main reasons why she is currently significantly more successful than her fierce opponents from the ITF Juniors Tour. Also, Bianca's service had a very clear Tennis 3.0 style with a sound body energy unloading into....

Serena Williams – Overhead 3.0

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....

David Gofin – Service 3.0 varieties

David has a quite clean service technique, which clearly fulfills the Service 3.0 parameters. Over the course of his ATP Tour career (as of the end of December 2018), he has 58% of the 1st services in while winning 71% of the points on them. His ace probability of 43% per game is quite solid and the double fault probability of 29% rather slightly higher. While winning 63% of the total of his service points and 78% of all of his service games played, he is clearly behind the very best tour players. In David's case,....

Marin Cilic – Potential risk factors in his service

Tall Marin Cilic (*1988 / CRO) belongs not only because of his impressive 198 cm (6'6'') build to the better servers on the ATP Tour. His service (obviously a clear Service 3.0) has also some excellent technical qualities, mainly around the quite often almost perfect pronation. Despite that, a deeper look at the stats shows that Marin's service, for some probably quite surprisingly, doesn't have the efficiency of the very best in the business. Over his entire ATP Tour career up to date, Cilic has just 56% of the 1st services in the game, in comparison Djokovic 65%, Federer...

Marius Copil – Clean Service 3.0

....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 Williams – Probably the best female service of all time

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...

Xiyu Wang – Mistake-prone aggressive forehand

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...

Petra Kvitova – Forehand improvement to a higher 3.0 standard

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...

Julia Goerges – Dangerous Service 3.0

While looking at Julia's stokes, the service, despite certain rather complicated looking idiosyncratic action in the takeback, 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...