With his 1st service, Frances could have quite a potential weapon at his disposal (after all his fastest service during the 2016 US.Open was clocked at 142 mph, same like the fastest service from John Isner), but small details are in my opinion often taking a bit away from its potential. The main issue is for me in the rather suboptimal integration of the body energy into the stroke in the moment of impact at most of Frances' services.
Tall Garbine (182 cm / 6'0'') can consider her serve as one of her weapons. The photos from her practice during the 2015 US.Open show that Garbine well fulfills the requirements of the Service 3.0.
Here the distinction between her typical first service (usually more or less direct with just a slight topspin) and her famous kick service (heavy topspin with some sidespin used mostly as a second service) are quite visible. In both varieties, Samantha spends almost the entire stroke energy on the dominant (right, in her case as a right-handed player) side. The "follow through 1" (= the active part of the follow through) of the kick/topspin serve then goes, besides other differences to the first service, much more to the right.
Ivo Karlovic (*1979 / CRO) belongs to the most dominant servers/servicemen in the history of tennis and his more than 11,500 aces served throughout his professional career (as of December 2016) on the tour are a record hardly to be matched. At the height of 211 cm (6’11”) and weight of 104 kg (230 lb), Ivo...
Ying-Ying Duan (*89 / CHN) can be at her age of 27 years hardly considered as a young tennis prodigy, but this relatively new entrant into the WTA top 100 could eventually become a factor in the women's tennis. At her height of 186cm (6'1''), the service can be considered as her biggest weapon. Her service surely has already quite some potential, but certain improvements could bring even better serving efficiency and higher margin along.
From the point of the technique, Karolina has some excellent aspects of the Service 3.0 going most probably back to her early technical development stage in her junior years and also one little weakness leading to a lower margin at decisive (tense) moments like during her recent US.Open finals. Some of the main elements can be seen below..
Forehand lasso/reverse finish of Rafael Nadal (*1986 / ESP) is not always exactly what many think that it might be. Surely, Nadal as many other players (notably Sampras, Sharapova) goes with his racket very fast and steep up and later back when he is hitting an emergency forehand with limited time/space availability (close to the body)....
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....
Ewa (6y 6m / POL) – Forehand 3.0 & Backhand 3.0 in a practice rally with the DTBT Foam Balls FB-90 Green while using the old wooden Adidas Ilie Nastase racket with grip 4 !!! She just grabbed it and wanted to try at the beginning of her session after the warm-up. As Ewa is since...
The principles of TENNIS 3.0, meaning the dominance of the body action in the strokes, can be applied practically for everybody at every age and level. Here featured senior player Jörg (65+ / SUI) is a life-long athlete, but late tennis starter. He was still able to learn in his sessions with the MBTA practically perfect serving motion where he generates the power of the ground and dominates the service by the energy from the body, which is being channeled into full upper-limb targeted pronation
