Podcast #136: Avoid these three huge technique mistakes! (Part 2)
What you want is a smooth and relaxed guide of the ball. You're trying to guide the ball towards your target. Your racket face should be facing towards your target during most of this technique. Ultimately, what this means is that you want to use bigger muscle grips instead of smaller ones.
Here's what I mean by this. When you move the racket head around a lot, and you move the racket face around a lot, and you're trying to accelerate through the ball and swing your racket towards the ball, ultimately that's from using your hand, your wrist and your forearm a lot. To kind of maneuver the racket, swinging it back and forth like you would on a ground stroke from the right side of your body to the left side or vice versa. That's from using a lots of smaller parts of your body. If you use the bigger parts of your body: your legs, your core, your shoulder to move the racket smoothly through the ball, you can guide it towards your target very accurately, and still with reasonably good pace. It doesn't have to be a weak shot if you use the bigger parts of your body to tell the ball where to go. You want to take the momentum that's already on the ball. Typically when you're hitting volleys, your opponent or partner has driven the ball towards you. They've hit a forehand or a back hand ground stroke. Or maybe you're in a quick net exchange back and forth, and there's already pace on the ball. It hasn't bounced yet. You've taken it right out of the air, and you've got some momentum to work with already. You want to take that energy that's already on the ball, put your strings behind the ball, and send it back towards your target. Again, I like the word “guide” for this. To send the ball towards the direction that you want it to go.
This is as opposed to the two biggest mistakes. The #1 biggest mistake on volleys is too much moving of the racket, and swinging it back and forth. A second mistake that I feel–listen. I'd rather that you guys punch at your volleys rather than move your racket around a lot. Alright? That's definitely the case. So if you guys are going to make one mistake or the other, I'd rather that you're abrupt and short, and you punch at your volleys. I'd rather that by far, than you guys move the racket around a lot, and actually swing the racket towards the ball. So you know, please punch it [laughter] if you're going to do one or the other! But I don't like punch either, because it's abrupt and short, intense, and I don't like that for any shot in tennis. So make it a guide.
Hopefully that makes sense. Hopefully my terminology there is not too vague, and I've explained that well. But that's definitely in my top 2 mistakes that recreational players make on the court. So let's go ahead and go to #3. This is in my #3 out of my Top 3 Worst Habits that recreational players make. #3 has to do with the serve. And I've done this on purpose. I've done my best to spread this out. I've done one on ground strokes. A worst habit for volleys or net play. Now worst habit for serves.
In my opinion, the worst habit overall that recreational players have on their serve is serving too straight, or even downwards, towards their target. A good serve is an upward swing. Even on a flat serve, your technique and your motion should be accelerating the racket upwards towards the ball. Upwards. Not straight. Definitely not downwards. A serve is not like a jump serve in volleyball, or a spike. We're not trying to hit the ball down at the net. I don't care how tall you are, you should not be trying to hit the ball down at your target. Many recreational players hit their serves in that direction. Either accelerating their racket path, the direction the racket is moving, either horizontal, straight out to their target. Or they actually accelerate the racket down towards the target. The only way to make a serve doing 1 of those 2 things consistently is to have a slightly open racket face. So a forward motion and a slightly open racket face. The results, the resulting path of the ball, is a ball flight that travels straight or slightly down. It has kind of a straight trajectory right towards its target. Or as I head, even a little downwards.
It is possible to make a serve this way. So all of you guys thinking about sending me an e-mail right now saying: “Well, the force of gravity and the drag of air, and if you're a 6 ft. player with this reach, making contact from this height…” Yeah, I've seen all the physics reports, and the different [laughter] equations. At what speed, at what height over the nets, and all this stuff. I've seen all that stuff, and I'm totally aware that at a certain contact height, it is possible to actually hit the ball straight, or hit it down and make the serve. I see players do it every single day, especially when they hit with a little slower pace.
I'm not saying that it's impossible to make a serve that way. What I am saying is that when you hit in that direction, the trajectory that the resulting shot travels across, is extremely low percentage. You don't want to hit a shot from behind the base line that has to stay inside the service box, which is 18 ft. inside the base line, and try to hit it straight. That's a problem, because a straight trajectory carries with it a very low margin for error. If you hit just a little bit too high, and you hit the ball across a relatively straight line, it's going to go out very easily. If you're hitting across a very straight line or trajectory towards your target and a little too low, you're going to hit the net. This is the same thing as with ground strokes, and this is why I always teach players first to make an upwards swing towards the ball so that they can curve the ball back into the court. High level tennis players make contact all the way at the very peak of their technique of their serve. It's an upward swing. In preparation for their service swing, they bend their knees; they drop their entire body downwards; the racket drops.
Those of you who have studied service technique at all on line with slow motion video know that there's a position called the “racket drop.” That's to get the racket dropped. [laughter] To get it down below the ball as far as possible. When you watch professional players in slow motion, you will see that the tip of the racket drops well below their waist. They're dropping it way down below where the ball is. #3: They tilt their shoulders upwards towards the ball. Big servers have almost a vertical angle from their dominant elbow. If they're right-handed, their right elbow. Up through their left hand, their non-dominant hand, as they tilt back and create an angle upwards towards the ball. So all of those things: the knee band, the racket drop, the shoulder tilt to tilt upwards towards the ball–all of that is preparing to launch the racket, and launch their body upwards towards the ball. All of that accelerates upwards towards the ball, and contact is made at the very peak, at the very top of this technique.
A lot of times I've had players say to me, “Yeah, but they finish low. They make contact, then they come down.” Yes, but that's only after contact has been made. Contact is made at the very top of all that accelerating up towards the ball, and then the racket comes down. Then the body comes down. Contact is not made with the racket and with the body coming downwards, it's made at the very top of all of that momentum, carrying up towards the ball. So the serve is an upward hit. Put that into your heads! [laughter] It's true. So high-level players make that upward acceleration and at contact, the racket face is flat. At least very close to flat. It might be close a tiny bit, maybe a couple of degrees, but it's definitely not open is my point. It's either flat or close to little bit. The resulting shot has curve to it. Whether it's a flat serve, quote unquote “flat serve,” which any tennis shot is always going to have some rotation on it. Whether it's a flat serve, or a kick serve, or any other kind of spin serve, a high level player after hitting a good serve creates a trajectory that has some curve in it. Again, just like a top spin ground stroke does. So that curve adds margin for error.
It makes it safer, because you can hit the ball up over the top of that net, and that curve will bring the ball back down into the service box again. That's a huge benefit when you're trying to hit a ball aggressively, and still keep it in play. Alright. That's a topic I feel strongly about. A topic that recreational topic that recreational players probably fight me on the most. When I have students who just aren't buying into something that I'm trying to teach them, this is probably the #1 thing. A lot of players resist change in their technique to a more upwards swing. It's just not something they're comfortable with or used to. But it's a really big difference between your average recreational player and a high-level player or a professional player. OK. In review, Top 3 Worst Habits that I see in teaching: short, tight ground strokes; a swing on a volley or a punch on a valley. Again, I don't mind a punch that much. It's definitely a lot better than a swing, that's for sure. And #3: Hitting forwards or downwards on a serve technique.
So Ben, those are my Top 3 mistakes, and Top 3 things all of you guys listening should avoid at all costs. If you're not sure if you're doing these things, get a video camera. You know what? All of you should have a digital video camera. You can get a regular flip cam for $80-$90 now. You can get a HD flip cam for $130- $140 on Amazon.com. You can plug that right into your computer, and see high resolution video. It's not super fast frames per second or anything, but it's more than good enough so that you can see what you're doing wrong and go from there. Alright. So Ben, great question. Enjoyed talking about it. Hopefully this has been helpful to you. If you'd like any more feedback, please let me know. Good luck as you continue working on your game.
