As a tennis player, I’ve grown to analyze my game. Originally an exercise in golf due to its difficulty, analyzing the pros and applying it to your game can often help… and often hurt. One topic that I’ve worked on for a short period of time is pronating my wrist and arm on a service motion. Hardly anyone at my 3.0-3.5 level quite understand it, but it’s one of those little things that makes a huge difference.
I make my analogy similar to golf, when most beginners don’t understand ‘hitting down’ on the ball with their irons. Most players look at an iron with it’s lofted face and think, “Hey, I need to scoop the ball.” But when you talk to the pros, it’s “Of course I hit down on the ball… even with my driver.” And with tennis, most pros don’t even know they pronate during the serve, it’s just how they’ve learned to hit the ball. A tennis pro I had when I was a kid tried teaching us pronation… I don’t think I understood for over 20 years. When I tried, the ball spun the opposite way, but learned now it was all about the timing.
Here are illustrations on what I’m speaking about:
A shot I took of Stepanek after a serve – check out how his palm is facing out, away from his face.
Roddick – after impact, palms facing away from face.
And most of the top pros (Fed) still pronate on the 2nd kick serve, as well as both ad/deuce sides. It’s all the same motion, but an adjustment in timing of when the face of the racquet makes contact with the ball. The rest of the players end up with a follow thru similar to the one below after going over the top of the ball to produce the kick. I captured dozens of shots of both 1st and 2nd serve to find very similar motions and pronation. After going through them I really couldn’t tell which ones were 1st or 2nd serves.
Even with baseball, a slow-mo of Roger Clemens throwing a slider showed not a follow thru of a snapped wrist, but pronation of the arm – ever so slightly.
And even with a volleyball serve there is pronation:
And back to tennis:
Agassi serving to the deuce court, you would think his racquet would point towards the court he’s firing at, but – no.
And the Djokester – 2nd serve to the deuce court:
Comparing with 1st serve to deuce court (below):
Both serves, palms facing out.
Most beginners wonder why they often serve better to the ad side, and it’s usually because the face of the racquet naturally follows through to the ad side of the court, which creates a more penetrating shot because you’re actually pronating for a change.
Now that I have you slightly convinced you need to learn pronation, here are a couple of drills to help learn pronation.