Pronating on Wide and Middle Serves
April 27, 2010 by: Ian WestermannShould you pronate on a wide serve even though it turns your racket in the opposite direction that you’re aiming? In this video I explain why you should pronate on every serve, no matter where you’re aiming, and exactly how you aim your serve to different parts of the service box.
Your movie about serve direction and the timing of the pronation was great. But it seems to me it is more a matter of where the pronation occurs than when it occurs. In other words, when pronating, the wrist should be in a different position relative to the ball.
Also I ask you to clarify if the pronation requires a conscious muscle action, or it’s more a whip action, with relaxed forearm muscles. (I think it’s the latter, and the racquet moves propelled by a centripetal force, result of all the previous body, shoulder and arm action.) Thanks,
Ian, i know the pronation very well but my arm hurts so I just use the semi-western grip while serving and it sure looks very flat like a pan hitting a head. I’m a senior citizen already so I feel I’m too old for it. Will continuos practice eventually eliminate the pain in my arm?
Thanks a lot!
Hi Ian,
Do you do them on your serves or overheads? I think if I do Supination right, I can serve like a lefty. I used to play badminton. So I don’t know this is just silly, or people actually do this in tennis.
Yes…so that’s what it’s called, Supination and Pronation
Thanks again, Ian!
-Rena
Hi Ian,
) and finally get what ‘pronate’ actually means. So in the video, you pronate by turning you hand toward your thumb. Now what about turning toward you pinky? Is it still called pronate. I am right handed. If I pronate to my thumb the ball will spin to my right and if I ‘pronate’ to my piinky the ball will spin to my left. Is this correct? Thank you in advance, Ian!
I just watched this video (better late than never
Rena
Rena,
Hm, I’m not sure that we’re on the same page here, not totally sure what you mean by “to my thumb” and “to my pinky”. Pronation refers to the outward rotation of the forearm, which in turn also turns the hand (as a whole). When I raise my left arm and hand up into the air and then turn my palm so that it’s facing to the left I have pronated my forearm. If I rotate it back the other way so that my palm is facing to my right instead of my left I have supinated. It’s the opposite if you’re right handed: pronate means rotate to the right, supinate means rotate to the left.
Does that make sense? Maybe that’s what you were trying to say!
Thanks for this great video Ian. The gem for me was understanding that you can aim your serve by aiming your body weight. A very bottom up approach that is incredibly valuable to me.
-Marwan Daar
Great serve. I am so jealous. My holy grail has always been to hit a serve that goes in the box and then hits the fence about half way up and I’m not there yet. The serves I hit that feel the best are those I hit out by about 1 or 2 feet. I know I’m just not getting the topspin I need to bring them down even though I am really trying to pronate. I’m intrigued by the fact the pros always finish with palm facing outward. The only time that I’ve been able to do that is when I hit “reverse”, with the racquet face coming up the RIGHT side of the ball (I’m a lefty too) which I know is not the right way to hit it. Also, I’ve heard that if you toss the ball high enough so that your POC is when the ball is coming down that it makes natural topspin. What’s your thoughts on that and why is that the case? Any tips you can give me to get that doggone ball to come down in the box would be much appreciated.
Thanks for the comments, Vernon!
No, I completely disagree with that. While the ball falling back down towards the ground may create a few more RPM’s on the ball it absolutely won’t be enough to create any meaningful difference in the path of the ball. Besides, 99% of people hit their serve with the ball on its way back down anyway. Creating enough topspin to actually make the ball curve takes vertical racket acceleration, and a square racket face at contact. There’s no way around those two things!
Ian, while you clearly demonstrated that you do pronate on each serve, you did not ever mention why you pronate. Please let me know the purpose of the pronation, it does not seem intuitive why this movement (after the ball leaves the strings) is necessary.
Shawn,
Pronating is one of the final pieces of the “kinetic chain”, the natural flow of energy and acceleration out through your body as swing. Specifically it’s the circular rotation of your forearm, a high level tennis player will rotate the racket face a full 180 degrees from the point that the frame is bring brought up “on edge” to the final pronated position after contact is made. Contact is made right in the middle of this forearm rotation which accelerates the racket through the point of contact. Pronation doesn’t occur after contact, it begins before contact is made and happens AS contact is made, it finishes after contact which is what most people focus on. Does that make sense?
Yes, that answers my question, thank you! It appears to me the rotation of the forearm adds a velocity component to the racquet head in the direction of the swing, which makes for a bigger / better serve. Completing the pronotion (following through to appx 180) is better to achieve this velocity and is probably better for the forearm than trying to stop this rotation midway.
Really good site! i discoverd it today. on the live of the french open Ian and Will did!
really cool stuff on here! i think i’m gonna download all the podcast!
there’s a lot of tips i wish i had earlier when i started tennis!
the concept of the pronation is one of them!
Thanks for stopping by! Glad you’re enjoying it!
Ian, I’m curious of your opinions on tangential ideas:
1) You hit both serves from the same toss (I’m insanely jealous ). That’s one school of thought and has obvious advantages if you can do it ala Pete Sampras. But others teach use of a different toss to hit slice (e.g. your friends at FYB). That’s not restricted to us weekend hackers. Jim Courier made number one with two, different service tosses. As I recall, he had a “kick toss”, although he could also hit flat up the middle out of that toss when opponents started cheating over on him (perhaps ala what we saw from Stosur), plus Courier had a slice toss. Is one way “the right way” or are they both viable alternatives with tradeoffs?
2) You discuss in your video that your racquet head is pointing at the target, at the moment of impact. I’ve also heard that on kick one should hit the inside of the ball, e.g. 7 o’clock, and follow through to 3 o’clock and that on slice you “hit the outside of the ball”. Are those wrong? Less advanced? Simpler models but compatible?
Thanks for the great site.
1) A few things here: first of all I’m not really hitting a “slice serve”, there’s a decent amount of topspin mixed in as well. Secondly, if I’m not mistaken Pete was famous for hitting different types of serves with the same toss, not different targets. I hit both of my targets with the same type of serve, and the same toss as well. Given that I’m hitting the same type of serve (mix of slice and top spin) there’s definitely no reason to change my toss, and rec players shouldn’t be either just to hit different spots in the service boxes.
2) I think you’re miss understanding the clock explanation a little bit. “7:00 to 3:00″ refers to the direction that the racket is traveling as it makes contact with the ball, not the part of the ball that the strings are hitting. Will at FYB made a great video about the strings facing the same direction regardless of type of serve, the real difference is the direction that the racket is moving. Literally hitting the “inside” of the ball would cause it to fly way off the court to the left (for a lefty, to the right for a righty). Contact should be made directly behind the ball, with the strings facing your target.
Great questions Jim!
So, then you’re saying Sampras would change his toss to hit different targets? I’ll look for that.
Tangentially: This is beyond my game, but since the comment is trending this way — what are pro’s looking for when they “read” a serve, and what do they do to disguise a serve? Simply where the ball is tossed? More?
I recall Andy Murray saying a two years back that he studied video of Fed and Sampras and learned from them that rotating their shoulders disguised their serve. Also, at Wimbledon2009, Roddick said it was the first time Fed hadn’t been able to read his serve. I doubt Roddick’s service motion was what changed.
Even at my level, I can see opponents change their toss to change the spin (but not their target), and react well in advance. Others are so inconsistent they benefit from unintentional disguise
Hey Jim,
No, definitely not. Anything that I’m able to do with my serve Sampras was doing 100X better, haha. He definitely didn’t have to change up his toss placement in order to hit different targets in the box.
That’s a good question about pros “reading” serves. Very often it’s just a matter of being dialed in or not on a certain day. Some days against certain opponents you just have a really good feel about where they’re going given the situation in the match, what target’s they’ve picked thus far, what the score is in the game, and where they served the last time you were on that side of the court, etc etc. You get the idea, there are a lot of factors at play, most of which have nothing to do with technique or toss at that level.
Good video. Thanks for sharing. Glad I found your site from this vid on FYB.com.
Not really disagreeing with you, since this is predominant with the pro’s, but I’m not convinced they ALWAYS pronate. You can see Pete Sampras and Giles SImon use extreme pronation on a slice serve, but I believe some, particularly lefties such as Nadal, sometimes revert to the old Pancho Gonzales peel-the-orange serve for wide slice on the ad side. Hard to tell without super slow mo. Certainly, Nadal pronates almost excessively on the wide, deuce serve.
Also, I believe the pro’s don’t always throw their body weight in the direction of the serve. Example: On wide serves in the ad court, Federer will often fall backwards to his left IMHO.
Thanks again.
Speaking of pronating on the serve, I’m quite confident that you won’t be able to find one video of a modern day pro (let’s say, last 20 years) who doesn’t pronate on any serve. Not one. I assume that by “carve around the fruit slice” you mean to keep the racket face turned the same direction the whole upward swing and past contact, or even to supinate. If you can show me one video demonstrating this I’ll be happy to recant on my statements.
As far as throwing their body weight in the direction of the serve, I agree with you, it definitely depends on the player and the type of the serve.
Thanks very much for watching!
No recanting required, this isn’t the Spanish Inquisition (Monty Python reference).
I’m old enough to remember tutorials published by Pancho Gonzalez that described hitting slice serves as like peeling the skin off an orange with a knife (I can visualize that graphic from a book). Granted Gonzalez played with a Tensor racquet that was like a trampoline and strings fresh from a neighborhood cat, so we’re comparing oranges with Luxilon, but I’m simply saying this isn’t entirely a hacker delusion.
As for video of modern day players, I absolutely agree that most players do this, and I am absolutely NOT disagreeing with your main premise. I’m simply — let’s say uncertain — about whether they ALWAYS pronate. It’s so hard to tell unless you have good, slow motion video, and that’s rare. I’ve seen stills that make me skeptical.
Thanks again.
Great video Ian.
you make it look much more simpler to execute.
Noam
Thanks for the feedback!
Thanks for putting this up! I can clearly see how pronation works on a slice serve. You’ve cleared up something I have been trying to figure out for a while now!
Glad it was helpful!
Ian,
I’ve often wondered the same thing re: to pronate or not on the serve out wide. Thanks for clearing this up and providing the comparative video of out wide and down the middle. I think supper slow motion with emphasis on the swing path would add quality to the presentation.
Thanks for the videos, the podcasts, and all you do to help us enjoy this wonderful game.
Thanks very much for the feedback, Maury!