July15, 2009 
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Jim McLennan As Dennis Van der Meer once cogently remarked, “There are many ways to hit that ball.” We were both watching Pete Sampras play Martin Lee in a first round Wimbledon encounter, and to my eye (at least) the service deliveries were as different as day and night. But to capture the essence of Dennis’ remark, which is a common way to look at these things, the Dinara Safina service delivery can be every bit as good as a Serena Williams serve – though they have very different elements. What follows, as usual, is just my take. Not an attempt to suggest there is only one “best” way to serve – but just an opinion. That said, the underlying premise must be disclosed. And I got this point of view from Tom Stow. He taught that players should study and copy the absolute best examples of a particular stroke. Meaning, students might indeed copy the Agassi two fisted backhand (for sure) but not his volley, for in spite of eight Grand Slam titles, his volley was unremarkable, but the mechanics of his backhand were amazing. Looking for a model on the serve (using Tom’s approach), the choices would have to be Sampras, Federer, or Roddick. And from that line of reasoning we look for commonalities. So, if I haven’t lost you so far, the commonalities of those three servers include:
During the Wimbledon fortnight we have already seen, and will continue to see, a discussion of the toss as relates to many of the players. Already Pam Shriver subjected us to a tedious interview with Anna Ivanovic where she asked leading if not insensitive questions about Anna’s toss and about her state of mind on bad tosses. Leading questions tend to control the range of responses – open questions truly open the field of answers. Perhaps, “Anna, share your insight into your serve as regards your toss” might have put the shy champion into a more expansive mood. Anyway, the issue here regards the height of the toss, how the toss influences rhythm, and how the mechanics of the serve change with tosses of varying heights.
My hunch is that players with an overly high toss and move their feet during the toss, tend to serve with an interrupted rhythm and are prone to pull their heads down at impact. In effect they are swinging at the toss. Whereas players with a lower (this is relative) toss and less movement during the tossing motion, tend to hit up with a more continuous rhythm and more easily keep their heads up at impact. And, I think we would agree that if all things are equal, simplicity trumps complexity when performing tennis skills.
I hoped Dinara Safina would have served better in the second week of Wimbledon than she did in the final stages of the French. But her motion may serve as a case in point – high toss, feet moving during the motion, and her head pulls down prior to contact (sounds vaguely like Sharapova). As the pressure grew in Paris, the complexity of her service motion became more and more apparent. She committed 20 double faults in her last three matches, and in the final won just 31% of the points played on her own second serve. Now imagine if Dinara’s very first coach to had said, “Let’s try and copy one of the simplest if not one of the best serves out there. Get your swing started and just toss the ball up and into the way of the racquet. We can see how Goran did it, or Ivan Ljubicic does it. This is as simple a method as there ever was.” Kids, the rest would be history. But these things are so darn hard to change once established. Can an experienced player or a pro step back from competition to change a stroke. We rarely see that. But, and perhaps now I am speaking to you personally, learners are those who can change, as did Dementieva. Are you one? As always, we would love to hear from you! Questions, comments, personal experiences all create helpful dialogue for everyone! Please click here to send us your email.
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