hey guys today's video is going to be the ultimate guide to serve stances and there's going to be two
main stances on the tennis serve the platform stance where the feet are in the same position
throughout the beginning portion of your serve naturally as you start going up into the contact
at the high level when the tip of the racket is point towards the ground that's when the feet get
airborne this is true for both the platform stance and the pinpoint stance but the platform stance
will have the feet in the same position until we get airborne there is a weight shift however this
is going to depend on your Rhythm but the good thing about a platform stance serve is that you
don't have to worry about pulling the back foot up which happens to be the pinpoint stance where the
back foot doesn't stay in the same position it pulls up towards the front foot and this should
occur prior to the trophy phase so as the racket is going up towards the trophy the back foot
should pull up to the front foot now Within in each stance there's going to be several variations
and let me tell you what those variations are so on the platform stance we're going to have
a regular platform stance where the tip of the back foot is aligned with the heel of the front
foot that is the regular platform stance there's also the lateral platform stance where there's a
gap between the tip of the back foot and the heel of the front foot there's also the extreme lateral
platform stance where the back foot is aligned with the front foot in regards to the Baseline
and this is an extreme position because our body is completely turned towards the back fence when
we set up in this way there's also the reverse platform stance where the back foot is on the
hitting side of the body and this is a stance that you don't see so much nowadays but back
in the 80s and the '90s there were some players who utilized this stance and some of them would
actually land on their right foot if they happen to be right-handed and and finally there's also
the narrow platform stance where the feet are very close together and this is a stance that's not
very common but there have been some great servers who have utilized The Stance when it comes to the
pinpoint stance we're going to have two variations and the first one is the regular pinpoint stance
where the back foot simply pulls up right behind the front foot another pinpoint stance is one
where the back foot goes towards the outside of the body this is a stance that's very common on
the wta tour now players that manage to get a coil and this you do see more frequently on the
ATP Tour and I named this serve the cork screw serve because the bottom portion of your body is
turned towards the outside while the top portion of your body is turned towards the inside and the
body is twisted like a cork screw and a variation to the cork screw pinpoint stance is one where
players pull the back foot up towards the outside of the body but they don't coil a lot they have
a regular coil and the body is in no way set up like a cork screw but yet the back foot happens to
be on the outside this is a stance that you very frequently see on the WTA tour now when it comes
to stances this is something that I do encourage you to experiment with even on the ATP and the WTA
tour you will see players who will switch their stances midcareer for example go from a pinpoint
stance to a platform stance or they will switch the variations with in one stance so what's going
to happen as you experiment with these different stances you're going to find one that's going to
work best for you but having said that I'm going to give you some general recommendations that you
should follow at the recreational level so the stances that you should stay away from are the
following ones you shouldn't set your serve up with the reverse platform stance why because in
this stance it's going to be very difficult to coil it is possible but the coiling would
have to happen much later in the service motion and this might provide some challenges to a lot
of players it's also challenging to land on your left foot and this stance might cause you to over
rotate so I do not recommend the reverse platform stance on the other hand while an extreme lateral
platform stance will give you an automatic coil it's often going to be a coil that you're not
going to be able to get out of because it's too extreme where your hips and your chest is pointed
towards the back fence and a lot of players don't have fast enough body actions to be able to come
out of a coil that's this large also while the narrow platform stance might look like a simple
solution to your surf problems this is going to provide a lot of challenges because it's going
to be very difficult to have a rhythm within the stance because what you have to realize is that
when we go through our service motion we're going to be Shifting the weight from the front foot to
the back foot and then back to the front foot this is what I refer to as a rocking motion so
when your feet are very close together it's going to be more difficult to get a good Rhythm on your
serve another stance that's going to be difficult to pull off is the cork screw pinpoint stance
where the back foot goes towards the outside and the upper body is coiled in an extreme way a lot
of recreational players will not have enough flexibility to come out of a loading position
that's this extreme so this leaves us with three stances that I recommend for the recreational
level we have the lateral platform stance we have the regular platform stance and we have
the regular pinpoint stance with the variation of having the ability to bring the foot towards the
outside with a regular coil so I highly encourage you that you experiment with the stances that I
just mentioned and you're quickly going to find one that works best for you but a few things
to keep in mind if you are a beginner you don't want to develop your serve with a pinpoint stance
right away because that's going to add a lot of challenges in your development there's many other
things that you have to worry about syncing the toss arm with the hitting arm getting a proper
racket drop starting to utilize your power sources and so on so timing the pulling up of the back
foot might provide a lot of challenges to somebody that's a beginner level tennis player so for that
reason if you are a beginner I advise you to start with a platform stance and the one that's going to
be the easiest to pull off is the regular platform stance where the tip of the back foot is aligned
with the heel of the front foot now one important thing to consider for everyone this goes from the
beginner level to the professional level is that there's going to be variations in the stances
when we're serving towards the ad side and the deuce side and this goes for some of the greatest
servers of all time let's just take Federer as an example Federer will have a lateral platform stance
when he's serving to the ad side in other words there's going to be a gap between the tip of his
back foot and the heel of the front foot but then when he serves from the deuce side he's going to have
a regular platform stance where the tip of the back foot is aligned with the heel of the front
front foot so for the lower recreational levels I recommend that you don't worry about changing
your stances and you have the same stance for both sides one thing you should avoid is having
the feet right next to each other and the reason why I say that is because it's going to make the
coil more difficult see what happens is when you have a regular platform stance and the tip of the
back foot is aligned with a heel of front foot naturally as you go into your take back you will
naturally get a coil because your body is slightly turned backwards one thing to keep in mind is that
the front foot must be slightly pointed forward ideally towards the right Net post then also the
back foot must be slightly turned backwards so that we can more naturally achieve that
coiling position without our hips being locked because let's just say for example that my back
foot is parallel to the Baseline if I try to coil there going to put a lot of pressure on my right
hip at the same time if my front foot is turned backwards and now I try to rotate this is going
to put a lot of pressure on my front hip so you have to make sure that regardless if you have a
pinpoint stance or a platform stance when you start off your serve you're going to have your
front foot position slightly forward and your back foot position slightly back for so that you can
get a more natural coil right off the bat now if you're someone that's going to find the comfort
in having a lateral pinpoint stance like many ATP players do the advantage you're going to get is
that the coil is going to be larger naturally so when I put my feet further apart and there's a
gap between the tip of my back foot and the heel of my front foot as I go into my takeback you can
see that I naturally get a larger coil and that's generally an advantage as long as players are able
to come out of a coil and that's the big caveat there and this is where you have to make sure that
the stance that you're choosing fits your body type fits your athleticism and fits your overall
rhythm of the serve people often ask me Nick what's the better stance the pinpoint stance or
the platform stance and there's no correct answer to this question because each stance is going to
be the optimal stance for each individual player I'm going to use myself as an example I've always
used the platform stance have I experimented with the pinpoint of course I have and it never felt
comfortable I could never get the timing down I could never load my body properly with that back
foot so when it comes to experimentations you always have to stick with what feels best but
having said that there is some evidence to suggest that the pinpoint stance provides more effortless
forward momentum when you take a look at the WTA tour you will see that the pinpoint stance is
used almost ubiquitously in other words there's a very few players that utilize the platform stance and
this is not a coincidence when we pull the back foot up to the front foot we get that forward
momentum to happen more intuitively as opposed to manufacturing the forward momentum from a stationary
position now remember that when you look at female serves they often utilize the natural
ways of creating power because they don't possess the raw athleticism that some of the male servers
do again I'm going to stress that none of these stances are right or wrong some of the greatest
servers in a history of tennis have utilized all of these stances that I mentioned so it's going to be
up to you to experiment and find which stance is going to suit your unique service motion the best