Hello everybody! Nadim here for Online Tennis Instruction.
In today's clip I
want to talk about the different positions your feet have during the
stances on the serve and there are a couple different styles that are totally
ok to use but unfortunately there are a few that I believe are not going to help
you, and are not very conducive to your serve and I want to point them out to you very
clearly and show you a couple of examples. So let's get right into that!
So let's start with a couple of stances or positions that I'm not a big fan of
and why! So a lot of players are not very aware of their positioning of the
feet really and that is something I've noticed recently in some of my serve
clinics. People just stand there and they're so consumed with the toss of the
service motion that they forget to position
themselves properly so that they can actually do the service motion
correctly! So what is that one particular stance that shouldn't occur? If you're
a righty like myself you do not want your back foot further over to the right side
and than your front foot. So in other words from this particular angle you
would be able to see my front foot and that is not possible. At least the heel
you shouldn't be able to see it should be covered by that back foot. Why is that?
Simply because I want to be able to have the option to rock back and forth to
transition my weight on the serve. If I'm over here that's not going to happen I'm
going to fall, I'm going to be in a very imbalanced position. So that is the
main thing I don't want to see. If you're a lefty it's the same thing you don't want
to be too open and the primary reason why is because when you serve and you
you have your back foot over to your dominant side further than the front
foot, your hips and your shoulders are going to open really really early and we
definitely don't want that because that takes the torque out of the serve
completely! So regardless of whether you're a lefty or righty the back foot
should not be over to your dominant side. So if you're a righty further over to the
right side and if you're a lefty further over to the left side than your front
foot. That's the most important part in here that's the most important tip I
have for you in this video. Don't do that! Now there's one other way that I don't
want you to begin in ok and that is having the front foot parallel to the
baseline. Now there are players that definitely in their motion get into this
position okay but if you start like this and you don't really use your legs a lot
during the serve what'll happen is you're actually blocking your stroke as well.
Your hip is going to be blocked because of the positioning of your front foot!
Okay I don't have any leverage going up and forward that way, unless I bring it
in and really come off. In that event then yes it is okay to bring the foot
into this position throughout the motion but starting parallel to the baseline is
not something that I would recommend. Okay so now
what's good to use is anything in between the back foot pointing to the
side fence or the back fence for stabilization purposes when you walk and
the front foot pointing anywhere between the net post and the side fence right
here. That is a good position to have and I also recommend having at least a foot
in between the two feet so that you're not too narrow. Now there are a few
players who manage to do it with the feet being narrow like Monfils does. That
is perfectly fine but if you are working on getting more rhythm in your stroke
you're probably better off having a little bit more spread between the legs
so you can involve the entire rhythm of the body.
Okay so let me show you a few
examples here on how to do it when you do it incorrect. So let me
start with a position where the back foot is too far over to the right side.
So what will happen is first of all it feels really really awkward and what
most players will likely do they will start with the weight on the back foot.
So then it becomes an erratic motion in my opinion but let's see how this works!
So let's put my front foot in a decent position but my back foot in a
weak position and what will happen is that I have to really open early here
and I don't want to do that. I want to stay side on as much as possible. So if I
place this foot further back and I first of all this feels a lot more comfortable
because I can now rock without losing my balance or my posture and when I serve I
can stay a lot more sideways for longer regardless of stance. That was a platform
stance as to a pinpoint stance the correct way. So same thing and now I'm
going to bring this foot in. Here we go and then the balance looks good,
everything is fine I can go back and forth very rhythmically
without really losing balance and that is the key. This is not a good stance at
all! Let me try that one more time to show you what I don't want. I don't want
that back foot further over, this may have been a little bit extreme. Let's
even go even. I don't even want it to be even okay this would be considered even.
I want the back foot further over that is usually what works best for most
players so this is even this is still when I balance when I try to rock this
doesn't really work I don't have much support. And I have to open rather early!
I can get away with it because I have a decent motion I would say but that is
not something that I would feel comfortable doing or suggest anybody
else to do. Now let's start with the front foot parallel to the baseline now
there were players that we all know that have done is in the past but this is
also when I start rocking forward here this is not possible for me, my body
is really blocked off my hip is blocked off so I can't really do anything. I'm
losing balance really easily. I can't even get a serve over the net
that way. The only way I can make this work is if I start pointing towards the
side somewhere and then as I do my motion and I have a pinpoint stance I
bring the feet together and they're now both parallel. That does work! Let's check
it out. I can do that but it takes a lot of talent to do this and a lot of
coordination to pull this off. So the best thing to do in my opinion is to
simply get a good foot in between your two feet, make sure that your front foot
is pointing somewhere to the side, your back foot is either pointing to the side
fence or the back fence and then find a comfortable position where you can
really rock from the front to the back and then come and serve. Now that was a
little bit long. Let's finish this off with a good serve shall we!
That looks better! Okay I hope that makes sense guys. I know that there are
different styles so don't take it all too seriously if your style works and
it's especially the one where you actually do get parallel that is okay. I
just don't like people to start that way because it doesn't end very well at the
beginning so just make sure you don't get the back for too far over and I
think you'll be much better with your positioning!