Hello! Gregg Le Sueur Online Tennis Instruction.
We recently posted a video
on the differences between the first and
second serve.
One of our viewers asked if
we had a pro example to demonstrate this.
So here we have for Feliciano Lopez with
his first and second serve side by side.
Now on the second serve you can note how
he's turned a little bit more, has a
little more shoulder rotation on the
second serve
compared to his first serve.
This is going to allow him to swing at a
different angle up to contact so you can
generate the necessary topspin.
Now if
you look here, look over to the right you
see how you swinging more from right to
left up to contact and on the first
serve he's you swinging up on edge but
more straight on.
Now if we look at the
2 contact points. Now bear in mind this
was filmed at a slight angle but you can
clearly see on the second serve how his
toss is a little further over to the
right compared to the first serve.
Now if
we were filming straight on generally
his contact point for the first serve
would be just above his left hitting
shoulder and on the second serve the
contact point would be just above his
head and now you can see because on the
second serve he was swinging more right
to left up to contact. He's swinging up
and out.
See how his racket finishes more out to
the left for him being a left-handed
player.
Let's take a look at that one
more time so you can see the angle with
which he swings up at is slightly
different.
That's allowing him to brush the
back up the backside of the ball to give
the ball topspin.
Look at the toss
placement, the contact point it's a
little more over to the right for him on
the second serve and then we can see the
finish and he finishes more out into the
left.
Now we flipped him around for the
right-handed viewers to give a
right-hand perspective. So you can see on
the second serve,
see how he is more sideways with his
body and he's going to be swinging more
from left to right
compared to the first serve where he's
swinging more straight on
and up on edge.
So now the placement of
the toss, his contact point it's more up
to his left that allows him to brush up
the backside of the ball which is
necessary to generate topspin and once
again if you'd straight on the contact
point for the first serve would be just
above his right shoulder and the second
serve would be just above his head.
Now one thing to take note of be very
careful you don't want to toss your ball
too far back over your head just so you
can prevent injuring your back or
shoulder.
Now you can see how on the
second serve is swing path finishes more
out to the right because you were
swinging up at a slightly different
angle to generate topspin.
We'll take a
look at this one more time.
You can see
the angle he's swinging up on the
contact point more over his head, more to
his left, allows him to brush up the back
the ball he's swinging up. If we watch
the finish he's finishing more out to
his right.
you