hey guys in today's video I want to talk about Ben Shelton's serve it is absolutely Hugh monstrous
he was serving 149 miles per hour at the U.S open it's one of the biggest serves that I've ever seen
and I studied his technique in great detail and I can tell you that Shelton has one of the most
unorthodox loading positions that I've ever seen and I've studied the greatest servers of all time
and in today's video I want to talk about why Shelton's loading position is so unorthodox how
he's able to generate so much power and whether Shelton serve is something that you should be
copying at the recreational level okay so we're going to get into the weeds today we're going to
go into deep technical analysis but I'm going to dial it back a little bit for some of my viewers
who are maybe beginners or intermediates so let's talk about the loading position in itself that is
the moment in time where you begin to unload that is your loading position also known as
the trophy position or the trophy phase so when the racket is somewhere around here
you are going to load your body you're going to bend your knees get on your toes get the elbow
back you're going to tilt your shoulders you might pop your hip inside the court you might even bend
backwards in this way so when I study the greatest servers of all time you're going to see some
unorthodox technical elements within the loading position so for example goran ivanisevic had an
unorthodox loading position he would put his back foot around the front foot and he would coil quite
a bit and his body was loaded like a corkscrew his chest was going towards the back fence while
his outside leg was on the outside of the body so the body was somewhat loaded like a corkscrew one
of the all-time great serves Pete Sampras had an extreme coil in other words he would turn
his chest towards the back fence like this but not only that sampras would also Bend backwards
in this way so that the body looked like a reverse letter C so both of these Styles can be pulled off
by players even at the recreational level but some players are going to to feel uncomfortable loading
like that so there is a more comfortable way to load for example one of the best servers right
now Daniil Medvedev he has a loading position where he doesn't turn as far back as sampras the
foot doesn't go on the outside on the pinpoint stance it goes right behind the front foot and
his elbow goes behind his body and he's slightly turned towards the back fence he does have a tilt
when he loads up he does Bend his knees he also slightly leans backwards with his body but it is
a loading position that can be copied really by anyone it doesn't require a lot of flexibility
to get into this position and yet this type of loading position encompasses all the fundamental
elements that you need in order to serve with a lot of power okay now let's talk about Ben
Shelton and again it is a loading position that is so insane I don't think it's possible to recreate
at the recreational level or even at the pro level the only guy I can find that has a
similar setup is Sam Groth to holds the unofficial world record for the fastest serve of all time
however on groth there is a discrepancy between his ad serve and his deuce serve so on the deuce side
it resembles more like a Shelton serve not 100 exactly the same there's still some differences
but from the ad side sam Groth has a completely different style that has more similarities with
the sampras serve so now I'm going to tell you what makes Ben Shelton serve so on Orthodox so
the vast majority of players on the ATP Tour will bend backwards so in other words they will
load their body in this way their chest is going to be up towards the sky Ben Shelton doesn't do
that he doesn't Bend backwards very much now at this moment in time I'm going to flip the video
to Lefty so it makes more sense because Ben is Lefty which makes his serve even more dangerous
so he doesn't Bend backwards much he also doesn't coil very much it doesn't turn his chest towards
the back fence that's what differentiates his serve for from the sam groth serve for example his
chest is pointed towards the side fence whether he is serving from the ad side or the deuce side
he does turn the chest slightly more when he's serving to the deuce side because he's Lefty for
a lefty to deuce side is the ad side for a righty so there's a small little difference in the amount
of turn but generally he doesn't turn very much and his elbow doesn't go very far back especially
compared to Ivanisevic or Sampras it goes to about right here now Shelton has an extremely
low knee Bend is almost as if he's sitting in a chair and he also has a pinpoint stance style
that's more similar to Ivanisevic where his back foot goes more towards the outside so from
here Ben loads up by almost sitting in a chair but guys this is not the crazy part what Shelton
does is the following thing he turns his butt towards the other side while keeping the chest
somewhat towards the side fence and of course he has an extreme tilting position like this so
when the opponent is waiting for Shelton serve the opponents are looking straight at his butt
and guys I spend a lot of time with my students teaching them the four power sources and one of
the four power sources is vertical momentum and part of the vertical momentum is getting the hip
inside of the court and you are going to see a lot of WTA players and also some ATP players for example
Sampras put the non-dominant hip slightly into the court as they're leaning forward now Shelton
doesn't do that his butt goes into the court Instead This is what makes his loading position
so unorthodox let me try to do it again it's not that he puts his hip in here like this he puts
his butt into the court like this his toss arm is completely upright like this he's got a humongous
tilt and the butt is into the court while the rest of his body is behind the Baseline so as I
try to get into the Shelton position on the serve more accurately it looks something like this there's an
extreme tilt the butt is turned towards the court the chest is not turned very much and there's a very
deep knee bend the interesting thing is that when you compare Shelton serve to the greatest servers
of all time you want to see the exact opposite those guys are bent the other way backwards so
what happens on those serves for example Sampras is that a lot of the power comes from the mid
section it comes from the upper abdominal area from the lower chest area so the primary reason
why Shelton has such an incredibly powerful serve maybe he's going to break the speed record because
he's getting stronger and he's getting better but what he has and what for example Andy Roddick had is
a fast arm so even if Shelton didn't load the serve in the way he does he would still serve incredibly
fast but the fact that he loads his body in the such an unorthodox and aggressive Way by
turning his butt into the court and not allowing the body to coil very much having a very low
knee Bend and also an extreme till this is also something that's very reminiscent of Andy Roddick
so a combination of the lower part of the body being extremely loaded the hips being slightly
turned backwards and setting the serve up in an extremely tilted position a combination and
all these forces unloaded in unison results in a tremendous amount of power in conjunction with
a tremendously fast arm and that's how he's able to serve close to 150 miles per hour all right so
now enough talk it's hard enough getting into that position dry but I'm going to try to get
into the Shelton position on my serve and I can already tell you that you're gonna get a laugh now
because I'm probably not going to be able to do it so let me try to do it with a pinpoint stance
let's see how I can do this I'm going to try to turn my butt into the court
there's absolutely no way I'm not flexible enough to get into that position I'm actually
not even able to bend down low and come out of a knee that's that low so let me try one more time
okay that was a little bit better let me try one more time I'm getting a little bit more
of a hang of it I'm also not throwing the ball inside the cord enough let me try one more time
okay there we go that was a little bit better but I didn't bend that low on that serve that's why I
was able to hit a little bit better now a lot of you guys love to copy the trendy serve so last
couple years everybody was copying the Kyrgios serve prior to that everybody was copying the
Federer serve so I'm sure now a lot of people want to copy the Shelton serve because I do think
it is one of the greatest serves that we're ever seen see the thing is guys that a lot of players
will not be able to set the serve up the right way now if you look at Shelton's fundamentals
he has all of them just like any other big server and that's the thing that you should
be copying and generally speaking it's not wrong to experiment that's how Andy Roddick found his
serve one of the greatest servers of all time so there is a time and a place to experiment but one
thing that you shouldn't do is if something feels uncomfortable if you're unable to load
the serve a certain way and it's probably not assert it's going to suit you I recently did a
lesson with Emma where we were trying to get her to bend backwards more and she simply couldn't
do it she has more of a j set up on the serve she doesn't Bend backwards enough and she just
basically bends her knees and it's not coiled very far so that's something that's comfortable to her
and when she tries to do more it's out of her Comfort Range and you have to approach the serve
the same way if it feels uncomfortable when you're loading your body a certain way then
it's probably a loading position that's not suited to your body type and I've been watching Shelton
this whole year and I'm super impressed with him I think that out of all the American players he
actually has the most potential out of anyone even more than Fritz and Fritz I'm a little bit
biased because I've always loved players with huge serves and I would put Shelton right now and a top
five American servers of all time I know he's still young but my ranking goes as follows it's
Sampras Roddick Isner Roscoe Tanner and I'm going to put Ben Shelton at number five I know there are
other great servers such as Sam query Marty fish and so on but just from what I'm seeing this year
when he is serving well the serve is close to unreturnable