There are two ways to sync the toss arm with the hitting arm. You can make
them go up together or you can lag the hitting arm behind the toss arm.
Lagging the hitting arm behind the toss arm is by far the most commonly used
technique among the best servers of all time. On the ATP Tour all-time career
aces top 20 list there's only one player that has the up together type movement
and that's Andy Roddick. All the other players in the top 20 greatest servers
of all time serve with a lag. The WTA Tour does not
keep all-time career ace statistics, so I took this year's top 20 ace leaders and
just like the men, there was only one player that uses the up together type
movement and that's Caroline Garcia. All the other players use the lag.
There are potential problems with the up together type technique and if a player was to
bring both arms up together in an abbreviated take back like this, there has to be a
stop. In other words the arms are going up too fast and while the ball is in the
air the racket has to stop and then wait for the ball to come down and that
interrupts the momentum and you basically have to start from zero from
the trophy position. However if a player has more of a full backswing where the
racket goes towards the back fence before it gets into the trophy phase and
the arms are going up together that indeed would be a more continuous swing
ala Stan Wawrinka.
And while the up together movement looks simple there are potential problems within this simplicity and there are
examples of players who can perform the up together type movement well.
Players such as Andy Roddick, Stan Wawrinka or Bjorn Borg but issues with
timing and rhythm a very frequent among recreational players who employ an up together type service action.
It is no coincidence that the lag is used by the
greatest servers in the history of the game just to give you a few examples on
the women tour players such as Brenda Schultz McCarthy, Sabine Lisicki, Madison
Keys, Julia Georges, the Pliskova sisters and the Williams sisters all use the lag.
On the men's tour players such as Sampras, Ivanisevic, Becker, Stich,
Sam Querrey, Nick Kyrgios, John Isner and the number one ace leader of all time
Ivo Karlovic all use the lag. The lag serve technique can work with many different
styles of serves. So it can work with a full take back ala Pete Sampras or
Goran Ivanisevic where they toss the ball first while the racket is simultaneously
moving all the way back like this. It can also work with the serve where the
racket is pointing down towards the ground with a full extension of the arm
and it can also work with a semi abbreviated serve ala John Isner where
the racket is it's a pointing towards the side and with a slight bending of
the arm. And you can also have different amounts of lag among the pro players so
players such as Federer and Raonic have very little lag so that means that
the toss arm is just slightly ahead of the hitting arm just very slightly
ahead of the hitting arm. And then you have the other extreme a player like Ivo
Karlovic who tosses first but then actually waits on the bottom and then
once the balls up in the air he starts to go into his take back and into the
trophy phase.
When you toss the ball first while the hitting arm is waiting behind you are
guaranteed to have a more continuous motion in other words the racket arm is
chasing the toss. So there's actually absolutely no time to stop and that is a
big advantage when it comes to swing momentum. So when you toss the ball first
the racket continuously has to move in order to catch up with the ball
The great thing about the lag is that we actually are separating the toss from
the take-back so now you can solely focus on tossing the ball first and then
you can focus on taking the racquet up as opposed to doing both things
simultaneously which can be a big problem for some players
Almost all players who have a pinpoint stance will also have a lag and it's
because it's much easier to time the pulling up of the back foot with the
take back and it should look like this you're going to toss the ball first and
now the ball is already in the air and now as the racket is going up into the
trophy phase you also are pulling the back foot up and this is a perfect
timing when it comes to the power transfer. I'm going to try now to do two
different pinpoint serves one with up together and pinpoint and then one with
the lag and the pinpoint. So first it's going to be up together I'm going to try
to do a pinpoint stance.
So I made that one but I felt like I lost my
balance a little bit and I had that little pause right in the trophy phase
and I didn't feel like I hit the serve well. So let me try one where I'm going
to lag the racquet behind and then do a pin point stance. Let's see what happens.
Okay that felt a lot better. I feel like the weight transfer was seamless
everything synced in perfectly together I didn't even have to think about it
automatically as I was swinging up towards the trophy phase and pulling the
back foot up I just simply exploded into the serve and it was a very seamless
service action.
And most importantly the lag will give
you more power on the serve. Now it might not be much, might be 5% 10% but it is a
more powerful way to serve and all the record holders on both the WTA Tour and
the ATP Tour. if we're talking about Venus Williams or Sabine Lisicki
or if we're talking about Sam Groth or Ivo Karlovic they all serve with a lag
So there is more power created with a lag because the racquet is picking up
more swing momentum. If you happen to have a pinpoint stance it syncs with the
pinpoint stance perfectly and it results in a more continuous smooth motion that
will give you more power
If you happen to have an up together type serve can you switch to a lag? Yes
you can and one pro player who's done that switch is Petra Kvitova who used
to have an up together type serve and then switched it to a full lag with a
slight pause on the bottom ala Ivo Karlovic and she's been serving
fantastic ever since, has won Wimbledon and was ranked number two in the world.
The up together serve works well for some players and if you're one of those
players then of course you shouldn't switch your serve, however if you suffer
from very common technical deficiencies on the serve, for example on your toss,
your take back or maybe in the racket drop area, performing both of these
problem areas together can only make things worse
So it makes a lot of sense to separate them and then to work on the toss first
while the racket legs behind and then once you develop a good toss then you
can start working on a take back. So it's a good idea that if you have
problems on your serve to give the lag a try.