we only worked very briefly on the overhead okay but um i've been nailing my overhead you
said you're doing well i'm nailing it okay good you're playing well on the overhead
i mean you didn't really say that much and we only worked on it briefly
but i feel like my overhead's better than it was a year ago okay good yeah
yeah i don't have too many videos on the overhead i have a course on the overhead
but yeah i'll take a quick look and then we can transition from the overhead into the serve okay
go again
okay a lot of good things happening on the overhead but there's also a couple of things that
you can do better okay first of all your racket is going too far back so you're going like here
and the racket is somewhere in here already yeah just keep it on the hitting side of the body keep
it here no look where i'm at positioned go ahead and copy me now put your elbow back come on come over
here come closer come right there right there in the middle turn this way go in a continental grip
all right right here and our left arm up straight up like that oh okay that way left
arm left arm here yeah that's how i want you to wait on the overhead okay and i'm too far
here yes you are okay so it's kind of closer to your head like this there you go line it up like
that keep the left arm straight okay it's almost like a forehand waiting position like a forehand
yeah like a serve no forehand is different forehand you don't have a tilt you don't you don't go like
like this on the forehand oh okay yeah on the serve and the overhead you do you create a tilt
between yes you have to get the left side higher than the right side i was doing this yes and we
weren't you weren't turning enough so turn all the way keep the racket on the hitting
side come a little closer turn all the way turn show me there you go racket on the
hitting side you can even drop it down a little bit like this down racket head down this way
you turn towards me turn sideways okay elbow straight back towards the back fence not up
straight back no wrist extension okay keep the wrist straight elbow down a little bit like this
and now left arm up left arm up there you go now you got not up like that no okay so the
uh elbow is pretty close to the level of the shoulder well first of all if you know on
the serve you want to coil on the serve correct you you don't want to serve like this do you no
all right so you want to be at least here or ideally here do that on the overhead as well
you don't want the elbow on the hitting side on the overhead or the serve elbow not on the hitting
side it's your hitting side elbow there you go oh okay elbow straight in a straight line yes
also no wrist extension straighten the wrist straighten the wrist okay down
no down down this way watch go ahead and get in the same position already put you in a
position you got out of it come on elbow here yeah okay wrist is here straight left arm up
yes but the racket closer to your head no the racket head closer to your head
oh okay like this there you go almost almost touching my forehead absolutely okay go again
you're not turning enough and the elbow is on the hitting side you're like this
you got to go this way okay when you're looking at the ball your chin is over your left shoulder
your chin is over your left shoulder as you're looking at the ball
the ball is coming from here look this way
this way see this why are you looking that way the ball's coming from here look at the
ball with your chin over your left shoulder there you go but turn more turn there you go
you're still not turning enough go again turn more
okay you understand why we have to turn because you yeah you get more rotation into the contact
so right now your your setup is like this you're here yeah okay so this is this elbow
there you go there you go you got it that's it absolutely better come again
get the left arm up a little bit more left arm up
best overhead you hit so far you see that come again left arm up
okay left arm up a little bit more
you're not turning enough one more time
okay good all right that's better well the thing is that what you're doing is very common at the
rec level because when players get a high ball they like looking at the ball like this
this is the natural way to look at the ball so they're open so they like hitting at the very
low rec level they hit overheads like this yeah at the advanced rec level like you are
people are like this i could still get more turn stay again with the elbow left arm pulling up
elbow to the back absolutely when you were hitting like that you would get more power and it's a good
technique for improving the serve too possibly yeah but you see the thing is on the on the
serve you don't have these problems because you are tossing the ball to yourself this is only
an overhead problem so left arm up yeah elbow to the back fence yeah keep the racket on the hitting
side of the body like this don't do these any of these wrist extension things no and don't bend the
wrist this way no good straighten the wrist keep the racket head on the hitting side of the body
like this oh if anything's slightly tilted there you go there you go that's it yep
that's it yep now on the serve the difference is that you're throwing a ball to yourself so you
don't have this thing where you're looking at the ball and therefore opening up to be able to
see the ball you don't have that on the serve so i don't think you have this problem on the serve
but we're going to take a look okay have you made any changes to your serve or no
i fooled around with a position i really i only think i did was i tried to flatten it out
okay got it and i was trying to do too hard focusing on diagonal and i don't
like the video you made with shamir we kept telling him hit it flat flat straight and i'm
sort of just hitting it more flat and it's kind of falling into place got it okay good
see the problem that you had back then when we worked together and this problem
that you're still having is that you're making contact a little bit behind your head at times
right and that is partially due to you're not necessarily a toss the toss is going
in front but your body is getting in there a little too early i'm not staying sideways no
that's not it your body is getting leaning forward too early in the movement okay
okay you you're leaning too early you have to hold the body a little bit
okay hold the forward movement of the body a little bit longer because that's what's happening
the body's getting too much underneath the ball and you're catching it right right over your head
instead of slightly in front of your head that toss is behind you yeah right too do it again
way behind okay now it's going to when i told you about the body movements now the toss is going
for some reason going really behind you okay so release it clean make sure you extend your hand
don't hold on to the ball too long throw it more in front
everything's going behind you now so you have a slight curl here with the
fingers and they're just flicking the ball backwards so clean up your release ball
release and you straighten your fingers upon the release a little bit a little bit more
okay extend the wrist upon the release there you go keep the fingers as close together as possible
okay that was better you like that one yeah that was slight yeah slightly in front and
you held your body you didn't get your body too much underneath that was a good serve so extend
the fingers is i keep yeah well also you can keep the palm parallel to the ground so if you have
if you have an issue where you're a lot of your tosses are going behind you yeah
sometimes when the hand is either too angled this way or the fingers are cuffed like curled up on
the release can send the ball backwards sometimes okay so what you can do is two things you can
keep the hand straight keep the fingers together but also you can extend the wrist upon the release
so the back of the hand is parallel to the ground watch no not like that watch you see there you go
that way you give yourself the best chance of throwing the ball consistently in front so uh
you always make the distinction behind is this way right no behind is back here yeah you know
why because the body position changes and the body position the body rotation is different on every
serve it's very confusing but yet technically behind would be that way behind you yeah but i
refer that as left oh okay so if you look at the clock left is that way 11 o'clock is left okay
this is right this is behind behind the baseline in front of the baseline that makes the most sense
right so when you're referring to behind i'm not talking about that way i'm talking about this way
okay yep that is a fabulous serve robert that felt good toss was in front but that's
what you want that's what you want yeah you held your body back you didn't get in there too early
that was very good show me uh a kick serve okay okay you do a kick on the second or you do slice
oh let me see it sometimes i do it on the first let me see your kicker man
it's not bad not bad at all do it again
that was a little bit too far back but you got some
good things going on in your kick serve it's nice
looking good on the kick and let me see one more thing the slice okay the slice i would use
and it's not to try to hit the t the t yeah exactly
or you can do the slice do the slice from the from the deuce side go ahead doesn't matter
throw a little bit more in front of you so everything is like behind your head here
it's gonna be tough to slice it from there do it again more in front more in front
that was a little bit better but let's let's get it out outside the court
let's aim for that singles line over there that was the best one you hit so far
it's not bad but it's still behind you throw it more in front
it's not bad at all it's got slice on it no doubt about it but let's
get the toss a little bit more to the right and let's throw it in front okay
that was a good slice
slide that toss towards your right it's going to be easier for you to get that lateral swing
path because right now that was that was a flat serve right there yeah it was behind
you again robert there was a slice though but it was still behind you throw it in front more
and there it is a slice you got the full repertoire my friend
you got everything thanks i think your game has improved i feel like the forehand is
continuing to get better it's continuing to get cleaner you're more consistent
i remember when we first started you used to make a lot more mistakes
your game seems to have gotten more consistent oh my forehand was like heavily stuck in that
70s style right so it's gotten a lot better back backhand has improved tremendously slice backhand
has improved a lot your serve is looking better so you're on the right track very nice job you
keep going this way you got it many many years