says
Spin and more spin.
says
Spin and more spin.
Well-Known Member
Super Moderator
Hi Carl, that's a detailed breakdown explaining the difference between the serves. It took me while to assimilate it, but I understood what you are trying to convey to me. I take it seriously as a valuable feedback. I would work on it by the table to see the difference it can bring to the quality of the serve. BTW, I also see similar kind of thing going on when ML serves. He also contact almost with the ball within the region of the chest. I just thought that it obstructs the view of the serve. But, almost all elite players have a bend upper torso, what could be the reason?
I felt that the serve mechanics of my serve was ok. But, does shifting the energy from upper torso have such a significant differenc to serve quality. I see that people like ovtcharov, samsonov don't use the upper torso-hip shift when making their serves. Could you throw some light on it?
Well, on this stuff, the first thing I am going to say is, the serve is not just the arm and even the arm is different. But if there is that much difference in BODY MECHANICS, than calling this a Jun Mizutani serve is actually a disservice to you more than to JM and it is also a disservice to people who don't have the tools to analyze the body mechanics.
If I made a video of me walking upright and said it was the way John Green walked, but that JG walked with his knees bent and his torso bent at a 45-degree angle and the only thing that was the same was a funny back and forth hitch in the left arm, it would be sort of weird to say, here is how John Green walks.
But as a Siva Schooehauer serve, your serves actually have more value. I think, if all your serve videos had your name in the title, you actually might ultimately, over time, build more brand name recognition for YOURSELF. People might even come up with names like: THAT CRAZY SPIN SERVE GUY.
Titles like "Siva Schopenhauer Attempts to Emulate Jun Mizutani's Ghost Serve". That would be much different than the titles you use largely because you are stating you are attempting to emulate and it specifies Siva S as the server. Whereas, your titles imply that it is JM's or Ma Long's serve in some way. Perhaps it is semantics but in my opinion, it would be more genuine.
As far as body mechanics, I think I will ask a few questions and see if you have answers to the body mechanics issues. But first one important observation. When Jun Mizutani is finished with his serve motion, he is facing the table and the opponent and he is low and looks like he is ready for the next ball. His follow through motion brings him right into the ready position. When your serve is finished, you are upright and still facing the side, and not really in a position that is ready for much of anything aside from watching the outcome of your serve.
Now, some little questions.
1) a) If JM's hips start facing approx 45-degrees away from the table and end facing square to the table (so when his hips face 90-degrees to the table his hips have turned 45-degrees and when he squares his hips to the table that is another 90-degrees of rotation for a total of 135-degrees of rotation)
b) and your hips start facing approx 90-degrees to the table and end facing 86- degrees to the table for a total of 4-degrees of rotation,
c) who is more likely to get more power from the core rotation of the hips?
Now the truth is a lot of that hip rotation is not fully necessary and you make a small pop of your hips that is well timed to the stroke. So your hips are helping you well for how small a hip rotation you make. Credit for the efficiency of the hip pop. Your hip movement may be more efficient than JM's. But it is totally different and--even though the hip action is more efficient, because it is a very small movement, well timed without much wasted effort and JM's hip movement is giant--he still probably gets 2-3 times more power from the hips into the ball than you.
2) When one loops, why is it not such good technique to be upright with legs straight? Why would knees bent and torso bent forward give more power? What is that about?
Samsonov's technique on serves is special and is an adaptation for someone who is pretty tall and has long arms. But you didn't say you were imitating Samsonov. Why wouldn't you say hybrid imitation: Jun Mizutani's forward and back arm movement and Vladimir Samsonov's body mechanics?
Anyway, Samsonov's height makes the tradeoff of staying high but using the long sweep of his long arm as an acceptable adaptation for his body. You are not tall like NextLevel or Samsonov.
But, I am sure, if you answer the 2nd question you can figure out part of what the bent and forward position is about. If you loop from upright with legs straight, you can't use your body to add power to the stroke. With the serve, those guys get much more power from their body as a result of being bent and having that lower center of gravity. And they also end up bent and low so they are ready for their next shot.
As far as having the elbow back and up so that the contact is at chest height and under the upper body, this does several important things. The first one is, from the standpoint of the serve receiver, the whole entire time, your (Siva's) racket is visible. Whereas those pros who are bent over with the contact only inches away from the chest and the upper body bent over the ball, aside from a large amount of extra leverage, A LARGE AMOUNT, their racket is out of view until a fraction of a second before contact. The ball is always in view but the racket is hidden until just before it contacts the ball. The raising of the elbow up and back gives far more free range and swing to the forearm and causes the followthrough to end to the left of his chest, further back and closer to hidden (he is lefty. On a righty like Ma Long the follow through would end to the right and behind his right side at chest height). The follow through of your serve ends up past your abdomen and out towards the right. So, way lower and way farther out because your elbow is way lower than JM's and JM isolated the movement of the forearm and wrist. Where, your elbow moves out, down and forward which means you are using much less forearm and much more upper arm which is definitely lower level technique than Jun's. Upper arm stable and whip from forearm gets much faster racket speed than what happens with all that movement from the upper arm.
Anyway, with JM's elbow up and back, his arm is out of view. Whereas, there is an easy tell in your serve: when you do the normal sidespin that curves towards a righty's BH, your elbow goes out to the right and when you do the reverse spin, your elbow is still visible but moves in towards your stomach. Jun's elbow is hidden behind him so you can't even see what it does.
Also you spoke about my level of play, I haven't played any competitive level of play, except for the few months in a club nearby, Curious to know where u would put me on?
I am judging from this video.
You hitting starts at about 1:45.
My memory is, your contact and spin are decent. Your mechanics are pretty bad. By the textbook there are too many things you are doing with poor mechanics. Racket coming across to the outside and under your shoulder. Elbow higher than racket in followthrough. Your FH stroke is a good 8-12 levels lower than your serves. So, if your serves are 2200-2400, your FH stroke could be as low as 1200 level.
I think there is a risk and a flaw in judging someone's level from videos and from technique. Because a player's real level doesn't work that way.
I know plenty of guys with 1500 level technique who are 2100. And then there are other guys who look like they are 2200 in practice but really are 1800 level players because they don't have game skills.
So all I can say is, your FH technique is not good and it would be really hard to change some of those bad habits. Hopefully a fool like Archosaurus will be smart enough not to comment because he just doesn't know what he is talking about. But your FH needs real help.
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