C1L5 Serves and Overheads at the 45

Good Pros will tell you serving is like throwing a ball, so finally here is how to throw a ball correctly. Most people don't know how to throw a ball and throwing a ball is pretty much the essence of being an athlete. If you can throw a ball you can play baseball you can play tennis for the most part. You can do a lot of sports if you can throw a ball. So many people throw a ball by A either facing their target like this and just arming it. Where you can see they don't have any power or by turning too side ways and then strangling themselves like that. What you learn in throwing a ball the catch point and the release point is right here at the 45 degree angle. So when Rafa throws me the ball I catch it right there. I don't catch it back here or out here, I catch it at the most comfortable place across my body and I bring it in here. When I release I release in the same part, thats #1. When you throw a ball you catch and release at the 45 degree angle to your target. So now that you know this fundamental law of lining things up to the 45 degree angle how can you help your students , I am going to show you right here. This young girl is an intermediate tennis player very serious but you can see there is a lot of over rotation in her serve and not a lot of power. So before she came to her last lesion I lined up the arrow and hit a few serves myself just staying along the line. See that. I just line my hips up and I just stretch straight across that line. Now this time I even line my feet up so I have a semi open stance. You can see you can hit the serve perfectly with a continental grip it goes right into the court, see that, with a continental grip it lines up perfectly at the 45 degree angle. You make contact comfortably keep your eyes up very relaxed you don't even have to follow through and it should go right into the court. So my student came for her lesion I said look I put the arrow out what I want you to do is line up your energy and keep it as close to this arrow as you possibly can. The very very first serve she started understanding and she really got it. Her serves were more consistent had more power she was really staying on the ball and she looked a lot more balanced, putting in a lot less effort. She is really on the mark you know she is with contact. You can see it in all the players, look how Roger lines up those hips and look at that left arm everything is lined up to explode up into the 45 degree angle. Then as he comes through he pushes that hip up and right there look at his hips see how they lock at the 45 look at where his racket pronates right there at the 45 degree angle. Nadal too the lefty serve, here it is lines up the hips to the 45, left arm and hips both lined up perfectly like a baseball pitcher. At the contact the racket pronates at the 45 look at those hips still lined up at the 45 degree angle. Now on the contrary lets look at some one who has problems with their serve. Wozniacki look her hips are still perpendicular to the base line of the net, and her left arm is straight ahead of her not like the men. Now she bends down and when she explodes up and in to the serve she has to over rotate to try to get power. Her knees, her hips, her face everything is facing the net. Now Serena has a nice serve watch what she does here she goes into her wind up, watch that emblem on her skirt see that . The hips lead off the stroke and she is poised at the 45 degree angle with her left arm and left hip. You can see the energy is going to go from the 45 up into the 45 and that is why she has such a great serve in the women's game. Warren is a great example here you can see the stripes on his pants. Watch this right as he lets go of the toss, look at that he is really coiled and screwing down into the court. He is lined up with that 45, watch as he makes contact right at the 45 degree angle . Look at that right foot just like Federer and Nadal see how it kicks off to lock his hips there. Right and that is a great looking serve. The same applies for the over head, see that you want to line it up on the 45 degree angle turn your hips. Well he is showing off now, see that left handed. It works just as well. He lines up the 45 and pow just reaches up in to the 45 degree angle. So if you are looking for dramatic improvements in yours and your students over heads and serves line up the 45.