date,
Is it higher to place your foot again or carry it in your service stroll?
Visually, each appear to work properly. It is determined by what you see match and what you had been taught while you had been younger. It looks like gamers get to overload and explode upwards with their legs once they convey the again foot up. Gamers appear to look extra in management once they go away it behind, in addition to wanting extra related with their decrease and higher physique.
Take a look at the image above. Each Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic left their proper foot behind. Each Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal are on the again foot. If the Massive 4 are break up 50-50, you’d assume the remainder of the boys’s and ladies’s excursions are break up equally.
Nothing might be farther from the reality.
I analyzed all 128 women and men within the 2024 US Open from replays in my media terminal. I did not actually know what to anticipate as the top outcome.
Personally, I at all times grew my foot as a teenager as I labored and voted on the whole lot within the grass courts of Albury. It felt fast to achieve the web. However I additionally knew that I did not at all times time my legs and higher physique accurately and generally I had shoulder ache in consequence. So I attempted to depart the foot behind and bought combined outcomes. Even right now, I generally commute between the 2 steps and, relying on the day, I’ll carry out properly (or poorly) in both.
2024 US OPEN MEN
Right here is the breakdown of the boys’s draw.
2024 US Open Males’s Dr
- Foot Rests Again = 28% (36)
- Foot up = 72% (92)
- Quantity = 128 gamers
Nearly three out of 4 male gamers (72%) at this 12 months’s US Open most well-liked to boost their foot on the serve. That’s fairly the alternative. The lads’s closing featured one in all them, with Jannik Sinner lifting his foot when Taylor Fritz left it behind.
So, what’s the advantage of expressing it?
After watching all 92 gamers carry their foot, three issues stood out to me about this specific transfer.
IMPROVE YOUR SERVICE – HOLDS MULTIPLE SERVICE GAMES
Webinar 3: Serve methods and patterns
Webinar 11: Break Factors & Tie-Breaks
Webinar 16: Serve +1 Technique
Webinar 21: Serve & Volley / Return & Volley
Webinar 34: 8 Locations That Work
1: Anchor
There was a distinction in how the again foot moved from the again to the highest. Some gamers raised their again foot within the air, then introduced it again down. Some gamers dragged it a bit on the sector. Others celebrated their again foot on the sector, dedicated themselves to the court docket to “launch” on the proper second and burst out. Anchoring down was a typical theme.
2. Higher and Decrease Physique Connection
This didn’t go as deliberate. There have been instances when the toss was a bit sluggish, and the rear foot carry time was sluggish, and the higher and decrease elements of the physique did not appear to work collectively. Some feeds seemed dangerous, or had an excessive amount of energy delivered with too little impact.
3. Again Foot Down
This various enormously. Typically the again foot was held again for a very long time and solely did a “contact and go” when it arrived, spending little or no time with the toes collectively. Typically, the again foot appeared too early, and the participant misplaced steadiness with two toes too shut collectively for such a very long time. Discovering the precise time for the again foot to return up (not too early / not too late) and the way lengthy to maintain it down behind the lead foot makes an excellent distinction within the bigs.
4: Knee Bending & Exploding
Consider Ben Shelton. He hundreds all his vitality again and brings his again foot up behind his entrance foot. He hundreds all his power with an enormous bend of the knee. Then he explodes out of that scenario, goes as much as the ball, and goes to the sector.
Ben Shelton Service Movement
The ten quickest servers on the 2024 US Open are beneath. The three gamers in pink (Dimitrov, Fritz and Tiafoe) all left their toes and returned to their jobs. Everybody else raised it.
- Ben Shelton: 143mph (230 km/h).
- Reilly Opelka: 142 mph (229 km/h).
- Jiri Lehecka: 137 mph (220 km/h).
- Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard: 137 mph (220 km/h).
- Otto Virtanen: 137 mph (220 km/h).
- Grigor Dimitrov: 137 mph (220 km/h).
- Thomas Etcheverry: 137 mph (220 km/h).
- Gabriel Diallo: 136 mph (219 km/h).
- Alexander Zverev: 135 mph (217 km/h).
- Matteo Berrettini: 135 mph (217 km/h).
- Taylor Fritz: 135 mph (217 km/h).
- Frances Tiafoe: 135 mph (217 km/h).
The truth that three of the 12 quickest servers saved their foot again as a substitute of bringing it up proves which you can nonetheless get the identical energy to carry out both approach.
2024 US OPEN FOR WOMEN
The hole between working with the again foot or stepping it up is widening much more in ladies’s work.
2024 US Open Girls’s Draw
- Foot Rests Again = 12 % (15)
- Foot up = 88 % (113)
- Quantity = 128 gamers
That is wonderful. Solely 15 ladies in all the ladies’s group out of 128 gamers selected to maintain their foot again when working. Let’s have a look at what number of have entered the quickest servers.
- Coco Gauff: 125 mph (201 km/h).
- Paula Badosa: 121 mph (195 km/h)
- Jessica Ponchet: 119 mph (192 km/h)
- Naomi Osaka: 119 mph (192 km/h)
- Liudmila Samsanova: 119 mph (192 km/h)
- Aryna Sabalenka: 119 mph (192 km/h)
- Emma Navarro: 118 mph (190 km/h)
- Petra Martic: 117 mph (188 km/h)
- Taylor Townsend: 117 mph (188 km/h)
- Caroline Dolehide 117 mph (188 km/h)
- Beatriz Haddad Maia: 117 mph (188 km/h)
Solely one of many 11 main pitchers (tied at 117 mph) caught his foot whereas serving.
Coco Gauff Works for 2024 US Open
Gauff’s efficiency has not been the perfect at this 12 months’s US Open within the 4 matches he has performed.
- Aces = 15
- Double Fouls = 38 (together with 19 vs. Emma Navarro)
- 51% 1st Works Inside
- 75% First Help Wins
- 46% 2nd Ministers Received
- Service Matches Received = 35
- Service Video games Misplaced = 7
Gauff’s provide issues had been quite a few. Making the contact very low was the primary downside. Not having the ability to management pace and rotation was one other. Typically the higher and decrease physique didn’t agree. This appears to be the case this 12 months. Listed here are Gauff’s stats from the 2023 US Open, which he gained (7 matches).
- Aces = 26
- Double Errors = 26
- 58% 1st Works Inside
- 69% First Help Received
- 52% 2nd Ministers Received
- Service Video games Received = 60
- Service Video games Misplaced = 19
Gauff solely served 26 double faults in 18 units final 12 months. He served 38 in 10 units this 12 months. There appeared to be no connection between the decrease and higher physique.
SUMMARY
We primarily train gamers to convey their foot again into motion to generate extra help energy from the decrease physique. That is particularly the case within the ladies’s match on the US Open this 12 months.
That does not make it proper or incorrect, as we have seen some nice performances with variations in each female and male draw. As with one- and two-handed backhands, there are professionals and cons with each variations of the service.
Knowledge like that is one thing we’d suspect with our eyes, however it’s at all times good to take the guesswork out of it. Solely 28% of males and 12% of ladies go away the rear foot in the course of the feeding motion. It really works properly for Federer, Djokovic, Fritz and Tiafoe.
Coaches ought to expose younger gamers to each varieties to see what suits finest.
Howdy,
Craig
