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TennisOne Lessons 
The Pros Jump…Should I? David W. Smith, Senior Editor TennisOne Whenever one watches professional tennis on television, on video clips, on instructional sites, or on DVD’s, we can't help but marvel at the athleticism and, let's face it, we all want to emulate these great players – in other words, play like the pros. It might seem logical that if I emulate the pros every nuance and idiosyncratic movement, I can “Be like Mike,” (or, in tennis lingo, it would be more like “Be like Fed, Serena, Djokovic, or Woz!”). However, as a teaching professional, I’ve found that while there are indeed key “Foundation” elements that all students should observe, emulate, practice, and employ, there are some professional embellishments that can hurt a player’s chance at mastering some strokes. These might be called basic “evolutionary” elements that come through almost automatically through dedicated practice and experience. By evolutionary, I mean that players will develop these skills not through conscious application but by unconscious embellishments that result from confidence, personality, and simply allowing the body to execute shots once mastery of the foundations elements is achieved. I call this foundation an “Advanced Foundation” – meaning it is based on the basic grip, stroke, footwork, and strategic patterns that can be seen among all skilled players. Within the differences of grips on forehands, one and two-handed backhands configurations, backswing patterns on serves, and open or closed stances on nearly any stroke, there are fundamentally similar elements within every similar shot by essentially every skilled player. Yet, there are some elements that we don’t necessarily teach to beginners because of many factors: development of strength within a particular swing pattern, breakdown of the desired fundamentals when such elements are introduced, and the issue of potentially contributing to players developing bad habits. Jumping on Serves
There have been several articles and countless forum discussions about whether specifically jumping on serves is a good or bad thing. Ironically, we still have some teaching pros who actually insist on players staying on the ground throughout the serve, even as every single top player who makes their living at playing (and winning) matches jumps on the serve. The common question discussed in this matter is whether jumping is an intentional aspect of the serve or if leaving the ground is a result of advanced serve motions. Regardless of how we define being off the ground, unless we sprout wings, one must jump to leave the ground…on any shot. But the serve is not the only shot in professional tennis where players jump. Obviously, we often see players jump to hit overheads. This is usually a result of need, of reaching a ball at the highest point possible to get the greatest net clearance. (Not to mention simply needing to jump to reach a high ball!) However, we also see professionals jump on forehand and backhand groundstrokes. And this is where things get a little tricky when trying to emulate pros. Jumping on Groundstrokes
As I mentioned, many professional elemental stroke patterns include evolutionary adaptations or embellishments. When players used wood racquets and the strategy of the day was to control balls with speed as opposed to spin, players didn’t look to hit balls with the kind of force we see in the modern game. Add in the technology factor that today’s racquets and strings incorporate, providing far more power, control, and larger sweet-spots, and we see a completely different game of tennis than was played only twenty to thirty years ago. The advent of topspin, of an exaggerated upward swing path as well as swing speed and length, today's pros hit balls with what seems like the greatest racquet-head speed humanly possible. This massive swing speed and terrific upward thrust causes players to leave the ground, similar to we see among servers today. However, this can cause problems when players try to emulate this portion of a professional’s stroke before they are ready. If the attempt to generate incredible racquet head speed occurs before the player has mastered the required swing pattern, footwork, grips, and overall body control necessary for such speed, the result is going to be a failed shot at best. (At worse, we see players hurting themselves or simply embarrassing themselves!) In many academies, teaching pros are advocating learning to generate swing speed before control and sometimes even at the expense of swing definition. But, in reality most academies are stressing both: swing technique and swing speed. Yet, if a player is indeed swinging without conscious regard to swing path, then the development of a repeatable, reliable swing path will be hard to master. On the contrary, as I will mention later, it is the confidence that comes with first establishing a controlled and reliable swing path that provides the almost natural progression of players to simply swing harder because their confidence is increased. Obviously, if I swing hard and only make one out of ten shots, my confidence is probably not going to be very high. This is why I don’t recommend conscious jumping by the student on groundstrokes when they are in their developmental stages. (Or serves initially either.) If jumping is indeed a culmination of very extreme movements, then players need to address those movements at speeds they can control and replicate.
Automatic Evolution Like serves, as players gain confidence and control of a swing, the natural continuation of that progress is to do those swings harder and faster. The problem when players try to jump-the-gun, so to speak, and try to swing very hard very early on, is that the very control of those swings tends to break down exponentially the harder they swing. Players also need to gain experience in hitting before speed and spin is increased. When we do leave the ground, (jumping), the movement upward changes the relationship to the ball as the racquet is moving to make contact. Thus, if we do jump, say four inches, our racquet moves up four inches as well. Obviously, we can change our racquet’s path in mid swing to counter this upward differential…and that is exactly what we do through experience. It is not a calculation that is consciously figured out in that split second of time when we decide to be in the air at contact. We gain the ability to meet every ball with our moving racquet through experience.
Conclusion Be assured that you will probably eventually develop some aspect of jumping if you develop an Advanced Foundation that is inherent to developing skilled tennis strokes. Yet, if we try to elevate ourselves in mid swing before that swing is defined, reliable, and repeatable, then we will indeed risk not only failing in executing a successful shot, but we can end up with various injuries in such attempts. Remember, jumping is a result of maximizing racquet head speed. Yet, jumping doesn’t increase racquet head speed a lot. (Jumping in and of itself can only add a few MPH’s to any stroke.) But if we are increasing the upward speed of our racquet through angular momentum, thrust, and the physical means in which we are swinging up and through a ball to gain such racquet head speed, we will eventually swing so hard that we will indeed, leave the ground – just like the pros.. Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Dave Smith's article by emailing us here at TennisOne .
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David has taught over 3000 players including many top national and world ranked players. He can be reached at acrpres1@email.msn.com. |
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