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Advanced Tennis: Sampras Serve
Radical Torso Rotation

by John Yandell 

Starting Stance

So how exactly does Pete use his hips and shoulders to generate more racket head speed than any player in the game?  

It starts with his serving ready position or starting stance, that is, how he lines up to begin his motion. Pete starts his motion with his torso sideways or square to the net. This appears to be fairly conventional. He also starts with his front foot turned open to the net and the toes actually up in the air. This as we pointed out in the last article is idiosyncratic, changing immediately as the motion actually starts. Despite what some club players may believe, it has nothing to do with his core bio-mechanics, and imitating it definitely won’t help your serve.

The key to understanding Pete’s stance and therefore his torso rotation, is the position and angle of his back foot.

But look at the position of his back foot: the first key to understanding what’s about to happen. His back or right foot is about 3 feet behind him, or to the left of his front foot when viewed from behind. Note the toes of this back foot are actually pointing away from the baseline, so the entire back foot is at a 45 to 60 degree angle to the baseline. The heel of this back foot is about a foot and a half deep, or a foot and a half behind the baseline. 

Now watch what happens to that front foot as the motion actually starts. Pete immediately puts his front foot down flat on the court and actually turns it sideways so that it is parallel to the baseline. 

At this point in the motion, examine the alignment of his stance, because it is critical to the biomechanics of the motion. His front foot has turned so that it is parallel to the baseline. His back foot has stayed in the same open position behind him. Both feet are flat on the court and his weight is now equally distributed in his stance between the front and back foot.

One of the most common tips about the serving stance is to “point your front toe at the net post.”  But this position will virtually guarantee that as you move through the motion, you hips and shoulders will rotate too soon, move through the motion ahead of the racket, and dissipate energy that should be going into speed and spin. Pete’s stance guarantees the hips and shoulders will reach maximum acceleration at the time of the hit. 

Watch the same move again, and focus on the movement of shoulders and hips. As Pete turns his front foot sideways and puts it down, his torso is rotating backwards into alignment with the line formed by the position of his feet in his starting stance. A line drawn across the front of his toes forms a diagonal pointing away from the net, at an angle of  about  40 to 60 degrees. 

So, as his motion begins, Pete is turning his torso so that it is line with this diagonal determined by the alignment of his feet. As his arms drop and his wind up begins, his entire torso turns smoothly and evenly, rotating onto this line, going even a little beyond it at the fullest point. 

Here is where the comparison to McEnroe becomes clear. Like McEnroe before him, Pete’s body is in alignment with his radical starting stance so that he has literally turned his back toward his opponent.  

Because of the angle of his stance, Sampras’s turn reaches an angle approaching 140 or 150 degrees. McEnroe’s stance and his turn are somewhat more extreme, reaching close to a full 180 degrees. 

But note the similarity. Both players have turned their hips and shoulders away from the opponent and the court, with their bodies aligned naturally with their stance. Their torsos are now in position to rotate radically forward, around, and through the motion. 

From this turned position, Pete’s torso rotates as much as 60 degrees by the time his racket reaches the full drop position. At this point his torso is square or 90 degrees to the baseline.  This is the position or angle from which many players start! So Pete has at least two thirds more rotation than most pro players. (In fact some top pro players stand significantly more open, with their shoulders less than square to the baseline at the start of the motion.)

When Pete reaches this position, with his torso square to the net - a good starting position for many players - his torso has already developed tremendous acceleration. And, from the racket drop position, it will continue to rotate another full 90 degrees before the completion of the motion. 

This radical rotation generates tremendous extra energy, which in turn translates into tremendous additional racket head speed. This is the technical secret that sets his serve apart and allows him to generate so much speed and spin naturally and effortlessly. 

At the contact point, this rotation has continued until the shoulders are at about 45 degrees to the baseline. This means the shoulders and hips are still moving, rotating through the motion at the same time the racket and arm are moving from the drop position to the contact. 

This is in complete contradiction to the theory that holds that the body rotation should actually be complete with the shoulders parallel to the baseline before the racket moves to the contact.

The problem with this technical model is that the energy of the shoulder rotation is completely depleted before the racket reaches the ball. In Pete’s case the incredible energy of his extended torso rotation is transferred directly into the hit. The legs, torso, hitting arm, and racket all synchronize to maximize racket head speed. 

Note how much of the force in Pete’s motion is coming from the large muscle groups; his legs and <% ns_puts [nsv_get mkm_includes mkm_oldContentFooter_inc] %>