Nick Bollettieri's Stroke Instruction Series: Sonic Serve DVD

This teaching video gives thorough and correct instruction for hitting one particular sort of tennis serve. The serve is successfully used by the very "biggest hitters" on both men's and women's tours. The fastest serves ever hit were hit in this way. On the women's tour, Dinara Safina and Maria Sharapova hit this style. Many of the biggest hitters on the men's side have hit this way: Richard Krajicek, Goran Ivanisevic---many of them. So, it represents very competent and thorough instruction on one type of serve. We could call this your "big first serve" or your "flat" serve, although no effective serve is truly "flat." It omits more than just very minimal comments about the slice and kick serves, which are very important themselves. So, even if we wish to accept this standard, it is an incomplete instruction. We won't be able to do whatever we want with the ball.Several possible problems could be identified for this style of serving. It restricts the power that you can really produce with your legs. It puts a premium on balance. It aligns the body in a way that leaves quite low tolerances---not much margin for error at all. There isn't much difference, in this method, between dumping the ball in the net and pushing it long. So, it necessarily requires top timing from the serve. Because it puts a premium on balance, it leaves the server vulnerable to "bad patches" of serving when the rhythm goes off. This doesn't reflect as much the laxity of preparation or the poor coordination of the server. It is just the case that this style of serving leaves rather little margin of error. Most of us humans need more margin for error than that, especially if we're not among the tallest players.In my opinion, there are two better sources of information about the serve. One is produced by Phil Dent, a verifiable big server of yesteryear---now a top teaching pro and father of fine tennis players, including Taylor Dent. The other is produced by Jim McLennan. These advocate the "other" style of serving, namely the "platform" serve. This is the style that Sampras and Roddick and Edberg use. It is recommended because it allows you to get "full use" out of your legs. It aids your balance---instead of overloading your balance. It leaves much greater margin for error. Consequently, it becomes possible---with lots of practice---to avoid "bad patches" of serving during a match. It is the capability to maintain a consistently very high level of serving all the time---forever and always---that makes Sampras tough. If someone else cranks the occasional extra 5 or 8 miles an hour---what does it matter, really? It's purely show time. It has nothing to do with winning a match. You won't be beaten by a 140 mph serve that hits once every seven games. You'll be beaten by a 125 mph serve that whips into the corner time after time after time after time. Ask Andre Agassi about that.Both the (great) teaching material by Phil Dent and the (extremely good---wonderful) teaching material by McLennan are, in my opinion, much better guidance for young people up through varsity players at excellent universities. Both are unsatisfactory to me in the sense that I wanted them to give MUCH more information about the use and production of the "spinnier" serves, the slice and the kicker. Still, it is useful to get the mechanics right first. If you can hit these serves, you can certainly learn the spin serves, too. To me, the Dent/McLennan stuff is the indispensable and top quality serve instruction.If Maria Sharapova moved her serving style to the Dent/McLennan (platform) style, she could easily go back to number 1. There is no reason she has to have a patchy serve---but she does.

Sonic Serve demonstrates professional style tennis serves that involve a small jump from a pinpoint stance, where both feet are close together and next to the baseline prior to the jump. Slow motion clips are repeated multiple times with lines and text drawn over parts of the video to emphasize body part alignments, caution to avoid arching one's back, etc. Although the primary topic of the video is flat serves, the video briefly describes kick and slice ball tosses. Unfortunately, it doesn't teach the slice and kick service motions.Since beginners may initially have great difficulty correctly imitating the motions from the video, getting additional assistance from a qualified tennis pro may help prevent injury. I'll attempt to describe some of the complexities that may make the motions difficult to imitate.At the beginning of the small jump, while the feet are in the pinpoint position, the hips have been shifted sideways in the direction of the tossing shoulder. Then the jump (which doesn't lock the knees) proceeds and includes what Sonic Serve refers to as a "hip snap" motion. Does "hip snap" mean the hips now shift sideways in the opposite direction to facilitate raising the racket hip upward? Does "hip snap" involve leaning the torso sideways into the court? Does "hip snap" mean hip/leg rotation? Does keeping the racket hip further back than the tossing hip help keep the body sideways and result in more spin?As the body extends into the court, the racket arm/shoulder are coiled back such that the elbow looks like it may be partially ahead of and above the shoulder plane. On the flat serve, after the arm extends (without locking the elbow), the arm/shoulder uncoil, rotating the elbow down/back, but the elbow still appears to be almost inline with the shoulder plane through contact. To help clarify the correct motion, the video could have discussed possible causes of rotator cuff injuries and shoulder impingement, but it doesn't.After the arm is extended, but before the arm/shoulder rotates to spike the ball, the wrist is back initially such that the contact side of the racket strings may open slightly towards the sky on flat serve, but the video doesn't explain the differences in arm/wrist positions among the flat, slice, and kick serves. Instead, Sonic Serve suggests that a "wrist snap" occurs naturally due to the energy of the swing without any conscious wrist effort. Does "wrist snap" mean the arm/shoulder rotation causes the wrist to flex upward to a neutral position at contact? Does an upward wrist snap generate the topspin on a flat serve that allows the ball to clear the net at high velocity and still land in the service box? Is there a risk of injury associated with deviating the wrist beyond a neutral position?The video shows the follow through of the arm rotation hook the racket forward and down for the flat serve, but doesn't explain how the follow through is different for the slice and kick serves. For example, if the arm/wrist isn't fully upright on a kick serve, then does the otherwise forward/upward wrist snap effectively become a diagonally forward/upward motion instead? If the racket points diagonally, does that mean the arm rotation hooks the racket diagonally to the side and down on a kick serve? Clarifying the differences among different types of serves could help prevent misinterpretations of the instructions.Although Sonic Serve could benefit from some additional explanations and becoming skilled at the techniques may require many practice sessions, Sonic Serve is one of the most helpful tennis videos that I've seen.  Bollistic Backhand  is the only other video in  The Nick Bollettieri Complete 10 DVD Stroke Instruction and Game Development Series  that has significantly improved my understanding of tennis.

The Sonic Serve provides very advanced instruction in minute detail. This DVD analyzes the world's six best serves and finds common fundamentals in each. It analyzes each part of the kinetic chain of movement through high speed video. The serve taught in the tape involves the entire body, the legs, hips, torso, chest, shoulder, arm and wrist. Slow motion video emphasizes 360 degrees of racquet rotation with pronation of the forearm and wrist. If you are looking to utilize your entire body to create sonic booms with your serve, this is the DVD for you.However, obviously lacking are the all too important features of spin and slice. At the end of the DVD, Bollettieri promises a follow-up session in a "couple of months". The months have turned into years and still no Sonic Serve II. If a kick serve is what you are looking for, send Nick Bollettieri an email and ask where the next installment is.In spite of the lack of subject matter on slice and kick, the Sonic Serve is great for the player who wants to squeeze a few more miles per hour out of his service motion.

I like the video very much, it helps me a lot to understand the serve motion, specially about hip rotation. I also bought Nick's book "Tennis Handbook". I think to combine the book and the video content providing a comprehensive guidance to serve.

well, this is certainly the best explanation of the serve yet - very instructive, very good view quality. very recommended.