Serena Williams Slice Serve

Here's a re-mix of a slow motion video I made of Serena Williams hitting an ace when she won the title at the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford University against Marion Bartoli this summer. 

I experimented with alternate approaches to stop action and labelling using Final Cut Pro X, this time. The original video was shot at 120 frames per second, VGA quality. Generally, when you capture at higher frame rates, the resolution is compromised. 

From a tennis perspective, Williams serve is so fluid it's easy to miss everything that is going on to get so much power. Obviously, she uses her huge thigh and shoulder muscles well. But Williams also rotates her hips back toward the rear wall for an instant, then stabs the left hip quickly in, and gets a deep shoulder bend while her legs are thrusting up. The result is that she gets rotation around her torso, rotation vertically along her spine, as well as rotation around her shoulders. 

One semi-controversial issue: You'll see that Williams hits slice the old-fashioned way, she throws her racquet at the far net post. She does not faux-pronate her forearm at all, contrary to what many tennis web sites will tell you every pro does all the time. Williams' palm faces her target throughout the serve -- when she hits slice. 

She does hit over and out, rotating her arm from the shoulder, when she hits flat or kick serves (as I show in one still image here), but not when she hits slice. The camera does not lie. Much. Often. <g> 

Comments

[tom butler]

Thanks for the Serena Slice video clip. Not sure what you mean by 'faux-pronate'.

Tom