Bad Bob wrote:ConnO'var wrote:Ace Ventura wrote:Conn, that makes sense about not being as familiar with facing the left handers but that wasnt what the commentators were implying, they were making out that Nadal has an advantage because he can spin his serves away from the back hand as it was coming in from left to right, they even showed one of the serves and said it was too hard for Murray to get even close because of the ball spinning away so much.
Surely right handers when serving right to left against Nadal can do the same ?
Technically you're correct Ace... The mechanics behind the out-swinging slice swerve is the same regardless..... But the mental and tactical aspect of the serve and when you use it is different for lefties as compared to righties.
You only get real out-swing when you serve from the right (love-all) side if you're a righthander... vice versa if you're a leftie. Now if most of the opponents you face are right handed and you're one yourself, the wide serve will out-swing into your opponents forehand on one court and in-swing into your opponents backhand on the opposite court. As such, the wide serve is not as effective when you serve from the right side if you slow it down by imparting slice/side spin on it simply because your right handed opponent has a longer reach as he's hitting with his forehand. So what most guys do is to seldom hit the serve with spin out wide when serving from the right. What they tend to do is to hit much flatter on the 1st serve to try and overpower the receiver. As such their out-swinging wide serves simply are not practiced enough as tactically there's more advantage to master the flat, wide serve when serving from the right.
For the leftie, the opposite is true as you're out-swinging into the righties backhand and as most of your opponents are right handed, it makes sense to master that particular serve. Consequently, their flat wide serves are usually not as good as right handers. If you can, observe 2 lefties playing each other. Invariably, they'll go down the middle on 1st serves when serving from the left (15-love) side as they'll be more comfortable hitting the ball flatter in that general direction due to the lower net height at the middle. Their wide serves are almost never served flat... simply because they are less confident in hitting a serve they have very little reason to use for most of their opponents.
Does that make any sense at all.... cause I think I've probably succeeded in confusing meself let alone you with all that waffling...
ConnO'var...the Big Mick of tennis!
Makes sense to me, mate, but it would...I'm a leftie (though not much of a tennis player).
Feck off Bob I'm not as boring about football as Con' is about tennis
Am I?
Sorry Con I wasn't bored at all mate just kidding.
Whereas Mick just makes the same points over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again! 
Thankfully you're witty about it, Mick, and sprinkle in a few colourful phrases in each post to freshen things up. You know, things like "Gerrard arriving in the box like a piano crashing down a flight of stairs" and that sort of thing. 
