I think her serve stats are much better this year, so it must be working. Also, i guess they didnt want to do all the changes at once, as the off season is very short.
It can be helpful as a progression to solve problems. For example racquet drop leak ruclips.net/video/2EUZpFbAuRU/видео.htmlsi=ZTS4DYDbgF4D2s57 However, on Iga’s serve the leak most likely stems from her trophy phase which is very similar if not identical to the way it was before.
@7:17 "You ask yourself: "Nick, she's a four times GS champion"..." Maybe with a better technique she could have 6 GS titles. Even the best may have areas which require further improvement (See Federer's 2017 backhand) So, your analysis is right on spot.
I actually tried once to have the arm extended in trophy position to produce a wider swing with more acceleration. It kinda worked, as it used the elbow tendons (particularly the golfers elbow ones) as a spring and actually felt a little more power. Also felt a lot of pain after a couple of tries, for some days. I strongly discourage everyone from trying, and advise to have your elbow bent at trophy position for safety and consistency.
Nick just knows tennis technique like the back of his hand. ❤ Nothing goes unnoticed in his videos👊. Pros simply need to be working constantly on their technique to gain an edge over their competitions. Even the smallest of tweaks can sometimes make the difference.
The "reverse lag", aka pull up the hitting arm first, is the biggest change. That tells me she puts serve consistency first. My impression from woman's match is that, they rarely get free points by serving. instead, a lot of serve breaks. Power/pace in serve is not as important as consistency and placement. I believe at recreational level, consistency is even more important. Many 4.0 still serve with waiter tray or even eastern grip. that doesn't make them lose their service game.
This year Iga has a lot of servicing 115-120 miles The average has improved significantly. The last Roland Garros had several around 122m and one 123.75m. Serves faster and faster...
I don't have a defined serve motion yet as I enjoy breaking down pro's styles and try to mix & match 'em myself. That said, the "regular lag" gives way more power but is very much more difficult to execute compared to the reverse lag. That's because the time duration between starting the swing motion and the impact itself is slightly longer for the regular lag, as you gotta raise the racket vs. the reverse lag's racket being already up. This makes it more difficult to pinpoint when to start the striking motion given the particular toss situation. If every toss were exactly the same than the regular lag would be as easy as the reverse one timing-wise.
Iga went back to her previous service motion for the Indian Wells final. Compare it to her semifinal match and earlier in which she used her new motion that Nik describes in this video. Pretty surprising to make a major change in service motion during a tournament, particularly right before a final! But she got away with it (and won) because she is a tremendous athlete and was of course used to her previous service motion. To understand why she changed, when she was consistently winning, you will need to go back and look at her serve statistics.
Great video! Nikola, you are so good expert when it comes to serving. Wonderful analysis. It is so true that many pros have flaws in their technique. For me De Minaur is the pro with amateur technique on most of his shots. Jaume Munar complete amateur !
Great content. The only one I can think of offhand where Nick was better was the one where he critiqued Djokovic's racket smashing technique against Alcaraz at Wimbledon. NEVER SMASH THE RACKET AGAINST THE NET POST.
Theory and practise... I am sure Nick is right. Yet IGA is number one and she has proved herself time and time again. She must be doing something right...😉
Thanks, Nick! Excellent analysis as always! I didn't know about such a term as reverse lag. I was also surprised by this change in the Iga's serve. A lot of pros began to change something in their serves. For example, Tsitsipas switched to pinpoint stance.
That's the beauty about tennis, right? I'm sure everyone has seen some weird or not so weird techniques around the world but the truth of the matter is that if it works for her then stick with it. If her coach tells her to change a thing or two on her strokes to optimize and enhance their game and the player agrees and Van adapt to the change then go for it.
Great analysis, cool to learn about 'leaks'. I noticed last year Iga had actually brought a nicer motion into play by taking the racket more around the outside and up, which allowed for more room to accelerate through, but I see looking back it's still with the same leak. Plus, she's obviously moved well away from that since then. Would the leak part cancel out the part of the swing that promoted more racket head acceleration or would it still have aided it?
Nick-regard Iga's new reverse lag serve that you say has little rhythm. I was watching Nicholas Jarry's serve that is similar to Iga.. He starts with racquet already in trophy position. He has a big knee bend with front shoulder arched higher than back shoulder. He then loads and explodes and drives up and into court...The motion seems to work for him. Any comments? Since the longer take back with lag serve is not working for me, I have to try something different..🎾
Nick, the reason you don’t fan the racquet and Iga got rid of it is because she externally rotates the shoulder, still not great with what she’s doing now, but better to not fan the racquet to unwind the shoulder prematurely.
@@IntuitiveTennis Coach, can you please do a video or send me a link on one you did for the leg drive when serving? I tend to fall to the left after my serve and my back leg tends to come forward and swing to the left right after impact. I feel like I'm not using full power on my serve and also getting back pain from getting my left lower back pinched. Let me know if I can share a video so you can see my situation better.
Might be a trying from her trainer to simplify her serv to get more Rytme and as a follow get a more fluid toss, which she had to struggel with last year ? I liked the old serv better aswell. One thing I noticed was that she belives more ind her toss so she rearly has to start ower with a new . (toss) As said before I"m a big fan of your tecnical analyses which so important to be a better coach her in Denmark.
It's interesting that a lot of female servers have that high elbow somewhere in prep before they set it in line with shoulders, and that's also the moment when leak happens usually... They either get coached that way or copy. Interestingly, Serena never had such an issue, she used staggered rhythm and put her elbow where it shoud be directly...
Apologies, I got it wrong; Iga did not change her serve in the 2025 Indian Wells final, I must have been watching a Swiatek/Sakkari highlights video of their previous Indian Wells final together.
Hi I'm not challenging ur view but just asking out of curiosity. These pros spend so much money on coaches why are they not able to train themselves to execute the most optimal strokes.
I would say that in any domain status and expertise are not necessarily perfectly related. You will find so-so "experts" who have made their way into the bigger circles (Mouratoglou comes to mind) and you will find "nobodies" who have developed a very high level of expertise (like Nik, I dare say). For players like Rune or Serena it might be more helpful to hire an unknown true expert but taking a well known name is socially more acceptable. Also, for top players making technical changes may be detrimental to their performance. When battling for titles, the mental, physical and tactical aspects are probably more important. It's pretty rare to see changes in technique at the top level, since confidence goes down when letting go of your muscle memory. Most of the time they are induced by injury.
Cause many coaches on the tour are mental and tactical experts and aren’t the best coaches to improve technique + the technical flaws aren’t obvious. Nics knowledge goes extremely deep…
Her main problem is the late knee bend, this initiates a challenging timing and broken fluidity. She needs to start bending the knee before or when the ball is about to leave her tossing hand.
This year Iga has a lot of 115-120 miles serve .The average has improved significantly. The last Roland Garros had several around 122m and one 123.75m. Serves faster and faster...
It's so sad that top female players all have bad serves: Rybakina's and Swiatek's look ugly and robotic and Sabalenka used to make too many double faults.. Coco also went to more abbreviated serve.. that's strange, agreed?
Solution to Your Serve Problems: www.intuitivetennis.com/serve-problems
Great analysis. But I remember seeing early tourneys this year and she was getting more pop, actually serving 118-119mph
I think her serve stats are much better this year, so it must be working. Also, i guess they didnt want to do all the changes at once, as the off season is very short.
oh I was waiting for this video, fun fact - she used to serve like that during junior days so she kinda came back to the old way
I didn’t knew that fact, pretty interesting
She is faster now. More than 10 km/h. Why?
Love this video. No matter where you're at, there is always an improvement possible.
💯
Re. reverse lag - Caro Garcia did it for some time, she cleaned up her serve via this stage and then added full windup back. Serving bombs since then.
It can be helpful as a progression to solve problems. For example racquet drop leak
ruclips.net/video/2EUZpFbAuRU/видео.htmlsi=ZTS4DYDbgF4D2s57
However, on Iga’s serve the leak most likely stems from her trophy phase which is very similar if not identical to the way it was before.
Been having a hard time digging for serve knowledge broken down to this sort of details for years. JUST FOUND OUT THIS IS WHAT I STARVE :) THANK YOU
@7:17 "You ask yourself: "Nick, she's a four times GS champion"..." Maybe with a better technique she could have 6 GS titles. Even the best may have areas which require further improvement (See Federer's 2017 backhand) So, your analysis is right on spot.
I actually tried once to have the arm extended in trophy position to produce a wider swing with more acceleration. It kinda worked, as it used the elbow tendons (particularly the golfers elbow ones) as a spring and actually felt a little more power. Also felt a lot of pain after a couple of tries, for some days. I strongly discourage everyone from trying, and advise to have your elbow bent at trophy position for safety and consistency.
Nick just knows tennis technique like the back of his hand. ❤
Nothing goes unnoticed in his videos👊.
Pros simply need to be working constantly on their technique to gain an edge over their competitions. Even the smallest of tweaks can sometimes make the difference.
The "reverse lag", aka pull up the hitting arm first, is the biggest change. That tells me she puts serve consistency first. My impression from woman's match is that, they rarely get free points by serving. instead, a lot of serve breaks. Power/pace in serve is not as important as consistency and placement. I believe at recreational level, consistency is even more important. Many 4.0 still serve with waiter tray or even eastern grip. that doesn't make them lose their service game.
This year Iga has a lot of servicing 115-120 miles The average has improved significantly. The last Roland Garros had several around 122m and one 123.75m. Serves faster and faster...
I don't have a defined serve motion yet as I enjoy breaking down pro's styles and try to mix & match 'em myself. That said, the "regular lag" gives way more power but is very much more difficult to execute compared to the reverse lag. That's because the time duration between starting the swing motion and the impact itself is slightly longer for the regular lag, as you gotta raise the racket vs. the reverse lag's racket being already up. This makes it more difficult to pinpoint when to start the striking motion given the particular toss situation. If every toss were exactly the same than the regular lag would be as easy as the reverse one timing-wise.
Wow. Sooo informative and it relates to me so much! Thanks!!!
Iga went back to her previous service motion for the Indian Wells final. Compare it to her semifinal match and earlier in which she used her new motion that Nik describes in this video. Pretty surprising to make a major change in service motion during a tournament, particularly right before a final! But she got away with it (and won) because she is a tremendous athlete and was of course used to her previous service motion. To understand why she changed, when she was consistently winning, you will need to go back and look at her serve statistics.
Great insight! If Iga could keep improving her serve, she will win more grand slams.
Great video! Nikola, you are so good expert when it comes to serving. Wonderful analysis. It is so true that many pros have flaws in their technique. For me De Minaur is the pro with amateur technique on most of his shots. Jaume Munar complete amateur !
Very informative, great breakdown :O
Great content. The only one I can think of offhand where Nick was better was the one where he critiqued Djokovic's racket smashing technique against Alcaraz at Wimbledon.
NEVER SMASH THE RACKET AGAINST THE NET POST.
Great breakdown.
Great video Nik! I wonder why then did she change her serve if these existing minor flaws still exist. I love all your takes on the pro’s btw.
Nick - regard my earlier text about comparison between Swiatek and Jarry's serve. Jarry changed his motion and he now serves normally.
He does. He has a very clean motion now
Love the videos about pros!
Theory and practise... I am sure Nick is right. Yet IGA is number one and she has proved herself time and time again. She must be doing something right...😉
Thanks, Nick! Excellent analysis as always! I didn't know about such a term as reverse lag. I was also surprised by this change in the Iga's serve. A lot of pros began to change something in their serves. For example, Tsitsipas switched to pinpoint stance.
That's the beauty about tennis, right? I'm sure everyone has seen some weird or not so weird techniques around the world but the truth of the matter is that if it works for her then stick with it. If her coach tells her to change a thing or two on her strokes to optimize and enhance their game and the player agrees and Van adapt to the change then go for it.
Great analysis, cool to learn about 'leaks'. I noticed last year Iga had actually brought a nicer motion into play by taking the racket more around the outside and up, which allowed for more room to accelerate through, but I see looking back it's still with the same leak. Plus, she's obviously moved well away from that since then. Would the leak part cancel out the part of the swing that promoted more racket head acceleration or would it still have aided it?
Nick-regard Iga's new reverse lag serve that you say has little rhythm. I was watching Nicholas Jarry's serve that is similar to Iga.. He starts with racquet already in trophy position. He has a big knee bend with front shoulder arched higher than back shoulder. He then loads and explodes and drives up and into court...The motion seems to work for him. Any comments? Since the longer take back with lag serve is not working for me, I have to try something different..🎾
In my opinion one of the most unsightly but effective techniques on the WTA, lol.
I’m sure Nik noticed that Iga changed her serve for the IW final and look forward to his comments in the Monday Morning Rant tomorrow. 😊
In your opinion how would you rank Sabalenka/Swiatek/Barty/Osaka?
Nick, the reason you don’t fan the racquet and Iga got rid of it is because she externally rotates the shoulder, still not great with what she’s doing now, but better to not fan the racquet to unwind the shoulder prematurely.
Any videos on how to do a scissor kick backhand?
Ball toss hand bend looks like Francis Tiafoe's
💯
@@IntuitiveTennis Coach, can you please do a video or send me a link on one you did for the leg drive when serving? I tend to fall to the left after my serve and my back leg tends to come forward and swing to the left right after impact. I feel like I'm not using full power on my serve and also getting back pain from getting my left lower back pinched. Let me know if I can share a video so you can see my situation better.
Might be a trying from her trainer to simplify her serv to get more Rytme and as a follow get a more fluid toss, which she had to struggel with last year ? I liked the old serv better aswell. One thing I noticed was that she belives more ind her toss so she rearly has to start ower with a new . (toss) As said before I"m a big fan of your tecnical analyses which so important to be a better coach her in Denmark.
It's interesting that a lot of female servers have that high elbow somewhere in prep before they set it in line with shoulders, and that's also the moment when leak happens usually... They either get coached that way or copy. Interestingly, Serena never had such an issue, she used staggered rhythm and put her elbow where it shoud be directly...
Tsitsipas changed to a pinpoint stance Nick
I think Camila Georgie does something similar
Yes but Camilla has much bigger RD leak compared to Iga
Apologies, I got it wrong; Iga did not change her serve in the 2025 Indian Wells final, I must have been watching a Swiatek/Sakkari highlights video of their previous Indian Wells final together.
Oops, meant 2024 final, of course. Sigh.
No worries it was the exact final in 22 with almost the exact scoreline
The acceleration is always gonna be from 0. Doesn’t matter you raise the arm before or after the toss
Hi I'm not challenging ur view but just asking out of curiosity. These pros spend so much money on coaches why are they not able to train themselves to execute the most optimal strokes.
I would say that in any domain status and expertise are not necessarily perfectly related. You will find so-so "experts" who have made their way into the bigger circles (Mouratoglou comes to mind) and you will find "nobodies" who have developed a very high level of expertise (like Nik, I dare say). For players like Rune or Serena it might be more helpful to hire an unknown true expert but taking a well known name is socially more acceptable.
Also, for top players making technical changes may be detrimental to their performance. When battling for titles, the mental, physical and tactical aspects are probably more important. It's pretty rare to see changes in technique at the top level, since confidence goes down when letting go of your muscle memory. Most of the time they are induced by injury.
Cause many coaches on the tour are mental and tactical experts and aren’t the best coaches to improve technique + the technical flaws aren’t obvious. Nics knowledge goes extremely deep…
Critiquing WTA world no 1's technique .. bold move by Nikola
Yeah if you're the number 1 in anything nothing can be improved ever right
Her serve is one of her biggest weakness.
Her main problem is the late knee bend, this initiates a challenging timing and broken fluidity. She needs to start bending the knee before or when the ball is about to leave her tossing hand.
Rafa out of Indian Wells
Czyli jak pozbedzie sie slabostek to beda wyniki 6.0 tylko😮panie znawco😂
there you go. Alexandrova destroyed Iga with aggresive return for her avaege 100 miles serve - she wouldnt do it with 115 - 120 miles serve
This year Iga has a lot of 115-120 miles serve .The average has improved significantly. The last Roland Garros had several around 122m and one 123.75m. Serves faster and faster...
Wrong. She is back to her old motion again….
The footage in this video is from Indian Wells yesterday
Talks too much
It's so sad that top female players all have bad serves: Rybakina's and Swiatek's look ugly and robotic and Sabalenka used to make too many double faults.. Coco also went to more abbreviated serve.. that's strange, agreed?