The Open-Face Racket Drop Is Not Wrong

The serve keeps being my favorite shot out of all of them in tennis. Something that is very important on the serve is the racket drop. Hence, today I want to talk about the open face racket drop. More specifically, I want to talk a little bit more in detail about the open face racquet drop and how I discovered it.

So when I did my serve research, I noticed that some of the greatest servers of all time, players such as Sampras, Federer, Becker, don't drop the racket on edge. This is the classic way of taking the racket back. Let me give you a quick recap of what some of the greatest players, as well, are doing, which is an on-edge racket drop. In this research, I learned that the open-face racket drop is not wrong at all, which is what we will dive deeper into today.

Greatest Servers

Players such as Serena Williams, John Isner, or Goran Ivanisevic will take the racket into the trophy phase, and now the racket will drop on edge. What happens shortly thereafter will depend on what type of serve they're attempting, but generally speaking, when the on-edge racket drop is occurring, the racket is dropping with a good distance from the body.

In other words, what happens on an on-edge racket drop serve is the racket will loop. This is only present on some serves that are performed with the open face racket drop. On any on-edge racket drop serve, you will see the racket coming in and out, whether we talk about flat, slice, or kick. The racket will loop in the other way.

Instead, what is known as the open face racket drop is something that happens to many high-level players. The racket will not loop; it will simply go straight back. That's why I named this the open face racket drop because the first thing that happens shortly after the racket drop is that the racket face opens up towards the sky.

Waiter’s Tray?

Some people have misconceptions about this movement of the racket. They're confusing this with a waiter serve. They're confusing this with an isolated movement of the arm. It is neither. What happens with these great servers, such as Federer, Sampras, or Becker, and many others, by the way, is that when their racket is dropping, this is when the serve gets unloaded. The fact that the racket is dropping with an open face, this has no effect on the amount of drop we get.

In fact, the range of motion is where a lot of recreational players struggle. Whether the racket is going on edge and then dropping somewhere in here, usually you want to measure the correct length of a drop by where the tip of the racket is positioned, and it is at the high level always positioned below the lower back. This could be on edge or with an open face, but either doesn't influence how low the racket drops. The range of motion is not influenced by that whatsoever.

When it come to the timing of the torso rotation, something very interesting happens on these two styles of racket drop. Whether we have an on-edge racket drop or an open face racket drop, the initiation of the torso rotation happens when that elbow comes out. This is usually accompanied by the racket drop. Hence, as soon as the racket starts to drop, this elbow starts to come out.

Smaller Loop

What happens on a serve with an on-edge racket drop is that even though we're getting the elbow this way, the racket still loops behind. However, on an open-faced racket drop, because the racket is dropping this way, there is no loop. Therefore, the racket will drop straight down and then come around on this side and approach the ball forwards.

Interestingly, players with an open face racket drop, when they attempt a kick serve, for example, the elbow doesn't come out right away. It stays on this side longer, and therefore, the racket will not fall straight back. There will still be a small loop even with an open face racket drop. Take a look at their kick serve movement; the racket will be dropping on an open face but with a small looping movement here. On a flat serve, the elbow comes straight out, and the racket will drop straight down.

If you have this and also if you are controlling your torso rotation correctly on all your serves and you're pronating into the contact, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Many club players out there see themselves and wonder if they have a waiter serve. Absolutely not. If that's a waiter serve, then Pete Sampras, Boris Becker, and Roger Federer have a waiter serve as well. This is absolutely ridiculous. Those are some of the best serves in the history of the game.

Shallow Racket Drop

One common problem is an isolated movement of the arm. If you're consciously dropping the racket, in other words, if you're doing this in an isolated movement, you're going to be doing it very slowly. Nothing else will be happening in the body, and you're going to be worried about how the racket is dropping, whether it's dropping on edge or an open face. I don't want you to concern yourself with the racket drop at all because if you're concerned about it, most likely you're going to do it very slowly in order to execute it correctly.

And what happens then, you're going to be left with a serve that's lacking acceleration. Why? Well, the serve is supposed to accelerate rapidly from the trophy position, whether it's a position or a phase. Once you reach this area of the serve, we have to accelerate very violently. If you're worried about how your racket is dropping, you're going to be doing this area of the serve very slowly, and your serve acceleration is going to suffer greatly because of it.

Some players will have the racket way too close to their head. It's a problem that is occasionally seen at the high level as well. Players will get the racket over their head as they're dropping it. What happens with this type of serve is that you're guaranteed to have a more shallow racket drop. Yes, you will get a racket drop on it, but it will always be lower than a racket drop that occurs when the racket is dropping more behind the body like this or behind the body like this.

In either case, there's a lot of space between your back and the racket. There's absolutely no high-level player that goes straight over the head like that with the racket. There's always distance between the head and the racket or the back and the racket, no matter what style of racket drop it is, in order to accelerate the racket at maximum speed and allow it to fall deeply into the racquet drop.

Final Thoughts

If you concern yourself with the racket drop, whether you're trying to achieve the open face racket drop or the on edge racket drop, it doesn't matter what you're trying to do. The fact that you're trying to do it will kill your serve because you're going to do it very slowly. You're going to slow down this area of your serve, and you won't be able to unload like I just did.

I completely understand that you're trying to make this happen consciously. You want to fix it consciously. However, I'm here to tell you that don't concern yourself with it. Learn the fundamentals. There are so many fundamentals. It'll take you a lot of time to learn them, go step by step. If you put in a lot of repetitions and all the fundamental elements are present, the racket will drop naturally very low, completely by itself without you being conscious of it.