The Platform Stance

Tennis: Which Serving Stance is the Best?

Pat Aitken

There are two popular stances in the tennis serve: the platform stance and the pinpoint stance.

In the platform stance the feet are kept about shoulder-width apart throughout the serve, providing stable support and easy weight transfer from the back to the front foot. The hips rotate, and sometimes the back foot swings forward to complete the hip rotation.

In the pinpoint stance, the feet start apart, but as the serve unfolds, the back foot slides forward until it is adjacent to the front foot. As a result, the feet provide a very small base of support and balance may be a problem.

Advantages of Each Style
So which style provides the best serve? It's a toss-up.

The pinpoint serve provides better velocity, since the feet come together as a single unit, allowing them to push harder against the ground. However, the center of gravity moves more than in the platform stance, so your students must have good body control in order to contact the ball consistently.

The Pinpoint Stance

Your players will sacrifice some power with the platform serve, but their balance will be better so they should be more consistent. And remember, it's still possible to produce good power with the platform serve—Roger Federer uses a variation of a platform stance.

Recommendations
The serve your students use will depend on their individual abilities and what they need the most—power or consistency.

If they already have good body control but would like to produce extra power, they could try the pinpoint stance. If consistency is their problem, have them use the platform stance.

References:
1. Jack L. Groppel (PhD), High Tech Tennis (2nd Edition), Human Kinetics Publishers, 1992.
2. Kelly Gunterman, Tennis Made Easy: Essential Strokes & Strategies for the Modern Game, New Chapter Press, 2010.
3. The Various Serve Stances, Fuzzy Yellow Balls, www.fuzzyyellowballs.com

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