ABSTRACT This paper studies the effective parameters of a skilled service in playing tennis and determines their relationship with skill deals. Effective service in tennis plays an important role in gaining more desirable result and the most important factor of success in getting scores depends on the player&apos;s skills in serving an effective service. The characteristics of a good service are the high speed of the ball and the precision of landing the ball. The several parameters affecting on these two characteristic in the service, are studied in this paper. Therefore, the Kinematic parameters of 8 Iranian professional tennis athletes of first division tennis league and also 8 non-professional Iranian athletes who exercise about 3 sessions a week were extracted. After land marking these athletes, by use of two high-frequency cameras, pictures were recorded when the tennis players were serving the services. The investigation on the results of these tests is performed by three dimensional motion analyses. The pictures are analyzed with the WinAnalyze software. Therefore, in this paper, the most important effective parameters in serving a successful service are detected

Banafsheh Sajadi

Elham Shirzad

Khashayar Haghighi

Mehdi Cheraghi

Seyed Mohammad Ahmadi

CiteSeerX

 
 
 
 
          
 
 
 
An EXPERIMETAL STUDY on the KIEMATICS of a SKILLED SERVICE in PLAYIG 
TEIS
 
 
 
Seyed Mohammad Ahmadi, 
Biomedical Department 
Amirkabir University of 
Technology, 
Tehran, Iran 
S.ahmadi@aut.ac.ir 
Elham Shirzad, 
Biomedical Department 
Amirkabir University of 
technology 
Tehran, Iran  
Shirzad@aut.ac.ir 
Banafsheh Sajadi, 
Mechanical Department 
Sharif University of 
Technology 
B_sajadi@mech.sharif.edu
Mehdi cheraghi, 
National Olympic (and Paralympics) Academy of 
Iran, 
Tehran, Iran 
Mahdi_cheraghi@yahoo.com 
Khashayar Haghighi 
Biomedical Department 
Amirkabir University of technology 
K_haghighi@aut.ac.ir
 
 
 
 
ABSTRACT 
     This paper studies the effective parameters of a 
skilled service in playing tennis and determines 
their relationship with skill deals. Effective service 
in tennis plays an important role in gaining more 
desirable result and the most important factor of 
success in getting scores depends on the player’s 
skills in serving an effective service. The 
characteristics of a good service are the high speed 
of the ball and the precision of landing the ball. The 
several parameters affecting on these two 
characteristic in the service, are studied in this 
paper. Therefore, the Kinematic parameters of 8 
Iranian professional tennis athletes of first division 
tennis league and also 8 non-professional Iranian 
athletes who exercise about 3 sessions a week were 
extracted. After land marking these athletes, by use 
of two high-frequency cameras, pictures were 
recorded when the tennis players were serving the 
services.  
   The investigation on the results of these tests is 
performed by three dimensional motion analyses. 
The pictures are analyzed with the WinAnalyze 
software. Therefore, in this paper, the most 
important effective parameters in serving a 
successful service are detected. 
Keywords: Kinematics, Tennis, Service, motion 
analysis, three dimensional analyses. 
 
ITRODUCTIO 
Tennis is a wide-aged popular exercise. Tennis 
players are continually being challenged to increase 
their serve velocity in an attempt to dominate their 
opponent. Thus it is required to produce a high 
speed at the end of the distal segment of the racquet 
in the kinematic chain so that the racquet head can 
generate a maximum speed of the ball [1]. To build 
up racquet speed, coordinated movements in the 
trunk rotation, upper arm flexion, abduction and 
internal rotation, as well as hand palmar and ulnar 
flexion are required [2]. 
To improve the understanding of high velocity 
serve, Elliot and colleagues conducted a series of 
biomechanical studies using skilled amateur tennis 
players [3]. A kinematic chain was quantified in a 
way to be able to characterize the increase of the 
Proceedings of the ASME 2010 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition 
IMECE2010 
November 12-18, 2010, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada  
IMECE2010-  
 
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maximum linear velocity of the proximal to distal 
segments, in the sequence from the knee to the 
racquet. Joint angles at the instant of the ball 
impact were also reported and investigated in this 
study and Angular velocities of segment were 
measured in the subsequent study [4].  At the 
instant of ball impact, the velocity of ball was 
mostly attributed to the shoulder internal rotation 
and the wrist flexion. Furthermore, Feltner (et. al) 
studied the effect of the sequencing of angular 
velocity for the various segments on generating the 
highest speed of the ball [5]. 
These series of studies provided a good 
foundation of understanding on first-serve 
biomechanics used by skilled players. Three-
dimensional (3D) kinematic analyses of the service 
technique of high performance tennis players have 
provided the athlete and coach with a practical 
information on the key mechanical characteristics 
of this action [3,4].  
The purpose of this paper is to study the 
effective parameters of a skilled service in playing 
tennis and determines their relationship with the 
skill deals. The result of this study can be helpful 
for the competitive players and their coaches to 
understand the mechanics needed to generate high 
serve velocity. 
 
METHODS AD PROCEDURE 
 
Two subjected groups participated in this test 
were a group of eight Iranian professional male 
tennis athletes of first division tennis league and a 
group of eight non-professional Iranian athletes 
who exercise about three sessions a week. The 
selected athletes in both groups are chosen by 
having approximately equal bmi
 1
. 
Mass and height for the first group (p< 0.05) 
was (76.5+- 10 kg, 1.82+- 0.08 m) and for the 
second group was (76.2+- 8 kg, 1.78+- 0.09 m). 
Forty eight service motions (three serve for 
each subject) were videotaped with two 
electronically synchronized high-speed video 
cameras. These two cameras were positioned 
approximately 4 m far from the service area with 
side and front views. These views were adjusted to 
capture the entire serving motion, while the 
                                                           
1
 Body Mass Index 
visibility of the used cameras is 4mx3.5m. Video 
data were collected at a rate of 250 Hz. 
To control the memory usage of the 
calculation system, for investigating the total 
movement the rate was chosen to be 250 Hz   and 
not the maximum of 1000 Hz. In investigating the 
small portion of the movement the higher rates 
could be used. For each camera, the shutter rate 
was set at 0.002 s and the aperture was adjusted 
according to condition. . (A digital high speed 
camera, Kodak motion coder SR: 1000, dynamic 
analysis system, Pte-ltd). 
  Ball velocity was recorded just as the ball left 
the tennis racquet. A 2.040
m
×1.040
m
 ×1.040
m
 28 
control points calibration frame was videotaped 
after each test with a measurement tolerance of 
0.005m.  The position of the frame encompassed 
the space occupied by the players during the serve 
(from initial ball toss to impact). 
Since kinematic parameters were measured 
from the ball toss to just after the ball impact, and 
not during the follow-through phase, the period of 
the recorded data was long enough to contain the 
portion of the tennis serve that was digitized. 
All videotapes were first qualitatively analyzed 
to determine that the data from 16 players had the 
required quality for quantitative analysis.  For each 
of these subjects, the three successful serves with 
the greatest ball velocity were manually digitized 
with the motion analysis system: WINanalyze (V 
1.4, 3D Mikromak, Gmbh Germany) [6]. 
A 20-point spatial model was created, 
comprising the centre's of the left and right mid-
toes, ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists, 
and the subject's head, hand racquet grip, and four 
points around the racquet head (medial, lateral, 
proximal, and distal) (figure1).  Each of these 20 
points were digitized in every video field (250 Hz), 
starting at five frames prior to the motion of the 
ball leaving the hand and ending five frames 
subsequent to the racquet impacting the ball.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Figur1- A frame captured during the serving. 
 
The pictures were analyzed with the 
WinAnalyze motion analysis software. 
WinAnalyze is specifically programmed to 
calculate kinematic and kinetic parameters. In this 
program resultant force and torque levels at the 
elbow and shoulder joints are calculated using 
inverse dynamics. Because of the dynamic effect of 
impact on the racquet, kinetic analysis is limited to 
data just before ball impact and the drag effect of 
each segment through the air is neglected. 
This software can do automatic tracking; 
means in each frame recognize the markers and 
trace them in subsequent frames. Though, it can 
give the coordinate of each point in every second. 
Also, if the lines between these points are defined 
for the program, it can calculate the angle and 
angular velocity of these lines (figure 2). 
 
Figure2- The software tracking the markers and the lines.  
  
Thus, Angles were calculated for each trail at 
three key events: 1. when the flexed lead knee 
began to extend and move the player upward; 2. 
when the shoulder was in maximum external 
rotation; 3. when the racquet impacted the ball. 
Maximum angular velocities were also calculated. 
 
RESULTS AD DISCUSSIOS 
Body mass, height, and service velocity for the 
mean of the best three trials are shown in Table 1. 
Serving speeds for the first group players were 
141.3(19.9) km/hr (mean (standard deviation)) and 
for the second group players were 118.3(14.6) 
Km/hr. The maximal ball speed in non-professional 
Iranian athletes was significantly smaller than 
professional tennis athlete (p=0.01). The 
differences between these two groups occurred 
mainly in the upper trunk and wrist movements. 
 
2
nd
 group 
(Mean (SD) 
1
st
 group 
Mean (SD)  
Anthropometric and ball velocity data 
178(9) 182(8) Height (cm) 
76.2(8.0) 76.5(10) Mass (kg) 
118.3(14.6) 141.3(19.9) Velocity of the ball(km hr-1) 
Table 1- Mean (standard deviation) values of service data  
  In order to compare the exact details of the 
serving movement of two groups, we investigate 
the kinematics of the services. As the ball moves 
out of lead hand, the player flexes both knees. 
Then, the player extends both knees to move his 
body upward and this movement then combines 
with trunk rotations, and then the rotation of the 
racquet and the arm occurs. Maximum angular 
velocity of lead knee extension occurred before ball 
impact. The angular velocities of each of these 
movements can be seen in table 2. 
Maximum Angular Velocity  
2
nd
 group 
Mean (SD) 
1
st
 group 
Mean (SD) 
  
580(310) 700(300) Knee extension (° /s) 
190(30) 220(40) Trunk angle decrease (° /s) 
420(70) 400(90) Pelvis rotation (° /s) 
680(130) 800(100) Upper torso rotation (° /s) 
1800(420) 2100(500) Shoulder internal rotation (° /s) 
980(270) 1100(300) Elbow flexion (° /s) 
Table 2- High velocity kinematics of services  
 
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It’s considerable that the high speed of the 
athlete in serving also can be a necessity in having 
a perfect service. The angular velocities of the 
segments in the first group are mostly higher than 
the other group. 
At the instant of ball impact, maximum 
external rotation occurs. In this instant the shoulder 
was abducted, horizontally adducted, and 
externally rotated. The elbow was flexed, and the 
wrist was extended the angle of each of these 
movement could be seen in table 3. The differences 
between professional group and non professional 
players are not considerable, but comparing with 
elite players [7] they have obviously different 
values. 
Angle of the segments in the instant of Ball Impact 
2nd group 
Mean (SD) 
1st group  
Mean (SD)  
116(12) 120(11) Shoulder abduction (°) 
10(8) 10(5) Shoulder horizontal adduction (°) 
19(7) 17(4) Elbow flexion (°) 
17(10) 12(8) Wrist extension (°) 
53(8) 58(7) Trunk angle above horizontal (°) 
21(19) 24(14) knee flexion (°) 
 Table 3- Segment's angle at the instant of ball impact 
 
To produce an effective high velocity serve, 
coaches can use the values presented in this paper 
to define a range of proficiency level for a specific 
movement, in assessing selected techniques used 
by players. For example, players should strive to 
attain a shoulder horizontal adduction of 
approximately 10° in last instance of phase of the 
serve, if the racquet is to be positioned correctly for 
the forward swing and the muscles of internal 
rotation are to be stretched. Future research on 
tennis players of various skill levels is needed to 
investigate the relationship among variations in 
serve kinematics, joint kinetics, and ball velocity. 
REFERECES 
[1] Marshall, R.N. et al. J Sports Sci. 18, 247-54, 
2000   
[2] Takahashi, K. et al. Australian J Sci & Med In 
Sport. 28,106-113, 1996  
[3] Elliot, B. C, Marsh, T., and Blanksby, B. 
(1986). A three-dimensional cinematographical 
analysis of tennis serves. International Journal of 
Sport Biomechanics, 2, 260-270. 
[4] Elliot, B. C., Marshall, R. N., and Noffal, G. J. 
(1995). Contributions of upper limb segment 
rotations during the power serve in tennis. Journal 
of Applied Biomechanics, 11, 433-442. 
[5] Feltner, M.E., and Dapena, J. (1989). Three-
dimensional interactions in two-segment kinetic 
chain: part 1: general model. International Journal 
of Sport Biomechanics, 5, 403-419. 
[6] WINanalyze tracking software, V 1.4, 
www.winanalyze.com 
[7] Fleisig, G., Nicholls, R., Elliot, B. C., and 
Escamilla, R. (2003). Kinematics Used by World 
Class Tennis Players Produce Hugh-Velocity 
Serves. Journal of Sport Biomechanics, 2, 51-57.
 
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An EXPERIME TAL STUDY on the KI EMATICS of a SKILLED SERVICE in PLAYI G TE IS

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An EXPERIME TAL STUDY on the KI EMATICS of a SKILLED SERVICE in PLAYI G TE IS

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