Abstract
The sport of tennis involves many different strokes, of which the serve is arguably the most important. The serve begins with feet separated about shoulder width apart with one foot closer to the net. During the foot-up technique, players move their back foot near their front foot while executing the serve. For the foot-back technique, the back foot remains stationary. It is commonly discussed in coaching literature that the use of the foot-up technique allows for enhanced weight transfer producing a more powerful serve while the foot-back technique allows for greater stability and control in the serve. Limited data exists to support these ideas. PURPOSE: To compare force production, ball velocity, and serve depth between the foot-up and foot-back tennis serve techniques among tennis players at the Division III collegiate level. METHODS: Nine Division III collegiate tennis players (20.22 yrs, 1.76 m, 67.86 kg) were recruited to perform five serves using each foot technique and from each side of the court. Peak force (N) was measured using the loadsol pro force insole (novel electronics, inc.) for the front foot and back foot during the loading phase of the tennis serve. An AI-powered shot-tracking app (SwingVision, Inc.) was used to measure ball velocity (mph) and serve depth (defined as distance the ball lands from the front of the service box). RESULTS: Mean (SD) total force was 1753.9 (338.4) N for the foot-up stance and 1667.0 (342.2) N for the foot-back stance. The foot-up serve produced 5.1% greater force (F(1, 8)=3.658, p=0.092 nP2=0.314) in comparison to the foot-back serve. Mean (SD) ball velocity was 70.9 (12.5) mph for the foot-up serve and 69.5 (14.0) mph for the foot-back serve across all participants. The foot-up serve had 1.9% greater ball velocity (t(8)=1.436, p=0.189,Cohen’s d=0.479) than the foot-back serve. Mean (SD) serve depth, from the front of the service box, was 15.7 (0.8) ft for the foot-up serve and 16.0 (1.1) ft for the foot-back serve. The foot-back serve produced a 1.7% deeper (i.e., more advantageous) serve (t(8)=1.047, p=0.326, Cohen’s d=0.349) compared to the foot-up serve. It was found across both serving styles that the front foot had a significantly greater amount of force production in comparison to the back foot (F(1, 8)=11.917, p=0.009, nP2 = 0.598). CONCLUSION: The foot-up and foot-back serve techniques offer moderate but different benefits to serve performance. No previous studies of this nature have been conducted solely among Division III college tennis players, thus making these findings particularly insightful and valuable into the influence of back foot positioning on force production and other performance measures during the tennis serve.
Recommended Citation
Synoski, Erika and McLean, Scott P.
(2025)
"Influence of Back Foot Positioning on Tennis Serve Performance,"
International Journal of Exercise Science: Conference Proceedings: Vol. 2:
Iss.
17, Article 90.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/ijesab/vol2/iss17/90
