Andy Roddick left Miami in an upbeat mood and feeling much more positive about his immediate future than he felt some two weeks ago, when he was blasted out of Indian Wells by Igor Andreev. If you’re a Roddick fan, you should read his his final interview in full.
While contemplating Andy’s recent woes, my mind turned back to a subject that I had written a column about for Tennis magazine many years ago – the underhand serve. More to the point, why the underhand serve was not employed in the game.
The best I can figure is that serving underhand has always violated the unwritten, traditional code of the game. It’s considered a base trick, something to which only a charlatan would resort. At the same time, I haven’t come across any acceptable reasoning that supports the taboo.
If the underhand serve is “unsporting”, why isn’t the drop shot? Furthermore, there have been plenty of occasions when players have resorted to serving underhand, usually out of duress, every once in a while out of gamesmanship – throwing in what I prefer to call the drop-shot serve because it’s considered taboo to do so, yet there isn’t a single word in the rules prohibiting or even discouraging it.
Do you remember that Martina Hingis underhander to Steffi Graf, in the infamous “meltdown” match? Sure that seemed gamesman-like, but Michael Chang, cramping horribly, also threw in a few underhanders in his match-up with Ivan Lendl in 1989 French Open. Bud Collins, with whom I talked about this issue, also reminded me that Julie Heldman, the player whose mother basically invented the WTA tour, routinely used to throw in drop-shot serves against Billie Jean King – sending King into a rage.
And then there was Bob Howe, who, according to Bud, showed up at the U.S. Nationals in 1958 with a bad shoulder injury but a commitment to play in the doubles. He did so, and went a few rounds – at least. Any of you tennis historians care to weigh in on this?
In any event, Andy is a guy who might benefit enormously from having a drop-shot serve. At Wimbledon, his opponents routinely stand 15, 20 feet behind the baseline to receive, Does anyone want to argue that throwing in a soft underhander as you step up to the line, on a surface on which no pace equals no bounce, wouldn’t work?
Well, Andy would. Here’s the exchange I had with him during his last presser here:
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Q. This is a leftfield technical question. Why don't guys have a dropshot serve?
ANDY RODDICK: All right. A dropshot serve?
Q. Underhand, throw it in, when a guy's standing 25 feet behind the baseline to receive.
ANDY RODDICK: Really? Well, I'm going to break it down for you real quick.
Uhm, now, if I'm hitting yeah. If he's fast enough to get to a forehand when he's in one alley and I hit it to the other side of the court as hard as I can and he's fast enough to get there, I'm guessing he's going to be fast enough to get it if I hit it 10 miles an hour underhand where it has to go up, then come down, and then also then he's just got crazy good court position.
A lot of using a dropshot not that I know much about dropshots (smiling) but when they're hit against me, a lot of it is about kind of the person getting wrong footed and then playing a dropshot behind someone or against their movement. It's hard to play against someone's movement when they're standing still and their weight is not going one way or another. I just don't think that would work at all.
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Andy’s reaction was condescending, but that’s how it’s always been when I’ve broached the subject with top players. They just don’t want to hear it, and with all due deference to them, I don’t really believe they’ve got open minds an the issue. Andy’s explanation may appear sound (and it might be sound), but it seems that he doesn’t take into account the element of surprise. He omits the same variable that enables players to wrong foot each other with great success – and, actually, to get away with many of their regular drop shots,
Now, imagine that some coach training a world class junior spends 30 minutes a day perfecting a sneaky, drop-shot serve move, with or without spin, from a standard service stance or even something less static. I think the possibilities are striking. Now imagine having to face someone – say, a big server, like Roddick - who could at any given time throw in a surprise underhand serve. Wouldn’t that concern have a potentially profound affect on your return strategy and court positioning?
I still say that someday, some kid is going to show up on the tour with the ability and desire to use the drop-shot serve, and he or she is going to get credit for bringing something truly unique to tennis. Think about it: there is no rule against a drop-shot serve, yet everyone observes a strange “gentleman’s agreement” prohibiting it. And the same goes for the women.
Who says gentlemanly conduct is dead in tennis?