On Thursday 20 June, the CTC held a high quality colloquium with Mark Kovacs PhD, one of the most renowned physiologists in the world.

Under the title «Optimizing the tennis serve: Understanding the 8 Stage Model of the serve», it brought together more than 30 participants, some of them prominent former players who are now coaches, such as Tommy Robredo, Marc Górriz, Joel Figueras and Juancho Marín, among others.

One by one, Kovacs developed each of the eight steps a tennis player must follow when serving -start, release, load, cock, acceleration, contact, deceleration, finish- to achieve the best performance with that shot.

These steps are the result of research carried out by Dr Kovacs and his team both in the laboratory and on the court.

It was a very practical and visual session, with slides and video, aimed at coaches who were shown what works and what doesn’t.

Kovacs concluded by answering some questions posed by those attending.

For more information, click here.