Tennis and science, a combination that in recent years has become increasingly consolidated among professionals. The last to rely on the “care” of scientific discipline and technology was No. 3 in the world Coco Gauff: to improve its performance in the service, the American has hired an expert in its team biomechanics, Gavin MacMillanthe same one who made her colleague and current queen of women’s tennis make the leap in quality Aryna Sabalenka. Biomechanics is the discipline that analyzes body movements to improve technique, increase efficiency and reduce the risk of injury, for these reasons it can represent an advantage for those who study (and try to apply) its laws.
How biomechanics can improve the serve in tennis: Gauff, Sabalenka, Medvedev
The American tennis player Coco Gauffreigning Roland Garros champion and exit in the round of 16 at the last US Open, has decided to end her collaboration with the coach Matt Daly to rely on Gavin MacMillanbiomechanics guru already known in the environment for having corrected the movement of the serve Aryna Sabalenka between 2022 and 2024, bringing her to the highest step of the women’s ranking: thanks to improvements in right arm position at the moment of throwing the ball and in the push with the left legin 2024 the current world number 1 has halved the number of double faults compared to two seasons earlier. The service itself, however, is becoming a weak point for Gauff: in 2025 he committed 320 double faults in 47 gamesmore than any other player on the WTA circuit. Hence the idea of hiring MacMillan, protagonist of the interview in the video below, in which he explains his work:
In 2013 the French sports scientist Caroline Martin completed a PhD at the University of Rennes with a 186-page thesis entitled “Biomechanical analysis of the tennis serve and its connection with performance and pathologies of the upper limbs“. Martin explains: “Service is a complex movementbut in terms of experimentation it’s pretty easy to put into practice because you don’t depend on your opponentunlike a forehand or backhand. The movement belongs entirely to the person performing it. You don’t have to worry about the ball coming at you. This makes it easier to establish the calibration conditions and makes biomechanical analysis more accurate.”
The scientist works in a gym equipped with around twenty optoelectronic cameras which record the position of markers placed on a player. All synchronized to reconstruct the movements in 3D. The cameras click 300 images per second. A real “gesture clinic” taking the title of an interview from a few years ago with Martin who also includes Slam champions among her present and past “patients” Daniil Medvedev And Ivan Ljubicic.
Other advantages of the biomechanical approach in tennis
In the same article another French expert and coach, Cyril Genevoiswhich regularly collaborates with the international tennis federation, highlights how another advantage of the biomechanical approach, no less important, is that of identify injury factors and therefore of prevent certain pathologies. “If I serve at 200 km/h, I’m efficient. But if I serve at the same speed with a lower energy expenditurewith less stress on my shoulder, I am more efficient. There have been great serving players, like Patrick Rafterwho were very efficient but who paid the price dearly with several shoulder operations. Thanks to research today we know how avoid premature rotations which can lead to abdominal or shoulder injuries.”
While biomechanics helps make a diagnosis, it doesn’t spare players a long period of testing in training to permanently integrate the change into the movement, as Gauff herself said in her debut match at the US Open
I spent so much time on the court serving that my shoulder eventually developed. I know I have to keep the new movement going regardless because, in the long run, it will be good, but it’s not easy because making a change at this point in my career is like learning a new language.
Again, innovative methods can reduce learning times. An example of this is the technology developed in Lyon Allyane Sports which helps athletes to modify their movements in just a few sessions, thanks to the so-called “neuromotor reprogramming”, a combination of low-frequency sounds and visualization. “With these tools, we can penetrate people’s subconscious and modify automatic movements – he explains to the magazine CourtsPaul Doroshenko, who was also the tennis legend’s osteopath Roger Federer. “We make technical changes by having athletes wear headphones with low frequency soundscalibrating the brain in alpha mode to visualize the change and to anchor the gesture.”
Tennis and biomechanics: the glossary also applied in Italy
In Italy one of the major authorities on biomechanics applied to tennis is Gennaro VolturoNational technician and former head of the federal technical area. With his students Volturo applies a acronym which has become fundamental in modern tennis: BIOMEC in which each letter corresponds to a detail principle. Here are what they are:
- B as Balance: that is, the ability to better control thebody balance both in the static and dynamic phase;
- THE as Inertia: in tennis the “moment of inertia” which refers to the resistence that the racket encounters during the acceleration phase;
- OR as Opposite Force: in this case we are referring to the principle of action and reaction. For a tennis player it is of great importance to bend the lower limbs during the preparation phase because by doing so he will be able to exploit the force coming from the ground during the subsequent extension phase;
- M as Momentum: it is the product between mass and speed and therefore the tennis player, to favor the maximum acceleration of the rackethe must try to increase the speed produced by his body segments in order to transfer the generated “momentum” to the racket;
- AND as Elastic energy: elastic energy can be summarized by considering the application of the so-called “stretch-short cycle“(lengthening and shortening cycle). In particular, during the preparation phase of each technical skill, the muscles are subject to a lengthening phase which allows the accumulation of elastic energy. The latter will be used during the following phase through the shortening of the muscle fibers and is transferred to the racket favoring greater acceleration;
- C as Kinetic chain: the kinetic chain is the synergistic action of the various body segments which act as if they were links in a chain, in which the force generated by each of them is transferred to the next one. There coordination it is the most significant aspect related to this biomechanical principle because, to maximize the final speed, the body segments must be recruited in such a way that each of them begins its movement at the instant in which the previous segment has reached maximum speed.
