I'm not one to proclaim that I have expert level knowledge of the technical side of tennis -- I only played competitively (using that term quite loosely) during my final year of high school and after that, my court time was during recreation amongst my scant few playing partners. I am, however, proud to say that I noticed well before the sixth game of the match between Rafael Nadal and Robert Kendrick that something was different about the the Spaniard's serve.

The most evident aspect of the change is in the ball toss - it's higher, and therefore, the impact is much more delayed from when the ball is first tossed. It might not be something that you notice in all players, but when comparing Rafa's old form (notice as recently as in Shanghai) to his new form, it appears like night and day. And we thought Nadal's service action was long enough even beforehand

But aside from this, maybe there are some practical reasons for this change, even though some would shudder at the thought of tinkering with the game of a two-time French Open champion. It's been well documented that Nadal didn't have a great second half of 2006 during which most of the play was on hard courts. Was this change in service, then, to try and adapt Rafa's game to the harder surfaces? Possibly, as Rafa may be looking for some cheap points along the way, in order to avoid a huge grind for every point - although that seems to run against the natural grain of Nadal's style.

It's also interesting to note that the change was made in time for the Australian Open, which has often been declared as the place where Nadal has the best chance of adding a Grand Slam title to that captured at Roland Garros. This was said because the Rebound Ace courts do what their name imply - spring a bit of bounce on balls, in particular on Rafa's "old" high kick serve.

For more visit my blog

This new version has a lot more pop and doesn't hook into the side as much. Nadal's serve, often mentioned as one of the weaker elements of his game, was nevertheless a defining characteristic of him as a player. With a sudden, rather drastic change such as this I am even more curious to see how Nadal performs in Melbourne, and throughout the year. If it works, he (or Uncle Toni) is a genius. If not, they will find out soon enough. Or else, it may be a long-term adjustment in the mode of Tiger Woods when he was going through his slump.