We love-love this first installment, as JOHN MARSHALL gets tiny tips on the serve from University of Colorado tennis coach Nicole Kenneally. Video produced by RAY ZABLOCKI.
Introducing "Nitty Gritty," asap's regular how-to video feature that puts every imaginable sport under the high-powered microscope of a professional instructor.
The suicide squeeze. The in-bounds pass. Flying a spinnaker. The 7-10 split.
No sport is too big, no skill too small.
Shot by asap sports reporter JOHN MARSHALL, each 1-minute video zooms in on one of the tiny grains that make up sports, providing all the necessary detail and expertise to follow along -- improving the athlete, and improving the fan.
"Nitty Gritty" will run every other Monday; come back in two weeks for some finer points on laying down a bunt.
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For the first installment of "The Grit," as we like to call it, we bring you the nuances of the tennis serve.
If you've ever played tennis, you know how frustrating it can be when your serve isn't on, the balls repeatedly sailing long or into the net. Basically, if you can't serve, you have no chance.
So to get you straightened out, we enlisted the help of Nicole Kenneally, tennis coach at the University of Colorado the past eight years, and Monica Milewski, the Buffs' No. 1 player.
Check out this video and pretty soon you'll be blasting serves like Rafael Nadal and Justin Henin. OK, maybe not exactly like them -- they are the French Open champions, after all -- but you'll definitely get better.
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See the video here.
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John Marshall, asap's sports reporter, shot the footage in Denver. "Nitty Gritty" was produced by asap audiovisual reporter Ray Zablocki, with contributions from interactive designers Peter Hamlin and Jenni Sohn.
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