How To Serve In Tennis - 6 Simple SECRETS To A Great Serve

When it comes to the tennis serve there are so many elements involved that often we become overwhelmed by how many things we have to focus on. You're thinking about the grip, you're thinking about the ball toss, all of these things you have to master in order to hit a good serve. So I'm going to make it simple. Here are the simple secrets to having a great tennis serve. Hey everyone, coach Simon here with Top Tennis Training and let's get stuck in right away. Now the foundation of the serve is the way you hold the racket, the grip. A lot of players struggle with this. Even players who have been playing for 20, 30, 40 years, they're still using an eastern forehand grip or even a semi-western forehand grip. They're still pushing the ball in. The reason the grip is so important is because it allows you to pronate and supinate if you're using the correct grip. Pronation is something that we'll cover later on in this lesson. Now there's a reason that 99% of tennis pros on both the ATP and the WTA tours are using a continental grip to serve with. This grip allows you to produce spin. It allows you to produce a lot of power but it also gives you that accuracy and one of the ways you can find that continental grip in quite an easy way is to hold your racket like so and put your hand on the strings like this. I'm creating this v-shape on the left side of the frame if I'm a right-handed player and I slide my hand down until I end up on the grip. So once you have the continental grip, you're now ready to move on to the ball toss, the second secret. Now the ball toss is one of the most important elements of the serve to master because a consistent ball toss will help you hit the serve in a similar zone time and time again. An erratic ball toss will cost you massively because you'll have to keep changing your technique, you'll have to adjust the timing, it will throw you off. Now a lot of players go wrong with the ball toss because they toss the ball too high so they end up tossing the ball and it becomes like a throw. They're throwing the ball instead of placing the ball and they also hold the ball in the palm of their hand and as they release the ball produces this spin so you can actually feel the ball properly when it's in the palm of the hand like this. So the simple way to master this ball toss is to hold it in the fingers, not the fingertips but in your fingers so you feel that the ball is there and to imagine placing the ball instead of throwing the ball. So if I'm going to make contact here, there's no point in me throwing it six feet higher than that contact point because the higher I toss the ball the more erratic it will go, the longer it takes for my service motion to be complete but also the ball starts picking up speed so the higher I toss the ball the faster the ball is traveling and it becomes a moving object as opposed to a stationary object. When we toss the ball as we release the ball it goes up, it rises, it hits the apex, the peak of the ball toss and it starts to drop. The closer we can hit to that apex the closer we can hit that stationary object. Now before we go any deeper into this serve lesson, if you're serious about improving your serve and you want more help, we have a free serve guide you can download right away. I'll leave the link beneath this video, click on that link that will take you to our website, simply enter your email address and we'll send you that free pdf right away. So it's much easier to master the ball toss if you're holding it in the fingers and if you think about placing the ball as opposed to throwing the ball. So now that we have the grip and the ball toss under control it's all about the way we use our legs on the serve. Now there are two main serve stances, this is the way we position our feet. The first one is the platform stance, this is where you have your feet around shoulder width apart and you keep them in that position until you finally drive up into the point of contact. This is the serve stance that we see Federer using, Djokovic using and Pete Sampras. So three of the most consistent servers of all time use this stance. Now the advantage of the platform stance is that you have better balance and you're able to drive with both legs equally as well. It's also great for hitting that second serve because you can really go from under the ball and brush the back for that kick serve. So this works better for the second serve in general. We also have the pinpoint stance and this is where you start with your feet slightly wider and as you start your motion you now lift the back foot and it comes forward till it joins into that pinpoint stance and from this position you'll then drive up into the serve. Now with both stances it's important that we're driving off the ground and driving into that point of contact. This will give us much more power and it's quite an advanced technique so if you're just learning the serve it might be too advanced for you to work on the leg drive but as you progress as you get better start working on really driving with the legs going down into the knee bend and coming out as quickly as you can almost like that jack-in-the-box effect the spring effect you're going down you're coming up. The longer we stay in the knee bend the more power we lose the more explosive energy we lose so we don't want to be staying there for too long. That's why it's also important to time the ball toss. If I can time it where I go down and up quickly I'm going to produce much more power than if I go down, wait, wait, wait and then drive. So that down and up action is vital in producing power on the serve. Now it's important to experiment with both try out the platform try out the pinpoint and see which one suits your serve much more. The next step of the serve is the swing the way you get the racket from the starting position into the back position and finally into the contact point. Now there are different ways for you to get through that motion. There are some players like Nadal who have a shorter swing. They start off somewhere up here and instead of dropping the racket they simply go from here into what we call the power position. So the power position is where you have almost that throwing position. If I want to throw this tennis ball now what I would do is I would get into this kind of position and I throw it and that throwing position is very similar to the service power position. We want to reach a position similar to this where we can throw the racket into the ball and produce that power. A very simple way to find that position is to place both hands out like this bend your hitting arm until it's about 90 degree angle and drop the back shoulder the right shoulder so I end up in this position. And actually I can produce a lot of power simply from starting here. So it's all about getting into that power position and you can have a racket drop which is what we see with Federer. He starts off quite low he has his racket drop and then he goes into that power position. Same is true with Pete Sampras. He starts up here he drops the racket he comes into the power position. Same is true with Djokovic. Starts here drops it and comes up. Now that is a full swing and you're building up momentum before you reach that power position. But there are also exceptions players like Andy Roddick or Gael Monfils. They start up quite high and they have that abbreviated swing where they go straight from here into the power position and then hit the serve. So test it out see which one works better for you. Does the drop work better? Maybe a half swing similar to Nadal or maybe the abbreviated one similar to Roddick where you're just going straight into that power position from the starting point. Now all of this leads back into that power position and that throwing motion. Once I reach this position I want to feel like I'm throwing my racket into the point of contact. The next part of the serve is all about the contact point and that pronation and that's why it's so important to have the continental grip. If I have a forehand grip and I try to pronate and supinate my forearm this is what's happening around the point of contact. I change to a continental grip and now my arm is in that supinated position. I now move up towards contact I'm pronating and then I pronate fully. Now this is quite complex this is quite advanced but it's something that you'll want to master as you progress through your tennis journey. Now a simple way for you to understand this is if your hand is by the side of your body like this and the palm is facing the sky now this is my forearm in a supinated position. Now I start to turn my palm towards my body I'm pronating but I'm pronating into a neutral position and now if I turn my palm to the ground I'm now pronated fully so supination pronation and on the serve it looks like this prior to contact I'm supinating my forearm I'm in this position here from this position I pronate into a neutral position but I have pronated into this position so some pronation has occurred before the point of contact I now make contact and then I fully pronate and this will give you the maximum range of motion through the service contact point and it will give you the maximum amount of power. In order to produce more power on the serve we need the racket to be traveling through the point of contact quickly we have to have that acceleration and if you're doing this with the serve if you're trying to use that forehand grip and you're simply pushing the ball there's no way you're going to have massive power because you have no range of motion whereas with the continental grip and this pronation through the point of contact this is what will allow you to produce a lot of power. So where exactly should we make contact with the ball? Now if we think about the obstacle on the court that we have to avoid the most the net if we want to eliminate the net we want to hit the ball the highest possible spot that we can there's no point of me throwing the ball and hitting it down here. The higher I can make contact the less I have to lift the ball to clear the net. So if you imagine you're reaching up to the highest possible spot you can reach up to and then if you have a leg drive you can add a couple of inches that would be your ideal contact point on the serve and that's where you should be aiming to release the ball and try to make contact around that spot. Now after we make contact after we've pronated fully the next step is the follow-through and you really want to master the follow-through because this is what will save you injuries and reduce the amount of pain that you have when you're serving. If you're hitting powerful serves and you're stopping here you end up with an injured shoulder an elbow or a wrist injury. If we have a relaxed follow-through so we're hitting the serve and we're relaxing the arm and eventually it comes to our left pocket if you're a right-handed player this will reduce the risk of injury hopefully and this is so important. So we're making contact we're pronating fully and then my arm starts to bend I take the stress off my shoulder by having that bend and it starts to relax fully until it reaches my left pocket. If you can work on all of these elements of your serve you won't master them at the same time it takes time to develop each point it takes time to get into the right grip it takes time to master the ball toss takes time to master the swing but step by step if you work on all of these elements and you can incorporate them into your serve you'll see a massive difference. So there you have it the serve secrets I hope you've enjoyed this lesson if you have enjoyed it smash the like button don't forget to subscribe to the channel and make sure you turn on that notification bell. If there are any lessons you'd like to see from us in the near future leave a comment down below. Signing off coach Simon from TTT all the best and see you soon guys!