Transform your Kick Serve in 10 Minutes - Tennis Serve Tutorial

It's time to transform your kick serve in 10 minutes. Hey everyone, Coach Simon here with Top Ten Training and let's get stuck in right away. Now the kick serve is very effective because of these three reasons. Number one, it allows us to lift the ball giving us good margin over the net. Number two, because of the amount of spin produced it then dips into the service boxes. And number three, that spin will then create an aggressive bounce which either lifts it very high or it bounces high and away from the opponent. And it's a great way to actually exploit players who have a weaker backhand especially dealing with those high balls. So the kick serve is a great way to actually start the point even with the first serve. Often we can use it on the outside to open the court. So it's a serve that everyone should really work on and try to master and with these tips hopefully you'll see the difference in 10 minutes. Now the first step is of course the way we hold the racket, the grip. Now in general the continental grip is the grip we'll be hitting our serve with. This will be the flat serve, the slice serve and the kick serve. Now you can hit a really good kick serve with the continental grip but some players will actually benefit from having a slight adjustment. So if we think about the continental and then we think about the eastern backhand grip for the single handers out there, this is where you have the knuckles basically on the top of the racket edge. So the racket comes down like this and my knuckles would be aligned with the frame of the racket. Now if you have a grip in between both, so continental, eastern and somewhere in between, you might actually want to try this out for your kick serve. It changes the angle slightly, it gives you more spin and it makes it much easier to produce the right racket path with that kick serve. The next step is understanding the racket path when we go for that kick serve. Now when we go for a flat serve I'm coming with my racket on edge like this, I'm hitting the ball in front of me and I'm carrying on towards my target. So with both the slice and the flat serve the target on the ball is mainly the top half. I'm aiming to hit the top of the ball to produce that flatter or that slice serve. With the kick serve however my target on the ball is very different. Now if I want to produce a higher bounce and I'm not too worried about the kick I can go from seven o'clock to one o'clock on that ball. So from the bottom left side of the ball to the top right side. If I want to produce a more aggressive kick however I can also go from eight o'clock to two o'clock. So up and across the ball. Now in order for this to happen the racket has to be traveling from the bottom left side to the top right side of the ball and this can only be done if I actually stay side on with my shoulders throughout that point of contact. So here is Roger Federer's kick serve in action. Notice the position of his shoulders when he makes contact. He stays side on and he only opens up his body after the ball has left his racket and from this angle we can see even better. Notice the Now if you want more help with your serve we have a free serve guide that you can download right away. I'll leave the link beneath this video. All you have to do is click on that link that will take you to our website. Simply enter your email address and we'll send you that free serve pdf straight away. If I open the shoulders what happens is it starts to turn into more of a flat or slice serve. So I have to really focus on staying side on with my body as I actually hit this kick serve. Now when it comes to the racket path when I'm hitting a flat or a slice my racket might be traveling this way. So forward towards my target. So with the flat serve you're throwing your racket towards your intended target. The racket starts behind the baseline but then travels well inside the court and you're staying on that ball for as long as possible to make the contact point as flat as you can. With the kick serve it's going to be traveling along the baseline. So from left to right. And here is the perfect angle to see this in action. Federer's racket's traveling in line with the baseline and going from left to right. I don't actually want the racket to travel inside the baseline too much too far if I'm going for that kick serve. So the flat serve I'm going this way and the kick serve I'm going this way. So the racket path changes dramatically and this can only happen if I'm staying side on. If I open the racket will naturally go inside the court. In order for my racket to go from left to right I have to be in this position for me to actually do this while still maintaining some stability in the shoulder. So it's this left to right motion as I actually make contact. And the easiest way for you to feel this is to ensure that your left arm tucks in and stays there until after you've actually made contact. So pay close attention to Federer's left arm as it tucks in and stays there allowing his shoulders to stay side on through that kick serve. So on the flat or the slice serve you might be focusing on the left arm coming away from the point of contact but opening the shoulders because you want to have that uncoil prior to actually making contact. With the kick serve however left arm is coming in tucking into the left side squeezing the left oblique and I'm staying in this side on position until the ball has left my strings. So it's that seven to one o'clock or it's the eight to two o'clock while maintaining my body in that side on position. Now something else that will actually help me produce more of a kick and more angle especially on the outside is if I turn my shoulders more prior to contact. So on my normal serve I might come into this position but on the kick serve I might show my back more towards the net and that will make it easier for me to actually stay side on and produce that left to right swing. Another major factor in producing a good kick serve is the racket angle at the point of contact. Now if we think about the flat serve our racket angle might be like this the slice serve very similar. Pay close attention to Federer's racket head in relation to the arm and the angle that he's making contact at in this position. Now with the kick serve however I want my racket to be traveling from under the ball upwards. Now in order for me to do this if I already have the racket in this upward position I cannot go any further I cannot extend vertically any further than this point so I have to actually make contact with my racket on edge slightly like this and this will allow me to actually go upwards as I make contact. So I'm hitting the ball with my racket more in this L shape so this kind of shape here as opposed to more of an I shape. So it's that L shape at the point of contact which will allow me to then go upwards with my racket on the back of the ball. And a great way for you to feel this motion is to have your racket in that L shape have a ball on the palm of your hand and simply just go up and down with the ball rolling on your hand. So all I'm doing is I'm feeling that upwards motion with my racket I'm in this position here and then the next progression of this would be to allow the ball to actually roll off your hand so it'd be from here rolling off and you can actually do quite a few of these where the ball is placed on the palm and you simply roll it off and then go from this L shape into that more I shape with the racket head. So there you have it I hope this lesson will help you turn your kick serve into a real weapon. If you have enjoyed the video smash the like button, subscribe to the channel of course and turn on the 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 T2T all the best guys see you soon and go smash those kick serves!