TennisOne Lessons

Serve Your Way to Playing Better Tennis

The serve is the most important shot in tennis because it begins every point, that is a given. At the very least you have to get your serve in so the point can begin. However, if all you can do with your serve is just get the ball in, it is unlikely that you will win many games, let alone matches.

With a stroke seemingly so important, it would make the most sense to simplify everything in order to increase the chance for success. Yet, I have often noticed that my students (perhaps more than on any other shot) have way too much information on their minds about how they should hit their serves i.e.,. foot position, knee bending, waist rotation, ball toss, shoulder rotation, arm motion…The list is endless!

No wonder so many players tighten up while serving. Can you imagine in your line of work trying to remember 10-20 things simultaneously?! Yet often that is what players do while serving.

A number of years ago when I was teaching tennis in Hawaii, I coached a wheelchair tennis player who was ranked in the top 20 both nationally and internationally. He could hit his serves somewhere between 90 – 100 mph yet half his body was paralyzed! He could not bend his knees, jump, transfer his weight from the back foot to the front foot, rotate his waist or even his shoulder for that matter. Yet he could serve faster than most able-bodied players I was teaching! And keep in mind, because he was sitting down, his point of contact was much lower than someone who was standing. So, how could someone serve so fast while sitting down and unable to move from the mid-chest level down to his feet?

His answer was that he focused on only two basic areas:

• What was happening at the point of the contact.
• Maintaining a loose wrist.

Let us take a look at how to simplify the serve and help you make it a bigger weapon in your game.

Traditional Phrases and Concepts You Can Eliminate

Sometimes with this sport, the best place to begin is by subtracting information on how to do something rather than thinking you need to add more information. Here are two suggestions:

The ball toss is not the most important part of the serve

Emphasizing the ball toss ruins more serves and puts tennis players under unnecessary stress. Here is a simple test: If the ball toss were the most important part of the serve, then when you tossed the ball into the air something would happen!? But just the opposite is true, nothing happens until you swing the racquet.

Therefore, contact is the most important part of the serve (or any other shot in tennis). The ball toss is part of the serve but it is not the most important aspect.

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and the only way to play year round was at indoor clubs. Every club I played at had a different lighting system, which meant I had to adjust my ball toss depending on how the lights were positioned.

But there are many other factors that can impact a ball toss:

• Sun
• Wind
• Fatigue
• Nerves (anyone ever had a “tight” toss?!)
• First serve compared to second serve (Many tour players have a significant variance on their toss for the second serve compared to the first serve)

As a tennis player, the best thing you can do for your serve is to practice hitting the shot with a variety of tosses because it is going to happen anyway when you play. Remember too, you are tossing the ball with your non-dominant hand so it is never going to be as coordinated as your dominant hand.

Simplify the emphasis on your lower body

A knee bend is not going to help your serve go in! Your front foot should be the “anchor,” avoid sliding it, rocking back on the heel (A leading cause of injury on the pro tour), jumping, and so forth. By stabilizing your lower body prior to contact, you will enhance the chances for success with your upper body motion. The only time I focus much on the lower body with a student is if they are off balance when they make contact.

Three Things to Focus On

The better the start of the serve, the better the chance for success. Here are three tips on how to begin your serve:

• As I noted above, make sure you begin balanced with your feet about shoulder width apart.

• Support the racquet head with the ball tossing hand so the hitting hand and wrist can relax.

• Keep your hand/wrist relaxed throughout the service motion. Take a tennis ball in your racquet hand; squeeze your hand as hard as you can and try to throw the ball!?! You cannot throw it very well. Yet tennis players often squeeze their racquet hand very tightly while serving. You can throw a ball further, with more “action” and pace if your hand and wrist are relaxed. It is no different than hitting a ball with a tennis racquet.

This applies whether you have a Roddick type motion where the first movement is to raise the racquet and ball hands or like Federer where the initial motion is to drop both the racquet and ball hands.

What Is The Best Grip?

I rarely worry about grips when working with my students. As long as their hand and wrist are relaxed, that is most the important thing. More spin can be naturally created if you rotate your hand towards a continental or eastern backhand grip and that is the grip preferred by most professionals.

The Functions of the Hand and Wrist

Once the ball is tossed into the air, it is going to depend on how you utilize your hand and wrist to create the desired results. Here is how:

• Correcting mistakes. Think “snap up” if you serve the ball into the net; “snap down” if the serve goes long. Many tennis players try to correct their serving mistakes by changing the arm motion or pattern, just use the wrist.

• Placement. Again, an easy comparison to throwing the ball. Wherever you want your serve to go, have your hand and wrist move in that direction. Where the hand and wrist go, the racquet head goes; where the racquet head goes the ball goes.

• Depth. If your serves are landing short in the service box, add a little more “snap up” to increase the depth.

• Spin. By keeping your wrist flexible, you can adjust the angle of contact, which will create spin. For flat serves, the strings will be behind the ball; for spin serves, the strings will strike more on the side of the ball. Different points of contact will create different types of spin.

• Power. Simply accelerate the wrist for more power. Most tennis players, when trying to add more power, move their arm faster. This will add power but only short term as the arm will quickly fatigue.

Two Rules You Can Use to Your Advantage

You can stand anywhere on the baseline between the center mark and singles/doubles sideline respectively to deliver your serve. Change positions from time to time just to give the receiver a different look and force them to return a ball coming at them from different angles.

This is the only shot in tennis you can start when you want to. All other shots are dictated by what your opponent hits to you. Therefore, there is no need to rush, not be relaxed, and so forth. Nothing is going to happen until you serve! Watch the pros and see how they control the tempo of the match when they are serving.

Follow these simple guidelines and you will soon be serving your way to a better tennis game!

Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Dave Kensler's article by emailing us here at TennisOne.

Dave Kensler has 23 years of teaching experience with Peter Burwash International (PBI), the most successful international tennis management company. PBI directs tennis programs at 60+ exclusive resorts and clubs in 23 countries and has taught over 3 million students in their 30 year history. For information on PBI tennis destinations and employment opportunities please go to www.pbitennis.com. All PBI Tennis Professionals play with WILSON racquets and wear WILSON shoes.