Mastering the Serve
By Kevin Pope
It would be hard to
underestimate the value of a serve in tennis today. It is probably the
most dominating shot in the game today, yet as Jim McLennan points out in
his article “Cracking the Serve”,
“it is probably the hardest stroke to master”.
If you’re looking to improve your technique or understanding of
the serve, there are some great articles in TennisOne by Jim McLennan,
Monty Basnyat and others to help get you to that point.
Mastering it will take a lot of practice. Here are some ways I use
to practice my serve outside of hitting baskets and baskets of balls on an
empty court.
Set Up Match Situations to be Effective
You can sit and practice your serve all day
long on an empty court and a basket of balls and gain some degree of
benefit from it, but the minute you line up on a court with live scoring
and a warm body across the net, it’s often a whole different story. I
like to practice my serve in as real of conditions as I possibly can. Here
are a couple of formats for drills that I use to get do my serving
practice.
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I really like 11 pointers
as a form of serving practice. Rather than just playing sets and games
out all the time, Eleven Pointers are a good middle ground between
sets and hitting baskets of balls. Simply, one
person serves the whole time until either the server or the receiver
gets to 11, counting by ones. I feel that these help me in two
aspects.
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Is the simple act of
repetition. I get to serve a lot of points in a row, allowing me to
focus on different aspects of technique, location or variety, without
getting so wrapped up in the immediate task of winning or losing as we
often do in sets. Serving that many points in a row has a tremendous
aspect of conditioning built into it. Serving that many points in a
row will make a normal service game seem like a mere sprint.
Vary the Drill
These 11 pointers can be
played out with variety so as to enhance the practice of different aspects
of your serving game. For instance, you might have a little more trouble
serving to the ad or deuce side. Serve the entire eleven pointer to that
side of the court. You can also play out the points so that each server
gets just one serve. It will really help your second serve and makes that
first serve seem like a tremendous luxury when go back to playing
normally. Alternate your strategy and location in playing these point
sequences out also. Take one of the eleven pointers and serve and volley
the whole time. Even if you are not a serve and volleyer you never know
when that might be your opponents Achilles Heel. Take another one and
either serves everything wide or everything down the middle. By the same
token, make variety be the goal in one of your eleven pointers.
Every serve should be varied in terms of location, speed and spin.
Another variation is to let the server serve only as long as he keeps
holding serve. The game is still up to eleven with players only
alternating serve once they are broken on a point. The varieties are
endless. Employ them as needed, and make improving your serve a lot more
fun. |
