Serving Tips

Nedanstående tips kommer från diskussionsforumet Talk Tennis-Warehouse och är skrivet av signaturen TennsDog:
  1. Proper ball toss: make sure the ball toss is where it should be at contact. A toss that is too low, too forward, etc. will cause a decrease in power and consistancy.
  2. Weight shift: make sure you shift your weight from the back foot to the front foot sometime before you start your swing. (See steps 3 and 4 for further detail.)
  3. Knee bend: a solid knee bend is key in the kinetic chain of a serve. It aids in the weight shift as well as exploding up into the ball for added spin and pace.
  4. Use the legs: now that your knees are bent, extend them to explode into the serve. When done properly, this will lift you into the air (notice you are not jumping. You are simply propelling yourself into the air as a biproduct of proper leg use). You will likely extend your back leg backwards and land on your front foot slightly inside the court (though this should happen rather naturally).
  5. Keep you head up: it is easy for a lot of people to drop their head prematurely during the serve, which may cause mis-hits and other problems with the serve. If you watch most pros (slow mo videos or photos) you will see that they are still looking right at the ball and racket at contact and only look away sometime near when the ball crosses the net.
  6. LOOSE ARM AND WRIST: very, very important for every aspect of the serve. Do not try to force or muscle the serve. The kinetic chain will take care of itself if you just let it. Make sure you do not forcibly snap your wrist at contact. This will cause a decrease in power and consistancy, not to mention causing tennis elbow (trust me on this one, I have recenly seen the light after coming off a year and a half bout of tennis elbow caused by intentionally snapping my wrist to serve. Now my serve has more power and more spin with no elbow pain.)
  7. Drop back shoulder: when you see a good server in the "trophy position", they have almost a perfectly straight line from their hitting elbow all the way across their shoulders to their tossing hand which points right at the ball. This is crucial for the next step to work...
  8. Shoulder rotation, elbow, and racket drop: from the trophy position with the racket up and hitting shoulder down (and loose arm), the hitting shoulder and tossing shoulder should very rapidly rotate much like a teter totter. Along with this step, the hitting elbow should shortly follow the shoulder. These two steps start the kinetic chain in the arm and will cause a racket drop (something that is not a conscious step in an advanced serve).
  9. LOOSE ARM AND WRIST: did I mention this already? Keep your arm and wrist loose through contact. If you have done the previous steps properly, the forearm and racket will rapidly accelerate through contact due to the motion of the shoulder and elbow (see step 8).
  10. Follow through: make sure you have a good follow through. Some people follow through all the way across their bodies while others stop right in front of the body, but all exibit a full extention through contact and allow the racket to finish its path using the momentum generated at contact.
So there you have it, ten steps to perfecting your serve and acing your opponents right off the court. As an added note, I have found the shoulders to be the best place to find a few extra mph's and rpm's on the serve if you already have a good serve and are looking to help it further. I had spent a couple years examining the serve of Pete Sampras in great detail and had finally gotten a nice fluid motion for myself. I recently watched Roddick playing and wondered what made his serve look so explosive. It is his shoulders. His great flexibility and use of shoulders really allows him to accelerate his racket head to great speeds. I took this to the courts, changing nothing in my service motion whatsoever except for focusing on rotation my shoulders more explosively. The results were simply undeniable: more speed, more spin, and more consistancy...instanly. Everything was going in and with much more weight. Good luck and happy serving.