How NOT to Serve in Tennis

Just to show that not all the robotic serves in the world belong to women....

OMG.

Hat Tip: Tennis Diary.

Part of this guy's problem is that he opens the racket face on the backswing, and that's what enables him to push (rather than throw) the serve.


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How to "Throw" a Serve or Overhead Smash

Many players are confused about what is supposed to happen when the racket drops down behind your back in the serve or an overhead smash. This new lesson at the main site gives you a good understanding and a picture of what happens, how, and why.

One thing's for sure, you'll know what it means when we say that you "throw" a serve or overhead, rather than "push" it.

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How to Hit a Twist (Kick) Serve

The twist serve (also called the American twist serve) is a special kind of topspin-slice serve that "ends with a twist," you might say, because it bounces the wrong way. Instead of continuing to curve leftward after the bounce, it breaks rightward. Why is explained in Spindoctoring Your Serve.

For illustrated instructions on how to hit a twist serve visit How to Hit a Twist (Kick) Serve at the Main Website.

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The Service Backswing

Ahwile back, in this blog post and in this shot-making tip on the website, I mentioned in passing that Pete Sampras has a long backswing on his serve.

It's hard to find fault in Pete Sampras' serve, but many people would find fault with that aspect of it. Many say that the backswing is superfluous, that the service motion really begins when the racket drops down behind your back in the "back-scratching" position.

But that isn't so, unless you have a hitch in your serve so the racket head pauses at that point, accelerating then from a dead stop at 0 miles per hour.

It would be more accurate to say that the service motion really begins just before that, when your backswing is finished and you've cocked the racket in the "trophy" position. But players like Sampras keep the racket head moving even through that point. So, I'm not convinced that they aren't building up racket-head momentum with that long backswing.

Let me keep this brief and skip the pros and cons for now. I'm not interested in convincing you that there's a "right" backswing you should use. I'm interested in making you AWARE of your backswing.

Pay attention to it, not with a view to fixing or changing it, but to simply understand it. Feel it. You should know exactly what you're doing and be able to demonstrate your backswing.

Why? Because over time, or even during the course of a tiring match, it can change without you realizing that. All you know is that you're having trouble with your serve. Because the timing's off. Whenever I start having trouble with my serve, I go out to practice serving, keying on my backswing and making it shorter -- like it used to be. Almost always, my problem immediately disappears.

A long backswing takes longer. Though there are other ways to compensate for that, the natural way is to toss higher. In fact, players with long backswings tend to have high tosses.

Since it takes more force to toss higher, a slight miscalculation throws off a high toss more than it would a low one. Also, since a high toss stays in the air longer, it's more affected by wind. Perhaps most important at the upper levels of the game, a high toss gives the receiver time to read your toss. For example, if your toss is out to the side, the receiver can tell that you are going to slice the serve. If your toss is high, he or she has time to register and react to this knowledge. That's why high tossers, like Pete Sampras, work hard to disguise their serves, trying to hit every kind of serve from roughly the same toss. But that isn't ideal: there's a trade-off in it that had better be worth what you're getting for it.

So, just what IS a short backswing? Let's look at one, in Rafael Nadal...

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

Here is a sequence of still shots of that serve.





Notice that Rafa never lets the racket drop below his waist. Instead of dropping the racket down alongside his leg in the direction of the lower arrow (as Sampras, Federer, and others with a long backswing do), Rafa takes it straight back over his shoulder in the direction of the upper arrow.





Both arms are going up together. I circled the ball to show that it's still in his hand.


In the last photo of this sequence, Rafa is just about to drop the racket down behind his back in the "back-scratching" position. You might want to watch the video again to get a good idea what a short backswing is. You can compare it with these photos and videos of Pete Sampras' long backswing.

So, short backswing? or long backswing? Chances are that you'll be most comfortable with something in between.

More on this at the main website in a few days.

How to Cock Your Serve

Do you push your serve? or stiff-arm it? If so, then this month's shot-making tip is for you.

A serve happens too fast for you to control it by thinking how to hit it. So don't even try to think your way through it. You can get the feel of it in slow motion. Once you've got the feel, go out there and let it go.

Here's one of the best servers of all time, Pete Sampras. Once he gets the racket cocked correctly (in about the 7th frame), it naturally drops behind his back as he starts to "throw" the serve, building up tremendous racket-head speed.

It's mostly leverage, not muscle.

See the rest in The Service Motion at the main site, where you'll see more photos and a video.