edberg kick serve (youtube)

[grizzly4life]

seems like people, me included, are always really curious how to hit a kick serve...

anyhow, look at the grip edberg uses when he serves... that's pretty extreme..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quNT5vG7AtM

this looked like the best video, but there are 14 others on youtube.com i.e. match split into 15 parts.

is that match for sale? i've just recently become aware that TW sells wimbledon videos and they have alot of them, but i don't see edberg-becker. i see federer-sampras at W and federer-becker from another cup. quite affordable too.

[thejackal]

haha

i thought you were talking about edberg505's post

[drakulie]

Nice find. Yeah, it looks like an eastern backhand grip.

[krprunitennis2]

Is it okay to finish off the same side? Edberg finished off on his right side there. If you finish there, what happens?

[TENNIS_IS_FUN]

Excellent Video.

[drakulie]

Is it okay to finish off the same side? Edberg finished off on his right side there. If you finish there, what happens?

A lot of pros did/do this>>> finish on the right. Typically, the ones who hit those type of serves with lots of topspin. If you notice, Becker also finshed more to his right.

In my serve thread, lots of momos who don't know any better critiqued me endlessly because I finish more to my right.

[Duzza]

I too thought of edberg505. That's a beautiful serve in that video.

[jamauss]

That's a great serve Edberg has but I get more "kick" on my serve sometimes than that. I'd call that more of a hard topspin serve than a big kicker.

Sweet serve though. Great for S&V game.

[andreh]

I've seen a lot of Edberg and I suspect his grip is not as extreme as it looks. He curls his wrist in the ready position to open up the racquet face which makes it look more like an eastern backhand than it is.

His service technique went through some slight changes over the years and if one looks at footage from 1987 and earlier, where he didn't curl the wrist the same way, his grips looks a lot more like a continental. But I guess he could have changes the grip as well.

Of all the Edberg matches I have I've never seen a single frame that lets me once and for all see what grip he has.

BTW, one can find a lot of Edberg DVDs on t e n n i s dv d s.net

[Andres]

That's a great serve Edberg has but I get more "kick" on my serve sometimes than that. I'd call that more of a hard topspin serve than a big kicker.

Sweet serve though. Great for S&V game.
That is GRASS. And Becker took those early ;)

[drakulie]

^^^^ Yeah, on grass you will not get as much kick/height after hitting the ground.

[grizzly4life]

thanks for all the feedback..... very appreciated.... i'm thinking we should do a "match of the month" thread, although we'd run out of stuff on youtube pretty quickly (that's why i suggested month, not weeks).

as per edberg kick vs. topspin.... it's very confusing as i think edberg is probably #1 guy associated with kick serve (or tied for #1 with others), but i agree technically it might be topspin serve.

re: instruction.... i always read that kick serve is "up the back" of the ball on a 7 to 1 clock line. but i'm thinking it's more "over the ball" on an angle than "up the back"

i'm going to find some videos of rafter now and compare the kick serves

[mclee025]

Thanks for sharing that video. It's amazing to see the amount of spin that Edberg puts on his serves. They really take a sharp dive.

It's also interesting to see the serving stats in the middle of the clip. If I remember right it showed Edberg's average service speed was in the mid 90's and his fastest was only 104.

[VGP]

That's a great serve Edberg has but I get more "kick" on my serve sometimes than that. I'd call that more of a hard topspin serve than a big kicker.

Sweet serve though. Great for S&V game.

Servers like Edberg can kick it HUGE.

I've heard it said about Edberg and I've seen Ivanisevic do it when he was practicing with Agassi at Cincinnati several years back where he hit a kicker that spun past Agassi that hit almost the top of the back fence on the practice courts.

[BigboyDan]

Either of those two (at the same age) would destroy Federer on grass.

[35ft6]

I never thought of Edberg having a really awesome kick serve. I consider it more of a topspin serve. Maybe the difference is mostly semantical but his serve was more like a weaker version of Sampras' serve, a good compromise of forward momentum and spin, not a true kick serve that's slower but explodes off the ground like Ljubicic or Rafter's kick serves.

[grizzly4life]

yeah, i was going to say from watching tennis at york in the last two years (davis cup and ATP) that mirnyi and lubicic (sp?) had big kicks serves and then i see someone mention Lubicic. both of their kick serves went way, way up. but very different than edberg. basically, alot less speed, but much more kick.

i do remember a story about edberg at fantasy tennis camp putting kick serves above campers' heads.

[andreh]

i do remember a story about edberg at fantasy tennis camp putting kick serves above campers' heads.

The story about the fantasy camp got twisted somehow. He offered a 100 bucks to anyone who could return his serve and then he hit it purposly over the backfence as a joke.

But I have a video of the USO 91 semi where he kicked a serve out wide in the ad court that almost jumped over the back fence.