Help with serve knee bend.

[kv123]

I need help with how to generate the force from the knee bend and the direction.

What I do is after the toss i twist my body and drop into a deep knee bend. After that i am able to launch my body off the ground into my serve but i'm not able to straight out my body into the toss. I'm lifting off the ground and still generating good pace but my body is fully extended. My question is should i be launching myself upward into fully extension or into the court with a lower extension point.

[SystemicAnomaly]

I say fully extended but forward into the court as well as upward.

As you release the ball on your toss, coil & bend your knees. As your knees bend, your heels come off the ground and you push your left hip (for a rightly server) forward (towards the net) so that your body "bows". Your legs will start to straighten as you perform the racket drop -- so that your legs extended immediately before your racket arm does. As you are extending, your body "unbows". Your back leg, more or less, drives you forward (& up) by leaving the ground a little earlier than front leg. Much of the upward thrust will come from the front leg.

[GrahamIsSuper]

It's not so much as "where your body should be". There are a lot of aspects to that. Really, the only thing you need to focus on is this: Keep your chest UP. Boobies to the sky, your serve's gonna fly. Lots of people get caught up on the knee bend and end up having their upper body "collapsing" as compensation. If you keep your shoulders back, and focus on keeping your chest UP, moving towards the sky, your legs will pretty much do their job perfectly.

As far as where your body should be in the air, fully extended or not, that's really got to do more with your toss. If you're toss is the right height and/or in the right location, you'll be fully extended and moving into the court out of necessity. Don't force your serve. Most important part: toss. Get the toss in the right spot, don't collapse, and the rest will follow.