Kick Serve

[RogerFan]

What is the secret to get a great kick serve?
Which things I have to make different from a regular topspin serve?

[jun]

for more kick, you will want to use your leg more. And you will need great acceleration to generate spin.
These are that separates moderate kick serve to great kick serve.

Or you can try just a little more extreme toss to get more spin. Disguise is important, but if you execute it well enough, it will still be effective.

[lendl lives]

Q: How do you hit your second serve with so much kick on it?
A: "You tell me, there is no secret" - Roger Federer

[Bungalo Bill]

Q: How do you hit your second serve with so much kick on it?
A: "You tell me, there is no secret" - Roger Federer

Isn't this what Mahboob and I have been trying to say?

Pronation happens naturally. The spin of a ball happens based on how you hit the ball and where you hit the ball. Do not force pronation otherwise you are concentrating on the wrong part to generate spin and pace.

It is more important to concentrate on a smooth relaxed service motion then pronating your hand/wrist. Develop your spin serves slowly. Hit lots of loopy balls over the net and dont worry about it landing in.

There is no special thing! There is no special move! There is no special ritual!

Just spin them over. The rules to serving are:

1. Know the motion

2. Know where to hit the ball

3. Have the right grip

4. Toss the ball in the right spot

5. Swing relaxed and smooth.

Swing speed allows the ball to turn quickly. Swing direction allows the racquet to brush the ball to spin with a certain effect. The toss allows the server to coordinate the above. The rest of the body makes it happen.

[vin]

The more spin I try to put on a serve, the less I get. This is probably because once I think about brushing the ball as fast as I can, I'm trying to muscle the motion. If I keep my arm loose and let the momentum of the motion fling the racquet across the ball in the correct path, I get lots of spin.

Spin results from racquet speed directed along the appropriate path.
Racquet speed results from a fluid motion and a loose arm.

I think this is exactly what BB has been trying to drill into our heads on all these serving posts.

After understanding pronation and experimenting with forcing it or exaggerating it, I find that I get the better results the BB way (fluid and loose). I wouldn't be surprised at all if I saw on video that I do more pronation when not thinking about it.

I've had days where I started off hitting great kick serves that were bouncing at least 6'. Just like power, the seed gets into my head to reproduce it, I start trying to force it, and bye bye. I don't see serves like that again until at least a few days or even weeks later when I've forgotten about what I was trying to reproduce that day.

Maybe the best way to look at pronation is as a result or a check point. If it's not happening, chances are it's because something else is not right or is being forced when it shouldn't be?

[RogerFan]

Maybe I don't have a good kick serve because my toss, is too low?
I always tried to copy Andre's short toss, so now is to difficult to change to a long toss, at least for me.
A couple of weeks ago I got the chance to play with some dudes that play juniors events, they were claycourt players, they weren't serving me hard but the kick that the ball had was unreturnable, all the time above my shoulders. And I noticed that they all had long toss.
I thought that the toss high was important on a kick serve, or it's not?

[vin]

I thought that the toss high was important on a kick serve, or it's not?

A higher toss will result in more topspin because it is falling down against the racquet as you hit it. However, a high toss is harder to time and I think this outweighs the topspin benefit.

If you look at pro clips, you'll see that the contact point for a topspin serve is lower than that of a flatter serve. This is because you want to hit the ball at the point where the racquet has the most vertical velocity. As your swing approaches the heighest point, the path of the racquet becomes more horizontal. For example, you can't brush up behind a ball that's at your highest point of reach.

Despite all of this, your toss should be at least high enough to allow full arm extension at contact.

Just my opinion. Lets see what the experts have to say.

[travisv]

I was reading in a prior post that serves should be practiced by hitting slow loopy balls over the net. I was writing to ask when hitting balls this way should you concentrate on keeping the ball on your strings for as long as possible and compressing it.

For example most instructors will say for a topspin serve the ball should be stroked from 7 to 1 (for a right handed player). It seems in hitting this way the ball it is hit only in one dimension. However if you try and hold the ball on your strings and compress it with the body weight from the ground it would seem the ball is in longer contact with the string bed. It seems to me not a shearing effect feeling but one of holding and compressing the ball against the racquet.

I do not serve very well myself; but was writing to ask for someone who does what is the feeling they have when the ball in contacted and for how long it remains on the racquet. Thanks

[andfor]

A higher toss will result in more topspin because it is falling down against the racquet as you hit it. However, a high toss is harder to time and I think this outweighs the topspin benefit.

Is this a fact and if so how much extra topspin do you get (ball revolutions per sec.) verses a normal ball toss? Just curious as I in my 25+ years of tennis have never heard this teaching.

[papa]

I think one of the major frusrations with a kick serve is that as one developes the stroke, more balls are hit into the net - spin on the ball is bringing it down quicker. I've seen many who just can't seem to grasp the concept that one has to hit "up" on the ball much more than with any other type of serve. As a result, many just give up and figure they can't do it.

BB has gone into extensive detail (along with MK and others) about how to do this serve --- go back and read some of their posts and PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. These guys, along with everyone else, didn't learn this stroke from hitting ten or fifteen balls - they have hit thousands.

[Marius_Hancu]

Is this a fact and if so how much extra topspin do you get (ball revolutions per sec.) verses a normal ball toss? Just curious as I in my 25+ years of tennis have never heard this teaching.

Well, things are changing. That's why we have high-speed cameras nowadays.

Vin is correct. As far as I know, this is also presented at the easitennis.com site. The reason they mention is that the ball falling from higher up will produce, having a higher vertical speed while dropping, more friction against the strings of the racket, which at that time is pretty vertical itself, thus you have this |o (sorry for the simplified representation) type of contact between the two objects, where | is the racket and o is the ball. They call this a "shearing" effect, which produces topspin on the ball. Hope you get it.

[Marius_Hancu]

The more spin I try to put on a serve, the less I get. This is probably because once I think about brushing the ball as fast as I can, I'm trying to muscle the motion.

Yes, you need a lashing effect and to "keep the ball on the lash/racket as much as possible", even if really it doesn't stay that much there, but you need to implement a wrapping motion around the ball and stay with it.

[finchy]

so marius, one would actually "go over the ball" for topspin then?

sitting here at the computer, im experimenting with the arm motion and i have found out that keeping a loose arm and going over the ball will naturally pronate your arm.

[Marius_Hancu]

so marius, one would actually "go over the ball" for topspin then?

sitting here at the computer, im experimenting with the arm motion and i have found out that keeping a loose arm and going over the ball will naturally pronate your arm.

Well, not actually going over the ball, but simulating it, because the contact time is very short. I mean simulate you go over the ball from 7 to 1, even if it'll be impossible to stay with it for the whole duration.

And the spin for kick will be mostly a combination side-spin with topspin.

Yes, loose arm is the key for 2nd serve. Even better if you're getting the pronation in.

I mean, start the lash over your back, perhaps towards the left shoulder, make a long arching movement towards 1 (i.e. more towards your right) and try to stay as much in contact with the ball, I mean don't speed the motion up until you're able first to get the ball into the service area with some kick.

Things which might help:
- more shoulder rotation
- more knee flex
- letting the ball to drop lower on you (4-10in, in comparison with first serves)
- larger rackets (you could use them just to get the feel of it)
- less dense string patterns (just like for FH topspin)

Imagine catching the ball behind you in your racket and then making a large arcing throw with it in your racket towards your right. Put all your body in that lashing/throwing motion and make it LOOOONG in terms or trajectory/arc followed.

[andfor]

Well, things are changing. That's why we have high-speed cameras nowadays.

Vin is correct. As far as I know, this is also presented at the easitennis.com site. The reason they mention is that the ball falling from higher up will produce, having a higher vertical speed while dropping, more friction against the strings of the racket, which at that time is pretty vertical itself, thus you have this |o (sorry for the simplified representation) type of contact between the two objects, where | is the racket and o is the ball. They call this a "shearing" effect, which produces topspin on the ball. Hope you get it.

Thanks for the explain. Never heard it before but I can see how it makes sense. I'll give it a try. Toss high for the kick and topspin serves for more spin. Cool.

[travisv]

I remember seeing a Vic Braden Tennis Serve Video in which he holds a racquet then with another racquet he follows along the rim in a 7 to 1 swing path; as if going over the top of the ball. He said in video this is what the swing felt like but you actually did not do this. I could never figure this out because if you use this motion the arm would be turning clockwise. But doesn't the arm in pronating turn counter clockwise, if someone could explain this it would be appreciated.

[Marius_Hancu]

Check the great kick serve of Courier (amongst others) at:
http://www.tenniscruz.com/photo.htm
Service
Serve & Volley

For Courier, open two windows, go in Step-by-Step mode in Quick-Time and compare 1st with 2nd serves, as the two clips allow a very good comparison.

[jeebeesus]

The more spin I try to put on a serve, the less I get. This is probably because once I think about brushing the ball as fast as I can, I'm trying to muscle the motion. If I keep my arm loose and let the momentum of the motion fling the racquet across the ball in the correct path, I get lots of spin.

Spin results from racquet speed directed along the appropriate path.
Racquet speed results from a fluid motion and a loose arm.

I think this is exactly what BB has been trying to drill into our heads on all these serving posts.

After understanding pronation and experimenting with forcing it or exaggerating it, I find that I get the better results the BB way (fluid and loose). I wouldn't be surprised at all if I saw on video that I do more pronation when not thinking about it.

I've had days where I started off hitting great kick serves that were bouncing at least 6'. Just like power, the seed gets into my head to reproduce it, I start trying to force it, and bye bye. I don't see serves like that again until at least a few days or even weeks later when I've forgotten about what I was trying to reproduce that day.

Maybe the best way to look at pronation is as a result or a check point. If it's not happening, chances are it's because something else is not right or is being forced when it shouldn't be?

Vin, try go super slow for your kicker. As if u r trying to brush the ball with each and every string.

[paulfreda]

I remember seeing a Vic Braden Tennis Serve Video in which he holds a racquet then with another racquet he follows along the rim in a 7 to 1 swing path; as if going over the top of the ball. He said in video this is what the swing felt like but you actually did not do this. I could never figure this out because if you use this motion the arm would be turning clockwise. But doesn't the arm in pronating turn counter clockwise, if someone could explain this it would be appreciated.

Vic is an excellent teacher, so keep trying to figure it out.
Go out and hit it both ways; turning clockwise (supination) and turning counterclockwise (pronation). You will see that while both work, pronation will yield more spin once you get the hang of keeping your wrist loose and letting it release naturally.
For pronation, you will see many pros start with their wrist folded back and the racquet face beveled up a little so that when they get it behind their head it is facing down. Now the pronation will square it up with the ball.

[Serve-And-Volley]

I found that there is serveral componets in having a good reliable kicker. First is the toss: Imagine a giant clock right in front of you, try to toss the ball at 12 o'clock instead of the traditional 1 o'clock, and try to get your toss high. As you begin to go up bend you back and knees a little so you can accelarte up the back of the ball. As you make contact your body should uncoil, if it is down properly. I know that is not the best explaination but thats the only way I know to describe how to do it.