Teaching a beginner the serve

[safin_protege]

I have taken up teaching a friend and peer the game of tennis. He's really motivated to do well and is a good student so far. His serve is wild though, and today I tried to teach him the serve. I think that I may have overwhelmed him by trying to teach him every detail about the serve. What angle should I use when teaching it? What aspect should I concentrate on first?

[Ztalin]

I'd first just have him serving with a continental grip without any body rotation or leg drive. Just let him get comfortable with the grip and contact first.

[supersmash]

Try weight distribution.

[dancraig]

Yeah, and you might want to stress the importance of a good ball toss.

[Rackethead]

Speaking as a 3.0 who needed a lot of help with my serve, this is what I was taught and seemed to help:

1) correct feet positioning and placement - this eliminates one variable. I was told to put front foot about 45 deg to court, back foot paralle to baseline, toes lining up 90 degree, about 3' to left/right of centerline. I see the pros have a huge variation from this, but for a beginner it helps to decide on one position and stick to it.

2) tossing consistently to same place. I was told to line up the ball with outside post on deuce court, and with the singles alley from ad side, and toss to a certain (fairly low) height. again, the important thing is probalby not so much the exact place but that i have something specific to aim for, each and every time. This helps consistency.

3) loose, relaxed swing going up and then back. This is completely different from what the pro's do now, it's more like a classical swing, but for a beginner it is better because it can be done without tensing any muscles, which helps you to drop the racket head back.

4) complete follow through ending up on left side.

These were the basics I was taught - I think you can see the advice for a beginner is probably rather different than for someone more advanced, and should be aimed at getting things in place so that the serve can develop from a consistent foundation. This seems to have worked for me. I've received other tips, like reaching up to the ball, and hitting through it up there, and I've got the bolletieri tape, but the above 4 pointers were most important for me to avoid double faulting :)

[safin_protege]

I'd first just have him serving with a continental grip without any body rotation or leg drive. Just let him get comfortable with the grip and contact first.

Yeah, the grip threw him off to begin with, but I think that he's getting the hang of it.

Yeah, and you might want to stress the importance of a good ball toss.

I had him just tossing the ball and bringing his racquet into 'backscratch position'.

Try weight distribution.

I think this was screwing him up, as he was doing strange things with his feet. If I don't tell him how to distribute his weight though, his feet fly in all directions.

Rackethead had some similair points as well. I think he's fine with the feet, but is having trouble stepping into the court after the serve, which has him hitting the ball down into the court with his butt behind the baseline.

I'll keep all of your tips in mind and try to take it slow with him; more advice would be helpful, especially if I start having more specific problems.

[supersmash]

Tell him not to be scared to enter "no man's land".