Increasing speed on serve

[FlamingDragoon]

Is there any particular way to increase your speed in a flat serve?

[siber222000]

use a motion

[FlamingDragoon]

like what type of motion besides the usual wind-up

[MTChong]

Well, you have to have the proper kinetic chain going that starts with your legs and moves it's way towards the racquet... Coil your upper body, rotate your shoulders, bend your knees, explode upwards into the ball while you swing... Make sure to have your arm relaxed and all that.

Try a search - lots of serve stuff on this forum.

[str33t]

explode into the ball. toss more into the court. dont forget the backscratch.

[GrahamIsSuper]

Wrist snap plays a huge roll as well as legs. Basically everything is important. Or you could get an old man racquet.

[KuramaIX]

continental grip

[jackson vile]

watch the pros and practice

[MTXR]

I got clocked the other day. My top speed was 94mph.

They told me that if i started to lift a 10 lb weight, for my shoulder, i could easily hit triple digits no problem consitently.

Maybe try and lift some weights.

My motion is samparas like btw.

[Rickson]

Is there any particular way to increase your speed in a flat serve?
Fast swing speed.

[Rep. Timothy Calhoun]

explode into the ball. toss more into the court. dont forget the backscratch.True. I don't think you should force the backscratch though (not sure if you were saying to do that). You probably already know, but the body should be extremely loose, and combined with the proper technique, the backscratch should take place on its own.

[Rickson]

True. I don't think you should force the backscratch though (not sure if you were saying to do that). You probably already know, but the body should be extremely loose, and combined with the proper technique, the backscratch should take place on its own.
I consciously thought about it before I developed a good backscratch and if I hadn't thought about it, I might still be bringing the racquet no lower than my neck as one of my friends who thinks he has a bs does. The funny thing is that I have video proof that I backscratch and the other guy doesn't, but he just won't believe his eyes; he's just a complete idiot.

[theace21]

Fast swing speed.
Why do baseball players that pick up tennis late have strong serves? The have developed the ability to generate great arm speed. Years of throwing, long toss has developed their arms.

As Rickson said, you need a fast swing speed, and they only way to improve that is thru repetition...

Good Luck...

[FiveO]

Is there any particular way to increase your speed in a flat serve?


There's good stuff regarding the serve in the sticky at the top of this forum. You can also do a search for "serve speed" or "serve power" to find other good threads. There's advice there from the basics to the very technical. It will definitely help if you can be more specific with your question or even better if you can post video of yourself.

[Rep. Timothy Calhoun]

I consciously thought about it before I developed a good backscratch and if I hadn't thought about it, I might still be bringing the racquet no lower than my neck as one of my friends who thinks he has a bs does. The funny thing is that I have video proof that I backscratch and the other guy doesn't, but he just won't believe his eyes; he's just a complete idiot.Hmm..okay. So while you were developing your serve, you consciously made the effort to insure that you were backscratching. But I bet you are relaxed now, and that you do not really have to force the bs ( the BS, :) ), right?

The conscious effort that you have described is a lot like wrist flexion/pronating. Some do not grasp the idea of accomplishing the continental serve and so some people teach students to consciously snap the wrist in order to get the serve right. In time, everything becomes second nature and the students are much more relaxed and do not have to consciously think about the snap/flexion. Whatever works I guess.

[Rickson]

Hmm..okay. So while you were developing your serve, you consciously made the effort to insure that you were backscratching. But I bet you are relaxed now, and that you do not really have to force the bs ( the BS, :) ), right?


True, I don't think about it now, but there was a time that I had to.

[siber222000]

like what type of motion besides the usual wind-up
like bend ur leg to give more power, and nice and easy not like robot motion

[Livefreediefree1]

you can try lifting the top of your left foot(right handed) i do and my serve is about 90mph just watch to lift hight of the balll.

[TennisAsAlways]

Is there any particular way to increase your speed in a flat serve?As you have seen so far from the other replies, there are a number of ways. I'll name a few ways.

Like MTChong mentioned, the kinetic chain is crucial. And like someone else mentioned, use the Continental grip (for the flat serve).

The Continental grip enables you to make more use of the final link of your body, the wrist, allowing a wider range of pronation to occur naturally. The pronation should not be forced or snapped, since that could lead to serious injury (just keep your wrist relaxed). By using a Continental, the kinetic chain movement is extended, allowing more power to be generated.

So the key to generating more pace on the ball is to focus on the use of the biomechanical kinetic chain, as much of it as possible and as efficiently as possible. The idea is to transfer all the power from the bottom of your legs up to your upper limb and finally into the racquet.

To maximize efficiency, proper balance and timing is important. In order to develop good balance and timing, from the very beginning when you are first learning how to get a feel for it, you should sustain a fluid motion, then build up the speed gradually as you're able to move smoothly without any hitches.

Tossing the ball more out in front will help too, I'd say about 2 feet inside the baseline, to the 12-1 o'clock position (if you're are a righty). This should assist with more weight transfer into the shot.

When you are tossing the ball up (out in front), after releasing it, keep your tossing arm stretched out, reaching up at the sky. While you are stretching the tossing arm, stretch your front hips and the front side of your core as well (the side of your body of your tossing arm). Your back leg should bend as well, enabling the front knee to line up with the stretched-out tossing arm.The bent backleg also assists in shifting your front hip out towards the net. All of these parts should move together during the toss and you should feel your muscles stretching throughout your body (Primarily the tossing arm side of your body. The legs should feel a lot of load as well.).

The stretching will allow you to catapult up and forwards into the shot more, utilizing the elastic eccentric muscle twitches (the loosey goosey muscles, like what good swimmers rely on, and what skinny Roger Federer uses to hit powerful shots). It's the usage of the biomechanical kinetic chain.

As you move forwards, swinging, try to stay in line with the contact point rather than shifting to either the right or left side. Don't focus on springing the forward movement into an all vertical jump either. That just wastes the the built-up energy. You want to go into the shot. Of course you don't want to hit low. Your hitting arm should be straight upon ball contact.

Rickson mentioned the backscratch and I think that is important. He happened to have put emphasis on it when he was learning to serve and it worked for him. I think that if you decide to do the same, just be careful that you are not focusing too much on your arm which could lead to muscling the shot. Having relaxed muscles is important in utilizing the elastic muscles to have a smooth movement throughout the kinetic chain links.

There is a whole lot to say about how to help increase power. Like someone else mentioned, there are a lot of threads on this topic. There are a few on increasing power on the second serves as well. Search around.

Good luck.

[Duzza]

just bend your knees and snap the wrist

[JCo872]

As you have seen so far from the other replies, there are a number of ways. I'll name a few ways.

Like MTChong, mentioned, the kinetic chain is crucial. And like someone else mentioned, use the Continental grip (for the flat serve).

The Continental grip enables you to make more use of the final link of your body, the wrist, allowing a wider range of pronation to occur naturally. The pronation should not be forced or snapped, since that could lead to serious injury (just keep your wrist relaxed). By using a Continental, the kinetic chain movement is extended, allowing more power to be generated.

So the key to generating more pace on the ball is to focus on the use of the biomechanical kinetic chain, as much of it as posiible and as efficiently as possible. The idea is to transfer all the power from the bottom of your legs up to your upper limb and finally into the racquet.

To maximize efficiency, proper balance and timing is important. In order to develop good balance and timing, from the very beginning when you are first learning how to get a feel for it, you should sustain a fluid motion, then build up the speed gradually as you're able to move smoothly without any hitches.

Tossing the ball more out in front will help too, I'd say about 2 feet inside the baseline, to the 12-1 o'clock position (if you're are a righty). This should assist with more weight transfer into the shot.

When you are tossing the ball up (out in front), after releasing it, keep your tossing arm stretched out, reaching up at the sky. While you are stretching the tossing arm, stretch your front hips and the front side of your core as well (the side of your body of your tossing arm). Your back leg should bend as well, enabling the front knee to line up with the stretched-out tossing arm.The bent backleg also assists in shifting your front hip out towards the net. All of these parts should move together during the toss and you should feel your muscles stretching throughout your body (Primarily the tossing arm side of your body. The legs should feel a lot of load as well.).

The stretching will allow you to catapult up and forwards into the shot more, utilizing the elastic eccentric muscle twitches (the loosey goosey muscles, like what good swimmers rely on, and what skinny Roger Federer uses to hit powerful shots). It's the usage of the biomechanical kinetic chain.

As you move forwards, swinging, try to stay in line with the contact point rather than shifting to either the right or left side. Don't focus on springing the forward movement into an all vertical jump either. That just wastes the the built-up energy. You want to go into the shot. Of course you don't want to hit low. Your hitting arm should be straight upon ball contact.

Rickson mentioned the backscratch and I think that is important. He happened to have put emphasis on it when he was learning to serve and it worked for him. I think that if you decide to do the same, just be careful that you are not focusing too much on your arm which could lead to muscling the shot. Having relaxed muscles is important in utilizing the elastic muscles to have a smooth movement throughout the kinetic chain links.

There is a whole lot to say about how to help increase power. Like someone else mentioned, there are a lot of threads on this topic. There are a few on increasing power on the second serves as well. Search around.

Good luck.

Fantastic post, TennisAsAlways. I'm going to print it out.

You can really see the kinetic chain, the lack of any "hitch", the slow buildup, and that hard to describe motion of pronation here:
http://www.hi-techtennis.com/serve_index.cfm

Excellent advice, especially the kinetic chain part. People try to hit hard by swining their arm faster, but the arm has to be the last chain in the sequence, as you mentioned. Baseball pitchers do the same thing. Yes they have great "pronation" as well, but they start with a full windup and use the kinetic chain in an equal manner. The other problem I see is that people will not get a full drop on the racket. This will abbreviate the final link in the chain and can really kill any chance for power. I did a piece on that problem here:

http://www.hi-techtennis.com/students/serve/

[TennisAsAlways]

Fantastic post, TennisAsAlways. I'm going to print it out.

You can really see the kinetic chain, the lack of any "hitch", the slow buildup, and that hard to describe motion of pronation here:
http://www.hi-techtennis.com/serve_index.cfm

Excellent advice, especially the kinetic chain part. People try to hit hard by swining their arm faster, but the arm has to be the last chain in the sequence, as you mentioned. Baseball pitchers do the same thing. Yes they have great "pronation" as well, but they start with a full windup and use the kinetic chain in an equal manner. The other problem I see is that people will not get a full drop on the racket. This will abbreviate the final link in the chain and can really kill any chance for power. I did a piece on that problem here:

http://www.hi-techtennis.com/students/serve/Thanks JCo872. Great clips BTW. Good comparison photos and point-outs!

And about what you mentioned: "....people will not get a full drop on the racket.", I think that a lot of times that occurs since their toss is too low. In cases of people who have a high toss but still do not get the full drop, I think it's because they are not reaching up and stretching back enough. In either case, the lack of the backscratch also sometimes happens because people will rush the forward swing. This is the timing factor (poor timing).

Usually the loading/coiling back allows a natural propulsion (explosion) up, forward into the shot, and with a relaxed arm, rapid swing speed causes the elbow to lead ahead of the racquet, with the racquet dropping back into the backscratch. Ensuring that this takes place, all in synch, will result in a fluid non-hitch motion with the deep backscratch.

[jackson vile]

Lots of great info but I think that it is all too much, you really don't need to worry about any of that if you toss is not consistant, proper positioned, and high enough.

I am more or less a newbie to tennis and really don't get to play that often, but that is exactly how I serve, and my serve is up to 110 now.

What was the secret? Just the toss, once I got the toss right everything just fell into play, all you need to worry about ofter this is relaxing the wrist and arm more so that when you bring the racket up you are coiled, body moves up and turns, racket drops, after racket drops down you whip up turning the body full facing the court.

Really it just takes practice, you will feel it when you hit it right or when you get this or that part right.

Tennis is not hard to any degree, it just takes time and observation, evaluation, correction, and then aplication.


You do that day in day out and you will be up in the rating in no time.

[TennisAsAlways]

Like I said to the OP, I only provided some ways that could help increase ball pace. There is so much more to add, and there's never too much information (only when it is repetitive irrelevant info). I would not, however, recommend having ten thousand things on your mind when trying to execute any tennis stroke though.

The more significant information, the better. The better one can paint a picture, the clearer things will be to understand and visualize for practice. The more one practices correctly, the less one has to consciously think about the mechanics involved in executing a particular stroke.

I like how JC0872 pointed out the backscratch comparison of the student vs. the pro. That is one example of significant, detailed information. Anyone who is really interested in modelling pro strokes would benefit from that particular link of his, for example. If details like that weren't pointed out, people would miss out on these subtle things. Of course, not everyone's goal is to play pro-like.

[jackson vile]

Like I said to the OP, I only provided some ways that could help increase ball pace. There is never too much enough information (only when it is repeative irrelevant info). I would not, however, recommend having ten thousand things on your mind when trying to execute any tennis stroke though.

The more significant information, the better. The better one can paint a picture, the clearer things will be to understand and visuaize for practice.

Oh I hear you, I am not disrespecting you.

I am just giving my thoughts, mine are to keep it simple practice and let it happen, and take steps when you feel the need.

But like I said the if the toss is not on don't even bother, really unless I am the exception things just seem to fall into place wtih practice and observation.

[TennisAsAlways]

Oh I hear you, I am not disrespecting you.

I am just giving my thoughts, mine are to keep it simple practice and let it happen, and take steps when you feel the need.

But like I said the if the toss is not on don't even bother, really unless I am the exception things just seem to fall into place wtih practice and observation.I wasn't under the impression that you were. I was pointing out that I see nothing wrong with details but think that it would be ideal if one would have a quiet mind while actually attempting to execute a tennis stroke.

Of course, in the beginning, before one masters a stroke (if it is even possible to master anything at all), they would have to think more than what would be ideal.

[Bungalo Bill]

...Of course, in the beginning, before one masters a stroke (if it is even possible to master anything at all), they would have to think more than what would be ideal.

Exactly, the brain is indeed needing to take in the information so it can transform the new knowledge into psychomotor development.

Feed the machine.

[AngeloDS]

Increasing the speed of a serve can be done several ways. But it all starts with your technique and motion. Improving your timing, motion as well as coordination will help your serve a lot. This can only be achieved through practice and under a watchful eye to make sure you're doing things in a correct chain.

Though, there's a huge mental barrier. The looser, more calm and controlled you are the more solid your serves will be. And because of that, effeciency will drive your serves to become a bit faster. Too many people swing to hard and lose a lot of power due to lack of control and not hitting the sweet spot. There's a point where you need to accelerate where you will get the maximum amount of power.

There's another cheap way of stringing very low and getting a powerful racquet with powerful strings. Say a Babolat Pure Drive Plus, leading it up, using Luxilon Big Banger strung at like 50 lbs and what-not. You lose a lot of control though.

[tonysk83]

Why do baseball players that pick up tennis late have strong serves? The have developed the ability to generate great arm speed. Years of throwing, long toss has developed their arms.

As Rickson said, you need a fast swing speed, and they only way to improve that is thru repetition...

Good Luck...

Yep, I had played baseball my entire life and when I picked up tennis my serve came together pretty fast once I was told to imagine throwing a baseball up instead of going forward to go up. Baseball and tennis have a lot in common.

I think one of the biggest things when I wanted to just get that extra few mph on my serve was to really bend my legs and to really get a good shoulder turn. Before I serve I usually try to tell myself to stay relax and explode up to the ball. It is funny the shortest kid on my HS tennis team has the biggest serve because he uses his whole body so good.

[jlui21]

Fantastic post, TennisAsAlways. I'm going to print it out.

You can really see the kinetic chain, the lack of any "hitch", the slow buildup, and that hard to describe motion of pronation here:
http://www.hi-techtennis.com/serve_index.cfm

Excellent advice, especially the kinetic chain part. People try to hit hard by swining their arm faster, but the arm has to be the last chain in the sequence, as you mentioned. Baseball pitchers do the same thing. Yes they have great "pronation" as well, but they start with a full windup and use the kinetic chain in an equal manner. The other problem I see is that people will not get a full drop on the racket. This will abbreviate the final link in the chain and can really kill any chance for power. I did a piece on that problem here:

http://www.hi-techtennis.com/students/serve/

Thats pretty much me in the student serve comparison. You can swing all you want with a good knee bend and nice toss, but it doesn't necessarily mean you can hit it with a lot of pace. So right now, you should listen to the first pieces of advice and start at the beginning of the kinetic chain. Learn it well before you move on.

If I had to say, you should learn to toss well and watch where your serving arm is in relation to tossing arm. It should be delayed. Why? It helps w/ the timing, and more importantly, it help in the long run with the kinetic chain simply because you have to cover a greater distance in the same amount of time BEFORE you started trying to change your serve weeks/days ago. I highly doubt that you can envision this, but if you can great. If not, someone else will explain it.

I still struggle with what I just adviced for you, but the few times that I did do that, I can feel a noticeable difference. Everyone here has offered great advice. J-vile summed it real briefly, and though he serves well b.c he is athletically gifted, he hit the some of the highlights. Others like JC087 will give you the breakdown which will help in further elaboration of J-vile.

[shindemac]

AngeloDS gave great advice. Stay loose, calm, and controlled. Have a very consistent ball toss. Once you have those, it's much easier to incorporate the other elements like the deep knee bend and shoulder rotation. Otherwise the power generated from the rest of your body will not transfer to your arm, and will be wasted!

I need to remind myself of these points. Cause I seem to "rediscover them" periodically, and then slowly my form goes to crap. Then I figure out what I did wrong again, and the cycle continues... But it's sweet when everything goes right, and you can tell you had a powerful serve.

[paulfreda]

Baseball players are usually long hitters in golf.
It's those strong wrists that provide natural controlled power.

Hitting a serve a bit like one would crack a bullwhip over one's head is something to incorporate into one's thinking. Big muscles and biomechanical
chain leading to the finale; pronation, forearm/wrist snap.

[fz10]

AngeloDS gave great advice. Stay loose, calm, and controlled. Have a very consistent ball toss. Once you have those, it's much easier to incorporate the other elements like the deep knee bend and shoulder rotation. Otherwise the power generated from the rest of your body will not transfer to your arm, and will be wasted!

I need to remind myself of these points. Cause I seem to "rediscover them" periodically, and then slowly my form goes to crap. Then I figure out what I did wrong again, and the cycle continues... But it's sweet when everything goes right, and you can tell you had a powerful serve.

That exactly describes the situation I'm in - when I get everything right and serving well I think my ego takes over or something and I start forcing it - this immediately stops me serving with any power.

[35ft6]

All sorts of things can make instant speed improvements on your serve. Seriously. Over my tennis life, I've made all sorts of adjustments that have resulted in instant improvements.

The last one was keeping my right arm looser, straighter, and more off to the side. Instead of keeping my racket armed "cramped" into my body, I sort of let it go off on its own, and it instantly made my arm seem more elastic, I was able to whip it more.