Easiest way to disguise serve?

[Ballinbob]

Originally Posted by junbumkim

You should be more concerned with developing all areas of your game. With that being said, you should also work on developing good slice serves and flat serves and learning to utilize them.

Kick serve is a great weapon esp at 3.5 and low 4.0 level because players aren't used to handling them. But if you want to compete at DII level in the future, you need all aspects of the game.

I am improving my whole game, and im improving fast with the amount of time I spend practicing (5hrs a day when theres no snow). I've been working hard and its been paying off. Ive started focusing on groundies instead of all S&V now and im able to hold my ground against the best 3.5s. I dont quite have 4.0 groundies, but I make up in that department with my volleys and consistent serves. Volleys can be a substitute for groundies if you need to, and thats what I do. Im hard to pass because as Ive said, im quick, and I never miss either. I have never been lobbed and not been able to get to it with ample time to loop it back. Never, and it wont happen anytime soon. I'm just cosistent with my serve and volley. I'm working on moving into my serve more so I can get more body weight and pace into it, for its on the slower side now. I just focus on brushing as hard as I can to create the spin and I get a loopy serve with a crap load of spin and not as much pace as I would like.

Anyway, I plan to keep S&Ving. I made a thread to see if people thought that S&V will get me to the DII level, and everyone said it would get me to the pro level even if I was good enough.So im not giving it up, but neither am I neglecting my ground game

[oneguy21]

Not to be mean or anything, but I'm somewhat doubtful that you play at a level where disguising a serve is necessary. I surely don't find the need to.

[Ballinbob]

Originally Posted by oneguy21

Not to be mean or anything, but I'm somewhat doubtful that you play at a level where disguising a serve is necessary. I surely don't find the need to.

Why would I take that as a mean remark? Your right, Im not even close to the level where I need to disguise the serve. If you read the thread you would have saw that Im just a high 3.5-low 4.0 and I need to work on placement on the serve more than disguising the spin. I just need practice

[BullDogTennis]

throw the ball the EXACT same place EVERY time

[WildVolley]

How exactly did Sampras and Ivanisevic disguise their serves so well? Was it simply a matter of altering pronation slightly at contact to hit one corner or the other?

I just used those two servers as examples because they seemed to catch returners wrong footed all the time.

[Ballinbob]

Originally Posted by WildVolley

How exactly did Sampras and Ivanisevic disguise their serves so well? Was it simply a matter of altering pronation slightly at contact to hit one corner or the other?

I just used those two servers as examples because they seemed to catch returners wrong footed all the time.

I honestly have no clue lol. Can someone help us out with this? By the way, kinda a random question, but can a topspin slice be used as a 2nd serve? I mean if it has a good amount of topspin it can be used to the effect of a reverse twist serve? I have no idea why im asking this, but i was just thinking lol

[mikeler]

Any serve that is effective for you can be used as a 2nd serve.

[Nellie]

Some thoughts for you -

1) people have trouble seeing the toss depth relative to the baseline. They can easily see a slice serve with a toss well to the side versus a twist serve tossed way to the other side.

you can you this, for example to hit different serves from the same toss position. Specifically, a serve wide (to the backhand side) is tossed further out front than a serve to your forehand side. So, if you are a righty on the deuce side, you can hit a kick serve wide or a flat serve down the tee.

Alternatively, you could pratice leaning more into the court for kick servers.