Could the ball be sliding on my strings?

[Claudius]

I had some serving issues last night. I haven't played in a month, but I served the way I normally used to, and for some frustrating reason all my flat serves turned into ugly shanks. I used to get good pop on my serve, but this particular day, something was different. Even when I focused exclusively on having good form, I kept on shanking the ball for some reason (most serves went in, but there was absolutely no pop, and they were slow as well). Could it be that the ball was actually sliding on my strings?

[dozu]

ball may slide to a very small degree, enough to make a difference on how much spin you put on it....

but shouldn't be that much slide to cause many shanks..... especially on flat serves the racket should impact the ball square on.

sounds more like a techique issue to me.

[LeeD]

Technique issue for sure.
Flat serves don't make the ball slide across the racket. If you complained about hard spin serves going all askew, double and triple framing, then it MIGHT be an issue.
BTW, I play with one year old 15 gauge strings (actually 14 months). No problems. The 5.0 I played against yesterday played with 8 month old strings and a 10 year old racket. Makes little difference, we miss when we miss, we hit shots when we don't miss.
Happens he's not a super hard hitter (used to be 6.0) and I'm 60, so don't apply as much spin except on serves.

[sureshs]

You are probably missing the sweetzone. Happens when the timing is off.