Still can't get my second serve in 100% of the time!

[HunterST]

Since this post I went about 3 weeks without double faulting more than a few times per set. I kind of thought my days of double faulting were behind me.

Tonight, it returned. I double faulted almost every game and had multiple doubles in many of the games.

Strangely, my double fault troubles seem MUCH worse when I'm playing people that are not as good as my usual partners.

I'm just going to try to have a short memory about my serving issues tonight. Hopefully the serve will be back on when I play in a few days.

[LeeD]

Every shot needs preparation, concentration, and execution.
You relaxed, losing one of the 3.

[maxplymac]

It's a marathon not a sprint dude.

Keep practicing, and instead of dwelling on the here and now, visualize how your second serve will be in 3 years.

FWIW, toss more to your left. Not kind of to your left...but way out there.

[goran_ace]

Keep practicing. Practice hitting second serves for ten-fifteen minutes after your hitting sesions. Targets sometimes help because it gives you a result to focus on. To simulate the presure of a match play a practice set where you only get one serve.

[thebuffman]

hey hunter how many practice 2nd serves do you hit per week? reason i ask is because it really makes a difference. i use to df at least 20x a match. now i have gotten those numbers well under 10. some matches i am red hot and rack up no more than 4. i credit my success to the amount of spin serves i hit per week which is no less than 1000. i use to practice flat serves all the time until a coach in the adjacent court saw me one day and said, "you shouldn't be practicing that many flat serves. you can damage your arm. instead you should spend 20 minutes a day hitting 2nd serves. you are only as good as your 2nd serve."

from that point forward, 2nd serves is pretty much all i practice. i might hit 20-30 flat serves during a practice session just to make sure i still got. i do drills to see how many spin serves i can land in a row and these are performed at moderate speed to work the form. i once landed like all but 4 balls out of a bucket of 70. now i've gotten to the place where i KNOW i can land a moderate pace spin serve in the box (note i didn't say patty cake 'just get it in' serve). i will explain why this is important below.

my 2nd serve has now become more dangerous than my 1st - and my 1st serve is a 3.5's headache for real. so on days where i begin to struggle with df's here is what i do to correct it and it has nothing to to do with thinking about toss or mechanics or none of that (i cant afford to spend that kind of mental energy during a match). i abandon the flat bomb and hit my hard/fast spin serve as the first serve instead. when i miss, i hit my moderate paced spin serve as a 2nd serve. this insures that i do not give away free points and since i know that my moderate paced serve is money, this serve then becomes my safety blanket. what is funny is that at the 3.5 level, my opponents will sometimes fault when returning moderately paced spin especially when hit to the backhand. now what happens is that the brain does not get anxious because the security blanket is there. as soon as the first service spin serve starts landing again, guess what? back to using this serve as the security blanket instead of the moderately paced one.

so essentially i have a plan A and a plan B. plan A is to hit whatever serve as a first serve as hard as i can and my great spin serve 2nd. if plan A breaks down, no problem i go to plan B. this is to hit my great spin serve first and a moderate spin serve 2nd. this works like a charm for me and i am no longer spotting my opponents 0-30 handicaps per game.

hope that helps.

[HunterST]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Every shot needs preparation, concentration, and execution.
You relaxed, losing one of the 3.

Yeah I think you have a point. Although, I don't think it was that I got sloppy, I think I started focusing too much on "getting it in" I had a VERY bad partner. He missed all of the weak returns that my serve forced, so I started thinking "alright you can't double fault because he's going to miss everything."

Originally Posted by maxplymac

It's a marathon not a sprint dude.

Keep practicing, and instead of dwelling on the here and now, visualize how your second serve will be in 3 years.

FWIW, toss more to your left. Not kind of to your left...but way out there.

Thanks man, you're right. Also when I think about where my serve was a year ago and where it is now, there's a huge difference.

Originally Posted by goran_ace

Keep practicing. Practice hitting second serves for ten-fifteen minutes after your hitting sesions. Targets sometimes help because it gives you a result to focus on. To simulate the presure of a match play a practice set where you only get one serve.

Yeah, I haven't been practicing the serves much lately due to the cold weather and school. Need to get out there.

[HunterST]

Originally Posted by thebuffman

hey hunter how many practice 2nd serves do you hit per week? reason i ask is because it really makes a difference. i use to df at least 20x a match. now i have gotten those numbers well under 10. some matches i am red hot and rack up no more than 4. i credit my success to the amount of spin serves i hit per week which is no less than 1000. i use to practice flat serves all the time until a coach in the adjacent court saw me one day and said, "you shouldn't be practicing that many flat serves. you can damage your arm. instead you should spend 20 minutes a day hitting 2nd serves. you are only as good as your 2nd serve."

from that point forward, 2nd serves is pretty much all i practice. i might hit 20-30 flat serves during a practice session just to make sure i still got. i do drills to see how many spin serves i can land in a row and these are performed at moderate speed to work the form. i once landed like all but 4 balls out of a bucket of 70. now i've gotten to the place where i KNOW i can land a moderate pace spin serve in the box (note i didn't say patty cake 'just get it in' serve). i will explain why this is important below.

my 2nd serve has now become more dangerous than my 1st - and my 1st serve is a 3.5's headache for real. so on days where i begin to struggle with df's here is what i do to correct it and it has nothing to to do with thinking about toss or mechanics or none of that (i cant afford to spend that kind of mental energy during a match). i abandon the flat bomb and hit my hard/fast spin serve as the first serve instead. when i miss, i hit my moderate paced spin serve as a 2nd serve. this insures that i do not give away free points and since i know that my moderate paced serve is money, this serve then becomes my safety blanket. what is funny is that at the 3.5 level, my opponents will sometimes fault when returning moderately paced spin especially when hit to the backhand. now what happens is that the brain does not get anxious because the security blanket is there. as soon as the first service spin serve starts landing again, guess what? back to using this serve as the security blanket instead of the moderately paced one.

so essentially i have a plan A and a plan B. plan A is to hit whatever serve as a first serve as hard as i can and my great spin serve 2nd. if plan A breaks down, no problem i go to plan B. this is to hit my great spin serve first and a moderate spin serve 2nd. this works like a charm for me and i am no longer spotting my opponents 0-30 handicaps per game.

hope that helps.

Buffman, based on your posts, it always seems like we have very similar games and problems, but with your game being a little ahead of mine, so I'm always interested to hear your advice.

Something you touched on in this post that I think is important was my first serve percentage. Yes, I double faulted too many times, but that also means I was missing that many first serves! This night, I had a very low 1st serve percentage and that undoubtedly contributed to my double fault problem.

I have two first serves that I use. One is a flat bomb and the other is a kind of slice/topspin serve. Some days the first serve will go in at like 60% and others, like yesterday, it will only go in about 20% of the time.

Unfortunately, when I switch to a topspin serve for my first serve, it doesnt yield very good results. I guess missing them on the first serve makes me lose faith in it.

[jdubbs]

I think my double faulting is the biggest thing holding me back from becoming a 4.5.

I have experimented with my toss a bit, and for me, an eastern grip and throwing the ball at 1pm (i.e. NOT behind me) seems to work best. Throwing it behind me will make me hit it out usually. I'm going to take a kick serve lesson (I've tried youtube and it hasn't worked for me) and work on it some more.

If I'm really having problems, my spinner will be my serve for both 1st and 2nd serve.

That's a big disadvantage, as my first serve is oftentimes a winner as its hard and flat. But I'm practicing about 200 serves a week, mostly second serves. In fact, I think i'll get out there today and hit some more!

[Totai]

Originally Posted by HunterST

My serve has come a long way since I first started playing and even from a few months ago. My pace has increased exponentially on both 1st and 2nds and I've cut my double faults way down.

Much to my frustration, however, I still don't have an automatic 2nd serve that I know I can get in the box every time. There will be good days where I only double fault maybe 3 or 4 times per set, but there will also be days where I double fault 1 to 2 times PER GAME. I find that to be completely unacceptable.

What are the things that helped you develop a consistent, tough-to-attack 2nd serve? Obviously I could just tap the ball over the net, but I want to have a solid 2nd serve. I know about swinging up on the ball and getting topspin etc., but what are some other tips? I think some of my problems include:

-Being off balance. I sometimes fall to the side after hitting the 2nd.
-Not getting enough racket head speed
-Being too tense
-The serves go long (could this mean an open racket face?)

How long did it take you to develop a reliable, powerful/heavy 2nd serve? I've been playing about 2 years and playing seriously for about 1-1.5 years.

I really want a 2nd serve that I can get in at least 90% of the time. Any help?

Hunter,

If the serve is going long, a probable reason is that the racquet twisted in your hand and you did not hit the ball with a Conti grip. If the ball is hitting the net, then you are not hitting the ball up enough. Hit up as hard as you can with a conti grip and have faith that the spin will drop the ball down.

[jdubbs]

Originally Posted by Totai

Hunter,

If the serve is going long, a probable reason is that the racquet twisted in your hand and you did not hit the ball with a Conti grip. If the ball is hitting the net, then you are not hitting the ball up enough. Hit up as hard as you can with a conti grip and have faith that the spin will drop the ball down.

I've tried this and the ball comes down around the baseline. Tried throwing it way behind me, bending my knees a lot etc. So I go with the eastern FH grip and this at least gets me to about 80%. But I would love some advice on what I'm doing wrong on the kick serve.

[HunterST]

Originally Posted by jdubbs

I've tried this and the ball comes down around the baseline. Tried throwing it way behind me, bending my knees a lot etc. So I go with the eastern FH grip and this at least gets me to about 80%. But I would love some advice on what I'm doing wrong on the kick serve.

Eastern FH grip is the wrong way to go. My guess is that you're opening your racquet face when you're swinging up and that's causing your shots to go long. Make sure the racket face is not angled up or down at contact.

[Failed]

Originally Posted by Manus Domini

swing high to low, left to right, ball behind you. will kick really high, large margin for error, etc.

I wouldn't still advice throwing the ball behind oneself. Behind the head and somewhat in front. Just so that the opponent won't crush the ball in for a winner and make your self-confidence drop.

[Djokovicfan4life]

Originally Posted by Failed

I wouldn't still advice throwing the ball behind oneself. Behind the head and somewhat in front. Just so that the opponent won't crush the ball in for a winner and make your self-confidence drop.

MD was talking about behind your head, not behind you in relation to the baseline.

[LeeD]

Toss behind your head for kickers and twists.
Toss over your head for pure topspin high % serves.
Toss to your hitting side to get some sidespin/top for normal slice.
Toss more to hitting side to get the really wide slicing curve balls.
Flat serve should be somewhere between 2 and 3.
Or, you can toss to ONE spot, and relocate your body under your toss to get the same locations for your strikezone.

[thebuffman]

Originally Posted by jdubbs

I've tried this and the ball comes down around the baseline. Tried throwing it way behind me, bending my knees a lot etc. So I go with the eastern FH grip and this at least gets me to about 80%. But I would love some advice on what I'm doing wrong on the kick serve.

here is a tip i never heard anyone give but it works tremendously well for me. go back to using a continental grip first of all. swing up to hit the ball and pronate into the ball. pronation is what produces the high spin rotation on the ball (at least in my experience).

now here is the insider tip: swing up to the ball with the edge of the racquet same as you would with a flat serve then pronate into the ball. when you pronate to hit the back of the ball, perform the pronation as if you are trying to hit the ball with your thumb. start off doing this at a moderate pace and you will begin to groove a very decent spinny serve. so to recap, your thumb should be the portion of the hand that feels the racquet's contact with the ball. let me know how it goes.

[tiochaota]

No one can get it in 100% of the time, practice.

[tiochaota]

No one can get it in 100% of the time, practice.

[goran_ace]

Originally Posted by tiochaota

No one can get it in 100% of the time, practice.

Obviously 100% over a year or season is a unreasonable, but playing/winning a match without double faulting is not that rare.

[Nellie]

If I was the original poster, I would only hit spinning (second) serves on your first serve. Second serves are very mental so you should avoid them when you struggle. You will notice that Federer hits basically a spinning first serve and an even spinnier second serve.

[thebuffman]

Originally Posted by Nellie

If I was the original poster, I would only hit spinning (second) serves on your first serve. Second serves are very mental so you should avoid them when you struggle. You will notice that Federer hits basically a spinning first serve and an even spinnier second serve.

thats exactly what i do when i am struggling with 2nd serve percentage. i go to plan B which is spin serves for 1st and 2nd. if i start landing my 1st spin serve in consistently which has more pace on it, then i will go back to plan A where i use it as my 2nd serve and can flatten out my first serve. but if i am struggling with 2nd serves, i definitely only hit 1st and 2nd spin serves.

as far as federer goes it was something to see that recent match he loss to monfils. those guys were both serving tremendously well. near the end, the totals show that fed 2x faulted like 1 time and monfils 4x. because monfils kept his 2x faulting low, he was able to steal the match.