Serve advice

[Miura Tiger]

Generally speaking, how high should the toss be and how far into the court should it be?

[sureshs]

Contact at highest point at which you can stretch upwards (or lift yourself upwards if you are not me) of the ball on the way down from the toss, and making contact with the upper half of the strings. How much above the contact point is the apex of the ball toss? 1 foot.

How far: traditional instruction: 1 or more feet into the court so that you are angled forward on the first serve, 1 o'clock position. For second serve, right above or even behind your head (12 or 11 o'clock).

Modern tennis: J shaped toss on the first serve to about 12 o'clock.

This is just one opinion.

[WildVolley]

The toss should be at least as high as the preferred contact point. That would be one extreme, but one that has been used by some of the best servers in history. Higher tosses allow you more time to get into position, but require more tossing skill on the part of the server.

How far you toss into the court is going to depend on your athleticism. The more powerfully you can jump into the serve, the more into the court you should toss. I'd suggest shooting for about a foot inside the court when you are first learning.

[DeShaun]

height of toss supposedly should equal not exceed height of contact point.
depth into court of contact point should probably be as deep as your explosion/legs can carry you. keep in mind that, serving explosively tires the legs--there is no way around this. it is fun to overpower superior players with a booming service game, but if you are playing a strong returner and a rally should happen to break out on your serve and you are forced to actually do more work (in order to hold serve) than simply to hurl thunderbolts and then clean up, after the typically weak return, by hitting one good well placed forehand of you own, you may quickly start wishing that you had spent more time developing an easier or more economical way of holding than relying on your leg drive in powering those thunderbolts.

i used to put everything into my serve and even took a set off a 3.5 player in my first year of playing when i myself was barely a 2.5, in addition to bagelling a 3.0 player once who had beaten me 26 consecutive times prior to that. so, i know what it's like to have a weapon ons erve, but again, serving so big tires the legs and you'll probably want to have a ground game to back your serve up with.

[sureshs]

No one beats DeShaun 27 times in a row

[LeeD]

I disagree the toss height should equal the ball strike height. I think it's personal, and some great servers toss it 6' higher than their strikepoints.
Very few servers toss the height of their strikepoint.
I don't believe hitting your biggest first serves tire you out, unless you're injured, debilitated, or completely out of shape. Nobody good swings full out for first flat serves anyways. They'd like to get in a few too.
Guys without big fast first serves tend to underplay it's usage.
Those with huge first serves alway first and foremost USE IT.

[LeeD]

I've never ever ever beaten ANYONE more than 15 times straight.
If they're worth of playing against seriously, they're close in playing level.
If you're just fooling around, using your wrong hand kind of thing, it don't count.

[DeShaun]

Originally Posted by LeeD

I've never ever ever beaten ANYONE more than 15 times straight.
If they're worth of playing against seriously, they're close in playing level.
If you're just fooling around, using your wrong hand kind of thing, it don't count.

This guy was an ambidextrous fairly athletic ex-hockey player with good hand eye coordination who had grown up somewhere in Kansas I believe where his next door neighbor supposedly a ranked junior used to destroy this guy (my opponent) routinely. So, my opponent had probably hundreds if not thousands of pick up matches under his belt which he had played against that really skilled neighbor, and that's why, I think, he was able to beat me the first 26x we ever played which was also during my first year of playing tennis.

[LeeD]

Well, I'm pretty sure I can easily lose 50 times to a Div1 singles player. Maybe even a hundred times.

[sureshs]

I am also sure

[LeeD]

Ok, downgrade.
I can lose 50 times in a row to a strong 4.5 singles player playing singles.

[sureshs]

Agreed..............