serves and tennis lessons

[Exxion]

Is a kick serve just a serve with topspin? Also, is it possible to serve a ball that has a spin opposite to that of a slice serve?

Is 30$/hour a good price for tennis lessons? How would I know if the instructor is qualified?

[Tigerarp1]

$30 seems a little low... Usually its around 40 -45 for the Head pro at a club around 35- 40 for the assistant pro and around 30 for the lower level pros that clubs will hire for summers etc... I guess this all depends on where the club is tho...

[Power Game]

Good price. Ask if he is certified

[Rickson]

Originally Posted by Exxion

Is a kick serve just a serve with topspin? Also, is it possible to serve a ball that has a spin opposite to that of a slice serve?

Yes, I use this serve on the ad side occasionally. A slice serve for a righty curves right to left, but if you take a western grip on your serve, the ball will spin from left to right.

Originally Posted by Tigerarp1

$30 seems a little low... Usually its around 40 -45 for the Head pro at a club around 35- 40 for the assistant pro and around 30 for the lower level pros that clubs will hire for summers etc... I guess this all depends on where the club is tho...

You gotta try out the pro and see if you like what he does, and what he can offer.. I've taken group and private lessons from several pros and theres a big difference with what you get.. They were all USPTA certified too but the quality of the lesson varied greatly. Some were just ball feeders that took $40/hr and some were really good technical lessons. Then theres this one guy that just turns on the ball machine and watches you hit, then hits a few and calls it a lesson. Good luck.

[andreh]

A kick serve is a serve w topspin and sidespin opposite to that of slice, ie it will bounce high to the returners backhand if the returner is right-handed.

[JohnThomas1]

Yes a kick serve is not just a topspin serve. Generally a standard topspin serve has a toss pretty much above the head. For the kicker most toss it more behind their head. There is a marked jump to the recievers left if both are right handed as andreh stated.

[goober]

Originally Posted by gorth97

You gotta try out the pro and see if you like what he does, and what he can offer.. I've taken group and private lessons from several pros and theres a big difference with what you get.. They were all USPTA certified too but the quality of the lesson varied greatly. Some were just ball feeders that took $40/hr and some were really good technical lessons. Then theres this one guy that just turns on the ball machine and watches you hit, then hits a few and calls it a lesson. Good luck.

I completely agree that there is a lot of variablilty in coaching. If your coach is not actively trying to improve your game, there is no point in paying them $30-45/hr. I can go and hit with people for free if they are just going to feed me balls.

[Bungalo Bill]

Originally Posted by gorth97

Then theres this one guy that just turns on the ball machine and watches you hit, then hits a few and calls it a lesson. Good luck.

LOL, maybe that is what I was doing wrong! Darn I should ave thought of that.

Well here we go into the darkside of certified pros. I am a USPTA Certified Pro. I am an EASI Certified Pro as well. However, with that said, I have seen a lot of certified teaching pros that I scratched my head wondering how they passed the strokes test and knowledge test. I mean I really wondered! It was that bad.

This one poor guy was so bad in his teaching skills and his own strokes it went from being funny to watch to being painful to watch. The trouble was the student started to imitate his technique.

Then I saw another pro teaching the onehanded backhand to a student (a woman). She was hitting with a continental grip, hitting shots always off her backfoot, and she bought a heavy Volkl players racquet (from the pro of course) that you could tell she was struggling with. The pro was hitting balls with fairly good pace and this poor lady was just struggling. She would always leave frustrated about her technique and the coach always reassured her she was on the right track!

So like any other business, you have good ones and bad ones. Some were great players and make terrible coaches (poor communication). Some were so-so players and make excellent coaches.

Coaching is not so much about what you know or how you used to play. Coaching is about how well you communicate tennis knowledge and can the student transfer what your saying quickly into their strokes. So I would give the guy a shot. At $30 bucks you have nothing to lose.

[nyu]

You guys must all be NE or something. The assistant coach at the local university(in NM) charges $25/hour and is the best instructor I've seen so far. I've seen "pro's" in NY charging $40/hour that I could easily outplay and out-teach(i'm USPTA certified). If the coach is taking an active role in your development, ie. lots of feedback and encouragement, while teaching you solid technique, then taking lessons and forking over the money is worth it.

[papa]

If your just getting started in the game it might be smart to just visit your local courts during the day - often there are "older" folks willing to help with the basics. However, as one progresses, you really are cheating yourself by not using pros either in individual/group lessons or in clinics.

Also, get a book or two (many good ones have been posted) and learn the fundamentals.

Reading the "posts" on a regular bases will also help - there is some excellent advice offered FREE.

[ucd_ace]

I consider a kick serve a different serve from a topspin serve. I see a lot of cases where someone can get topspin on the ball without getting any kick out of it.

Lessons around here are $44+ an hour. Unless you come to me, I give lessons everyday for free through working with the high school team. It would be nice to get like $10 or something for it, but that's not happening.

[Exxion]

thx for all ur replies

I live in the San Francisco, CA sunset area, if anybody there wants to help a beginner out =)
edit: email:exxion@hotmail.com

[GrahamIsSuper]

As stated, a Kick serve is a unique serve, but with the same swing, both a "topspin" as well as a kick can be performed.

Generally, with the kick, you dont so much toss the ball in front and to the right (as with the slice) to achieve forward motion. Instead, you must focus more on a Looping motion with both the kick AND the topspin.

Picture it like this: Regardless of the serve you hit, the ball must always go up at least 3 inches after contact. If you think in this way, your motion will be upwards, and then you can focus this to either help your slice or kick.

The kick is all about the UP, and the slice is about forward and up. If you see your kicks or topspins are going long, concentrate on "looping" the ball into play more, and also bring your toss more to the rear of you. It will give you more of an upwards swing, and your kick will be more consistant.

If your kick is going into the net, you're falling down on contact. Accelerate into the ball and really focus on going UP, dont let your toss come back down to you; go and get it at the top.

Use a wiper motion, from your spine and almost straight up, with a flick of your wrist. From left to right, low to high, all the while jumping. You will achieve hard spin, and eventually notice that the ball kicks out, meaning, you are achieving spin the OTHER direction than slice. Now you can hit serves out wide on the ad side! yay!

[Chanchai]

A lot of people will use various definitions of a kick serve.

Topspin Serve--Some people consider any topspin serve to be a kick serve. Though some people have mentioned here, a topspin serve doesn't necessarily have to have kick. I personally make a clear distinction between the two, but sometimes will refer to a topspin serve as a kick serve if the person I'm talking to really feels that way.

Twist Serve--Also called American Twist serve or Twisted Serve. Basically, this is a serve hit with topspin and some slice, it's hit in a "unique" way as to allow the ball to come into the service box as you would imagine a ball with topspin and slice to come in (arching downward and in), but it bounces off the ground quite differently, it bounces OUTWARD. So if you had players that had the same dominant hand (two righties or two lefties), the ball looks like it's aiming to go towards the forehand, but it bounces to the backhand side of the returner. I've seen this a few times at open tournaments (you can usually see it coming because of the serving position though, it's usually pretty unique), and was surprised to see it on the pro tour a few times (supposedly Agassi does this to pull opponents out wide on the ad-court, I distinctly remember Roddick doing this once at least against El Aynaoui in the Australian Open QF 2003--Younnes intended to run around the ball and return with an inside-out forehand and ended up with a ball bouncing right at his body with kick).

A Heavier Topspin Serve-- Any topspin serve that's quite heavy or at least going into the ground so hard it naturally has kick as a kick serve. This is what I consider a kick serve. It doesn't have to be the twist serve. But it has to have at least enough momentum going downwards before it hits the ground, that once it hits the ground it'll kick pretty hard. I guess one area of debate on this definition is on maybe something like Sampras' second serve because by this definition, it's probably a kick serve because of how heavy the ball is, even though it's not really kicking high, it's sort of kicking at the opponent (or at least sorta in their direction). But don't know if Sampras' second serve was a topspin serve hehe.

In general... There are so many types of serves that can be hit. The various spins on all flat serves, slice serves, and topspin serves create different flightpaths and bounces. The swingweight, and sometimes the neutral weight alone, of a racquet causes such unique properties in how energy is distributed in the ball that unique paths and bounces occur there too.

Supposedly, on a good day, my opponents tell me that my flat serve has a weird kick to it because I hit it hard and directed like a flat serve, but it has a lot of spin on it so it kicks in an awkward direction. But I guess I still wouldn't really call that a kick serve :P (Head Pro at my club calls it a "weird sliced flat serve" hehe).

But wouldn't it be nice if there was an ultimate dictionary of tennis or something? Something that everyone can agree upon, or be forced to agree upon (and yet new terms would probably pop up every year). But with so many separate and conflicting dogmas in the world of tennis, I wonder if it would just be the tennis world's version of the Tower of Babel.

-Chanchai

[JohnThomas1]

Hmmmmm i thought a kick serve got it's term because it "kicks" to the right handed recievers left and the twist was the same. Might be wrong tho. Vic Braden i think helped bring in the "topspin serve" terminology when he advocated against the twist serve in his famous book Tennis For The Future in favour of the "typical topspin serve" Might be wrong tho.

[GrahamIsSuper]

Ok, if you have the swing (the wiper motion, low to high), you can hit any of the above: the topspin/kick/twist. For more of a topspin, hit the ball from the 6 0'clock to the 12 0'clock position. It'll produce straight up rotation (i guess).

For more of a twist, hit from 8 to 2 positions on the ball, it'll kick/twist out wide. Depending on how high/hard you jump, you can kick it waaaay out there.