Too much spin on serve - doesn't go over?

pico

pico

Hall of Fame
Hi all. I have been struggling with my second serve lately. I do not know which area to "change" and I should be posting a video but probably won't be able to get to that immediately.
Anyways, I serve with a pinpoint stance. My grip is very much like Edberg's where the racquet face faces upwards just before the toss. So my serve grip is a bit on the Eastern bh side almost. My feet are parallel to the baseline. When I serve, I feel that I get such a heavy brush on the ball that it doesn't go over and either just clips the net cord or goes lower. My toss is almost above my head. I am not sure what needs to be tweaked here so that I can get more net clearance. Please let me know. Sometimes I find that having my feet point more forwards helps with the clearance.
 
Dragy

Dragy

Legend
Video definitely required. But until you get one, how is your swing speed? Do you “throw” the racquet at the ball, or brush it in a controlled manner?
How consistent are your balls? Do you achieve both similar feel of the ball contact and similar ball trajectory try after try? Or there’s significant variation?
How “thin” is your intended contact? Have you tried driving the ball more? Go through the ball, just not straight forward, but low-to-high, outwards. Together with your grip this will be enough to give the ball some margin of safety.
 
Shroud

Shroud

G.O.A.T.
pico said:
Hi all. I have been struggling with my second serve lately. I do not know which area to "change" and I should be posting a video but probably won't be able to get to that immediately.
Anyways, I serve with a pinpoint stance. My grip is very much like Edberg's where the racquet face faces upwards just before the toss. So my serve grip is a bit on the Eastern bh side almost. My feet are parallel to the baseline. When I serve, I feel that I get such a heavy brush on the ball that it doesn't go over and either just clips the net cord or goes lower. My toss is almost above my head. I am not sure what needs to be tweaked here so that I can get more net clearance. Please let me know. Sometimes I find that having my feet point more forwards helps with the clearance.
Click to expand...
Bet you are tossing too far in front. Bring the toss back and hit more up on the ball
 
VoodooChild24

VoodooChild24

Semi-Pro
You have to hit through the ball a bit instead of thinking pure spin. Finish your motion and bring the ball down with your follow through and don't abbreviate. Hit your 2nd serve with confidence and serve with a purpose.
 
F

Friedman Whip

Professional
You say your feet now are parallel to the baseline but are you saying that when you point your feet more 'forward' it helps your ball go over the net? That seems just opposite of what it should do.
 
T

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
I have same problem as OP when I don't practice my serve enough. I start hitting it too thin (putting it all into spin and not hitting forward enough).

What works for me is to decouple the forward thrust of the lower body from the upward swing of the torso and arm. When I'm hitting too thin, it's usually because I'm not letting my hips get out in front of my front foot enough, and I'm not landing far enough into the court. Rocking further back on the windup can help build more forward momentum before the pushoff. If the forward weight transfer and pushoff into the court is sufficient, then I can focus on swinging upward for topspin and end up with a serve that has both sufficient pace and enough heavy spin.

When I used to be a big server in my younger days, I would warmup my first 10-12 serves by focusing only on the upward swing part (not worrying about pushing forward with the legs), resulting in super-spinny but slow-pace serves. Once the arm starts to loosen up, I then toss it out in front a bit more and add the forward leg thrust.
This two step serve warmup can be demoralizing to your opponent during a match warmup when your spinny high-bouncing slow serves sudden jump into a higher gear and start hitting high up on the curtain.

As for the toss position, from the description of the problem y the OP, I would agree with the poster that suggested the toss needs to be a touch further out in front in order to hit a reliable and consistent trajectory with both pace and heavy spin.
 
Last edited:
2nd Serve Ace

2nd Serve Ace

Hall of Fame
Pinpoint tends to put the serve ball in the net more often than platform.

Everything you describe sounds good, but be aware of your toss location on duce and ad side. IF your a righty got tons of margin on the ad serve, but have to be more linear on the duce.

Sent from my SM-T560NU using Tapatalk
 
D

Deleted member 23235

Guest
J011yroger said:
I say do the exact opposite.

Let us know which one works.

J
Click to expand...
+1
i bet he's tossing directly overhead, and not "leaning into the court"
hitting directly overhead makes it easier to make contact, focus on applying spin, etc...
but at some point, you need to toss slightly further into the court, so you can "lean in" while also elevating up and into the serve...

good news... most beginners naturally gravitate to lean in and hit through... typically harder to learn to spin (IMO)...

my $0,02
 
Shroud

Shroud

G.O.A.T.
Here is a vid that describes what I was talking about and how to get the ball higher and why a forward toss is not the way to go

Around 3:50 he starts to explain it

 
vex

vex

Legend
pico said:
Hi all. I have been struggling with my second serve lately. I do not know which area to "change" and I should be posting a video but probably won't be able to get to that immediately.
Anyways, I serve with a pinpoint stance. My grip is very much like Edberg's where the racquet face faces upwards just before the toss. So my serve grip is a bit on the Eastern bh side almost. My feet are parallel to the baseline. When I serve, I feel that I get such a heavy brush on the ball that it doesn't go over and either just clips the net cord or goes lower. My toss is almost above my head. I am not sure what needs to be tweaked here so that I can get more net clearance. Please let me know. Sometimes I find that having my feet point more forwards helps with the clearance.
Click to expand...
Add more plow thru? Adjust your angle at contact (don't hit with as much of a downward angle)?
That EBH grip is hard to serve with (for me at least). I prefer the pistol grip. You can reach higher.
 
Curious

Curious

G.O.A.T.
Eastern backhand grip on the serve is what SW grip is on the forehand in terms of creating topspin.
 
Bender

Bender

G.O.A.T.
Shroud said:
Bet you are tossing too far in front. Bring the toss back and hit more up on the ball
Click to expand...

J011yroger said:
I say do the exact opposite.

Let us know which one works.

J
Click to expand...
Without a video of OP, I will have to agree with @J011yroger on this one. Bringing the toss back for me resulted in either serves going long or into the middle of the net; not enough of them went to where they were supposed to go.

Moving the toss more forward, maybe about 2 ft into the court if left to bounce resulted in the best serves for me, but I haven't been able to make it stick as my mind is still stuck with the old toss where the ball would land on or near the baseline.

I find that the more forward toss allows the body to move into the ball, giving it forward movement, while the brushing up motion provides the topspin and arc needed to prevent the ball from being hit into my side of the court, resulting in a pretty powerful second serve with enough spin to keep it in the service box.

Plus, no pro I've seen tosses the ball straight up; all of them toss into the court regardless of the type of serve being hit.
 
S&V-not_dead_yet

S&V-not_dead_yet

Talk Tennis Guru
If you think of the serve as a ratio between forward motion [drive] and upward motion [spin], it sounds like you need to tweak the ratio to have more forward and less upward motion.

Consider yourself fortunate: most people don't generate enough spin and can't figure out why. It should be fairly easy for you to generate more drive.
 
Shroud

Shroud

G.O.A.T.
Bender said:
Without a video of OP, I will have to agree with @J011yroger on this one. Bringing the toss back for me resulted in either serves going long or into the middle of the net; not enough of them went to where they were supposed to go.

Moving the toss more forward, maybe about 2 ft into the court if left to bounce resulted in the best serves for me, but I haven't been able to make it stick as my mind is still stuck with the old toss where the ball would land on or near the baseline.

I find that the more forward toss allows the body to move into the ball, giving it forward movement, while the brushing up motion provides the topspin and arc needed to prevent the ball from being hit into my side of the court, resulting in a pretty powerful second serve with enough spin to keep it in the service box.

Plus, no pro I've seen tosses the ball straight up; all of them toss into the court regardless of the type of serve being hit.
Click to expand...
Check out the vid I posted
 
X

xFullCourtTenniSx

Hall of Fame
Hit through the ball.

There are a lot of things you can do. Aim higher, hit through the ball while applying spin, swing faster, etc. It'd just start with trying to miss long with the exact same serve then dial down on the adjustment I made. How you go about that is up to you.
 
T

TwistAndShout

Rookie
You might be jackknifing - crunching your abdominals on follow thru which creates power in a forward and downward direction but that’s not what you want. Keep back arch - back extension as opposed to ab crunch- longer by pointing belt area more behind you at contact.
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
TwistAndShout said:
You might be jackknifing - crunching your abdominals on follow thru which creates power in a forward and downward direction but that’s not what you want. Keep back arch - back extension as opposed to ab crunch- longer by pointing belt area more behind you at contact.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good way to hurt yourself.

J
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
TwistAndShout said:
Click to expand...
First serve slice.

roger-federer-topspin-slice-serve-56a943623df78cf772a54e3d.jpg


Second serve.

blog-4.jpg


J
 
C

Chadillac

Guest
Jollys height will make his technique different than shorter guys.

pico said:
Hi all. I have been struggling with my second serve lately. I do not know which area to "change" and I should be posting a video but probably won't be able to get to that immediately.
Anyways, I serve with a pinpoint stance. My grip is very much like Edberg's where the racquet face faces upwards just before the toss. So my serve grip is a bit on the Eastern bh side almost. My feet are parallel to the baseline. When I serve, I feel that I get such a heavy brush on the ball that it doesn't go over and either just clips the net cord or goes lower. My toss is almost above my head. I am not sure what needs to be tweaked here so that I can get more net clearance. Please let me know. Sometimes I find that having my feet point more forwards helps with the clearance.
Click to expand...

Are you dropping your left side? Could try putting a little bit more bend on your back knee, it will give arc you need for clearence.
 
D

Deleted member 754093

Guest
Aim higher and overcorect. Don’t be concerned if you miss way long. In fact, try to miss way long. Feel what it’s like to really get height over the net, and then make adjustments
 
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