Add topspin to everything. Add a little more topspin to your first serve to get percentages up. Add way more topspin to your second serve to make it consistent.
As seen on TV, every pro tries to hit a hard first serve for a winner or weak return, then hits a heavy topspin of some kind second serve that is much slower but always goes IN.
I always get a kick out of playing guys who would blast their first serve and never get one in and then power puff the second and you could just lay into it for a return winner almost every time.
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So what you guys are saying is that a topspin serve is the highest percentage shot?
I've practiced many hours trying to perfect the kick serve. It just doesn't work for me
As seen on TV, every pro tries to hit a hard first serve for a winner or weak return, then hits a heavy topspin of some kind second serve that is much slower but always goes IN.
Pete Sampras hit two first serves, pretty much. I think this is mentally more stable approach and more productive for non-professional player development. Or two second serves, does not matter. Use second serve as another chance to make it right, not to risk doing something completely different.
Actually Sampras didn't. Studies of his serve show he actually changed both his toss and racket path on the second serve to hit more topspin, even though his first serve had plenty of topspin.
Yandell had a good article on this showing that Sampras would toss even more to the left on his second serve and hit a lot more spin. Yandell measured a second serve with more than 5000 rpm.
While I think you need to be cautious trying to toss a lot more left if you are a rh, especially if you're not as young and athletic as Sampras, hitting with a lot more spin is the key to hitting a good second serve.
Everyone who can serve.
That's just the arc of the rackethead from trophy thru the swing.
Trophy is a static position or a moment in time during an arc of the rackethead.
Like a loop forehand, you need the loop to create extra RHS.
Nobody just "drops" the head, unless they are named JayBerger with an injured shoulder.
Learn how to hit a topspin second serve. That's going to be the best solution.
A properly hit topspin serve will require you to take a full swing at the ball and use the racket head speed to put spin to force it down into the court. The topspin will greatly increase your target window above the net without hitting long.
I suppose you hit with sidespin slice, something most player's do when first learning a consistent spin serve.
As you improve, you will find topspin actually curves the ball INside the service line more effectively than pure slice, while retaining more ball speed and a hop effect that bounces high and is harder to attack than sidespin.
what about roddick? he doesn't seem to do the loop thing.
His raquet take back is so abbreviated: he just seems to take it straight up in the trophy position...I think that rather then the loop he gets his speed from a very fast knee bend and extremely fast arm.
What is this loop that everyone is talking about?
Remember, while a second serve is swung very fast, it is not swung with maximum effort. Rather, it's maximum speed of swing with repeatable effort.
Same with a flat first serve. While we like to think we swing 100%, in reality, it's 100% within our own individual parameters.
If we really swung as fast as we could, with maximum effort, our percentages would be rediculously low.
Speed and power always governed by CONTROL and REPEATABILITY.