Alternate Service Grips

[Deleted member 756182]

I have recently been having more success with a straight-up continental grip. When first learning, I would use a bit of a topspin backhand grip and got some success and power with it. I also began with my fingers tight together but my tennis instructor showed me that spreading my fingers can help, too. Have you guys experimented with service grips?

How do you retrace your steps to find your old power/accuracy if you lose some by experimenting?

If I want to achieve more curvey and swervy serves to pull my opponent off the court, will it be easier with a backhand topspin grip on the serve or just finessing with a continental grip?

 

[Deleted member 756182]

Case in point

Time Codes: 12:27 and 13:40

 

[FiReFTW]

Spreading fingers is crucial.

For grips themselves, continental is fine for any serve specialy more flat ones, switching towards topspin backhand will close the racquet face more so you will naturaly get more spin but the arc will be lower so you might need to swing faster to hit on the same spot but the ball will have more spin, you can experiment with this for sure, whatever works best.

 

[movdqa]

I mainly use continental but go eastern bh when I want more spin or am hitting long.

 

[Kevo]

My advice is always to go straight continental. With that grip you should be able to hit all serves and there are usually no compromises on any serve using that grip.

There are exceptions to the rule, and you can be successful with a slight shift to the backhand grip, but unless you have some unusual anatomy it shouldn't be necessary. I had one student who broke his arm when younger and we worked on different grip changes quite a few times before settling on something that was more backhand than continental.

When I was younger I played almost 2 years with a backhand grip on serve looking for spin. I did much better after committing to the continental and just working on technique.

 

[tlm]

I go continental first serve and eastern BH grip for 2nd serve.

 

[esgee48]

Straight Continental ± 15 degrees, which is moving the V Joint of my hand [between Index finger and Thumb] to the left or right side of the top bevel. Works for me; may not work for you.

 

[Deleted member 756182]

How important is feeling the bevels for you guys on service grips? I use two overgrips on my racquets. One blue tourna going counter-clockwise to absorb the sweat and one wilson tacky clockwise for the grip feel. It does blunt the corners of the bevels, though....

 

[IowaGuy]

How important is feeling the bevels for you guys on service grips? I use two overgrips on my racquets. One blue tourna going counter-clockwise to absorb the sweat and one wilson tacky clockwise for the grip feel. It does blunt the corners of the bevels, though....

Bevels are personal preference. I personally love the feel and think they help me find the correct grip on all my strokes, I use a very thin overgrip on top of the original leather grip - great bevel feel.

I know other good players that use 2 or 3 overgrips to build up their grip, and don't seem to mind not having hardly any bevels.

 

[Shroud]

How important is feeling the bevels for you guys on service grips? I use two overgrips on my racquets. One blue tourna going counter-clockwise to absorb the sweat and one wilson tacky clockwise for the grip feel. It does blunt the corners of the bevels, though....

I have played with 4-5 overgrips and a very oval shape. I now have a pretty squarish shape with really 4 bevels. Sure there are 8 but the other 4 are half size. So not all that important to me.

 

[Deleted member 756182]

Case in point

Time Codes: 12:27 and 13:40

If you wanted to mimic 12:27 and 13:40, how would you modify your serve? Would it be grip, swing path, more?

 

[Shroud]

If you wanted to mimic 12:27 and 13:40, how would you modify your serve? Would it be grip, swing path, more?

Grip and toss for me but that might be very wrong for others. Toss is way more to the right than normal. Ebh grip

 

[Deleted member 756182]

Appreciate the help!

 

[Shroud]

Appreciate the help!

Oh and to get that serve I find I hit much lower.

Look at 5:00. I hit that serve and the toss is way different. Probably not something to copy but there has to be a reason why it works

 

[Deleted member 756182]

Maybe that the missing piece, or part of it. Once spring comes I will be experimenting like crazy.

 

[Chas Tennis]

I don't believe that I've seen the logic of grips properly explained or explained at all.

First, the grip depends on your serving technique. Same for posters telling you what worked for them. These serving techiques are often unknown. ?

There are two things that the grip can affect by fixing the racket to the palm:
1) the angle of the forearm to racket with a neutral wrist. High speed videos show that this angle is considerably different for the kick serve. This may make a different grip work better for servers using the ATP type high level kick serving technique.

This angle varies depending on the references points where the racket touches the palm, usually index finger knuckle, fat pad or little finger. Index finger and fat pad gives one angle and index finger to the little finger give a different angle, mine measure 10 d. Many instructions use the fat pad as where the butt of the racket ends. But pictures of ATP players mostly show the racket butt ending at the little finger.

Do any pictures of ATP players show the fat pad location? Search - tennis grip instruction pictures

Little finger or fat pad is important! It changes the angle of the forearm to the racket with a neutral wrist!

2) Next is the angle that the string face points to relative to the palm. Once either fat pad or little finger reference points are selected on the palm, the racket can be rotated around its long axis to different bevels, that changes the angle of the string face to palm.

Demo this for yourself by gripping a racket in the ways discussed above. See the forearm to racket angle change with fat pad or little finger. Then keep fat pad or little finger and rotate the racket by changing bevels.

But to start you have to understand your serving technique. Most active tennis players don't use a high level serving technique.