Any easy way to quickly learn at least a halfway decent consistent kick serve?

Aestheticsaboveallelse

Aestheticsaboveallelse

Legend
The one shot in tennis I really struggle to figure out is the kick serve, and its the one I really need to prevent double faulting and get serve in very reliably. So in the meantime I don't care if its weak I just want some semblance of a kick serve thats easy to get in the service box very consistently before I learn the best way. And start getting a feel for the motion that produces a kick I guess. Any tips/tricks to easily get some kind of a kick serve going without being complicated? Flat serving is reasonably easy, groundstrokes on both sides are easy, volleys are straightforward, but kick serves are monstrously hard to produce for me...
 
I can hit a fairly decent kick but it kills my 60 year old shoulder. To do it, I toss the same location and swing the same as I do for my normal topspin serve, only I try to not rotate into the serve at all, so that at contact my hitting shoulder is as directly behind my front shoulder as possible. Doing that changes the swing plane of the racquet to more parallel to the baseline rather than into the court.

I'm sure there are progressions that teach it better but this is how I was taught it at a macroscopic level, and if you can hit a decent topspin serve, this method will produce the spin axis necessary to kick the ball out to the side.
 
Hey, the biggest mark for me you mentioning flat serves but not slice serves - have you developed any kind of spin serve?

I suggest following this sequence:
1. Check your serving grip, make it strong continental for serving
2. Using this grip, practice hitting sidespin serves - staying sideways, swinging diagonally towards the net post, making the ball go over to your left (if you are righty)
3. Get comfortable with sending the ball with spin, making it curve in the air, and gain control over the speed/spin ratio
4. Check your grip to be strong conti! Ensure you send the ball a bit to the left of where your torso faces, not opening too early!
5. Start adjusting your toss - to be more over your head than to the right; consequently, your swing becomes more up from below the ball (but still towards the side more than up and forward!); visualize the ball to go up and then curve left+down rather than forward ;)
6. If most your mistakes are long, but you get the curve and high net clearance, it’s very good just toss a bit more inside the court, but leave everything else same - stay sideways, swing to the side from below the ball, send the ball over your left shoulder

* hotfix tip if there’s not enough curve even with good toss: let the ball drop a bit more, do not stretch for max height (but I don’t include it to main block until I see how you try it, it’s relevant for some, not so much for the other)

PS here from 7:30 you can look at progression to develop spin serve from scratch - to get basic feel for ball-spinning swing and contact with conti grip, which is important on you journey towards solid kick serve
 
Lots of videos about swing path, toss, body position, etc are good, but putting it into practice is the trick. Knowledge is a key... but it doesn't necessarily open up the door unless you know how to apply it.

The two things I see people struggle with when learning... they go right to the base line, they swing too fast, hit too much with the ball (not brushing) and don't hit the ball high enough. They fall in to the trap of jumping into the deep end of the pool too soon and old service habits take over. Much like a flat groundstroker trying to learn topspin... just changing your swing path isn't enough. You have to brush the ball (hit less of it) and understand what creating spin feels like both when you swing the racquet and at contact. If you understand and learn the feel/sound... and see the trajectory... it all starts to quickly make sense to your brain.

Start at the service line and hit soft, high spinning topspin serves into the service box and try to see how high you can hit the ball over the net and still get it to drop in. You don't have to swing really fast, but it's important to learn how to get the spin, the height... and trust that the ball will come back down into the box. It's a feel exercise thing. If you're not getting the spin... you're hitting too much of the ball. If you hit a lot of spin and can't get it over the net... hit it higher. It's a balancing act of spin and heigh that you have to come to grips with.

Then hit some from no man's land... then progress to the baseline. The goal doesn't change as you move to the baseline. Hit softly with as much height and spin as an easy swing will allow.

Height over the net is critical starting out to creating the right arc. You don't need massive rhs to create huge arc... you do if you're hitting it 90+ mph, but you should be serving slowly with emphasis on spin and arc. At slower speeds it doesn't take as much spin to get kick action. Once you can get the arc and spin/action... then it's just a matter of applying the spin a little left to right (8 o'clock to 2 o'clock approx) and voila. Once you have confidence in applying the action you can start slowly ramping up the rhs and playing with the height and amount of contact with the ball.

If you ever start to lose your kick... go back to hitting with more arc and brushing the ball more (less fwd contact with the ball).
 
eah123 said:
Try this progression.
Click to expand...

Nice late 2020 was the only time I got kick serves down one day but then forgot how cause I thought I had it already no need to keep practicing, lol. The key I'd discovered was some kind of snapping the racquet face open just before contact but I can't figure out how to do it anymore for some reason. Hopefully its just the same thing as that hammer movement he's showing will try this. Nice simple progression!
 
1. Be young and flexible, do not start at 60.
2. Toss and swing plane needs consistent motion.
3. Repetition at the expense of your flat, topslice, and slice serves.
 
eah123 said:
Try this progression.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for posting that this vid was perfect for me EXACTLY what I needed. Already clicking went out and tried it. When I got kick serves down that one day I must've somehow realized a technique similar to this hammer motion and follow thru. It does feel similar the way I remember it.

I think its just so counterintuitive cause its more of a sideways swing which you wouldn't think would properly hit thru the ball. So you never try that naturally
 
Injured Again said:
I can hit a fairly decent kick but it kills my 60 year old shoulder. To do it, I toss the same location and swing the same as I do for my normal topspin serve, only I try to not rotate into the serve at all, so that at contact my hitting shoulder is as directly behind my front shoulder as possible. Doing that changes the swing plane of the racquet to more parallel to the baseline rather than into the court.

I'm sure there are progressions that teach it better but this is how I was taught it at a macroscopic level, and if you can hit a decent topspin serve, this method will produce the spin axis necessary to kick the ball out to the side.
Click to expand...

Nice point about it giving the right axis to work with that should help
 
Dragy said:
Hey, the biggest mark for me you mentioning flat serves but not slice serves - have you developed any kind of spin serve?

I suggest following this sequence:
1. Check your serving grip, make it strong continental for serving
2. Using this grip, practice hitting sidespin serves - staying sideways, swinging diagonally towards the net post, making the ball go over to your left (if you are righty)
3. Get comfortable with sending the ball with spin, making it curve in the air, and gain control over the speed/spin ratio
4. Check your grip to be strong conti! Ensure you send the ball a bit to the left of where your torso faces, not opening too early!
5. Start adjusting your toss - to be more over your head than to the right; consequently, your swing becomes more up from below the ball (but still towards the side more than up and forward!); visualize the ball to go up and then curve left+down rather than forward ;)
6. If most your mistakes are long, but you get the curve and high net clearance, it’s very good just toss a bit more inside the court, but leave everything else same - stay sideways, swing to the side from below the ball, send the ball over your left shoulder

* hotfix tip if there’s not enough curve even with good toss: let the ball drop a bit more, do not stretch for max height (but I don’t include it to main block until I see how you try it, it’s relevant for some, not so much for the other)

PS here from 7:30 you can look at progression to develop spin serve from scratch - to get basic feel for ball-spinning swing and contact with conti grip, which is important on you journey towards solid kick serve
Click to expand...

Thanks very nice steps to work on for a while, I don't know what kind of spin serves I normally hit lol the ball gets loaded with spin unlike flat serve but the ball neither sidespins like a slice nor kicks so idk wtf that is. And not consistent enough getting in service box... I figured out kick serves just for one day once a long time ago but never have hit a serve that jumps to the side not even by accident no idea how thats possible.

But thanks to eah I just rediscovered how I hit kick serves that one time and have something consistent going. Super important to snap that forearm to impart spin and hit it down into the box and I guess its a pronation motion. Quite tricky to get a hang of...
 
Hit 'em clean said:
Lots of videos about swing path, toss, body position, etc are good, but putting it into practice is the trick. Knowledge is a key... but it doesn't necessarily open up the door unless you know how to apply it.

The two things I see people struggle with when learning... they go right to the base line, they swing too fast, hit too much with the ball (not brushing) and don't hit the ball high enough. They fall in to the trap of jumping into the deep end of the pool too soon and old service habits take over. Much like a flat groundstroker trying to learn topspin... just changing your swing path isn't enough. You have to brush the ball (hit less of it) and understand what creating spin feels like both when you swing the racquet and at contact. If you understand and learn the feel/sound... and see the trajectory... it all starts to quickly make sense to your brain.

Start at the service line and hit soft, high spinning topspin serves into the service box and try to see how high you can hit the ball over the net and still get it to drop in. You don't have to swing really fast, but it's important to learn how to get the spin, the height... and trust that the ball will come back down into the box. It's a feel exercise thing. If you're not getting the spin... you're hitting too much of the ball. If you hit a lot of spin and can't get it over the net... hit it higher. It's a balancing act of spin and heigh that you have to come to grips with.

Then hit some from no man's land... then progress to the baseline. The goal doesn't change as you move to the baseline. Hit softly with as much height and spin as an easy swing will allow.

Height over the net is critical starting out to creating the right arc. You don't need massive rhs to create huge arc... you do if you're hitting it 90+ mph, but you should be serving slowly with emphasis on spin and arc. At slower speeds it doesn't take as much spin to get kick action. Once you can get the arc and spin/action... then it's just a matter of applying the spin a little left to right (8 o'clock to 2 o'clock approx) and voila. Once you have confidence in applying the action you can start slowly ramping up the rhs and playing with the height and amount of contact with the ball.

If you ever start to lose your kick... go back to hitting with more arc and brushing the ball more (less fwd contact with the ball).
Click to expand...

Very true, gotta have the feel for how to apply it. I actually got something really good going today and it seems a delicate balance between hitting thru the ball and brushing. I still feel like im making powerful contact with the ball but also brushing. Its this special kind of forearm snap or pronation or something thats hard to understand that makes it go in consistently along with a lot of power & spin... Thanks for the tips tons of good info in there got a lot to work on
 
Aestheticsaboveallelse said:
The one shot in tennis I really struggle to figure out is the kick serve, and its the one I really need to prevent double faulting and get serve in very reliably. So in the meantime I don't care if its weak I just want some semblance of a kick serve thats easy to get in the service box very consistently before I learn the best way. And start getting a feel for the motion that produces a kick I guess. Any tips/tricks to easily get some kind of a kick serve going without being complicated? Flat serving is reasonably easy, groundstrokes on both sides are easy, volleys are straightforward, but kick serves are monstrously hard to produce for me...
Click to expand...
You’re trying to find a shortcut for the hardest to learn shot in tennis… there are no shortcuts.

That said two things may help you break thru:

1) if your toss isn’t getting to 12 O’clock or further behind your head you can’t hit the shot to begin with. If you’re making contact at your max reach, you can’t hit the shot

2) visualize the swing as a Forehand hit over your head. To the racket that’s all it is. It’s a simple function of plow thru, spin and angle at contact. Just like your forehand. You’re simply holding the racket in a way that lets you impart power and topspin over your head.
 
vex said:
You’re getting close if you’re thinking this way

eventually you’ll amp up both power and spin and you’ll adjust your angle at contract to lower your net clearance a bit and … boom now you’ve got a consistent TS second Serve with decent pace
Click to expand...

Nice great to hear that.

Whats interesting is there was actually one time that I mastered kick serves for just a day August 2020 when I was starting to try to self teach 2nd serves to myself. The same time before the 2nd serves I realized how to hit proper 1st serves. The only thing I knew was from a feeltennis article I'd just read saying something like 45 degree swing path then straight to the net and emphasized forearm turnover. I found the forearm turnover was key to hit very clean powerful 1st serves and completely transformed my serve into something good. Then I tried 2nd serves and eventually figured something out with a different kind of forearm turnover or maybe not even forearm turnover but snap motion that made me hit very kicky serves consistently.

However I think the stars aligned. First of all I had a mega tac overgrip that was giving me amazingly perfect control that I've never felt before amazing the huge difference it made I mean total control over my racquet on serves, unfortunately ever since then its very rare that mega tacs grip my hand so well like they did that day for some reason. Without that I doubt I would've figured out the correct feel for the serves so quickly in just one day of intense practice for a couple hours, I don't think it would've been possible. Secondly it wasn't cold it was warm which produces a livelier more responsive ball. Thirdly the racquet was strung with low tension 4G by wilson which apparently has a cartoonish spin effect if you can produce a great topspin contact on the ball. Especially the overgrip giving absolutely perfect control allowed me to discover the way to hit the ball as quickly as possible along with a little guidance by feeltennis article. It also made it easy for me to swing unusually fast at the ball.

The result? A medium pace (surprisingly slow for how fast I was swinging I guess a lot of pace is converted to spin) ball that had the coolest ball bounce effect I've ever seen in my life it was amazing. Like a kind of slow motion ball that somehow just explodes off the court quite high lmao
 
vex said:
You’re getting close if you’re thinking this way

eventually you’ll amp up both power and spin and you’ll adjust your angle at contract to lower your net clearance a bit and … boom now you’ve got a consistent TS second Serve with decent pace
Click to expand...

Got it down already very similar to how I had it in 2020 that day. Its sweet I see how I was doing it now.... have to make sure the racquet face opens some while swinging out to right.

Now the problem is I've noticed both occasions when im facing the sun I feel a lot more control power and ability to do it and very weak low control serving from other end of court. Guess its not the sun but the wind... facing the sun wind is assisting me and other end against me. Feel quite weak and kinda helpless against wind, shots very strong from other side with wind. I struggle to do kick technique against the wind, even though its only like 5+ mph its completely blowing toward me...
 
ubercat said:
Never play tennis in NZ then. The ball will go backwards.
Click to expand...

Actually it was the sun I just rationalized that it would be the wind cause how would the sun affect things... But today the wind is going the opposite way pushing toward me when I'm serving into the sun and I'm still serving with way more control and confidence into the sun than other side away from it. No idea how this phenomenon happens maybe the lighting is better and helps me hit the ball cleaner... Its ridiculous how much more control and power I feel serving toward the sun compared to how helpless I feel serving away from it.
 
Aestheticsaboveallelse said:
The one shot in tennis I really struggle to figure out is the kick serve, and its the one I really need to prevent double faulting and get serve in very reliably. So in the meantime I don't care if its weak I just want some semblance of a kick serve thats easy to get in the service box very consistently before I learn the best way. And start getting a feel for the motion that produces a kick I guess. Any tips/tricks to easily get some kind of a kick serve going without being complicated? Flat serving is reasonably easy, groundstrokes on both sides are easy, volleys are straightforward, but kick serves are monstrously hard to produce for me...
Click to expand...
It will be hard if the hand goes ahead of the head. On a kick the hand should not go in front of the body at least till you get it down.
If the kick serve was a football pass it would be the pass where the qb throws along the line of scrimmage and not down field
 
Shroud said:
It will be hard if the hand goes ahead of the head. On a kick the hand should not go in front of the body at least till you get it down.
If the kick serve was a football pass it would be the pass where the qb throws along the line of scrimmage and not down field
Click to expand...

Very interesting insight I wouldn't have thought about thank you
 
vex said:
You’re trying to find a shortcut for the hardest to learn shot in tennis… there are no shortcuts.

That said two things may help you break thru:

1) if your toss isn’t getting to 12 O’clock or further behind your head you can’t hit the shot to begin with. If you’re making contact at your max reach, you can’t hit the shot

2) visualize the swing as a Forehand hit over your head. To the racket that’s all it is. It’s a simple function of plow thru, spin and angle at contact. Just like your forehand. You’re simply holding the racket in a way that lets you impart power and topspin over your head.
Click to expand...

The overhead forehand idea is very useful it does feel like imparting topspin on forehand when I get it right, but even more impactful. The tricky part has been understanding what swing path angle and how to pronate but im getting it down now finally able to remember how to do it the next time I go out and serve
 
Injured Again said:
I can hit a fairly decent kick but it kills my 60 year old shoulder. To do it, I toss the same location and swing the same as I do for my normal topspin serve, only I try to not rotate into the serve at all, so that at contact my hitting shoulder is as directly behind my front shoulder as possible. Doing that changes the swing plane of the racquet to more parallel to the baseline rather than into the court.

I'm sure there are progressions that teach it better but this is how I was taught it at a macroscopic level, and if you can hit a decent topspin serve, this method will produce the spin axis necessary to kick the ball out to the side.
Click to expand...
I meant topspin serve I didn't know there's a difference thats what a kick serve is just a ball that kicks up with topspin
 
my coach was shocked when I asked them about my kick serve and said that for my level (low intermediate/high beginner) it was excellent. I've just did the 3 step progression drill from Intuitive Tennis/Nick's video (in addition to mainly practicing first serves/universal serve mechanics). Did the 3 steps this way

If ball lands in service box +1
If ball hits net or faults - 1
If ball appears to touch the line/close +0.5
if ball hits the net tape and lands in, no change, but -0.5 if lands out

Step 1 - with the choked up grip - practice until I've reached a score of 10 (taught me to hit more into the court/hitting down for depth)
Step 2 - without choked up grip, starting in trophy - practice until I've reached a score of 20
Step 3 - full service motion except for holding the torso rotation - practice until I've reached a score of 50
 
Niwrad0 said:
my coach was shocked when I asked them about my kick serve and said that for my level (low intermediate/high beginner) it was excellent. I've just did the 3 step progression drill from Intuitive Tennis/Nick's video (in addition to mainly practicing first serves/universal serve mechanics). Did the 3 steps this way

If ball lands in service box +1
If ball hits net or faults - 1
If ball appears to touch the line/close +0.5
if ball hits the net tape and lands in, no change, but -0.5 if lands out

Step 1 - with the choked up grip - practice until I've reached a score of 10 (taught me to hit more into the court/hitting down for depth)
Step 2 - without choked up grip, starting in trophy - practice until I've reached a score of 20
Step 3 - full service motion except for holding the torso rotation - practice until I've reached a score of 50
Click to expand...
Did you learn that you have to completely pronate your forearm rotating it left and finishing out to the right? So if you look at your arm after freezing the follow thru you're out to the right and your hand/arm is rotated left sideways? Cause I'm pretty sure thats the key that matters way more than anything else. It seems to be the same complete pronation as a first serve but out to the right instead of straight/left
 
Aestheticsaboveallelse said:
Did you learn that you have to completely pronate your forearm rotating it left and finishing out to the right? So if you look at your arm after freezing the follow thru you're out to the right and your hand/arm is rotated left sideways? Cause I'm pretty sure thats the key that matters way more than anything else. It seems to be the same complete pronation as a first serve but out to the right instead of straight/left
Click to expand...
yeah I end up hitting winners with my kick serve because most people try to step into the ball and end up hitting very late and hitting out very long, assuming I can get the kick serve in the service box. I tried pronating my forearm but it actually has been giving me a lot of frame hits, so I stopped doing it. On my follow through I think my hand ends up with palm facing the sky most of the time, so I'm probably hitting it for a slice, even when I know I tossed the ball to my left and hitting it for kick
 
Aestheticsaboveallelse said:
The one shot in tennis I really struggle to figure out is the kick serve, and its the one I really need to prevent double faulting and get serve in very reliably. So in the meantime I don't care if its weak I just want some semblance of a kick serve thats easy to get in the service box very consistently before I learn the best way. And start getting a feel for the motion that produces a kick I guess. Any tips/tricks to easily get some kind of a kick serve going without being complicated? Flat serving is reasonably easy, groundstrokes on both sides are easy, volleys are straightforward, but kick serves are monstrously hard to produce for me...
Click to expand...
You could start by developing a high-trajectory "lob" kick serve. For a pro kick serve, the upward kicking action is usually achieved by adding a sufficient topspin action to a topspin-slice serve. With an adequate topspin component, the ball drops quickly, prior to the bounce, so that it approaches the court at a steep angle. It is this steep angle with a moderate amount (or greater) of "falling" speed that will get the ball to kick up. (The pro kick serve will typically also incorporate a very generous amount of slice).

Another way to achieve this steep angle, with an adequate falling ball speed, is by hitting a higher arcing serve (with good net clearance). Even tho this "lob" kick serve will have less spin, esp topspin, than a pro kick serve, it will still bounce (kick) quite high.

The pro kick serve will probably require more precise timing than a lob kick serve because the racket brushes the ball fairly quickly to achieve greater spin.

Now if you are looking for the twist action (a L-to-R or R-to-L directional change) then you will need a very, very fast brushing action in order to generate enough spin that results in spiral spin. It is the presence of this fast-brush induced spiral spin that results in the L/R or R/L directional change at the bounce). Probably here is that many players do not have decent enough timing to hit this extremely fast brushing action w/o framing the ball.
 
SystemicAnomaly said:
You could start by developing a high-trajectory "lob" kick serve. For a pro kick serve, the upward kicking action is usually achieved by adding a sufficient topspin action to a topspin-slice serve. With an adequate topspin component, the ball drops quickly, prior to the bounce, so that it approaches the court at a steep angle. It is this steep angle with a moderate amount (or greater) of "falling" speed that will get the ball to kick up. (The pro kick serve will typically also incorporate a very generous amount of slice).

Another way to achieve this steep angle, with an adequate falling ball speed, is by hitting a higher arcing serve (with good net clearance). Even tho this "lob" kick serve will have less spin, esp topspin, than a pro kick serve, it will still bounce (kick) quite high.

The pro kick serve will probably require more precise timing than a lob kick serve because the racket brushes the ball fairly quickly to achieve greater spin.

Now if you are looking for the twist action (a L-to-R or R-to-L directional change) then you will need a very, very fast brushing action in order to generate enough spin that results in spiral spin. It is the presence of this fast-brush induced spiral spin that results in the L/R or R/L directional change at the bounce). Probably here is that many players do not have decent enough timing to hit this extremely fast brushing action w/o framing the ball.
Click to expand...
I'm just looking for the easiest way to apply good topspin to the ball to kick up pretty high, don't care about sidespin too advanced
 
Aestheticsaboveallelse said:
I'm just looking for the easiest way to apply good topspin to the ball to kick up pretty high, don't care about sidespin too advanced
Click to expand...
One way to get more topspin is to toss the ball a little bit higher. A higher toss is a relatively easy way to achieve more topspin. The trade-off is if you toss it super-high, it could be harder to time your upward swing.

Also then let the ball drop a bit lower than your usual contact point rather than reaching all up to the ball. By letting the ball drop a tad lower, you are forced to swing upward faster.

If you are R-handed, toss the ball so that it arcs back somewhat to your L shoulder. If your regular contact point is between 12 and 1 o'clock, your top spin toss should allow a contact between 11 and 12 o'clock.

From the images below we can see that the topspin contact is a little bit more to the left than the other contact points. However, these images do not make it easy to see that the contact point is a little bit lower for the topspin serve (since the topspin image is a bit higher and the camera angle might be a little bit different). But notice the R arm is angled a little bit more to the R for the TS serve. And the racket is angled a bit more to the L in this case. This should give you a somewhat lower contact point

ball-tosses-serves.jpg
 
SystemicAnomaly said:
One way to get more topspin is to toss the ball a little bit higher. A higher toss is a relatively easy way to achieve more topspin. The trade-off is if you toss it super-high, it could be harder to time your upward swing.

Also then let the ball drop a bit lower than your usual contact point rather than reaching all up to the ball. By letting the ball drop a tad lower, you are forced to swing upward faster.

If you are R-handed, toss the ball so that it arcs back somewhat to your L shoulder. If your regular contact point is between 12 and 1 o'clock, your top spin toss should allow a contact between 11 and 12 o'clock.
Click to expand...

Thanks thats good specific advice to keep in mind to be better but I think the big problem is how to pronate very tricky to figure out how to do the motion to hit a very clean ball and apply topspin
 
Aestheticsaboveallelse said:
Thanks thats good specific advice to keep in mind to be better but I think the big problem is how to pronate very tricky to figure out how to do the motion to hit a very clean ball and apply topspin
Click to expand...
To hit the TS serve, you would not actually pronate the forearm or internally rotate the shoulder as much or as fast, prior to contact, as you would for a flatter serve. A lot of the rotation of the hand (forearm and shoulder) happens after contact -- this is a result of the fast brush action that happens just before and during contact.

Your racket should be coming up from the drop "on edge" as it would for any serve. However, prior to contact, the racket face is only open slightly. Enuff to present the strings to the ball for a brush upward across it.

With a flatter serve, you would be coming up on edge but then shortly before contact you would quickly rotate your hand (forearm and shoulde) to high five the ball. This flat high-fiving action is not what happens on a TS serve.
 
SystemicAnomaly said:
To hit the TS serve, you would not actually pronate the forearm or internally rotate the shoulder as much or as fast, prior to contact, as you would for a flatter serve. A lot of the rotation of the hand (forearm and shoulder) happens after contact -- this is a result of the fast brush action that happens just before and during contact.

Your racket should be coming up from the drop "on edge" as it would for any serve. However, prior to contact, the racket face is only open slightly. Enuff to present the strings to the ball for a brush upward across it.

With a flatter serve, you would be coming up on edge but then shortly before contact you would quickly rotate your hand (forearm and shoulde) to high five the ball. This flat high-fiving action is not what happens on a TS serve.
Click to expand...
Really good precise analysis that makes sense based on the times I've hit these successfully. I remember doing that in past when I had it working edge toward ball then slightly open it, exactly that! I've been trying all kinds of things lately and never able to get it quite right consistently. Great to know that this is the correct theoretical technique
 
Aestheticsaboveallelse said:
Really good precise analysis that makes sense based on the times I've hit these successfully. I remember doing that in past when I had it working edge toward ball then slightly open it, exactly that! I've been trying all kinds of things lately and never able to get it quite right consistently. Great to know that this is the correct theoretical technique
Click to expand...
If you want something more than a lob kick serve but are not quite getting enough TS, you can go for a high arching (semi-lob) so that you are still getting a steep incident angle for the bounce. If you hit moderate topspin but do not get enough net clearance or arc, or your forward ball speed is too fast (relative to the TS), the ball will hit the court at a shallow angle and it will not kick up.
 
This is a good video.

I would stress the following:

- EBH grip (or very strong continental grip) with index finger extended and relaxed grip
- Very sideways stance with body closed
- Toss behind the head
- Big shoulder coil
- Up/away swing path - I like to visualize a big beach ball balanced on my head and I’m trying to comb the beachball with my racquet from back to front. So, it is mostly an up/out motion to get the kick spin, but there has to be enough of a forward component (comb the beachball back to forward) to generate some pace to trouble opponents.
- Swing hard as fast racquet head speed is needed to generate the topspin.
- Target the opposite side of the box compared to a slice - DTM on deuce and Wide on ad for righties, opposite for lefties.

Enjoy!
 
All good vids and tips but I'm yet to see someone like Jeff S or other online coaches give advice on how to adapt from the deuce court (if you're a rightie). You always see them demonstrate the topspin/kick from the ad court. It feels much more natural because you're kinda swinging towards your target, ie from left to right. From the deuce court it's the opposite, very counterintuitive. If anyone has tips on how to make it feel easier I'm all ears... I've already tried adjusting my body position to make it less closed, but hasn't worked consistently so far.
 
O
Mikael said:
All good vids and tips but I'm yet to see someone like Jeff S or other online coaches give advice on how to adapt from the deuce court (if you're a rightie). You always see them demonstrate the topspin/kick from the ad court. It feels much more natural because you're kinda swinging towards your target, ie from left to right. From the deuce court it's the opposite, very counterintuitive. If anyone has tips on how to make it feel easier I'm all ears... I've already tried adjusting my body position to make it less closed, but hasn't worked consistently so far.
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Opposite for me when I had kick serves down I learned it on deuce side much easier for me then struggled to learn on ad side but got it. Always better serving on deuce side any kind of serve
 
It depends what you mean by kick serve? Do you mean a topspin serve or the America twist serve? I can kind of do the former.

It is the one serve I can hit better than most people at my level, which would be 3.5 by American standards. Put it this way, someone moved in to return my second serve and the ball went passed him above his head, which suggests there must at least some topspin on the shot.

I basically tried to copy Dan Evans. He has a decent topspin serve and he produces it despite not being tall, which suggests he has good technique. Beyond that this is all self figured out, so it could be wrong.

I am a righty and start by tossing to my left. Then and this seems to the key, I drop my right shoulder and racket back as far as possible. I also arch my back and bend my legs, I kind of imagine I am bending to look up at the ceiling. I have discovered that if you think you have gone far enough with this, go further, otherwise you don't get the spin. At which point I throw my whole body up at the ball as hard as I possibly can.

It can go wrong, it sometimes lands short, say halfway up the box but when I time it right it lands near the baseline and really bounces. Quite often it doesn't come back, I have even aced people with that serve on occasions.
 
No matter what exact serve variation you want to use, it all starts from proper fundamental serving motion:
- use conti grop
- have consistent toss
- accelerate upward towards the ball using “throwing motion”
- let the racquet strike the ball with a degree of across motion - imparting at least some spin

If you can do it reliably and produce relatively consistent serves, here’s what you do for strong kick:
- toss more to the left, and possibly less inside the court (still not behind)
- coil more, show your back to the opponent
- let the ball drop a tad lower, don’t reach max up for it (but still stretch up with your body)
- get beneath the ball and swing even more upward, and “along the line” rather than “towards the net
- guide your stringbed so that it sends the ball somewhere over your left, if not behind the back (feel-wise), while your torso stays sideways until follow-through
- don’t tighten to accelerate into contact, but rather relax and let racquet head pivot through in a “release” type of motion - that’s the way to get max RHS (y)

But again, first get sure you own fundamentally sound “general” serve - decently paced top-slice/slice
 
4.0 club player with a "kick" serve that bounced high but did not bounce to his right. I call that a Top Spin Serve. The upward motion of the racket head is shown. This resembles a high level serve but with less ISR and the racket face closed tilt discussed below.

To single frame on Vimeo, hold down the SHIFT KEY and use the ARROW KEYS.


My partner had a deadly forehand and would attack weak serves and ground strokes. He had played against this player and said that he would not attack the serve but would just return it because of the bounce. I followed his advice and got it back. It was a stronger serve very good for the 4.0 level. I played USTA 4.0 doubles in 2014 and only ever saw one other serve* with more work on the ball than this guy's serve.

I could see the print on the ball and measured the spin. The ball rotated once every 4 frames at 240 fps. That is 240/4 = 60 RPS or 3600 RPM.

He said that an instructor taught him the serve, 'one summer'.

I did not see the ball bounce to the side but it bounced high. In my opinion, that was a Top Spin serve. Look at the bounces in the videos. The TS serve racket face is not closed and impacts the back spot of the ball, neither high or low.

The kick serve would have a racket face that is closed at first touch, say, by about 12-15 degrees, and first touch would be on the top half of the ball. I have observed that a small number of times and posted threads on it, with evidence including from an internet instructor, Topspin Tennis.

See thread Junior Twist Serve and others. The Kick & TS serves look identical from the behind camera view. Use only the side camera view.

I believe we won the first set and lost. My partner's advice helped me a lot, otherwise it would have been difficult to decide what to do because I did not see many serves like that in the 4.0 USTA.

I think that you have to have a model kick serve, clearly seen in videos, otherwise what your goal is is not very clear.

( * The stronger high bouncing serve player in my 4.0 USTA doubles - I asked to video to study his racket face angle. It turned out that his balls also did not bounce to the right (as for a kick serve) and his racket face was not tilted closed. We looked at about 70 serves.)

To hit the ball over my head, I gave up looking at the ball through impact. Not looking at the ball was not too hard to do. My 'kick serve' is too low paced but gets mistakes from returners.

A few years ago, there was an older guy that taught serves on internet videos for years. He was on Bing for some reason? One night at indoor winter tennis, I attempted his kick serving technique - he did not move forward very much and was too upright on his serve at impact. It was great and I got lots of mistakes from my regular block time group that night. Then I lost what I had that one night and did not return to it. ? If you can find that guy's kick serve videos, it might be what you are after. I believe that I posted on that guy and his videos, probably before 2015.

Jeff Cooper was the kick serve instructor. Will search.

Kick serve

So I've been working on mine and now my lower back hurts. How do I do a kick serve so that my back doesn't hurt?
tt.tennis-warehouse.com tt.tennis-warehouse.com
 
Last edited:
zaph said:
It depends what you mean by kick serve? Do you mean a topspin serve or the America twist serve? I can kind of do the former.
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Discovered something interesting last year about the American Twist serve. According to coach Nikola A, the old American Twist was not really a kick serve. This was a serve that was developed in the late 19th century and became quite popular in the early 20th century. It had a different swingpath than the modern kick serve

It had a very distinctive twisting action -- that is, it significantly changed direction at the bounce. From a right-handed server's perspective, the ball would curve to the L prior to the bounce but then it would bounce to the R (instead of continuing its path to the L). However, it had relatively mild topspin. Not adequate TS to get the ball to approach the court at a steep enuff angle to get the ball kick Up very much

Contrast this with a modern Twist kick serve. This serve will change direction on the bounce, just like the American Twist, but it has a significantly greater topspin component -- enuff TS to get the ball to kick Up as well as to the R (for a R-handed server). This means that American Twist serve and Twist kick serve are not actually the same thing.

Take a look at Nikola's video after the 1:30 mark:

 
@zaph

The old American Twist serve had a relatively low trajectory. That is the other reason its bounce approach angle was not steep enuff to get the ball to kick Upward. The modern Twist kick serve has a higher trajectory than the old AT serve. This, combined with a greater TS component will get the ball to kick up much higher than the old AT serve.
 
SystemicAnomaly said:
If you want something more than a lob kick serve but are not quite getting enough TS, you can go for a high arching (semi-lob) so that you are still getting a steep incident angle for the bounce. If you hit moderate topspin but do not get enough net clearance or arc, or your forward ball speed is too fast (relative to the TS), the ball will hit the court at a shallow angle and it will not kick up.
Click to expand...
Rediscovering what I had going in 2020 for great kick effect via mystery of the snap vid on YT by the 2 guys who really know their stuff. They say snap sideways! Thats so counterintuitive but I find its the only way to reliably get a jumpy topspin loaded ball. Everything revolves around getting that right. Its amazing once you master the feel of that you can swing as hard as you want and goes in super consistently with a lot of jumpy topspin. So awkward to figure out the right way to do a sideways snap though
 
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