Beginner serve practice video

[scottf2]

Hi all,
I'm a little hesitant to post this video of me practicing my serve, since I rarely see videos from real beginners on here (the people whose posts are titled something like "My serve is terrible" are WAY better than me!) But... I can use all the help I can get, so here's a short video of me practicing a few serves.

My story:
I'm 41, with a lifelong aversion to "ball sports". When my girlfriend decided she wanted to get back into tennis (having played a lot in high school) I thought it sounded like fun, and so I first picked up a racket some time in October, took a series of lessons, bought a ball machine and was using it 6-7 times/week for 1-2 hours a session, until I sprained my ankle badly when I stepped on an errant ball during a clinic, was off the court for a month recovering from a torn ligament, and got back into it with a vengeance earlier this year. Lately I've been getting out 4-5 times per week for practice with the ball machine, some mixed doubles with my girlfriend, a very occasional singles match and a weekly clinic or two, with an occasional private lesson along the way.

I just signed up for a flex league, playing singles, and I've got three matches this weekend. I've mostly been working on my groundstrokes and volleys (such as they are) but after participating in my first tournament last weekend, and getting trounced by a guy who had very nice serves, I realized I needed to get to work on my serve ASAP. So I've been hitting a few baskets worth of balls daily for the last few days, and plan to continue to practice my serve at least 2-3x per week. I'm taking a "serving lesson" next week, but figured it would be interesting to see what people on here have to say as well.

I'm already aware that one of my many issues is my racket drop - I don't get it back very smoothly or deeply... so that's one thing (among very many) I'm working on. Any suggestions for improvement are welcome.

Thanks!

Scott

 

[Govnor]

My first piece of advice for you is DO NOT OVER DO IT. Hitting buckets of serves will ruin your shoulder/elbow. You are not 17 years old. The serve you are showing here is not bad at all for a 3.0, naturally there are quite a few things to work on, but my guess is you probably can see some of them yourself just by watching the vid.

I'm no coach, but the most basic things I see are:

- Ball toss is inconsistent.
- Varied knee bend. You need to get that consistent.
- It appears that you are hitting very flat, what grip are you using?
- not enough shoulder rotation
- not enough forward movement (overall)
- not enough follow through (kinda looks like you're half swinging)

Your coach should be able to get you on the right track though.

 

[scottf2]

Thanks Govnor,
Those are all good tips, including the admonition to practice moderation. I have a hard time with that one! I am being careful to warm up thoroughly, and doing "preventative maintenance" on my shoulder (ie: rotator cuff exercises) -but still, it would be silly to injure myself by "over practicing"!

The other tips are all well taken. The thing I'm struggling with most right now is that when I try to "do it right" with a proper knee bend and a full elbow drop & swing, I almost always hit the ball out - often WAY out (ie: baseline area). When I generate lots of power, I have a hard time with control... which makes sense, I guess.

I'm not sure if I should just focus on one element in an attempt to simplify and progress stage-wise - ie: forget about my legs and just take a full swing without any knee bend, and then gradually add in the legs. Or if I should just keep doing it all together and hopefully slowly make progress towards greater control.

Any advice in that regard?

Thanks again,
Scott

 

[boramiNYC]

not too bad at all. slowly practice with conti grip and pronation. currently yours seem close to E fh and almost a pancake serve.

 

[scottf2]

Thanks - I thought I was using a continental grip, but will double check. I think maybe I start out with that grip and unconsciously shift to something else as I start the motion...

 

[samarai]

Serve

Things to work on. continental grip. consistent toss. stay sideways and just learn to hit topspin serves. Everything else will come with time and practice. Took me close to 3 years before I became comfortable and had confidence in the serve cause like u didnt start playing until 40. It just takes longer to get into the groove if u start later in life.

 

[LeeD]

LOWER hitting hand, so it's below the top of your head.
TILT the right shoulder down, the left shoulder up, and ARCH the bow, throwing your left hip forwards.
Look at serving vids of any pro.

 

[user92626]

OP,

Do you feel you hit the ball as if your arm "high fives" somebody? If so, that's not a sound swing path. A sound, less injurous swing path is where you extend with your elbow and karate chop with your hand. That's a mechanically sound motion for the shoulder and arm and wrist.

 

[Nellie]

A couple of things that really jump out at me:

1) you may be using a continental grip, but you are using a bad swing motion in which you are hitting a flat serve by trying to high five the ball (using User92626's good observation). Try not to think of hitting the ball. Instead, focus on brushing the side of the ball for spin. I like to imagine the racquet is a knife and I am cutting the peel off an orange/apple. You want to hear a swish sound (and not a "pop") at contact

2) start and stay sideways during the stroke for now.

3) Related to point 2, you want to swing up at the ball so that you are brushing the ball up and sideways, for better service accuracy. Keep your left arm up and swing up at and through the ball.

I recommend this video, by Dave Smith (who posts here occasionally), that describes how to build a good technical foundation. The portion of the serve starts at 4:30.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwRNVeN1TPI

 

[fruitytennis1]

In the video you are not using continental--so yes, it's likely you're subconsciously switching.
At the moment, knee bend isn't providing any power
I think you have a somewhat misunderstanding on the concept of serving; don't throw the racket forward, throw it up

 

[LeeD]

Well, start throwing it upwards, but at contact, that up revolves around your pivoting shoulder and becomes a forward.

 

[ATP100]

I'm not sure if I should just focus on one element in an attempt to simplify and progress stage-wise.

This is exactly how to get the "most" out of yourself learning tennis, but it does take time
and mental toughness.

 

[Chas Tennis]

Here is a video of the serve. The racket head speed comes mostly from internal shoulder rotation as best seen by the very rapid rotation (0.03 sec) of the bones of the elbow (after the arm is straight).

https://vimeo.com/27528701

It is not possible to see this motion in your video. It requires high speed video with a fast enough shutter to reduce motion blur so that the racket and arm can be clearly seen approaching the ball.

You might do better with 60 fps video if you view from directly behind - in the direction of the ball's trajectory - and video on a bright sunny day - so that the camera might select a fast shutter speed. The background should be smooth so the ball, arm, and racket can best be seen.

I've posted more details many times on the subjects above.

 

[charliefedererer]

I love you start your video with a warm up "shadow" swing without tossing the ball.

This shows you are ready to add in the "secret weapon" of coiling/uncoiling your body into your swing with your easy swing motion.

Jim McMillan shows that easy motion in this video:
Tossing the Ball into the Service Swing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzbonL75Jsk&feature=player_embedded

This video shows how you should be rotating back from the ball (coiling) as you bring your tossing arm up, get into a trophy position, let the racquet fall as you swing your body (uncoil), and finally bring the racquet up rapidly - all in one continuous seemless motion.
McCraw explaining a serve pronation exercise http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iONY6fcqZGg

Practice adding the coiling/uncoiling motion into your current motion so you can get some "easy power" from your body into your swing.





The other tip would be to leave your tossing arm straight up longer.

This forces you to assume more of a "bow shape" as seen from the side.

This will allow you to hit more "up the mountain" on your serve.
"Up the Mountain" excerpt form Serve Doctor presents: M.P.H. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlPVdppfYGs

You don't have to be a "jumping fool" like in the above video, but your energy really should be directed up - with the racquet just naturally flipping just enough forward at contact to direct the ball into the court.

If you don't keep your tossing arm up, you won't have the great shoulder over shoulder action that marks good serves:

Notice the tossing shoulder up high in pic 3 as a result keeping the tossing arm up, and how the tossing shoulder ends up low with the hitting shoulder high in pic 7 at contact.


You've done great so far!

Keep it up!

 

[tennis_balla]

Your contact is too low. That would be the first thing I'd change and then go from there.

 

[scottf2]

Thanks so much for all the helpful advice. I'm working on assimilating it while trying to only focus on one or two things. I had flex league match today (which I won- my first win ever!) and my serve was already much improved due to a few of the things I've learned from this thread. The thing that's probably helped the most so far is the video that someone linked to that discussed relaxing the grip - I consciously did that before each serve and it helped me to stay loose and relaxed and as a result I hit far fewer balls long.

I've got my lesson tomorrow so I'll take some more video soon and post my progress in a few weeks. Thanks again!

Scott

 

[scottf2]

video update

Took some more video of todays practice session. After incorporating what I learned from my lesson earlier this week, along with some things I picked up from the advice and videos mentioned in this thread, things started feeling a lot better. Still so many things to work on, but I was focusing on two things: 1) trying to stay relaxed and lose 2) staying more sideways to the net at contact.

I didn't fully accomplish either of those things, but I think I'm moving in the right direction. Towards the end of the session today I was getting many more serves in and they were moving faster and with more spin.

For now I'm trying to minimize the usage of my legs - getting a slight knee bend, but for the most part trying to simplify things by keeping my legs out of the picture while I focus on other elements.

After reviewing the footage I think I still need to get my contact point a bit higher, among other things to work on...

As always, thoughts, comments, suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks!

Scott

 

[Govnor]

contact point for sure. You seem to be letting the ball come down too far to you. You have to "go up and get it"!

 

[Nellie]

If you stop before contact, at about 21-22 seconds in the video, you see that your have already opened your chest to the ball and are swinging using a high-five motion. This means that you will have a flat serve with a very low margin for error and little room for improvement. In the video, you do have a low contact point, meaning that you softly push the ball over the net, but changing that contact point higher with the current motion will allow you to hit harder, but with the same, low percentage serve.

So, for better results you should learn to serve staying sideways (until contact) by swinging the edge of the racket toward the ball. At contact, your racquet face is pointing almost 90 degrees from the service box and you should be brushing up that side of the ball. I like to visualize the racquet as a knife and I am peeling the skin off the ball with the sharp edge (not slapping the ball with the side of the knife).

For beginners, it is often hard to visualize how you can hit in one direction while the racqet is moving in another direction, so bounce a ball straight up and down, and then try to make the ball spin while you are still bouncing it. You will notice that although the ball is going up and down, the racquet is mostly moving side to side.

The reason you want to start with a slower spinning serve is that it will be high percentage and that once you are comfortable, you can properly flatten out the serve using the same motion using a wrist/forearm rotation. With your current motion, there is no way you can add spin to improve your serve percentage.

 

[charliefedererer]

2 biggest problems:

1. racquet drop occuring in the middle of your back, not way over to your right side. (You can't effectively pronate from this position).

2. Not tossing high enough and dropping your tossing arm too early.


The serve should "flow" as an easy motion involving your whole body.

Your swing is now quite abbreviated without a big enough shoulder coil/uncoil.
Swinging your shoulders back to uncoil is what "drives" the racquet more to the right so you can have the maximal racquet drop in the right place.


Practice your whole swing motion without a ball.

Get the feeling down of rotating your shoulders away from the court as your arm goes up, and then rotating back towards the court to get your racquet drop way over to your right side.

Do it over and over and over again to get the feeling.

Only then add the ball toss in.

See post #14 above to get those shoulders swinging back and forth, and to get your racquet drop way over to your right side.


You can separately practice McCraw's pronation exercise to feel like it is supposed to feel when you pronate out of a racquet drop from your right side.