body rotation on 2nd serve

[buttman]

I can hit my topspin serve in about 90% of the time (ball basket, no pressure) when I keep my chest facing the sideline. The ball gets more spin but less pace. My coach has encouraging me to use more body rotation on the 2nd serve (similar to a flat first serve), but to remember to hit upwards, to get more penetration on it and get the best of both worlds. My serve percentage is much lower this way and I'm not sure if it will go up with practice. When it really effects me is when i get nervous during matches and start thinking about it. I've been practicing this for about 3 months.

So, my question is - do you guys think I should keep working on developing my 2nd serve w/ more body rotation or nah?

I know it's hard to answer this question w/o seeing my serve, but if it helps - with body rotation I can hit the fence directly, but w/ no body rotation it takes an extra bounce lol.

 

[Dragy]

What’s your level of play?
Is your 2nd serve using topspin, or mostly slice?
Do you have a video of your serve? Much easier to help with video.

 

[buttman]

What’s your level of play?
Is your 2nd serve using topspin, or mostly slice?
Do you have a video of your serve? Much easier to help with video.

1) lower end usta 4.0
2) topspin (but the ball doesn't bounce left or right, just straight)
3) can i dm u video (i like to be anon). i'll record the 2 types of serves im talking about sometime this week.

 

[Dragy]

3) can i dm u video (i like to be anon). i'll record the 2 types of serves im talking about sometime this week.

Sure, will be happy to give feedback.

 

[ballmachineguy]

Coach sounds like he doesn’t know what he is talking about.
Random amounts of body rotation. Great for all tennis strokes!

 

[PKorda]

Seems to make sense, if you're not getting kick, need a bit more power so not serving up meatballs, based on description seems like he's encouraging more of a top slice serve. If hit effectively this should be a more consistent serve, just need to not rotate on the serve to the backhand on the ad side.

 

[J011yroger]

Turn towards the back fence more before you swing and relax the front of your shoulder to add pace to a second serve.

If you turn into the court before contact you will introduce more slice.

J

 

[badmice2]

I can hit my topspin serve in about 90% of the time (ball basket, no pressure) when I keep my chest facing the sideline. The ball gets more spin but less pace. My coach has encouraging me to use more body rotation on the 2nd serve (similar to a flat first serve), but to remember to hit upwards, to get more penetration on it and get the best of both worlds. My serve percentage is much lower this way and I'm not sure if it will go up with practice. When it really effects me is when i get nervous during matches and start thinking about it. I've been practicing this for about 3 months.

So, my question is - do you guys think I should keep working on developing my 2nd serve w/ more body rotation or nah?

I know it's hard to answer this question w/o seeing my serve, but if it helps - with body rotation I can hit the fence directly, but w/ no body rotation it takes an extra bounce lol.

Alternative is to change your toss to be slightly more forward, which leads to you leaning more ie momentum creating rotation by toss alteration.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

1) lower end usta 4.0
2) topspin (but the ball doesn't bounce left or right, just straight)
3) can i dm u video (i like to be anon). i'll record the 2 types of serves im talking about sometime this week.

Is your topspin serve really a topspin-slice? If not, it might be useful to make it so. And to get a decent twist / side bounce, you need a good deal of RHS. Have you heard the very fast brush sound that some servers get? That is what you need to get a dramatic twist bounce to the side.

 

[ppma]

If what you need is more penetration, it's not about body rotation, but instead about sending a little more forward momentum to the ball. How do you do this? you keep the same swing motion (stopping rotation to swing pararlel to the baseline) but tossing a little more inside the court, and len your body there as well.

Over rotating when tossing at 12 is not going to bring anything good. If anything, some lateral slice, but that's not the optimal hitting spot to slice (it'd be a topslice shot as the poster above says, but those have counteracting effects that to a high extent cancel each other).

 

[TennisCJC]

The best servers in the world have their shoulders less than square to the net at contact. Federer had his shoulders not quite facing the net on his 1st serve at contact and slightly more to the side on his 2nd serve at contact. That's fairly common to not be fully square and it's mechanically sound.

For a 2nd serve, you should be swinging up and over the side fence. Turn the shoulders a bit more during the load and swing up and over the side fence. You do rotate the shoulders into contact so getting more turn in the load will help as it gives you a little runaway to rotate and keep the swing path to the side.

 

[TennisCJC]

Found a good comparison of Federer's 1st and 2nd serve. It's a back view and you can see the difference in shoulder angle, contact location and swing path. Good commentary too.