CRITICIZE MY KICK SERVE ATTEMPT

[Daniel Andrade]

Please give me tips on how to improve my kick serve. Thanks.

 

[jz000]

Work on the topspin/slice first.
Let go of the arm more, your body is way off balance on landing.
More like pronate the wrist, the finish of the racket is up top. Unlike all the other serves.

 

[Dragy]

Please give me tips on how to improve my kick serve. Thanks.

For deuce side as a lefty, serving wide - you are overrotating and hence manufacturing hand path quite a bit. Instead of having it swing more natural.

Try to kind of send the ball over your right shoulder when hitting kick serve, making contact before racquet opens to the left - and then continuing follow-through up and out. You may benefit from practicing without jump and making sure you stay sideways. And when you add jump back, keep that in mind: ball doesn’t go forward from your perspective, you cut is to go over your right shoulder.

PS: you may even feel that you still lead with the handle as you make contact, with stringbed just coming from trailing behind.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

As a lefty, with a decent amt of lefty spin, I found that a good slice or topspin-slice was more effective against most right-handed servers than a kick serve that bounced in the opposite direction

 

[Daniel Andrade]

For deuce side as a lefty, serving wide - you are overrotating and hence manufacturing hand path quite a bit. Instead of having it swing more natural.

Try to kind of send the ball over your right shoulder when hitting kick serve, making contact before racquet opens to the left - and then continuing follow-through up and out. You may benefit from practicing without jump and making sure you stay sideways. And when you add jump back, keep that in mind: ball doesn’t go forward from your perspective, you cut is to go over your right shoulder.

PS: you may even feel that you still lead with the handle as you make contact, with stringbed just coming from trailing behind.

I should have said that the video is mirrored, lmao

Thanks for the input

 

[Daniel Andrade]

I should have said that the video is mirrored, lmao

Thanks for the input

@SystemicAnomaly

 

[Dragy]

I should have said that the video is mirrored, lmao

Thanks for the input

Well, ad court righty serve, over the left shoulder - everything else stays

 

[eah123]

I don’t think it’s possible to give any constructive advice based on this camera angle. Also, it would be better to provide a recording at normal speed that can be slowed down rather than vice versa. A common issue with kick serves is not using enough racquethead speed, and you can’t tell if this is the case from a slowed video.

 

[kevin qmto]

Well it’s hard to do much criticism if we can’t see the ball travel to even know if it landed in the box or anywhere near it.

 

[Curious]

Well it’s hard to do much criticism if we can’t see the ball travel to even know if it landed in the box or anywhere near it.

But what about the serve motion itself?

 

[Daniel Andrade]

But what about the serve motion itself?

What about it?

 

[Curious]

What about it?

I meant to say even with this camera angle you can comment on the serve motion, which imo looks very good.

 

[kevin qmto]

Looks fine.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

What about it?

Exaggerated windup. Arm & racket are a bit too busy for my liking. Both arms & racket first move upward (unnecessary) before dropping down and then a large pendulum motion is performed before finally getting to the trophy phase.

Not easy to tell from this video but it looks to me that the elbow does not end up in the proper position, relative to the shoulder line (shoulder tilt). It appears to be quite a bit lower than the shoulder line. Optical illusion? It Might also be pulled back somewhat further than the shoulder line. Not sure.

I’d suggest a simpler windup so that you can focus on more important elements of the serve. You might try a half-serve motion, for a while, starting with your right arm & racket at a palm-down “salute” position. Easier to get your R elbow in the proper position relative to your shoulder line.

Or you might try an abbreviated rhythm similar to Jeff Salzenstein, Felix A-A, Carlos Alcaraz or Fritz Taylor.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

What about it?

There are other elements I see that are even more important than what mentioned in post #14.

Your appear to leave your tossing arm up a tad longer than you should. You should start to pull it down once you’ve started your racket head drop. It should probably be tucked into your body a little bit earlier in your upward swing than we see here.

As mentioned before, you are falling in the wrong direction (quite a lot). You should drive Upward and a bit forward. You should be falling forward, toward the net, rather than away from the camera.

You back leg kicks too much toward the camera. Because you are tilted away from the camera, in an effort to hit a kick serve, the R leg kicking toward the camera causes you to fall (too much) away from the camera.

On a good kick serve, you will often see elite servers with a mild rear leg kick to the side at first. But, for the most part, that leg should end up kicking more toward the back fence to enable the body to launch forward as well as upward. However, that forward component will not be as great as it would for other types of serves

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

In the images below, the Topspin serve image is pretty much the Kick serve. Note that the contact is forward of the BL but not as far forward as for the Flat and Slice serves. Note also that the body is facing the camera a bit more for the Topspin / Kick. At contact, it faces the net somewhat more for the Flat & Slice.

 

[Daniel Andrade]

I don’t think it’s possible to give any constructive advice based on this camera angle. Also, it would be better to provide a recording at normal speed that can be slowed down rather than vice versa. A common issue with kick serves is not using enough racquethead speed, and you can’t tell if this is the case from a slowed video.

I tried my best with the little resources I have