During your toss and serve, do you watch the ball? For how long?

[dwhiteside]

Quick and simple question - when you toss the ball and then serve, do you keep your head up, and look at the ball throughout your toss, continuing all the way through the hit?

If you do, till how long? All the way till contact? Just for the toss, not for the swing? Do you throw it, then just look at where you're serving it to, and let your kinesthetic memory do the rest? Do you see your racquet actually hit the ball?

What's considered proper technique and what's considered personal preference?

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

I keep my head up & attempt to watch the ball from my release until racket contact on my serve. However, when my racket moves upward to contact the ball, it is moving so fast that I do not believe that I've ever really "seen" the racket contact the ball. My head does move forward a bit (& out of the way) some time after the toss so that my serving shoulder can come forward & upward to put my serving arm in the proper position for contacting the ball.

Even tho' the head moves a bit during the service motion, I try to keep my eyes fixated on the ball and expected contact point until contact. I do not pull my head down prior to contact to look at my intended target area as my racket is about to make contact. That action would tend to throw off the swing path of my racket. At that point, it is probably too late to consciously alter your swing while you are looking at the target area or your opponent.

Instead, I prefer to visualize my service placement prior to commencing the service action. With this visualization and the visual sighting of my toss, I let my "kinesthetic memory" subconsciously figure out how to achieve the desired serve.

If you study Federer's serve, his eyes and head do pretty much the same thing that I described for my serve. On the other hand Roddick, pulls his head down earlier and, in doing so, takes his eyes off the ball a bit before contact. However, I do not believe that he does this in order to look at the target area or the receiver. It appears that he does this because it enhances his upper body snap forward for the contact that is very evident for his service motion. I believe that this may be too difficult for most people to accomplish reliably (w/o a detrimental effect on swing path). Most players would probably be better off trying to emulate Fed rather than Roddick in this respect.

 

[anchorage]

I agree with the above. I actually try to keep my eyes on the ball throughout and I keep looking at the contact point for a split second after I've hit the ball. I do this to maintain height in the serve.

However, if you look at the pros, a lot do not look at the ball at contact. However, what is also striking is how their point of rotation is stable, i.e., there's no dipping or anything like that.

 

[NamRanger]

I keep my head up & attempt to watch the ball from my release until racket contact on my serve. However, when my racket moves upward to contact the ball, it is moving so fast that I do not believe that I've ever really "seen" the racket contact the ball. My head does move forward a bit (& out of the way) some time after the toss so that my serving shoulder can come forward & upward to put my serving arm in the proper position for contacting the ball.

Even tho' the head moves a bit during the service motion, I try to keep my eyes fixated on the ball and expected contact point until contact. I do not pull my head down prior to contact to look at my intended target area as my racket is about to make contact. That action would tend to throw off the swing path of my racket. At that point, it is probably too late to consciously alter your swing while you are looking at the target area or your opponent.

Instead, I prefer to visualize my service placement prior to commencing the service action. With this visualization and the visual sighting of my toss, I let my "kinesthetic memory" subconsciously figure out how to achieve the desired serve.

If you study Federer's serve, his eyes and head do pretty much the same thing that I described for my serve. On the other hand Roddick, pulls his head down earlier and, in doing so, takes his eyes off the ball a bit before contact. However, I do not believe that he does this in order to look at the target area or the receiver. It appears that he does this because it enhances his upper body snap forward for the contact that is very evident for his service motion. I believe that this may be too difficult for most people to accomplish reliably (w/o a detrimental effect on swing path). Most players would probably be better off trying to emulate Fed rather than Roddick in this respect.

To summarize this into a few words, you should keep your head up and keep your eye on the ball for as long as possible when serving.

 

[LuckyR]

I am looking near the ball but not exactly on the ball until a microsecond after I release the ball from my tossing hand. I then lock on until after the ball is gone (from being served).

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Take a look at Federer's head & eyes in the following link. Take a close look at Fed's eyes at about the 0:22 mark. Even tho' his head has moved & started to rotate out of the way, close inspection reveals that the pupil/iris of both of his eyes are still trained on the contact zone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjyu2nTI_XI

.

 

[toughshot]

I do look up at the ball.

But i do not FOCUS intensely on it, instead of visualize what/where/how i want to hit the ball.

Most developed players can serve with their eyes closed

 

[RestockingTues]

I don't look at the ball when I serve, I just try to keep my head pointed at the sky.

 

[BillH]

The serve is a "stroke" just as the forehand and backhand and I've found my shots are much better when I try to keep my eyes on the contact zone. I realize that I probably never actually see the strings hit the ball but a still head is good just like in golf or baseball.