Flat serve and Kick serve critique

[Orangejumper]

Hi there

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsHoUMIvEM0

shows my flat serve (1st) and my kick serve (2nd).
Am pretty ok with my flat serve but my kick serve seems to have 2 major faults. Would be grateful for any constructive criticisms. Thanks

1)The Kick serve is unreliable and at the moment it is therefore not a great second serve. Either i brush too much or Hit up too much. Should i just slow the pace down?

2)It doesnt kick, ok it moves, but the ball dont seem to kick, the balls used in the above are old but still.......

3)Not a fault but a question. Where should i be aiming to hit the kick serve, on the deuce court i aim for the T and on the ad for the trams....

 

[vincent_tennis]

Foot Fault!!!!!

 

[Moz]

Hi there

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsHoUMIvEM0

shows my flat serve (1st) and my kick serve (2nd).
Am pretty ok with my flat serve but my kick serve seems to have 2 major faults. Would be grateful for any constructive criticisms. Thanks

1)The Kick serve is unreliable and at the moment it is therefore not a great second serve. Either i brush too much or Hit up too much. Should i just slow the pace down?

2)It doesnt kick, ok it moves, but the ball dont seem to kick, the balls used in the above are old but still.......

3)Not a fault but a question. Where should i be aiming to hit the kick serve, on the deuce court i aim for the T and on the ad for the trams....

Wow, you've got your own oompa loompa to help you!

I'm not an expert but on your kick serve you seem to get a knee bend but then straighten up and almost strike the ball on the way down with straight legs. You may want to slow down your action a bit and concentrate on driving up through the ball so the striking of the ball is at the culmination of the drive up from your knee bend. This may help your racquet carve the ball more.

Also, for video purposes it would help if you served as you would in a match - you seem to be rushing all of these. They look like afterthoughts.

Regarding no.3. In short you should be serving the kick serve wherever it will hurt your opponents the most. Typically the locations you mentioned are correct as for most people it is kicking away on their backhands. However you need to be able to place it in the opposite corner - particularly against lefties and people who may struggle with a ball kicking into them on the forehand side.

 

[anchorage]

Yes, they are massive foot faults. That aside, you get hardly any meaningful racket drop. To hit the big spin and kick serves, you must get a good racket drop to generate head speed and across-the-ball action.

So, basically, from the trophy pose, I drop the racket with the forearm keeping the elbow high. (Don't be lazy and just drop the racket with the hand.) My forearm and racket are then basically pointing straight down to the ground. From that position, I'm naturally hitting up into the ball with lots of pent up racket head speed. That will give you all the spin and power you need.

 

[ericsson]

The kick serve is the most difficult serve IMO, i found your toss not so bad but your shoulders should turn more and most of all i dont see much pronation from your wrist, once you start brushing the ball try at the end to really turn your wrist cos that gives the wicked spin on the ball.

 

[LuckyR]

Because of how dramatic your FFs are, you are going to have to revamp your motion. Some folks with small FFs can just line up back a few inches to compensate, you're not in that group.

Since you are going to revamp your motion anyway, why not work on your motion to get more racquet head speed? You will get lots more pace on your flatter serve (which wasn't all that flat) and more spin on you kick serve (which wasn't all that spinny). As mentioned you are currently not dropping your racquet head since your toss is so low that you have to abbreviate your motion to still hit the ball. While we are on the topic of toss, I would recommend tossing a bit more to your right for the flatter serve and more to your left for your kick serve.

 

[Nellie]

There are some funny foot faults - 2-3 feet on the first serves - worst I have seen in a long time!

About the kick serve, you balls don't kick because you are not hitting up at them. You need to let the ball drop somesome so you can get up the over the ball. It is like any top spin grounds stroke, you need to go from under the ball to over the ball to create the spin.

It looks to me that on your kick serve, you are merely tossing behind/shorter, but then shortening your arm. You need to hit up hard at the back of ball.

I also feel that you are turning your shoulders too soon. I find that the kick works better when you are still sideways so that you can hit up at the ball.

Regarding the aiming of the shot, as a righty, I find it much easier to hit kick serves to my right (opponent's back hand) because hitting it to the left requires me to hit under a ball that out in front of my body.

 

[MTXR]

First thing is fix your foot faults... your serves will not count at all if you continue to do that. There is a player sometimes I drill with that has a major problem with foot faults with his back foot. Its utterly ridiculous because when you call them out they get mad.

 

[lkdog]

Are you using an Eastern forehand grip?
Make sure you are using a Continental.

Looks like you are not really getting a racket drop and pronating.

 

[Orangejumper]

Thanks all. I know the foot faults are bad and will work on it.

It seems raquet drop needs to play a major part and its not something am doing.
Anchorage youre description from the trophy pose is something that i will work on.
It does tho seem like an un natural motion and only when my confidence is high does it really start to work.
BTW the grip i use for both is the same , hammer.

 

[volusiano]

IMHO, you need to:

1) First of all, slow down. Don't rush and slam one serve right after another. Be deliberate and focus on each serve. Otherwise you're only rushing through the motion just to start the next serve, which is not the purpose.

2) Fix your motion to avoid the foot fault (you already know that). Just don't toss the ball too far in that will make you step forward with your left foot to compensate, causing the foot fault. Just toss the ball not as far in and stand still in one place. Stick with the platform stance to avoid foot movement. It looks like you're already using the platform stand anyway.

3) Change your grip to continental. Don't use the hammer grip. This will probably feel weird at first because your racket face will be at a different angle when it hits the ball now. But if you pronate your wrist just before you hit the ball, the racket face will be at the right angle again, and it'll work out and feel natural in the end.

4) Add the knee bend (comes with trophy stand some other posters mentioned).

5) On kick serves, toss the ball more above your head, and close your shoulder a little more (turn shoulder a little more clockwise) after the toss, on racket take back. This puts the ball, and yourself, in the right place to "kick up" on the ball.

6) More racket drop on take back.

7) On kick serves, hit the ball more upward to get the "kick" on the ball.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[some6uy008]

Your toss is a bit too low, which doesn't give you much time to shift your weight or knee bend to explode upward. If you want to keep your short toss, you can probably skip the forward "jump", since you're not really not putting much power into it and it is causing you to foot fault.

You can also try not tossing it too much in front of you, that way you don't need to take that step into the court to hit the ball.

You start your serve fairly smooth, up to the point of the toss then you seem kind of rush thru it and not pay attention to your form. I think it is because of the toss being too low.

 

[anchorage]

OJ, if you follow this link, select one of the players and look at the still shots labelled 'Hitting' on any of the serve sequences, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.

http://www.playerdevelopment.usta.com/pdmediabooks/players.asp?section=players&page=1

 

[Orangejumper]

OJ, if you follow this link, select one of the players and look at the still shots labelled 'Hitting' on any of the serve sequences, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.

http://www.playerdevelopment.usta.com/pdmediabooks/players.asp?section=players&page=1

got ya, that is proper raquet drop. something i didnt realise that i wasnt doing....thanks for that rcmndtion, good site. i guess combining with a bit more knee bend and a higher throw should elimnate the rush and allow more time for this famous raquet drop..............

 

[Bud]

Are you using an Eastern forehand grip?
Make sure you are using a Continental.

Looks like you are not really getting a racket drop and pronating.

Here's a pic of a proper racquet drop:

:shock:

:shock:

 

[Xisbum]

Here's a pic of a proper racquet drop:

:shock:

:shock:

Racquet? What racquet?

 

[Trasher]

^^^^ When was that?

OP, I think this video you put up was a joke no? I mean come on, I don't think anyone would make those foot faults deliberately!

 

[Orangejumper]

ok I know the foot faults are bad but i didnt think i would get that much aggro about them. I play club level here and we dont have an umpire or anybody saying 'Foot Fault'.
Am begining to feel like i have made a dodgy line call or the like.
In all honesty i dont think they are that much of an issue over her in sunny, ahem, England. Well not at club level.

 

[Trasher]

ok I know the foot faults are bad but i didnt think i would get that much aggro about them. I play club level here and we dont have an umpire or anybody saying 'Foot Fault'.
Am begining to feel like i have made a dodgy line call or the like.
In all honesty i dont think they are that much of an issue over her in sunny, ahem, England. Well not at club level.

I know dude, but those are the tennis rules, you can't do that:shock:

 

[volusiano]

ok I know the foot faults are bad but i didnt think i would get that much aggro about them. I play club level here and we dont have an umpire or anybody saying 'Foot Fault'.
Am begining to feel like i have made a dodgy line call or the like.
In all honesty i dont think they are that much of an issue over her in sunny, ahem, England. Well not at club level.

There's been many discussions about whether it's OK to footfault or not, so I won't get into that.

But let me put it another way to you. If you dismiss the footfault, keep on working very hard at everything else and finally are able to fix everything else and finally develop a great serve. What do you think is going to happen when you play a match against somebody, killing them with your serve? They're GOING TO CALL FOOTFAULT on you, because your serve, no matter how incredible it is, is NOT LEGITIMATE. That is a weakness people are going to exploit when scores are kept. Sure, they're dismissing it now because your serve is not good enough. But I guarantee they're going to call you on the footfault if your serve kills them left and right.

So now all your hard work has been for nothing, and the footfault is so ingrained in your routine now that you can't shake it off.

So why not take the time to fix it now when it's not too deeply ingrained in your muscle memories and timing? It's not that hard to fix early. But it's going to be 10 times harder to fix later because you're going to be building everything else from your serve on a faulty foundation.

 

[richjohn]

There's been many discussions about whether it's OK to footfault or not, so I won't get into that.

But let me put it another way to you. If you dismiss the footfault, keep on working very hard at everything else and finally are able to fix everything else and finally develop a great serve. What do you think is going to happen when you play a match against somebody, killing them with your serve? They're GOING TO CALL FOOTFAULT on you, because your serve, no matter how incredible it is, is NOT LEGITIMATE. That is a weakness people are going to exploit when scores are kept. Sure, they're dismissing it now because your serve is not good enough. But I guarantee they're going to call you on the footfault if your serve kills them left and right.

So now all your hard work has been for nothing, and the footfault is so ingrained in your routine now that you can't shake it off.

So why not take the time to fix it now when it's not too deeply ingrained in your muscle memories and timing? It's not that hard to fix early. But it's going to be 10 times harder to fix later because you're going to be building everything else from your serve on a faulty foundation.

I can not agree this comment more because I personally experienced this. One of my hitting partners pointed my foot fault out, and that evening, I did not put even ONE serve in. I had to use the low hand serve.

However, I have to say thank-you to my partner to point this out before I began to play any formal inter-club games this year.

I am playing single ladder game this year. One of the players one level above me always made foot fault. His serve is very powerful. However, several weeks ago, when I called on his foot fault, his game collapsed. He could barely put his serves in and he lost his powerful weapon.

As a result, I strongly recommend you to correct the issue right now.

 

[40lovebaby]

There's a guy on my team with a great serve, but he also has a foot fault habit.

Some days it doesn't come up at all, but when the other side even mentions his foot faulting, his serve goes to pieces, and some days doesn't come back.

 

[Orangejumper]

thanks all.
had a good session last night.
VOLUSIANO, thanks, the closing of the shoulders clockwise more seemed to work quite a bit as it forces more of an unwinding of a coil, sort of spiral effect which caused the rquest to follow the desired path.
Hopefully with the introduction of knee bend this will improve further.
thanks again for all the constructive comments, really appreciate it.

OrangeJumper