topspin kid
Rookie
can someone post a kick serve thats really kicking about 5ft or higher plz. i would really like to see the motion because i cant get my serve to jump. it just accelerates a lot.
Have you ever had your serve radared and can you hit the fence on one bounce?
- Thread starter kevhen
- Start date
TennsDog
Hall of Fame
If your pride isn't stuck too high up that mountain, you will see there is also a hint of help going on here as well, both how to hit a bomb serve and what a good kicker looks like.jamauss said:
Besides, the whole thread was started with the question of serve speeds and amount of kick. Posters are simply replying to the thread at hand.
chess9
Hall of Fame
AngeloDS said:
For 99% of us, this is as true as it gets. I can't hit as hard as I once could, but my placement is still fair. A wide serve on the ad court at 80% of power is often times an ace or sets up a winner. Learn to place your serve and you will be much harder to beat.
I thought Kendrick gave a symposium on serving (and volleying) at Wimbledon yesterday. That guy is da bomb!
-Robert
This thread is to collect enough data to see if there is any correlation between hitting the fence in one bounce and speed in mph. For example:
barely hit fence = X mph
1 foot high = X+5 mph
2 feet high = X+10 mph
.
.
.
If there is a correlation found, then it would be a useful tool for people to get a ballpark figure of their serve speed without a radar gun!
barely hit fence = X mph
1 foot high = X+5 mph
2 feet high = X+10 mph
.
.
.
If there is a correlation found, then it would be a useful tool for people to get a ballpark figure of their serve speed without a radar gun!
TennsDog
Hall of Fame
You are ignoring everything that has been said before. Height, spin, and fence distance all make this kind of calculation impossible. I can hit a 70 mph kick serve tha lands 4' up the fence because of all the spin and a closer fence. That does not mean it is 20 mph faster than my flat serve that lands 2' up the fence. (Even if we are strictly talking about flat serves, there is still some effect from spin, and my example just exaggerates this effect to show that it will ruin and hopes of calculation speed from height.)shindemac said:
pushing_wins
Hall of Fame
i hit a serve into the net and it rolled right back to me, how fast was that?
pushing_wins
Hall of Fame
TennsDog said:
i thought those were your bombs
jamauss said:
There's always someone in the room who will lower the tone of the conversation.
Picked up a speedgun last month (Speedtrax) with precisely the idea of working out if I could improve serve speed for my 1st serve and analyse how "slow" my 2nd is.
Hit a 97mph with a good controlled third or fourth attempt and then tried to leather it harder... and it became slower! There's a lot to be said for good technique! 2nd serve seems to be regularly at 70-75mph.
Second time around with the speed gun, I decided to try out with different rackets and see what speed differences existed. It was a bugger of a day as it was really windy - I had originally thought that this would give me a great following wind, but it just made it so difficult to predict the toss and my serves were significantly slower. I was also using a basket of some old balls which were pretty poor admittedly.
On that day with my H-tour, and a couple of demo Wilsons with 90sq" / 12oz+, I was hitting about 84mph.
The interesting part was when I borrowed my mate's Prince 770 and 720 (100sq" and 105sq" and 12oz+?). Can't remember which one did it, but I was hitting about 89mph - that's 6% faster, all other things being equal.
At the end of it all, back with my H tour, I popped out a 93mph, but it was hard work in concentration.
Would like to have a bash with a couple of other rax ( next up Babolat Pure Drive Roddick and Aeropro Drive?) at some point - if I can gain a few mph on any of my shots and keep them in play, I'll have some of that thank you very much.
S
snoflewis
Guest
just to add to the conspiracy theory....i went out to serve and my serves were hitting the back fence about 3-4'...some got even stuck in the hole between the fence. but i still don't think i serve 110....it'd be nice if i did though 
S
snoflewis
Guest
wyutani said:
lol...gotta love the humor of wyutani
TennsDog
Hall of Fame
FYI, some people have a right to brag about their serve. 6 (estimating) service games broken in a high school year. 60% first serve and 90% second serve (which are virtually identical), opponents complaining during the match and complimenting after the match, and hitting opponents with the serve. Think what you want, but I will challenge you to a serve-off any time.jamauss said:
As for taking service ability seriously...uh, yeah. Serving is what I consider possibly the most important shot in tennis. If you have a great serve (a la Sampras), you can hold every serve game and will have a hard time losing. If you have a serve that is a liability (see Dementieva), then you will have a hard time winning any of your own service games. A serve can not only determine the amount a player wins, but it also sends a message to the opponent and can indicate the rest of the player's game. A great serve compliments a good ground game or is lenient for a weak ground game. Never take the serve too lightly. It's the one shot in tennis you never have an excuse to miss. (I'm not saying I don't, I'm just saying it's your shot the way you want it, so make it right.)
35ft6
Legend
No doubt. I wish I would have realized this earlier. Shoot, even now I hate practicing serves. Actually, I don't know if I really hate practicing it, but I never practice it.TennsDog said:
If I could do it differently/I'm going to start practicing serves a lot more. My serves isn't a liability but it's not consistently a weapon either.
If your serve is really good, you can hang with people who are in all actuality quite better than you. If you can just hold your serve, get two easy points on each service game, keep it tied all the way throughout the set, who knows what can happen in the tie-break. I've also heard people who have played pros comment that that was the one shot that really stood out, that a pro's serve is just so much more potent than an amateurs. Sure, everything else is better too but the serve is wayyyyy better. Even the "weak" servers can hit every corner and put respectable heat on it.
Matthew
Professional
As its probably been said, hitting the back fence or wall on one bounce has little to do with how hard you hit the ball but how much topspin you put on it. I too hit about 110 but how high up on the fence it hits varies for me. I'm not usually worried about how high up the fence it is... I'm more worried where the ball is being placed in the service box 
.
.Mountainman
Rookie
lots not brag about how hard we serve. lets brag about how many aces we got in a match. 6 aces is the most ive got in a competitive match.
TennisAsAlways
Professional
LOL35ft6 said:
TennsDog
Hall of Fame
Aces aren't what win matches. I believe that Roddick once hit over 40 aces in a single match...and lost. A consistant serve that can be used as a weapon and used to set up points point in and point out is what wins matches. The objective of a serve is rarely to hit a blistering ace, but more commonly to hit an offensive shot that will yield a weak return and allow you to take control of the point right away, thus giving you the best chance to win the point. Not only is going for aces all the time lower percentage of a play, but it will also wear you out quicker and weaken your serve should you happen to find yourself late in a third set. This is when you most need your serve to be at its best, and if you've been pounding aces/ace attempts all match, it is likely to let you down.Mountainman said:
Andres
G.O.A.T.
I had 71 aces in 100 service points against one of the girls I'm coaching. Yeah, I'm THAT coolMountainman said:
. She wanted to return good serves, and I didn't want, and she insisted so much I let her do it. She was quite devastated after that :?I don't know about numbers, but each time, I get myself a respectable ammount of aces to my personal account.
Bungalo Bill
G.O.A.T.
I can't believe this thread is still going.
At the courts I play at most often, my flat serve hits the fence on a single bounce, and my kick lands (second bounce) probably within two feet of the fence. I just can't get my kick to jump up. But my first serve percentage is good, and I hit vanilla topspin for my second serve.
chess9
Hall of Fame
I was at the courts today doing some training and about one hour was serve training with the radar gun. It was me and the kid (20 years old). He was hitting loads of 110 to 126 mph serves. I was hitting 85 to 107 mph. We were both working on form and timing.
Anyway, two of the club players who are a few years younger than me showed up. I invited them to join in, which they at first refused to do, then agreed to. The interesting point here is both of them use an Eastern forehand grip, used no pronation or rotation, do not bend their knees or move their feet or jump or even do much of a wind-up. The result? One was hitting between about 75 to 90 mph and the other was about 75 to 80 mph. The short old guy (5'9") was hitting them harder. The other old guy was my size (6'0")
Then, two kids showed up and decided they had to try the radar gun. One kid was about 5'4" tall. He was hitting all his serves in with a SW forehand grip at about 55 mph. The other kid was about 5'9" tall, also had a SW grip, but his fastest IN serve was about 48 mph. The taller kid could hit the ball 80 mph though, but not IN. Neither of these kids were above 2.0. They were terrible beginners and used no legs or rotation or pronation.
So, I've got a nearly picture perfect service motion, though I'm very old, use my legs, rotate a lot, and am very strong and I'm serving just a few mph faster. Of course, my good service percentage is quite a bit higher, plus I hit all my serves with some spin.
That's today's report from The Inner World of Tennis Un-Consciousness.
Finding speed on the serve is very hard work, as you all know. I'm whipped....
-Robert
Anyway, two of the club players who are a few years younger than me showed up. I invited them to join in, which they at first refused to do, then agreed to. The interesting point here is both of them use an Eastern forehand grip, used no pronation or rotation, do not bend their knees or move their feet or jump or even do much of a wind-up. The result? One was hitting between about 75 to 90 mph and the other was about 75 to 80 mph. The short old guy (5'9") was hitting them harder.
The other old guy was my size (6'0")Then, two kids showed up and decided they had to try the radar gun. One kid was about 5'4" tall. He was hitting all his serves in with a SW forehand grip at about 55 mph. The other kid was about 5'9" tall, also had a SW grip, but his fastest IN serve was about 48 mph. The taller kid could hit the ball 80 mph though, but not IN. Neither of these kids were above 2.0. They were terrible beginners and used no legs or rotation or pronation.
So, I've got a nearly picture perfect service motion, though I'm very old, use my legs, rotate a lot, and am very strong and I'm serving just a few mph faster.
Of course, my good service percentage is quite a bit higher, plus I hit all my serves with some spin.That's today's report from The Inner World of Tennis Un-Consciousness.
Finding speed on the serve is very hard work, as you all know. I'm whipped....
-Robert
