Help me improve my Kick Serve!

i.are.vince

New User
Hi everyone!

Here are some short clips of me hitting kick serves. I've been trying to get more pace on it without losing the effectiveness of the kick. I feel like my kick serve is too slow for the effort/energy I put in to it. I've been considering switching rackets from my Speed Pro (in video) to something slightly lighter like a Radical Pro.

Please let me know what I can do to improve! From what I can see, I could use a smoother tossing motion and more shoulder turn.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/n66pl2slz77h216/AAAQtik5hAzJaUdRa3wZPMpea?dl=0
 

Bender

G.O.A.T.
Link doesn't work for me

Going to keep an eye out on this thread in case someone provides some advice that works for me too...
 

oble

Hall of Fame
Overall form looks good, but it looks like you let the ball drop a little too low on a lot of your kick serves.
 

GuyClinch

Legend
If you want more consistency and more arc - you want to swing more right to left. (Since you are lefty).

Those are very aggressive kicks where you are swinging through the ball a lot and turning your body too much.. So you end up with these low flying kinda hardish kickers..

This video will clear it up I think..with the caveat that for a kick you need to toss the ball over your head.
 

i.are.vince

New User
Overall form looks good, but it looks like you let the ball drop a little too low on a lot of your kick serves.

On that day, I was having issues shanking the ball on the inside of my racket. My friend suggested that I was swinging too early so I tried to let the ball drop more.

For kick serves would you generally want to let the ball drop a bit more ( not too much ) so it's easier to swing from low to high?
 

oble

Hall of Fame
On that day, I was having issues shanking the ball on the inside of my racket. My friend suggested that I was swinging too early so I tried to let the ball drop more.

For kick serves would you generally want to let the ball drop a bit more ( not too much ) so it's easier to swing from low to high?
Yeah, I would let it drop a bit more than other serves. I could be wrong, but I feel that you might have let the ball drop a bit too much.
 

dct693

Semi-Pro
Hi everyone!

Here are some short clips of me hitting kick serves. I've been trying to get more pace on it without losing the effectiveness of the kick. I feel like my kick serve is too slow for the effort/energy I put in to it. I've been considering switching rackets from my Speed Pro (in video) to something slightly lighter like a Radical Pro.

Please let me know what I can do to improve! From what I can see, I could use a smoother tossing motion and more shoulder turn.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/n66pl2slz77h216/AAAQtik5hAzJaUdRa3wZPMpea?dl=0
I don't see anything obvious that I would question. I personally hit my kicks too fast and I've been working on the opposite: slowing them down. A kick that is too fast doesn't give the ball as much chance to move. I've always been told the movement and the kick are what make the serve effective. A fast topspin serve can certainly be effective while giving you margin over the net, but against certain opponents it's not fast enough to give them trouble and it doesn't move enough. It can be the worst of both worlds. I like to use them the same way pitchers use the fastball and changeup. It's the contrast that throws off the timing.
 

i.are.vince

New User
A kick that is too fast doesn't give the ball as much chance to move. I've always been told the movement and the kick are what make the serve effective.

Interesting. I think this might have been my problem. When playing stronger players, I would try to become more aggressive and increase the speed of my kick serve in hopes that they wouldn't tee off on it. That may have just caused my form to break down, resulting in "the worst of both worlds."


If you want more consistency and more arc - you want to swing more right to left. (Since you are lefty).

Those are very aggressive kicks where you are swinging through the ball a lot and turning your body too much.. So you end up with these low flying kinda hardish kickers..

This video will clear it up I think..with the caveat that for a kick you need to toss the ball over your head.

On my typical 2nd serve, I swing from 5 o'clock to 11 o'clock in the hopes that it would give me more clearance over the net and thus, more upward kick. I imagine if I focused more on the right to left swing, say 4 o'clock to 10 o 'clock, the ball would kick out more rather than up.. I'm wondering if I would send the ball long more often if I did that.
 

dct693

Semi-Pro
Interesting. I think this might have been my problem. When playing stronger players, I would try to become more aggressive and increase the speed of my kick serve in hopes that they wouldn't tee off on it. That may have just caused my form to break down, resulting in "the worst of both worlds."
In this video, Dave Smith (who occasionally posts on these boards) talks about not hitting the kick serve too hard:
 

Nellie

Hall of Fame
If you want more pop on your topspin serve, you need to toss further into the court. You will still need to swing up at the ball for topspin, so you get more pace by pushing out with your hips into the court and moving forward when you are swinging. From what I can see, you get no forward movement (feet end where you started the toss).

Some other quick thoughts:

(1) In the few misses I see, you are often short (into the net) on the kick serve. This usually means you are dropping your head or not aiming correctly. You really want the ball hitting deep into the service box (going over the net by at least a meter). Your goal should be to never hit the kick serve into the net (miss long!). If your serves are short and in the middle of the service box, opponents will crush returns.

(2) As a lefty, you may be more effective with a top/slice serve that carves around the outside edge of the ball and kicks to your right (into the righty's backhand). It is also an easier serve to hit and easier to disguise.
 

Limpinhitter

G.O.A.T.
Hey Vince, I just looked at your videos. I think there is a fundamental element missing from your serve altogether, not just your kick, that you should address first. For me, the most revealing video is the side view. It shows that you are basically muscling your swing with your arm and not getting much help from upper body involvement. At the peak of your toss, your shoulders are almost level and you have almost no upper body rotation. It looks very similar to a Jimmy Connors' type of serve. So, before you can gain much improvement on your kick, I think it would help for you to address this fundamental issue first.

In my view, the serve is analogous to the modern forehand in that the trophy pose (your posture at the peak of your toss), is similar to the "load up" position (at the back of the backswing), of the forehand. In both cases, you want the position of your entire body, legs, hips, upper body, shoulders, arm and racquet, to be in the optimal position to initiate a chain of events that will help you to gain as much racquet head speed as possible. Racquet head speed can be used to impart spin and/or power as you choose. The type of spin you impart is determined by the direction of the swing path as you make contact with the ball.

Simply put, at the peak of your toss, you should turn your back to the target sufficient that your opponent could see your name if it were written across your shoulders, about a 3/4 turn. Further, as a lefty, your right shoulder should be as high over your left shoulder as reasonably possible. (Picture a golf swing with your spine tilted back instead of forward). One way to achieve a good tilt is to slide your right hip forward in the trophy pose. When you turn your back to the target forward for you will be about at the left net post. From there, rotate your left shoulder up to the ball dragging your arm and racquet behind it so that the shoulders reverse positions. The bottom shoulder is now the top shoulder. That upper body rotation, in that way, is a missing element in your service motion.

From there, hitting a kick serve is just a matter of swinging up and across as you make contact with the ball. One way to achieve that is to maintain your turn a bit longer in your upward swing. But first, I would recommend that you get comfortable with improving your upper body rotation on your serve generally.

Check out Pete Sampras' trophy pose and upper body rotation here:

 
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LeeD

Bionic Poster
Learn to walk before you try running.
You need to be able to hit 20 out of 30 kick serves IN before you start to add ball speed.
On the way there, you need wider placement on duece court, and less usage on ad court, since you're lefty.
Whether you kick is slow or fast, the main reason for the kick serve is to place the opponent out wide past the doubles alley, and that can be done fast or slow.
The slower you hit your twist, the more arc you can apply, meaning a higher bounce, to take away the power from the groundstroke return.
And, the slower you hit it, the more time you have to get inside the service line for your first volley.
But, a fast twist serve is nice for a FIRST serve, but still needs to be reliable as a second serve, which is something few player's can do.
 

RetroSpin

Hall of Fame
You have a nice motion but you seem to be missing a couple of steps. Basically (and it is hard to see from the video so my apologies if I have this wrong) you are trying to hit the kicker directly from full drop. Top servers do not do this. They supinate their forearms and swing forward and across. You are only able to swing across which is why yours are kind of weak and get into the net so much. Look at Fed at 3:21


Second, you appear to not be pronating. Top servers will have the hitting side of the racquet facing the side or even back fence after contact. Yours is facing your body. Again look at Fed at 3:22 in the above vid. There are better vids around to illustrate these points but I just had that one handy. Again, you lose racquet speed by your approach.

I also agree with limpinhitter's comments. You are way too perpendicular to the net for a kicker. You want your body turned more and you want to keep it turned.
 

pfrischmann

Professional
A lot of good info here. Here are a couple of things that help me when my kicker goes off.
1. Relax (the more I relax my arm, the better every serve is, especially kick
2. If you want more top-spin, go up more than out (actually into the court)
3. try your toss so if you let it drop it would hit you in the head

Here's a fun drill. Go outside the court, stand about 8-`10 feet away from the fence and try to serve over the fence into the closest service box. See how close you can get without hitting the fence.

FWIW.
 

i.are.vince

New User
You have a nice motion but you seem to be missing a couple of steps. Basically (and it is hard to see from the video so my apologies if I have this wrong) you are trying to hit the kicker directly from full drop. Top servers do not do this. They supinate their forearms and swing forward and across. You are only able to swing across which is why yours are kind of weak and get into the net so much. Look at Fed at 3:21


Second, you appear to not be pronating. Top servers will have the hitting side of the racquet facing the side or even back fence after contact. Yours is facing your body. Again look at Fed at 3:22 in the above vid. There are better vids around to illustrate these points but I just had that one handy. Again, you lose racquet speed by your approach.

I also agree with limpinhitter's comments. You are way too perpendicular to the net for a kicker. You want your body turned more and you want to keep it turned.


I think I picked up the Jeff Salzenstein approach to the kick serve where he sort of de-emphasizes pronation on the kick serve and does some "dirty diaper" analogy. I don't have issues pronating on my flat serve. Should I just relax and let pronation naturally occur?

Also, as you and limpinhitter have pointed out, I definitely need more upper body coiling. It would probably take a lot of stress off of my rotator cuff.

I appreciate everyone's input! It sounds like I have to slowly rebuild the foundation of my serve.
 

RetroSpin

Hall of Fame
I think I picked up the Jeff Salzenstein approach to the kick serve where he sort of de-emphasizes pronation on the kick serve and does some "dirty diaper" analogy. I don't have issues pronating on my flat serve. Should I just relax and let pronation naturally occur?

Also, as you and limpinhitter have pointed out, I definitely need more upper body coiling. It would probably take a lot of stress off of my rotator cuff.

I appreciate everyone's input! It sounds like I have to slowly rebuild the foundation of my serve.

I may be wrong but I think Jeff uses the dirty diaper as a learning progression. Not too many top pros serve like that, although there may be a few. Certainly the guys with the big kickers like Fed, Isner and Rafter pronate after impact.
 

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
Your videos were taken under court lights, some in the evening. Low light. You have too much motion blur to see anything regarding the quality of your kick serve.

Repeat in direct sunlight and see if your camera's automatic exposure control will select a faster shutter speed. Using a wide angle setting on your zoom lens may also result in a faster shutter speed.

To see the faster parts of the serve you need 200 fps or more and a very fast shutter speed. Slow frame rate cameras waste a lot of your time and might mislead you. The racket and arm simply travel too far between frames at 25 or 30 fps.

Club player with a very effective kick serve. 240 fps.

Close up of racket contact with the ball. 240 fps. Spin measures 3600 RPM from video.

Many long threads here with information on the kick serve.
 
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