Hitting serve left and right, racket face or alignment ?

[yanni]

I am currently following online tennis instructions (Florian Meier) serve instructions (which is really great by the way). I am focusing just on the correct basics. He is saying the motion always stays the same. Swinging from in to out. If I do this, balls go down the line (which is the way it should be in the beginning).

I am not 100% sure though what to do when would like to hit to the right or (even more difficult) the left service box. He says the swing path and alignment stays basically the same. Just the racket face turns a bit. I find this difficult to time on a fast swing though.

I was swinging to the left in the past to hit in the left service box which seems to be wrong.

Wouldn't it be more easy to keep the swing the same and align the body position to the left a bit ? Are there different thoughts about that ?

Thanks a lot

 

[Dragy]

If you mean serving from the deuce and ad courts, to the left and to the right service boxes respectively, definitely vary alignment. You aren't expected to disguise which service box you are going to hit.
If you mean placing the ball to different corners of same service box, there might be options. One can align differently, but this is a tell for serve placement. One can just toss differently, same thing. One can align and toss the same way, but setup "below the ball" and swing to get almost any serve. Another common option for 1st serve placement is hitting flat serves to the right part of the box (for a righty) and slice serves to the left part of the box - this one can be achieved with same toss, same swingpath, but different racquet face orientation at contact.

 

[yanni]

Sorry. Yes I mean deuce and ad side of the court. The other stuff is up for later.

Another common option for 1st serve placement is hitting flat serves to the right part of the box (for a righty) and slice serves to the left part of the box - this one can be achieved with same toss, same swingpath, but different racquet face orientation at contact.

Thats a good idea to try actually. Are there example on how the alignment should be varied? I once heard the left shoulder should point into the direction where you want to serve ? So for deuce side you align a bit to the right and for ad to the left ? Everything else pretty much stays the same ? I can imagine a slight variation of the stance would already be enough ?

 

[Dragy]

Sorry. Yes I mean deuce and ad side of the court. The other stuff is up for later.



Thats a good idea to try actually. Are there example on how the alignment should be varied? I once heard the left shoulder should point into the direction where you want to serve ? So for deuce side you align a bit to the right and for ad to the left ? Everything else pretty much stays the same ? I can imagine a slight variation of the stance would already be enough ?

Every player might have his own posture, i guess. As for me, I've been practicing serves against the wall a lot. I have good feel for directional alignment. When on the court, when serving from closer to the mid hash in singles or farther towards the alley in doubles I just imagine the familiar serving direction, or even place an imaginary wall somewhere over there

 

[yanni]

Does your right foot still point to the right net post or do you vary this ?

 

[Dragy]

I'm a step-up (to pinpoint) type of server. Righty. Model Kevin Anderson or Feli Lopez. Try to) I don't care what happens with my right foot apart from trying to bring it exactly behind my left (but actually it gets past so many times). My left foot is close to parallel to baseline for ad serves and at the angle to the baseline (though not directly to the right net post, but further to the right, away from the court) for deuce court.
Here you can find some serves (blue shirt):

 

[yanni]

Sorry I meant left foot pointing at the right net post.