How do I get the drive into my serve? (video)

E

Eph

Professional
So, I've changed my form drastically, but now I feel all I am doing is jumping in the air and smacking the ball. How do I get the power? Am I missing the leg drive? Also, my arm is very far from my body; how do I get it closer - I think this is contributing to a weak serve. Any tips?

Thanks!

http://vimeo.com/4185659
 
maybe try tossing the ball a little further into the court, this will force you to have to jump and reach toward the ball instead of just jumping straight up.
 
You are worrying to much about the technique or your serve for your current level. I suggest you go on you-tube and have a look at the likes of federes service motion. Very fluid and "loose". You look uptight and very, very forced. Relax allot more and try get "your own" service motion. The last thing you need to be worrying about now is jumping and knee bend. Just go out and hit serves . Work on raquet head speed and ball placement not jumping . Once you can serve consistently then worry about the knee bend and jump. You do not have to have a technically 100% serve at you level . Just go out and have FUN don't worry about the technique. If you are worried go to the local pro for a few lessons.

Enjoy and best of luck serving!
Matty G
 
Yeah, I realise I don't have a good service motion and that it looks too forced. That's one of the things I'd like to work on.
 
Eph said:
Yeah, I realise I don't have a good service motion and that it looks too forced. That's one of the things I'd like to work on.
Click to expand...

Yea honestly just go out and enjoy it , don't worry about technique at this point in time!
 
i have a feeling that the only thing you do about tennis is serve... do you even play matches or run across the court, serving is for old folks.
 
first i'd just like to say it is very difficulty to try to coach someone using a video. second i would like to say as a coach, i generally try to work on one issue at a time in order of priority relative to building up to good shots. after watching the video once, i would say my initial thoughts would be these: you are right handed, and the follow through on your serve comes down on your right side, looks as though this may be an attempt to generate spin. this motion will prevent you from getting the drive your looking for. next, most of the tosses seem to be to close to you and not far enough into the court, this may not only make the shot weak, but may cause it to land long. this toss is also not meant for the kind of serve you are attempting. in my experience the more directly overhead or behind the head, the deeper the knee bend has to be, which you also lack. that is not yet a problem for you since these are not the types of serves youre throwing.
also your timing is off in a way that almost makes it look like you are chasing the ball into the air. i often get players that try to actually hit the ball while it is still on the rise. so until you improve i would say to shorten the toss and catch the ball at the apex of the toss where it stands still, make your follow through come down on your left side, and toss the ball a touch further into the court. now, your serve motion is not as fluid as it should be. you dont seem to allow the racket to stop once the motion has started which is a big positive, since stopping the racket means you have to restart it, which keeps you from conserving or redirecting momentum. so i would say to shadow the serve motion at least 100 times per day at half speed, making sure the motion is proper and fluid. hope thats a good start. tough to try to fix things this way.
 
acehole said:
first i'd just like to say it is very difficulty to try to coach someone using a video. second i would like to say as a coach, i generally try to work on one issue at a time in order of priority relative to building up to good shots. after watching the video once, i would say my initial thoughts would be these: you are right handed, and the follow through on your serve comes down on your right side, looks as though this may be an attempt to generate spin. this motion will prevent you from getting the drive your looking for. next, most of the tosses seem to be to close to you and not far enough into the court, this may not only make the shot weak, but may cause it to land long. this toss is also not meant for the kind of serve you are attempting. in my experience the more directly overhead or behind the head, the deeper the knee bend has to be, which you also lack. that is not yet a problem for you since these are not the types of serves youre throwing.
also your timing is off in a way that almost makes it look like you are chasing the ball into the air. i often get players that try to actually hit the ball while it is still on the rise. so until you improve i would say to shorten the toss and catch the ball at the apex of the toss where it stands still, make your follow through come down on your left side, and toss the ball a touch further into the court. now, your serve motion is not as fluid as it should be. you dont seem to allow the racket to stop once the motion has started which is a big positive, since stopping the racket means you have to restart it, which keeps you from conserving or redirecting momentum. so i would say to shadow the serve motion at least 100 times per day at half speed, making sure the motion is proper and fluid. hope thats a good start. tough to try to fix things this way.
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Thanks, will work on this.
 
As mentioned previously, your arm movement is totally on the right side of your body. Sometimes you just do a side swat. You need more forward movement in your serve.

You are also facing the net too early. You should be going shoulder over shoulder cartwheeling, instead you are just rotating your shoulders too much. You should not face the court at impact.

You need to relax more: take your time, take a deep breath before serving. Keep your grip very loose, essentially using mostly your thumb and forefinger. Make sure you have the right grip: continental or eastern backhand. Start very slowly, accelerating just before impact.

I also don't have the impression you are relaxed with your arm, because it seems to me that you are not pronating your arm properly. The racket face should face the side fence after impact. If you are loose and relaxed this will occur automatically.
 
Matty G said:
. Relax allot more and try get "your own" service motion. The last thing you need to be worrying about now is jumping and knee bend.

Enjoy and best of luck serving!
Matty G
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Totally agree, at a certain point, you just need your swing to feel natural ie: don't think about knee bend rather think about hitting the ball higher, this will force you to naturally jump to the ball and to jump, you need to bend you knee...
 
when i first start watching i thought you’d have a hell of a serve. You beginning motion is really good and then you kind of abort. See you start by feeling your body weight, you move that weight all together, then the movement dissipates you abort and you use your arm and shoulder to push the ball over and it turns into kinda of a dink (no offense). You want to sync that original movement to be what pushes the ball over, and you’d go from zero to hero, imo.
 
It's nice to hear something positive about my serve every now and then.

Thanks. I'll work on keeping my back to the court, and rolling my shoulders. Any tips on how to do this?
 
I would not jump if I was you. I think it is really throwing your timing off. Even many of the pros barely leave the ground. Instead, I would focus on hitting up and through the ball, so that you are accelerating through the ball. Even with the pros, it is more of a hit and then jump due to the forward and vertical weight shift. It is not like a volleyball spike where you are trying to jump to get high and then hit down and in the court.

Also exagerate staying sideways. Everyone opens up too much and loses efficiency.
 
Just one more thought that I did not see mentioned here so far (sorry if it was already stated). Looking at the initial takeback on your serve I would suggest that your hitting arm doesn't quite get high enough. As I was watching I had this feeling of your hitting arm being very straight and as I watched it in "stop start" framing it looks as if you don't get that racket in the "L" position prior to the racket drop. Does this make sense?

I think that the back elbow should be a bit higher which would basically create the top of the frame pointing a bit more vertical creating a more fluid natural racket drop.

I would agree that working on the follow through is probably one of the easiest fundamental things to correct however. Good luck its looking great mate!
 
Just a side note - I stopped the video at about :26 seconds in and it has you in your "trophy pose" basically there is where I feel uncomfortable about where your racket it is ending up prior to the drop. Hope any of this was of help.
 
hmm ill put it in number order:

1. Don't worry about drive. Most of the serve can be done with the hands.

2. Thus: First you need to make contact "under" the ball, not on top of it. The Pros, no one really hits "flat". The real bombs are just with less spin or less under the ball contact. Btw under also means your racket-face will be facing up towards the sky, and not across the court.

3. When you contact the ball, your racket-wrist-arm angle is the opposite of where it needs to be. If your arm straight up was the vertical starting point, that is how YOU make contact. Your wrist needs to be looser, thus your arm will tilt to about 45 degrees to your left. (Almost all things in tennis are 45 degree angles)

4. You follow through on your serve on the same side. It needs to follow through to the opposite side, even as much as your racket head touching your back shoulder blades.

5. Check out videos on youtube about "wrist-snapping" or "pronation". Seriously you can compete very well with a 60 mph serve at the level I think you play at. And the 60 mph really require no leg drive. Just loose hands, wrists, and arms.

All power to ya.
 
first of all, you need to spend a few bucks and get a hopper. your back will thank you and your practice time will be more efficient. I'm not a pro but from countless hours reading books, mags, instructional video, watching you tube videos and helpful knowledgable people on the courts and here at tt, I have come to the conclusion that simpler is better. Balance, throw ball consistently, watch the ball, hit ball with racket in a throwing motion....smmmooothly.

Unless you can do this, all the helpful hints of shoulder turn and elbows up and hip foward and jumping and throw ball in front and spin and pronate and wrist snap will just over load your brain and body.

Get your racket and body into trophy pose, throw ball, throw racket at ball smoothly while keeping good balance- initially forget about where the ball ends up, just make good smooth soild contact. forget about the jumping for now. I have played with tons of older folks that don't jump, or minimally but the ball has plenty of pop. the jump will come naturally, once you have a solid reliable svc motion, you will be able to go after it more.

if you have a few bucks, the james jensen 'ultimate serve video helped me alot starting out
 
Seems like youre tossing the ball too much to the right so youre trying too hard to reach it when you serve. Try tossing it more to the left and in front, so the motion will be more natural.
 
After watching, all i can say is that if you want a harder serve, you'll need a much faster swing speed and more wrist snap. Also, loosen up your swinging arm, you dont want to be stiff. That's my $0.02
 
When a person wants to improve their serve they need to improve it step by step:

Step 1) Consistency
Step 2) Accuracy
Step 3) Power

Judging from your ball toss and general serve motion, I think its safe to say you haven't gotten consistency yet. So work on the two before embarking on power.

Power is nothing without consistency. And accuracy is a whole lot more useful than power.

Now in relation to you service motion, I noticed that you aren't getting your shouler around enough - i.e. you're trying to thump the ball using your shoulder. The serve motion should be a fluid baseball throwing motion. So you need to work on that.

At the moment, i'll strongly suggest against trying to thump the ball harder using your shoulder cuz it'll cause injuries in the long run - more so if your shoulder muscles aren't conditioned.
 
Hi Eph,

I think by far the weakest link in your serve is your
throwing motion. You don't have a natural throwing motion. I think if you just practice throwing a softball or football
for a while until you can throw 30-40 yards easily with a
relaxed motion w/o much effort then you'll improve your
serve. You're also not getting enough racquet drop. You
aren't allowing your right elbow to bend enough when you
swing up to hit the ball. I would forget about leg drive
for the moment and just concentrate and serving with
a good relaxed motion and get a good shoulder turn as
well. Even just standing, if you serve efficiently you'll
be able to hit *MUCH* harder than your currently do.

Your throwing motion looks like you never learned to properly
throw a ball. Once you get a good throwing motion your
serve should improve by quite a bit. This is also sometimes
one the things that hold back girls from being able to serve
very hard -- they never learned to throw.
 
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1HBH has it right. You don't have a good shoulder-elbow-wrist throwing motion. Stopping the video at 26sec, you are basically static (any previous momentum is gone and you are starting from this spot) and you are basically pushing the racket at the ball. Practice throwing a ball and following through. Note that there is no jumping in doing this. Have you ever seen a baseball pitcher jump while pitching? You can practice throwing your (preferably old) racket high over the net - throw it upwards. Here is a section I cut out of one of my very old posts:


On the serve, I will teach hitting with just the wrist first (make sure they know they are not expected to hit it over the net so they don't strain themselves). This shows them where they must put the toss height-wise and approximately where they should put it over their bodies. When they are making solid contact, then start to include the elbow bend, then onto the shoulder, core and hips (this is when the toss must be adjusted some because they are changing the position of their bodies), and then legs until the entire chain is engaged.

Don't worry about details, just get the basics right now.
 
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Yes to the throwing motion mentioned above.

Also, try to hit the other fence on the fly. That'll get the racquet head moving fast. Once you can hit the other fence in a line drive, work on hitting to the service line on the other side, then work on no mans land, then finally the service box.
 
Nellie said:
I would not jump if I was you. I think it is really throwing your timing off. Even many of the pros barely leave the ground. Instead, I would focus on hitting up and through the ball, so that you are accelerating through the ball. Even with the pros, it is more of a hit and then jump due to the forward and vertical weight shift. It is not like a volleyball spike where you are trying to jump to get high and then hit down and in the court.

Also exagerate staying sideways. Everyone opens up too much and loses efficiency.
Click to expand...

^^^^^^

Best response in my opinion... After watching the video I was going to say the exact same things, but why when nellie has already said it :)
 
If I were you, I would go to Fuzzy Yellow Balls and go through all of their service articles/videos. I would not worry about the jumping or your legs and would concentrate on your take back, weight transfer, trophy position, racquet drop, contact point, pronation and follow through before worrying about anything else as from what I saw, you were not hitting the essential fundamental components of a serve. Work on those and you will have a more reliable and far harder serve.
 
I'll add that the quickest way to add power to your serve right now is to stop jumping. The way your jump is timed, it's actually sapping power from your serve.
 
Thanks for the tips, folks.

I was actually a left handed pitcher in high school (and a great one, had the chance to go play D1 ball if I wanted), but I learned to play tennis with my right hand.

Tomorrow I'll go out and throw a bit with my right hand.

I'll work on not jumping but getting the ball more in the court, a correct racquet drop, and whatever else. Hah! :D
 
Sublime said:
hahahaha.... you said, "OP, you throw like a girl", but with more words... how did you expect it to be taken? :)
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He can stand in the batter's box if he wants, and I'll pitch to him.

Though I didn't find it insulting - I'm learning tennis, not a ATP player.
 
Eph said:
I'll work on not jumping but getting the ball more in the court, a correct racquet drop, and whatever else. Hah! :D
Click to expand...

I'm telling you, start with the racket "dropped" (ie in a back scratch) and with your feet firmly planted on the ground, throw the racket up and through the tennis ball. Do not worry about where the ball goes, if it hits the frame, whatever... just do the motion and you'll feel the power you should be tapping into.
 
Sublime said:
I'm telling you, start with the racket "dropped" (ie in a back scratch) and with your feet firmly planted on the ground, throw the racket up and through the tennis ball. Do not worry about where the ball goes, if it hits the frame, whatever... just do the motion and you'll feel the power you should be tapping into.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've done that. The ball fu***** flies. Is there a way to tame that and whatnot?
 
Maybe you need to play with your left hand. Because serve isn't just about using your arm. It's a lot like pitching. You have to get the hip separation. If you look at your video, there is nearly none of that. Much like how good pitchers will stride towards home while keeping their shoulders closed, players with good serves keep their shoulders closed for as long as they can and unload the opening rotation (plus the arm movement) onto the ball in air. And the reason most people can't "switch-pitch" usually is not related to their dexterity (hands), but more with how they can't coordinate their body to perform the same complicated task of separated rotation of different parts of their body.
 
A555un said:
Maybe you need to play with your left hand. Because serve isn't just about using your arm. It's a lot like pitching. You have to get the hip separation. If you look at your video, there is nearly none of that. Much like how good pitchers will stride towards home while keeping their shoulders closed, players with good serves keep their shoulders closed for as long as they can and unload the opening rotation (plus the arm movement) onto the ball in air. And the reason most people can't "switch-pitch" usually is not related to their dexterity (hands), but more with how they can't coordinate their body to perform the same complicated task of separated rotation of different parts of their body.
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I've tried, but I'm honestly horrible.
 
Eph said:
Over the fence, into the parking lot, down the grass, sometimes into the woods...
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haha... I get the picture.

OK, you're obviously making contact with a very open (string bed facing the sky) racket face. Do the motion we're talking about slowly, without a ball, and look at your racket face through the motion. The racket face should actually never open up to the sky, at any point in the motion.

I think you actually have two problems to work on. First is the getting that racket face under control at contact. It should be impossible to hit the ball over the fence on a serve with a good motion.

Second, you're probably not hitting up on the ball to generate topspin. This is understandable because you're gun shy to swing up because of the openness of your racket face. Once you fix your racket face, you'll realize that the faster your swing up on the ball, the more it will pull down.
 
My experience is that you should focus on one thing at a time. Build your technique ground up. Make sure you get the most fundamental ones grooved first before moving on to the more advanced - like jump.

If I can turn back the clock to start over, I will learn to serve in the following order:

1. consistent toss in correct stand
2. clean solid ball contact with continental grip!
3. from the racquet drop position (butt point up, behind back) a smooth, relaxed up swing motion then #2 – pronate!
4. from starting point at your preference, a smooth and relaxed motion to raise the racquet then drop, time it with 1, then do 3 and 2 - Timing!

Now add hips and legs

5. add the rocking motion (body moves front-back-front)
6. add knee bend – pay attention to balance at trophy pose
7. add upper body / shoulder turn and hip forward motion – you will naturally jump up without forcing it at this point.

Be sure to check and revisit the previous stages as you progress.

This will take time and discipline, the result will probably not show immediately.
 
Eph said:
Thanks for the tips, folks.

I was actually a left handed pitcher in high school (and a great one, had the chance to go play D1 ball if I wanted), but I learned to play tennis with my right hand.
:D
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Wowzers! you should be learning to serve w/your left.
Seriously. Even if you play w/your right. Don't even
bother w/the right. Your right probably will never come
close to having the potential as your left you were a natural
lefty. You could have a pretty sweet serve!
 
onehandbh said:
Wowzers! you should be learning to serve w/your left.
Seriously. Even if you play w/your right. Don't even
bother w/the right. Your right probably will never come
close to having the potential as your left you were a natural
lefty. You could have a pretty sweet serve!
Click to expand...

I don't think I have the patience for learning my serve lefty. I tried once for an afternoon and sucked at it. I'm already a good way on my right handed, no?

I threw the ball in the high 80s to low 90s when I was a pitcher, not sure how that would compute.
 
Eph said:
I don't think I have the patience for learning my serve lefty. I tried once for an afternoon and sucked at it. I'm already a good way on my right handed, no?

I threw the ball in the high 80s to low 90s when I was a pitcher, not sure how that would compute.
Click to expand...

One afternoon is not very long. I'd seriously work on it.
Initially even try serving using a step (like in pitching)
if that helps. If you threw high 80's - 90's once upon a time,
judging by the looks of your current right-handed
motion, I'd say you'll never come anywhere close to the
potential that your lefty serve will be. Plus it's a big
advantage to be a lefty. The lefty twist/kick serve can
be nasty.
 
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