How do you do your ball toss?

[Swagger]

On a flat serve, I learned to throw it **short and towards the right. The ball shouldn't go straight up, but rather forward.

**the purpose behind throwing it short is due to physics. If you throw it high, you're going to have less time to react to the ball because it drops faster. If I throw it short, I will have an opporitunity to hit the ball at it's apex, or when it stops moving.

I used to serve just throwing it straight up and high, insead of a circular motion, forward, and towards the right.

(I'm right handed)

 

[Blake0]

On a flat serve, I learned to throw it **short and towards the right. The ball shouldn't go straight up, but rather forward.

**the purpose behind throwing it short is due to physics. If you throw it high, you're going to have less time to react to the ball because it drops faster. If I throw it short, I will have an opporitunity to hit the ball at it's apex, or when it stops moving.

I used to serve just throwing it straight up and high, insead of a circular motion, forward, and towards the right.

(I'm right handed)

My serve toss motion would kind of look like a J from the side view.

 

[SuperDuy]

Mine is, on flat serve I try to throw the ball stright infront of me, then for slice abit to my right, then kick abit above my head closer to me then my flat serve.

 

[86golf]

I was just watching a tape of the Marty Fish match at last years AO. It was one of those single camera courts and had a good "to the side" view of Fish's underated serve. I was amazed how far in front his toss was. Something I'm going to work on for sure.

 

[Swagger]

Forgot to mention that Blake. The motion I'm trying to do is a J motion as well.

I hold the ball like I'm holding a glass of water from the side.

 

[user92626]

Hi OP,

Tossing is really a personal preference thing. The kind of physics you describe has no effect on it. Some people like and prefer the timing of Federer toss and others like Roddick type. Apparently both Fed and Roddick can serve forever, except Fed is slightly ahead based on the last Wimby match.

I opted for Fed style. I don't feel like learning a new style again. The payoff of the serve is from the contact and how you load and unload the power, hardly from the toss.

My 2 cents.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Tosses generally don't (& shouldn't) go straight up. Not only do elite servers toss the ball forward, their ball toss trajectory is normally an arc.

Physics really don't dictate a short toss for a flat serve. Yes, it is true that a higher toss provides a smaller window of opportunity -- since the ball drops faster. However, many elite servers have a toss that may be 40-60 cm or greater than the contact point. Check out the toss height & arc for Sampras and Federer:

Federer:
youtube.com/watch?v=qe4MomUhq5k
.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

For various types of serves, I generally use 3 different tosses. Elite servers will often use 2 different tosses -- usually one for 1st serves and another for 2nd serves. It is something of a myth that all elite servers hit all of their serves off the exact same toss. However, there may not be a huge difference between the 1st & 2nd serve tosses for elite servers.

The graphic below shows relative optimal contact points for various serve types. Note that at contact, the server's head will not be in the (starting) position shown -- both the body and head move from their initial positions. For instance, the head will be pretty much under the ball for a topspin serve.

click on this graphic for more info
.
​

 

[jwbarrientos]

What that particular advice suggesting to toss in the same point to hide your serve?

particularly I try to in different motion first and second serve.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

^ Even many pro players don't really toss the same for 1st & 2nd serves. Since I'm not playing against any 6.0 and 7.0 players, I'm not really all that concerned about disguising the type of serve I intend to hit. (In fact, I rarely get the opportunity to hit with anyone higher than a 5.0 level). Even tho' my toss might give the receiver clues on the type of serve I intend to hit, for the most part I still will disguise the placement, speed and amount of spin I intend to use. This, to me, is much more important than trying to hit off of 1 type of toss in an attempt to disguise the type of serve I intend to hit.

To my mind, employing only 1 unchanging toss is highly overrated.