How good my Flat serve should be BEFORE I start learning Slice or Kick

[yoyofly]

My baseline, volley etc. may be a 3.5 but my serve is SOOO bad. My partner and I used to practice 95% of others and only 5% of serve.
Anyway, I'm getting more into match play and I need my serve to be good and I'm learning FLAT, getting better now.

One of the YouTubers says people should be solid with FLAT first and then can start learning slice and kick. Do you guys agree?
I want to learn slice and kick sooner since their higher success rate in the match. How do I know I'm ready to learn SLICE and KICK? Thanks!

 

[Dragy]

1. Learn conti grip serve with proper throwing mechanics - when you swing up and across the ball, don’t push it “flat” from back forward.
2. Accept presence of some sidespin in your generally straight serve. It’s kind of low-RPM slice, which can be power slice as you progress
3. Then learn to hit top-slice serve - toss to 12 o’clock, cut the ball up and across, explore how high you can send it over the net and still land in safely

Kick serve is efficient when you are comfortable with high RHS ball striking. Then it’s just couple of adjustments and practice.

 

[Jonesy]

You are already late. My flat serves only became good once i mastered slice and kick serves. I feel bad for your second serves.

 

[yoyofly]

Oh wow, I learn flat serve first simply because my coach seems want to teach me that first, and the youtuber also says so.

Seems I shouldn't focus on FLAT that much for now.

 

[TennisDawg]

It’s debatable whether you learn flat or slice first. Learn both together, I would say. You get a feel for proper contact of a flat and slice serve, racquet angle and follow thru when you finish on both flat and slice. If I “had” to choose I would learn slice first IMO.

 

[yoyofly]

OMG, thank you guys!! I also did some searching of old posts, the years old lol, seems I shouldn't focus on FLAT only now, which I was about to do and already did couple hours FLAT only.

 

[zaph]

The most important serve is the second serve, especially at the level you're playing at. If you can simply avoid double faulting you will start winning at rec level.

Unless you're well over 6 feet you will struggle to hit a flat serve in reliably. If I were you I would work on a topspin serve, if you can get that in with a bit of work on it, 90 plus % of the time. You will become a difficult player to beat.

Once you can do that, you will probably find your bigger flat serve becomes more effective anyway because it will become a free hit. You will be able to hit it more relaxed because your know your second serve is bulletproof, so it doesn't really matter if you miss it.

 

[LuckyR]

Agree that first serves are for "show" and second serves are for "dough" ie second serves avoid losses.

Start with the slice serve. It's the easiest to perform and get in. It's effective as both first (stays low and has movement) and second (has consistancy) serves. Then learn flat, last learn kick.

 

[TennisDawg]

OMG, thank you guys!! I also did some searching of old posts, the years old lol, seems I shouldn't focus on FLAT only now, which I was about to do and already did couple hours FLAT only.

A way to practice this is to pick a spot like down the T on duece side then hit flat serve then hit slice aiming both serves down the T. Do the same on the ad side. You’ll soon be comfortable with the serve dynamics of both serves. Start learning the top spin serve, then the kick serve.

 

[eah123]

Kick serve is harder to learn than slice serve. But for 3.5 and higher, you need a kick serve as a second serve, and you don’t need a slice serve. However slice serve is just a flat serve with a different kind of contact, so very easy to learn if you have a decent flat serve.

I am ntrp 3.5 and have a good flat serve, but when I practice from the basket, I always practice kick serve first and the most (probably like 60% kick, 20% slice and 20% flat).

If you don’t use any flat serves, you are going to be losing a lot until your kick serve gets good enough (could take a year or more). So if your flat is really horrible, I would continue working on it, but also work on kick serves at the same time. Probably 50-50 or around there.

Good luck!

 

[yoyofly]

Guys, first of all, I'm googling the difference between top spin serve and kick serve.
Secondly, top spin serve seems harder to me, am I wrong? why do people always say to learn top spin serve first instead of kick serve?

 

[Dragy]

Guys, first of all, I'm googling the difference between top spin serve and kick serve.
Secondly, top spin serve seems harder to me, am I wrong? why do people always say to learn top spin serve first instead of kick serve?

Kick serve term is used differently by people, but on here we mostly apply it to relatively slow, very spinny serve, which dips down, kicks as high as shoulder+ level for the returner, and likely has sideways break at bounce (aka American twist)

Pure topspin serve is almost non-existent. It is possible to hit, but not too effective. Most arcing serves have a combination of top and side spin, aka top-slice serves. Those can be pretty fast, yet have safe arcing trajectory and bounce which is not that easy to handle.

In terms of execution, all spin serves (and actually all serves) are very similar. Difference is achieved by attack angle: how through/across you strike the ball; how side/up you cut it.

Mid-term I’d invest in learning good top-slice serve, playing with degrees of plow/spin and spin direction - toss location helps a lot. It’s a lot like FH topspin drive: once you learn it, your ball is traveling pretty fast while remaining safe due to arc. Then you just learn to place it.

 

[LeeD]

Work on a top/slice serve now.
You can modify it later for more top, or more slice.
Plenty of former top 5 pro men play without flat serves.
But EVERY player 3.5 and higher use a top/slice variety at least half their serves.

 

[yoyofly]

Thanks, Dragy and LeeD. I'm settled, I'll add top/slice serve practice now.

 

[blauerton]

You should consistently practice flat serve on the first serve, then hit topspin or slice serve on the second serve. Do this over and over at practice so that you can memorize the difference, regarding ball toss and how to hit the ball.

 

[Curious]

Who hits a flat serve? Even Sampras didn’t!
It’s like asking how do I learn a flat forehand. You don’t.

 

[optic yellow]

I was told in another thread here to learn slice before flat.

 

[matterer]

My baseline, volley etc. may be a 3.5 but my serve is SOOO bad. My partner and I used to practice 95% of others and only 5% of serve.
Anyway, I'm getting more into match play and I need my serve to be good and I'm learning FLAT, getting better now.

One of the YouTubers says people should be solid with FLAT first and then can start learning slice and kick. Do you guys agree?
I want to learn slice and kick sooner since their higher success rate in the match. How do I know I'm ready to learn SLICE and KICK? Thanks!

When your flat serve is solid

 

[johnmccabe]

If you want to maximize your match winning in couple months, then maybe flat is not important. If you prioritize learning technique over short term match success, I think those coaches are correct: flat serve first. Flat is the easiest serve to learn the fundamentals. Just Not the highest percentage serve in matches.

I use the flat serve to find the motion that gives me most amount of easy power. Once I can hit 100 serves in a row at the speed I like without feeling any discomfort in arms and shoulders, I'm pretty much happy with it. It helped my second serve too.

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

At the most basic level, the serve is used to start a point. If your serve is unreliable, you'll DF a lot. Whether your serve is flat, TS, kick, slice is less important than whether your serve is reliable.

I wouldn't fixate on achieving a certain level with any serve type before trying the others; you may just find something else fits you better than flat.

I personally like TS because it gives me more margin of error with net clearance. But it certainly takes more practice getting the racquet face angle correct.

 

[zaph]

Kick serve term is used differently by people, but on here we mostly apply it to relatively slow, very spinny serve, which dips down, kicks as high as shoulder+ level for the returner, and likely has sideways break at bounce (aka American twist)

Pure topspin serve is almost non-existent. It is possible to hit, but not too effective. Most arcing serves have a combination of top and side spin, aka top-slice serves. Those can be pretty fast, yet have safe arcing trajectory and bounce which is not that easy to handle.

In terms of execution, all spin serves (and actually all serves) are very similar. Difference is achieved by attack angle: how through/across you strike the ball; how side/up you cut it.

Mid-term I’d invest in learning good top-slice serve, playing with degrees of plow/spin and spin direction - toss location helps a lot. It’s a lot like FH topspin drive: once you learn it, your ball is traveling pretty fast while remaining safe due to arc. Then you just learn to place it.

In my neck of the woods the terms are used differently. A topspin serve is what you describe as a kick serve, something with a lot of top on it which rears off the court. That is what I use for my second serve.

When people talk about kick serves they normally refer to serves with top and side, so they kick away from you. I think in America you call that a twist serve, though I have also had people tell me the twist serve is actually a kick serve with what we would call reverse swing in cricket.

Basically all this terms can be a bit confusing and I have seen the same serve called different things in different places.

However for the second serve the most important thing is to have something that will go in the majority of the time and is difficult to attack. The most effective way of doing that is to put topspin on the ball, it will clear the net by a high margin and in my experience people find it difficult to attack. They can't deal with a ball which rears off the court, it looks much easier to attack than it actually is. A surprising number of my second serves end up being returned into the bottom of the net or the back fence.

 

[zaph]

At the most basic level, the serve is used to start a point. If your serve is unreliable, you'll DF a lot. Whether your serve is flat, TS, kick, slice is less important than whether your serve is reliable.

I wouldn't fixate on achieving a certain level with any serve type before trying the others; you may just find something else fits you better than flat.

I personally like TS because it gives me more margin of error with net clearance. But it certainly takes more practice getting the racquet face angle correct.

I have never been able to learn shots like that, when people starting talking about racket head angles I am all at sea. I admire people who have that level of awareness of what their arm is doing and can make those fine adjustments, it is just not something I am able to do.

The way I learnt the topspin serve was to go extreme on the racket drop. I have found that if you think you have gone far enough, drop the racket even lower behind you and then throw the racket up at the ball. That generally does the trick and gets the right trajectory, especially if you can get the ball toss a bit to the left.

 

[Dragy]

The way I learnt the topspin serve was to go extreme on the racket drop. I have found that if you think you have gone far enough, drop the racket even lower behind you and then throw the racket up at the ball. That generally does the trick and gets the right trajectory, especially if you can get the ball toss a bit to the left.

Interesting, I personally don't control my racquet drop any bit. It just happens as I drive up with my body. I focus on getting to good load/trophy position, then uncoil and swing at the ball.
Do you focus on drop as separate motion?

 

[zaph]

Interesting, I personally don't control my racquet drop any bit. It just happens as I drive up with my body. I focus on getting to good load/trophy position, then uncoil and swing at the ball.
Do you focus on drop as separate motion?

I might be using the wrong term, by racket drop I basically mean drop the racket behind my back. Not sure why it makes a difference but all I know is if I forget to do it, I don't get the right shape on the serve.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Oh wow, I learn flat serve first simply because my coach seems want to teach me that first, and the youtuber also says so.

Seems I shouldn't focus on FLAT that much for now.

For quite a while, I've been teaching students a topspin-slice serve first so that they develop a solid spin serve. Once they can get that into play 80-90% for their second serve, I'll have them develop a faster 1st serve with less spin that they should try to get into play 50-60% of the time for a 1st serve in singles (or 60-70% of the time for a 1st serve in doubs)

The kick serve will come some time later.

 

[pencilcheck]

does it matter? at the super beginner level, getting serve in, however it is, is far better than saying you can hit kick or slice serve. spin in serve matters more once you reach 4.5+. at the lower level it doesn't matter, whoever has less double faults usually wins

 

[Dragy]

does it matter? at the super beginner level, getting serve in, however it is, is far better than saying you can hit kick or slice serve. spin in serve matters more once you reach 4.5+. at the lower level it doesn't matter, whoever has less double faults usually wins

There are different approaches to this, based on:
- how early you want start competing as beginner?
- do you need an overhead serve if you are not using reliable moderately paced serve anyway?
- if you do compete (socially or in some league/ladder/tourneys), maybe go with tap-in second serve, while learning solid spin serve with your coach?

I’m a kind of guy who spent months practicing to build some level of techniques proficiency before hitting singles matches (got into doubles with farther, but that was low-pressure low-expectation)

- Doesn’t mean I immediately was better with all the techniques… I did struggle…
- Doesn’t mean it’s best for everyone, some just are happy playing with what they figure out during the process

Spin serve is great to have as a 3.5, and if it’s not something crazy aspirations like 6’ bounce kick, it’s all about smoothness, feel and control. Confidence to start points, to not get attacked, to get some freebies.

Meanwhile one can perfectly go with eastern grip flat serve, but it’s not worth investing past some stage. So back to the original post, there’s no particular level of flat newbie serve to achieve before learning spin serves. Whoever wants to progress with the serve and make it up to higher levels or develop into a weapon, can start working on it right today. The only prerequisite, or maybe standalone skill, would be consistent toss.

 

[socallefty]

Even flat serves have a lot of spin RPM - more than the groundstrokes of most rec players. I think it is OK to start teaching the continental grip serve with spin to keep the ball in the box early. Once the skill to impart spin is learned, players can learn to hit harder with less spin or slower with more spin. But, if no one teaches them how to generate spin, they will get the bad technique of a pancake serve grooved into their muscle memory and it might be hard to change later.

I think I probably started teaching my son and wife the proper way to serve by the 2nd hour of practicing serves when they were total beginners. As soon as they got the concept of the overhead serve motion from a sideways stance somewhat analogous
to throwing, we moved on a continental grip, approaching the ball with racquet on edge etc.

 

[pencilcheck]

There are different approaches to this, based on:
- how early you want start competing as beginner?
- do you need an overhead serve if you are not using reliable moderately paced serve anyway?
- if you do compete (socially or in some league/ladder/tourneys), maybe go with tap-in second serve, while learning solid spin serve with your coach?

I’m a kind of guy who spent months practicing to build some level of techniques proficiency before hitting singles matches (got into doubles with farther, but that was low-pressure low-expectation)

- Doesn’t mean I immediately was better with all the techniques… I did struggle…
- Doesn’t mean it’s best for everyone, some just are happy playing with what they figure out during the process

Spin serve is great to have as a 3.5, and if it’s not something crazy aspirations like 6’ bounce kick, it’s all about smoothness, feel and control. Confidence to start points, to not get attacked, to get some freebies.

Meanwhile one can perfectly go with eastern grip flat serve, but it’s not worth investing past some stage. So back to the original post, there’s no particular level of flat newbie serve to achieve before learning spin serves. Whoever wants to progress with the serve and make it up to higher levels or develop into a weapon, can start working on it right today. The only prerequisite, or maybe standalone skill, would be consistent toss.

i used to think that you should aim for a pro level stuff first and you will find a way there, but after years of doing so, looking back I realized that my journey would've been easier if I do one small step at a time instead of trying everything at once.

to get to where they want to be, first yuo need to define the scope very clearly that anyone can understand without a doubt

simply say a flat serve or spin serve isn't that clearly defined yet, there are yet a lot of unknowns to those players and foundations missing building up to even get started to really think/learn this through.

by understanding how to make a serve in without knowing how to serve is more important, whether they want to move up and do more that is up to how much they want to learn to get there then the next step would be to slowly ask a bit more advanced question such as

1. Don't think about spin, flat. Let's hit a serve with continental grip, doesn't matter what serve, let's see if you can land it in 100% of the time, starting from the service line (not base line)
2. Then slowly move it back to the base line and see if it still works
3. Now switch sides to ad court and repeat

Those sounds simple but usually if you want a solid foundation, better to spend the time to really understand them so moving up would be a lot easier

Similar to how people don't just teach their kids college level algebra on their first day of school, they start out with simpler stuff like counting, memorize multiplication table, etc.

 

[Dragy]

Similar to how people don't just teach their kids college level algebra on their first day of school, they start out with simpler stuff like counting, memorize multiplication table, etc.

But you can also say serve is by itself isn’t something you learn from day one. You can use some method to solve the problem, but you better build some basics first.

For example, you can learn to strike the ball with throwing motion - not to land it in some box. You can learn it from the ball tossed to you by coach. Then already owning the stroke (like you do with groundies) you may learn the toss, and then try to match the toss and the correct ball striking techniques you’ve already learned. Then get to service line and try to land it in the box

The biggest question is are you patient enough, can you drill it for couple of months without trying to play sets or even just serve attempt from the baseline?

Or you want to join your friendly doubles this weekend, and you want something to not double fault too much? Well that’s route isn’t worse, isn’t better, just different (or the former approach is different, while this is typical)

 

[Cashman]

When people say learn the flat serve first, they are basically just saying learn good serve mechanics first - because these are the foundation of every kind of serve

i.e. if you have a good basic serve motion, then you have a very high level of control over how the racquet face addresses the ball at time of contact. Once you have nailed this down, it becomes relatively trivial to dial different elements up and down - using different amounts of pace and spin to vary the trajectory and speed of the ball.

most players who get stuck on an unreliable flat serve tend to have a poor basic motion, and are just slapping at the ball in a way that is very difficult to control or adjust