I'm struggling with my kick serve after making some changes to my motion. The changes have to do with making the swing more relaxed and less tense, and have produced dramatic improvement in my flat serve. Way way more power. Now my racket drop is lower, loser, and the racket drifts off to the right (I'm right handed) at the bottom of the drop more than before. I'm coming up more on edge and on the right side of the ball and I can nicely pronate back to the left and through the ball. All good things. As my regular playing partner yesterday said "What the F is up with your serve?" But I could only hit a flat serve or slice. I couldn't hit my kick serve that way.
On the kick serve it's not working because the racket is too far to the right at the bottom of the drop, and I couldn't get the racket back over to the left side of the ball to hit from 7 to 1 or 8 to 2 like a normal kick serve. Especially, given that the ball toss is usually a little more to the left, which puts the racket even further to the right of the ball than on a flat serve. I feel like I had to cut the drop shot before the racket got too far to the right, which defeats a lot of the purpose of the lose drop. I found the video below that has a good side by side comparison of a kick and and flat serve. It looks to me like he's bending at the elbow more on the drop to get the racket more to the left. Is that the right adjustment? In general, is there a difference in the racket drop? How should I go about solving the problem?
I understand that keeping the shoulders closed helps you hit on the left side of the ball, but just closing the shoulders to get on the left side of the ball pushes the swing path too far to the right. There has to be some other adjustment, right?
On the kick serve it's not working because the racket is too far to the right at the bottom of the drop, and I couldn't get the racket back over to the left side of the ball to hit from 7 to 1 or 8 to 2 like a normal kick serve. Especially, given that the ball toss is usually a little more to the left, which puts the racket even further to the right of the ball than on a flat serve. I feel like I had to cut the drop shot before the racket got too far to the right, which defeats a lot of the purpose of the lose drop. I found the video below that has a good side by side comparison of a kick and and flat serve. It looks to me like he's bending at the elbow more on the drop to get the racket more to the left. Is that the right adjustment? In general, is there a difference in the racket drop? How should I go about solving the problem?
I understand that keeping the shoulders closed helps you hit on the left side of the ball, but just closing the shoulders to get on the left side of the ball pushes the swing path too far to the right. There has to be some other adjustment, right?
