Kick serve - tips for depth and “drop”

[eb_tennis_247]

I have recently developed a kick serve that keeps me out of most of double faulting troubles.

However, being new at it, I am still improving at it and suffering “childhood diseases” with it.

One such “disease”, in competitive play, is its low depth and slow, loopy arch. I spin it up to get it safely across the net, but with its slow speed and short depth, it does not pose much of a threat.

I would like to, next, make it a bit more offensive.

Is a solution to swing faster and harder upward onto the ball and rely on magnus effect to bring the ball into the court, but deeper and faster?

Any practical tips are highly appreciated.

 

[Curious]

I have recently developed a kick serve that keeps me out of most of double faulting troubles.

However, being new at it, I am still improving at it and suffering “childhood diseases” with it.

One such “disease”, in competitive play, is its low depth and slow, loopy arch. I spin it up to get it safely across the net, but with its slow speed and short depth, it does not pose much of a threat.

I would like to, next, make it a bit more offensive.

Is a solution to swing faster and harder upward onto the ball and rely on magnus effect to bring the ball into the court, but deeper and faster?

Any practical tips are highly appreciated.

Yes

 

[Dragy]

Need to see your actual serving to give good response. What is your level of play? How are your faster serves? To hit solid kick you need high racquet head speed - same as to hit fast, power serves, if not more. So basic serving mechanics, solid "throwing" is No. 1 prerequisite.
If swing is fast enough, blind advice is to toss a bit further into the court and get under the ball with your body lean to swing up - rather than toss back over your head standing in place.

 

[HuusHould]

Another key is more strategic, mixing up it's placement and throwing other 2nd serves (topspin/slice topspin) into the mix as well. A kicker when your opponent knows the placement early and are expecting it has to be very good to be effective. It's a bit like the knuckle ball in baseball or slower ball in cricket, a large part of its effectiveness is in it not being anticipated.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Need to pay some additional fees to Magnus to derive full benefit from his effect. Seriously tho, it would be helpful to see a vid of your current kick serve. Are you employing both top spin and side spin? Even possibly more important, are you getting that very fast "brush sound" on your serve impacts?

 

[Chas Tennis]

Search
The Physics of the Kick Serve, Rod Cross

Read this article carefully and mark up a paper copy. (it is hard to find things again).

In a later section, he discusses a 'lob kick serve'. This ball has a lower speed, rises leaving the racket, goes high, and might be effective at rec tennis level. But it is not used in ATP pro play because of the low speed. Are you doing that?

For the ATP pro technique you should expect the ball to be directed down or horizontally off the racket and according to Rod Cross, the speed range should be 80-100 MPH. (I believe I read a later article that said 100 MPH was on the high side.)

Kick serve from behind showing racket heights before, during and after impact. Look at the elbow shadows to see the rapid internal shoulder rotation (ISR).

To single frame on Vimeo hold down the SHIFT KEY and use the ARROW KEYS.

If you take a video squarely from the side you should be able to estimate the serve speed by how many ball diameters are travelled in one frame time. High speed video is not required. Your camera specs should have its video frame rates. A ball at 100 MPH travels 1760" per second or 59" in the time between two frames of a 30 fps camera. The diameter of your ball can be measured or estimated from ball specs. Measurement demonstrated in thread Junior Twist Serve.

The only kick serve technique that is well described is the pro kick serve. You can see what happens in clear high speed videos. See thread Junior Twist Serve.

If you have a different technique you are on your own as far as describing what you are doing or finding advice that applies.

 

[Cashman]

If you have a powderpuff kick serve it is ultimately because you aren’t generating enough racquet head speed. Why that is the case is going to be hard for anyone to say without seeing video - the causes can be multifactorial and not obvious

To use myself as an example, when I started out with a kicker, I had a similar problem. I initially thought I just needed to swing harder, but when I saw a coach he pointed out that my toss was too low.

This meant I didn’t have enough time for good racquet drop. As a result of poor racquet drop, my racquet head speed was hitting a very low ceiling. I initially compensated by moving my grip around to an eastern, which increased my spin sufficiently but made my serve pretty wimpy.

By tossing higher I got a lot more snap, and it let my grip shift back around to a conti which made my serve much more nippy.

 

[ubercat]

Hmm I use an eastern by grip for kicker. Is this wrong?

 

[Cashman]

Hmm I use an eastern by grip for kicker. Is this wrong?

It’s not wrong, Stefan Edberg hit the best kicker of all time and he used an eastern grip.

Personally I find it hard to get enough penetration with an eastern. I hit with a continental and swing harder.

 

[ubercat]

Thanks if it was good enough for the iceberg. 110 kilos of prime cat. No problem with power.

 

[vex]

I have recently developed a kick serve that keeps me out of most of double faulting troubles.

However, being new at it, I am still improving at it and suffering “childhood diseases” with it.

One such “disease”, in competitive play, is its low depth and slow, loopy arch. I spin it up to get it safely across the net, but with its slow speed and short depth, it does not pose much of a threat.

I would like to, next, make it a bit more offensive.

Is a solution to swing faster and harder upward onto the ball and rely on magnus effect to bring the ball into the court, but deeper and faster?

Any practical tips are highly appreciated.

YMMV but for me it started clicking when I realized I needed to RIP up the ball as hard as I possibly could. From there, a little tweaking of the angle at contact and the amount of plow thru and suddenly I had a second serve better than most people’s firsts. You really have to commit to Max effort on the brush up, MAX EFFORT. You can HEAR someone with a good kick serve swing, you don’t even have to see it because you’ll hear the intensify of the swing.

** obviously if you aren’t tossing to the right spot none of what I said will help you

 

[HuusHould]

A combination of leg drive, back arch (then straightening) shoulder turn, outward (into the backscratch) then inward rotation of the hitting arm in the backswing and follow through respectively, while keeping a loose arm for racquet head speed and feel.

 

[stapletonj]

do not fall into the trap of throwing the ball less into the court on your toss. that is fool's gold for generating topspin on your serve.

 

[LeeD]

High arc and DEPTH!
But you need high swingspeed. At 4.0, maybe swingspeed to hit 100 mph flats.
At 6.0, enough swing speed to hit 125 flats.

 

[Morch Us]

So do you already have a high arc serve with good RHS, which just happends to lands short?
If the answer is yes, then trading some of the spin to drive will make the serve land deep.
If the answer is no, then work on RHS and make it higher arc and try to still land it short.

I would like to, next, make it a bit more offensive.

 

[eb_tennis_247]

Yes. I am progressing nicely on kick serve ... needs more work.

Sometimes it is loopy and lands short but has a very good safety margin. Sometimes, it is offensive, flies diagonally, but it also has a lower margin of errors (ends in the net, or goes wide).

I think it is now a matter of practice, but I will appreciate any tips.

 

[LeeD]

Practice a lot, and to the same location each time.

 

[Shroud]

I have recently developed a kick serve that keeps me out of most of double faulting troubles.

However, being new at it, I am still improving at it and suffering “childhood diseases” with it.

One such “disease”, in competitive play, is its low depth and slow, loopy arch. I spin it up to get it safely across the net, but with its slow speed and short depth, it does not pose much of a threat.

I would like to, next, make it a bit more offensive.

Is a solution to swing faster and harder upward onto the ball and rely on magnus effect to bring the ball into the court, but deeper and faster?

Any practical tips are highly appreciated.

To make it more offensive I agree with the “into the court” post. Imho you should be hitting the kicker as fast or faster than the 1st serve. This is in terms of effort and not actual speed.

 

[vex]

I have recently developed a kick serve that keeps me out of most of double faulting troubles.

However, being new at it, I am still improving at it and suffering “childhood diseases” with it.

One such “disease”, in competitive play, is its low depth and slow, loopy arch. I spin it up to get it safely across the net, but with its slow speed and short depth, it does not pose much of a threat.

I would like to, next, make it a bit more offensive.

Is a solution to swing faster and harder upward onto the ball and rely on magnus effect to bring the ball into the court, but deeper and faster?

Any practical tips are highly appreciated.

YMMV but in my experience build your kick serve like this:
1) get the toss to the correct spot at least 12’oclock or farther.
2) whip every ounce of spin you possibly can up the ball. Literally swing as hard as you can up the ball.
3) once you have 1 and 2 down, tinker with your angle at contact and the amount of plow thru you add to the **** until it is landing where you want it to land with the pace you want.


The more spin you hit the harder you can hit so really whip it. After that it’s just dialing angle/plow thru in so you have both a safe AND decently powered shot

 

[tennis tom]

Yes

Yes

 

[PKorda]

YMMV but in my experience build your kick serve like this:
1) get the toss to the correct spot at least 12’oclock or farther.
2) whip every ounce of spin you possibly can up the ball. Literally swing as hard as you can up the ball.
3) once you have 1 and 2 down, tinker with your angle at contact and the amount of plow thru you add to the **** until it is landing where you want it to land with the pace you want.


The more spin you hit the harder you can hit so really whip it. After that it’s just dialing angle/plow thru in so you have both a safe AND decently powered shot

Any tips to bringing it down after swinging up as hard as possible?

 

[Chas Tennis]

Any tips to bringing it down after swinging up as hard as possible?

Observing the motion in high speed video, single frame, is always necessary. Otherwise, what do you know?

 

[tennis tom]

Any tips to bringing it down after swinging up as hard as possible?

gravity

 

[Grip n Rip]

Hmm I use an eastern by grip for kicker. Is this wrong?

Could I see your kicker please if you have a video of it?

 

[PKorda]

gravity

I think that’s more of a law than a tip.

 

[tennis tom]

I think that’s more of a law than a tip.

It's both.

 

[PKorda]

It's both.

It isn’t. Do you think I’m practicing my serve on the moon?

 

[tennis tom]

It isn’t. Do you think I’m practicing my serve on the moon?

The moon's for golfers.

 

[vex]

Any tips to bringing it down after swinging up as hard as possible?

As in the ball or the racket?
- you bring the ball down by lowering your angle at contact. Imagine the ball frozen in the air. On your first serve your stringbed is moving with a lot more plow thru but (unless your John Isner) still some upward brush. When the racket plows into the ball you left racket face isn’t perpendicular to the ground, it’s slightly closed. The same thing happens on your second serve only with way less plow thru (but still some) and way more upward brushing action. When your racket plows into the ball your ripping up while it does that and your also closing the face a bit to counteract all the topspin you should be generating and sending the ball the desired height over the net.

remember: literally EVERY shot in tennis has 3 basic components: 1) plow thru, 2) upward brush (spin) and 3) angle at contact. The serve works just like your forehand, you close the face a bit as you plow into it while brushing up. The serve is just a forehand you’re executing over your head with a different grip and technique. But it’s still the same basic shot.

If you were talking about the racket you’re going to naturally pronate as part of your spin generation efforts. Best to watch someone like Fed hit slow motion second serves to see how it works

 

[LeeD]

Topspin brings the ball down in addition to gravity.
Topspin only is a "kick" serve.
With the correct component of side in addition to top, comes the twist.