Kick/Topspin Serve Brush Up?

[tennisguy2317]

Hi guys,

I am progressing right now in my kick/topspin serve and I am finding it difficult to make it consistent.
Here are some of the key elements I really focus on:

1) staying sideways
2) tossing ball overhead (or close) to maximize spin
3) brushing up ball

For the most part I have been very inconsistent, either framing the ball, spinning the ball short into the net, framing the ball while brushing etc, hitting it long. Although sometimes I do hit a great serve, its very difficult to replicate consistently.

One of my questions is: should I really just be focusing on brushing on the ball or should there be some type of forward swing (even a minimal one) because I think I am making poor contact with the ball. Should I try swinging forward a little bit more to make cleaner contact? Or am I just completely wrong and this is not even the problem?

Thanks for your help and feel free to provide other tips as well.

 

[Slicerman]

I've been working on my kick serve as well lately. I find it a very delicate shot in a way. You need to find the fine balance between topspin and drive. I've been experimenting on it a lot and starting to make some observations. IMO I think it's better to spin the ball into the net as opposed to hitting it long. If you're spinning it into the net then that probably means your stroke is 100% topspin. I think once you add in that slight amount of forward drive then it will give the ball the distance it needs. If you use the same stroke but add some forward thrust with your legs then you will add just enough drive to the shot to make it over the net. Might have to toss the ball a few inches deeper into the court to get you the room to thrust into the shot. I started doing my kick serve toss like a few inches in front of my non-dominant shoulder. At this point the ball might make it over the net, but land slightly short in the service box. Once you can add some extra pronation on the swing then it should land deep in the box with some more pace.. To me, it feels like the legs do most of the work. This is just my observation I made from tweaking around with my kick serve over the past week. Still very much a work in progress, I am only at an intermediate level I'd say.

 

[Deleted member 23235]

learn the kick with one knee on the ground.
or sitting on a chair, etc...

 

[cg.tennis]

You don't want to think about hitting forward. There was a great tip: stay sideway as long as possible and throw your racquet to the SKY. Seriously, you need to think about throw it to the moon or sun or whatever.

Also there is a balance of brushing and hit through (here, hit through doesn't mean hit forward. It means hit through up). So your mindset should be: instead cutting a "cheese slice", you will need to cut a "cheese wedge". How thick is the "cheese wedge"? You will need to experiment it yourself.

The last thing is: it's better to hit kick serve out than hitting it into the net. You need to make sure it's 3-6 feet over the net, and have the confidence that it will dip. If you're timid about high net clearance worrying the ball will goes out, you won't develop a good kick serve.

 

[Limpinhitter]

Hi guys,

I am progressing right now in my kick/topspin serve and I am finding it difficult to make it consistent.
Here are some of the key elements I really focus on:

1) staying sideways
2) tossing ball overhead (or close) to maximize spin
3) brushing up ball

For the most part I have been very inconsistent, either framing the ball, spinning the ball short into the net, framing the ball while brushing etc, hitting it long. Although sometimes I do hit a great serve, its very difficult to replicate consistently.

One of my questions is: should I really just be focusing on brushing on the ball or should there be some type of forward swing (even a minimal one) because I think I am making poor contact with the ball. Should I try swinging forward a little bit more to make cleaner contact? Or am I just completely wrong and this is not even the problem?

Thanks for your help and feel free to provide other tips as well.

Before thinking about brushing up on the ball, you may want to be sure that your set-up (the position of your body, arms and racquet at the peak of your toss), promotes a kick serve. BTW, I advocate setting up for a kick serve on every serve, even if you are not going to hit a kick.

In your set-up position, your upper body should be turned so that your back (not your side), is to the target, and tilted so that in your set-up, your tossing shoulder is nearly directly above your hitting shoulder. See the pic of Sampras below. One simple move that can help to accomplish both (assuming you are a righty), is, when you toss the ball, slide your left hip toward the right net post. This will promote upper body turn and tilt. At the peak of the toss, you then rotate your right shoulder up to the ball so that your upper body rotates like a tilted cylinder, and at contact, your hitting shoulder is now almost directly above your tossing shoulder. See the pic of Sampras below. This will promote maximum racquet head speed and an upward swing path.

Once you get familiar with that, then think about brushing up on the ball, or hitting through, or around the outside of the ball.

 

[Carefree]

Hi guys,

I am progressing right now in my kick/topspin serve and I am finding it difficult to make it consistent.
Here are some of the key elements I really focus on:

1) staying sideways
2) tossing ball overhead (or close) to maximize spin
3) brushing up ball

For the most part I have been very inconsistent, either framing the ball, spinning the ball short into the net, framing the ball while brushing etc, hitting it long. Although sometimes I do hit a great serve, its very difficult to replicate consistently.

One of my questions is: should I really just be focusing on brushing on the ball or should there be some type of forward swing (even a minimal one) because I think I am making poor contact with the ball. Should I try swinging forward a little bit more to make cleaner contact? Or am I just completely wrong and this is not even the problem?

Thanks for your help and feel free to provide other tips as well.

It'll come, just keep at it. All of those things you are doing wrong is part of the process and minor tweaks will fix them.

Framing = (probably) something with your toss height and/or not looking at the ball at contact
Spinning ball short in to net = (probably) dropping your front shoulder and "collapsing"
Hitting long = (probably) tossing too far behind you (baseline) so not getting enough brush

Get that toss to be more consistent, get the contact to be more consistent, the serve will get more consistent. Don't get discouraged, the hump isn't as far away as you think it is.

 

[Chas Tennis]

You should take high speed videos of your swing and observe how your racket impacts the ball. First screen for Waiter's Tray technique, the most commonly used technique for active tennis players.

The following only pertains to the high level serving technique using ISR.

[XXOTE="tennisguy2317, post: 11548378, member: 753345"]..........
......................................
Here are some of the key elements I really focus on:

1) staying sideways Incorrect - the upper body stays more sideways than for a flat or slice serve.
2) tossing ball overhead (or close) to maximize spin Incorrect - the ball is tossed forward and the body and head move forward so that impact is more above the head than for the flat and slice serves.

Do you see the forearm-to-racket angle difference at impact? Can you see that her chest is more sideways for the Top spin serve - but not "sideways" as you describe? Can you see that her head moved forward between the toss release and impact? Do you check your beliefs about tennis serves with high speed videos?
3) brushing up ball- Have you ever seen a video of a racket impacting the ball so that you see the racket position before, during and after striking the ball from behind and from the side? Also a kick serve has more side spin than top spin, so the racket strings brush up and to the side as well moving forward.

There may be other ways to hit a kick serve but the above is consistent with the small number of kick serves I have seen in high speed videos of high level kick serves.

For the most part I have been very inconsistent, either framing the ball, spinning the ball short into the net, framing the ball while brushing etc, hitting it long. Although sometimes I do hit a great serve, its very difficult to replicate consistently.

One of my questions is: should I really just be focusing on brushing on the ball or should there be some type of forward swing (even a minimal one) because I think I am making poor contact with the ball. Should I try swinging forward a little bit more to make cleaner contact? Or am I just completely wrong and this is not even the problem? Nobody can tell what you are doing from your word description.
.....................[/QUOTE]

Pictures on these points have been posted many times. Search/ titles : kick serve Toly Chas
Google: toss kick serve pictures

Same exact questions as above for Stosur's serve above.

Notice the differences; in forearm-to-racket angle, the angle of the chest at impact and the rise of the racket after impact.

Is the toss aimed over the head? Is the chest facing more sideways for a kick serve?

In addition, for a kick serve the racket is tipped forward at impact by maybe 15 d and that does not show in most videos. This tilt gives the ball gyrospin that makes it bounce to the side for a kick serve. Search - Physics of the kick serve Cross