Looking for advice on serve consistency

[Cawlin]

Hi, I'm new to the forum. Here's a little background on me:

47 year old male
6' 3" tall left hander, reasonably fit
One handed backhand (mostly slice, but learning a topspin backhand in the past couple months)
Semi-western forehand
Former collegiate baseball player (pitcher)
I live in Georgia and can play year round with a tennis court about 150 yards from my front door.
If I had to guess about my rating, taking the entirety of my game into account, and mostly my lack of consistency, I would not rate myself higher than 3.0.
I am involved in a very little bit of club level competition - on some local leagues playing Mixed Troubles (as my coach calls it) with my wife, but that is mostly a source of frustration for both my wife and I right now.

From age 7 or so, I always played tennis as a "something to do" activity while growing up, but never in any organized fashion, and only when I wasn't playing baseball. I'd pick up my $5 K-mart racquet, call a buddy, and walk, bike, and later drive to a nearby court, or if nobody was around, go hit against the wall by the high school courts. Scholastic tennis (my parents would not have been able to afford any other type of instruction for me) ran in the same season as baseball so despite my interest, I never could participate in that.

I've always had some aptitude for the sport, good hand-eye coordination, quick hands and feet, though I sprint like I am dragging a piano, and as a kid/teenager would try to have that AWSUM serve that I watched on TV!! I would bomb maybe 17 or 18 out of 20 serves way way long or wide, and serve a dinky 2nd, but those 2 or 3 first serves out of 20 that would go in... oh boy!

I found myself at the beginning of this year having just turned 47, wanting an activity to enjoy with my wife (so she would not make me get into a gym - I HATE pushing around plates and treadmills). So I guess you could say I started to actually pay attention to my tennis game this year.

So now, and since January of this year I've been playing and practicing an average of 6 or 7 days a week, usually for around 2 hours per day, but some days as little as one hour, others as many as 4 or 5 hours, over multiple sessions with various hitting partners.

I find myself without the same strength from my teen years, but having ironed a few details out with my serve via some online video instruction. The trouble is that I can serve one day like a 4.0+ player - seriously: in the 100 mph neighborhood, upwards of 85% in (not great on accuracy with respect to wide, up the T, or body serves), and against my regular hitting partners (not just my wife) near 100% first serve points won, better than 75% of them aces, with the remaining being mostly desperation shots that I can just smash/put away on the next hit with nex to no effort. On those days, it seems that the harder and more recklessly I hit my serve, the more solidly and firmly IN the serves seem to go. Sometimes on those days I don't even hit a "real" second serve, because I know that I might have *just* missed the first serve, so I smash my second one just a little bit better and it's in. I might see one double fault in 10 service games on those days.

Then the next day, and once in a while, even within a given playing session/match, I can't hit even a dink second serve in and am double faulting a minimum of twice every service game. My serve game goes from the sublime to the ridiculous.

It's maddening.

The thing is this: I don't know what I'm doing on my 'great serve' days vs. my 'garbage serve' days. I don't know how to fix what is happening other than to just take almost everything off of my serve and hit something barely harder than a dink serve just to keep the thing in play... and it is demoralizing to watch my playing partners on those days just tearing up my first OR second serves (if I even get one in), when just yesterday they were as demoralized as I aced them over and over...

The way I have approached my serve is similar to the way I approached pitching in baseball. On the mound, (from about age 12 on) I had reasonable confidence that I could reach back and throw the fastball where I wanted, or the curve, or the change or the knuckle, and if one of my pitches wasn't as great as the others on a given day, or the hitter was a good fastball hitter, or whatever, I had options to work around it. If my fastball was up or not in the strike zone, I could go through my mechanics points in my head, like dots on a graph, and if I connected them, I'd be reasonably assured my fastball/curveball, etc. would go where I wanted it to. The conversation in my head would be like "Ok, me and you catcher... OK... bend your back, squeeze a little on the index finger, keep your glove hand tucked, feel your right shoulder brush under your chin as you wind up, follow through, don't overthrow, me and the glove, see the target, don't aim it, it'll go where you want it..."

I cannot do this with my serve.

My wife and I take lessons from a local pro twice a week and he keeps telling me "you've got to get into the rhythm and flow of it, you need casual power". Well I've got what feels like casual power, but some days it goes in and some days it doesn't and I don't know what the dots are that need to be connected to result in a serve I can count on. To be fair, our coach is (at our request) mostly focused on my wife's serve in our lessons since she is desperate to learn how not to "serve like a girl" (her words, not mine).

Is this an issue with the type of instruction I am getting? Is the serve taught this way? Is it all too individual to be able to be formulaic from player to player? I keep looking for these mechanics dots to connect, but can't find/see them on my good days to try to emulate them on my bad days. On my bad days, I can't even seem to find something to stop the bleeding... I don't have a "square one" to go back to on those days it seems.

I would appreciate any sort of systems you folks could point me to about this or any advice on how to self-coach or pretty much just any thoughts you folks might have, because I am pretty desperate to at least have an average serve performance that I at least know I can count on not to be a guaranteed winner for my opponent if I even get the thing in play...

Thanks for reading!

 

[J011yroger]

How are you a former college pitcher asking this? It's exactly the same thing!

J

 

[Cawlin]

How are you a former college pitcher asking this? It's exactly the same thing!

J

I hear you, and this is why it's so maddening! I can't figure out what the specific points in my mechanics are that make me serve one day really well, and the next day really poorly.

I remember the coaching I got when I was learning to pitch - specifics of "hold the ball like this" and "take the ball back like this" and "in your wind-up do this" and "for the curve, do this", but I can't seem to find those reliable points in my serve that I can recognize as things I'm doing right, or wrong. And more importantly, can't find a "square one" of mechanics basics to go back to when things start to go sideways...

When pitching, if I threw a fastball up in the strike zone for a home run, I knew the problem was not bending my back, not staying on top of the ball, so if I was still in the game after that, I would fix it immediately... I can't figure that out in serving.

 

[jwocky]

Record your next few outings - probably you will have had a good day and a bad day over the course of a week, and then compare.

 

[J011yroger]

I hear you, and this is why it's so maddening! I can't figure out what the specific points in my mechanics are that make me serve one day really well, and the next day really poorly.

I remember the coaching I got when I was learning to pitch - specifics of "hold the ball like this" and "take the ball back like this" and "in your wind-up do this" and "for the curve, do this", but I can't seem to find those reliable points in my serve that I can recognize as things I'm doing right, or wrong. And more importantly, can't find a "square one" of mechanics basics to go back to when things start to go sideways...

When pitching, if I threw a fastball up in the strike zone for a home run, I knew the problem was not bending my back, not staying on top of the ball, so if I was still in the game after that, I would fix it immediately... I can't figure that out in serving.

You are holding a continental grip?

You should be able to just throw your racquet at the ball. If it goes left or right aim more towards the middle of the ball. If it goes long aim more at the top and if it goes in the net aim more at the bottom.

Just take a basket and relax your body and throw your racquet and see where it goes. Don't try too hard, just practice moving the ball around.

J

 

[Chas Tennis]

The high level serve has mainly two racket head motions as it impacts the ball:
1) It closes as it moves forward.
2) Corrected - It rotates clockwise in azimuth as it moves forward. (viewed from above for a right handed server). Azimuth indicates the racket string face points to the side.

I have believed that getting equivalent racket head speeds from two racket head motions is more consistent than getting it mainly from just one. ....issue to be determined.

But there can be no doubt that getting racket head speed from two racket head motions is what the high level servers are doing.

The two separate racket head motions can be clearly seen as the racket head moves moves forward.

If you want to pursue this approach you first must determine your serving technique by using high speed video and also understand how the high level serve works.

Reference books are available from tennis stroke biomechanics researchers - not just forum poster's opinions without references.

In the Tennis Serve Nuthouse of 2017, people discuss their serves as if everyone is using the same technique. But the most common technique in use by active tennis players is the Waiter's Tray, over 50% use the WT. With the WT, the predominant racket head motion is closing as the head moves forward. To get equivalent pace with a WT technique (to a high level serve) the head has to close very fast and that causes consistency to become difficult in my opinion. It becomes more difficult to control the elevation of the ball, it goes high or low.

 

[Cawlin]

Record your next few outings - probably you will have had a good day and a bad day over the course of a week, and then compare.

Good advice. I will have to see what I can do for this, maybe rig up the GoPro on a tripod. Thanks!

You are holding a continental grip?

You should be able to just throw your racquet at the ball. If it goes left or right aim more towards the middle of the ball. If it goes long aim more at the top and if it goes in the net aim more at the bottom.

Just take a basket and relax your body and throw your racquet and see where it goes. Don't try too hard, just practice moving the ball around.

J

Yepper, holding what I'm told is a "strong" continental grip for all my serves. I have more trouble going wide in the ad court as a lefty (even when I hit a silly "can opener" slice serve) than I have going up the T in the deuce court, but right now, I'm not as worried about those finer points as I am about being able to hit it in one day and not the next. On those days the serve box itself seems I'm trying to hit the ball into a teacup, on my good days, the serve court I'm hitting into seems like the ocean.

Lately I've been hitting 150-300 serves a practice session, but am worried I may be "burning in" bad habits... I will try this though. Thank you!

 

[SinjinCooper]

You're way ahead of the game, because your pitching mechanics will translate directly to effortless serve power, but only if harnessed correctly -- which it sounds like yours haven't been.

Thing with pitching is you use all those parts of your body in harmony to project a ball forward, and a little down.

Then in the serve, you also use the same sorts of motions to project a ball forward and down.

BUT, the trap is that you can't think about them quite the same way. That's because in a tennis serve, you effectively have a much longer arm with an extra joint you have to manipulate. It sounds to me like you're trying to use your innate athleticism to serve forward and down, like you pitched. You can't. The "throwing motion" in your serve is UPWARD, not forward. Here's why.

The "ball" you're "throwing," when you execute a throwing motion as you serve ISN'T the racquet head. What you're "throwing" is the butt of the racquet. Literally imagine slicing a tennis ball halfway open and sliding it onto the butt of the racquet. THAT'S what you throw.

Except instead of letting go when you throw, you hold onto the butt of the racquet loosely. Then, inertia combined with the mass of racquet whips the racquet head around violently in an arc -- up, then around, then down.

You don't -- and CAN'T -- control the part of the swing that directs the ball forward and down. That arc happens after your efforts, entirely due to physics. And figuring out how to let go of the idea of muscling or throwing the ball forward is where most serves go wrong for life.

But by controlling your toss, and where in that whipping arc of the racquet you contact the ball, a good upward throwing motion gives you all the power, consistency, and versatility you could ever need.

As a pitcher, what you need to do in the short term is to focus on the idea of that imaginary ball on the butt of the racquet, and on the idea of throwing that ball at the sky with abandon. Do that, and get comfortable with what the racquet itself does AFTER that part of the motion. Once you can grasp that, it's just a matter of tossing the ball in the way of that violent, whipping racquet arc.

 

[Cawlin]

Some great technical stuff

Thanks for this! I will look into it!

You're way ahead of the game, because your pitching mechanics will translate directly to effortless serve power, but only if harnessed correctly -- which it sounds like yours haven't been.

Thing with pitching is you use all those parts of your body in harmony to project a ball forward, and a little down.

Then in the serve, you also use the same sorts of motions to project a ball forward and down.

BUT, the trap is that you can't think about them quite the same way. That's because in a tennis serve, you effectively have a much longer arm with an extra joint you have to manipulate. It sounds to me like you're trying to use your innate athleticism to serve forward and down, like you pitched. You can't. The "throwing motion" in your serve is UPWARD, not forward. Here's why.

The "ball" you're "throwing," when you execute a throwing motion as you serve ISN'T the racquet head. What you're "throwing" is the butt of the racquet. Literally imagine slicing a tennis ball halfway open and sliding it onto the butt of the racquet. THAT'S what you throw.

Except instead of letting go when you throw, you hold onto the butt of the racquet loosely. Then, inertia combined with the mass of racquet whips the racquet head around violently in an arc -- up, then around, then down.

You don't -- and CAN'T -- control the part of the swing that directs the ball forward and down. That arc happens after your efforts, entirely due to physics. And figuring out how to let go of the idea of muscling or throwing the ball forward is where most serves go wrong for life.

But by controlling your toss, and where in that whipping arc of the racquet you contact the ball, a good upward throwing motion gives you all the power, consistency, and versatility you could ever need.

As a pitcher, what you need to do in the short term is to focus on the idea of that imaginary ball on the butt of the racquet, and on the idea of throwing that ball at the sky with abandon. Do that, and get comfortable with what the racquet itself does AFTER that part of the motion. Once you can grasp that, it's just a matter of tossing the ball in the way of that violent, whipping racquet arc.

Huh... that is a brand new take on it to me... throwing the butt of the radquet handle vs. throwing the racquet face... I will DEFINITELY try this as well. Incidentally, this is the way I learn best - understanding the physics, translating that to the physiology, and that becomes proper mechanics which lead to desired results. Thank you! If I have success throwing the butt of the racquet, I could likely find my own "mechanics dots" through which I can run my serve with expected decent results...

 

[Nellie]

I would start by developing a a spin/second serve. You mentioned a slice serve. Try to practice that serve while keeping your feet planted. In particular, really focus on hitting up and through the ball. You should feel like you are going to throw the racquet up as high as you can. The contact should should sound like swish (from brushing the strings against the side of the ball) and not a pop. Try only hitting that serve for now and practice aiming only for the middle of the service box. When you miss, think of swinging for more brushing and less pop - so swing faster for more spin.

 

[Cawlin]

I would start by developing a a spin/second serve. You mentioned a slice serve. Try to practice that serve while keeping your feet planted. In particular, really focus on hitting up and through the ball. You should feel like you are going to throw the racquet up as high as you can. The contact should should sound like swish (from brushing the strings against the side of the ball) and not a pop. Try only hitting that serve for now and practice aiming only for the middle of the service box. When you miss, think of swinging for more brushing and less pop - so swing faster for more spin.

On my "good serve" days, I can serve a slice, kick, or flat serve with reasonable consistency. My second serve on such days is most often a slice (though if I'm really in the groove on such a day, it'll be another flat serve). I will put this to work and see about gradually moving the power up and see if I can't find a comfortable, consistent second serve that will give me confidence if I should miss my first serve. Thanks!

 

[styksnstryngs]

Good advice. I will have to see what I can do for this, maybe rig up the GoPro on a tripod. Thanks!


Yepper, holding what I'm told is a "strong" continental grip for all my serves. I have more trouble going wide in the ad court as a lefty (even when I hit a silly "can opener" slice serve) than I have going up the T in the deuce court, but right now, I'm not as worried about those finer points as I am about being able to hit it in one day and not the next. On those days the serve box itself seems I'm trying to hit the ball into a teacup, on my good days, the serve court I'm hitting into seems like the ocean.

Lately I've been hitting 150-300 serves a practice session, but am worried I may be "burning in" bad habits... I will try this though. Thank you!

No, you must hit 700 practice serves a day.

Spoiler

not really. You'll hurt yourself.

 

[Cawlin]

No, you must hit 700 practice serves a day.

Spoiler

not really. You'll hurt yourself.

Haha! I found this (the spoiler) out the hard way when I was demoing racquets some months back... SFM.

 

[styksnstryngs]

Haha! I found this (the spoiler) out the hard way when I was demoing racquets some months back... SFM.

It was a reference to @thomas daniels

 

[Cawlin]

It was a reference to @thomas daniels

Ah, got it. My wife would tell you not to put it past me to make 700 practice serves a day. She does know I know better now though as she had to listen to me whine about the tennis elbow problem I got from that demo-madness.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

@Cawlin

Did not really read much of your OP or the replies in this thread but I will offer some advice on improving serve consistency just the same. Hopefully I can provide some alternate advice that has not been suggested. Are you employing a very high toss? This can be more difficult to time properly for many players. Can affect serve consistency.

Do you have a consistent toss? Ok to use a different toss placement for 1st and 2nd serves. But for each type of toss, your toss placement should be very consistent. Just prior to releasing the ball, lift your head/eyes up to the point in space where you want you toss to go. Do NOT follow the ball up with your head/eyes. Instead, fix your gaze on the desired toss location before the ball gets there.

I saved the best for last. After the ball release, let your tossing hand follow the ball upward so that your tossing arm is vertical (or very nearly vertical). Your extended tossing hand will provide an excellent reference for the path and position of the ball toss. This is both a spatial reference and a temporal reference. The hand will tell you exactly WHERE the ball is (relative to your body) and it will provide an excellent tool for telling you WHEN to swing at the ball.

With the arm vertical for your trophy position, keep your hand up there for a little while. You should not start to pull the hand/arm down until you start to drop the racket head behind you. You should see the ball 2 feet or so above your hand before you start to pull the hand arm down. It is important to see this space between the ball and your extended hand to get a good fix on the ball. This hand-ball relationship will tell your brain when to swing at the ball and how to adjust your racket swing path.

Lastly, it is also important to keep your head up and gaze fixed on the toss and the expected contact point. Pulling your head down early can adversely affect serve consistency. Try to keep your gaze fixed on the CP until contact, if possible. Or very close to contact. Keep it up for most or all of the upward swing of the racket.

 

[nvr2old]

You and i have very similar backgrounds Cawlin. My wife and I got into tennis about 8 months ago too. Although I'm 60 I played college baseball (short and second) and many years of post collegiate baseball a softball. Throwing is like second nature to me and prob to you as well and can play baseball in my sleep like riding a bike. I've played tennis casually since 8 yo and again recently got back into the game after 35 years off. Groundstrokes came back very quickly, serve on the other hand not so much. I too have problems with consistency. Recently played a tourney (my first) and got waxed solely because of my inability to serve at all. Refused to patty cake a second serve in and as such had so many DF it was ridiculous. Since then I have gone to an abbreviated serve motion like Todd Martin and Jeff Salzenstein and some pros use. It has helped tremendously with my consistency. I do give up some mph on serves but placement and consistency are way up and I can actually play tennis with someone instead of DF my games away. What I found also was that the more freely I serve, the more freely my groundstrokes and the rest of my game flows. When my serves are tentative it infuses the rest of my game with doubt and inconsistency as well. Good luck.

 

[golden chicken]

Is your toss consistently in exactly the same place at exactly the same height every time, or are you chasing an erratic toss? You might have good throwing mechanics, but if you can't put the toss up there to hit consistently, your serve will surely suffer.

 

[Limpinhitter]

Hi, I'm new to the forum. Here's a little background on me:

47 year old male
6' 3" tall left hander, reasonably fit
One handed backhand (mostly slice, but learning a topspin backhand in the past couple months)
Semi-western forehand
Former collegiate baseball player (pitcher)
I live in Georgia and can play year round with a tennis court about 150 yards from my front door.
If I had to guess about my rating, taking the entirety of my game into account, and mostly my lack of consistency, I would not rate myself higher than 3.0.
I am involved in a very little bit of club level competition - on some local leagues playing Mixed Troubles (as my coach calls it) with my wife, but that is mostly a source of frustration for both my wife and I right now.

From age 7 or so, I always played tennis as a "something to do" activity while growing up, but never in any organized fashion, and only when I wasn't playing baseball. I'd pick up my $5 K-mart racquet, call a buddy, and walk, bike, and later drive to a nearby court, or if nobody was around, go hit against the wall by the high school courts. Scholastic tennis (my parents would not have been able to afford any other type of instruction for me) ran in the same season as baseball so despite my interest, I never could participate in that.

I've always had some aptitude for the sport, good hand-eye coordination, quick hands and feet, though I sprint like I am dragging a piano, and as a kid/teenager would try to have that AWSUM serve that I watched on TV!! I would bomb maybe 17 or 18 out of 20 serves way way long or wide, and serve a dinky 2nd, but those 2 or 3 first serves out of 20 that would go in... oh boy!

I found myself at the beginning of this year having just turned 47, wanting an activity to enjoy with my wife (so she would not make me get into a gym - I HATE pushing around plates and treadmills). So I guess you could say I started to actually pay attention to my tennis game this year.

So now, and since January of this year I've been playing and practicing an average of 6 or 7 days a week, usually for around 2 hours per day, but some days as little as one hour, others as many as 4 or 5 hours, over multiple sessions with various hitting partners.

I find myself without the same strength from my teen years, but having ironed a few details out with my serve via some online video instruction. The trouble is that I can serve one day like a 4.0+ player - seriously: in the 100 mph neighborhood, upwards of 85% in (not great on accuracy with respect to wide, up the T, or body serves), and against my regular hitting partners (not just my wife) near 100% first serve points won, better than 75% of them aces, with the remaining being mostly desperation shots that I can just smash/put away on the next hit with nex to no effort. On those days, it seems that the harder and more recklessly I hit my serve, the more solidly and firmly IN the serves seem to go. Sometimes on those days I don't even hit a "real" second serve, because I know that I might have *just* missed the first serve, so I smash my second one just a little bit better and it's in. I might see one double fault in 10 service games on those days.

Then the next day, and once in a while, even within a given playing session/match, I can't hit even a dink second serve in and am double faulting a minimum of twice every service game. My serve game goes from the sublime to the ridiculous.

It's maddening.

The thing is this: I don't know what I'm doing on my 'great serve' days vs. my 'garbage serve' days. I don't know how to fix what is happening other than to just take almost everything off of my serve and hit something barely harder than a dink serve just to keep the thing in play... and it is demoralizing to watch my playing partners on those days just tearing up my first OR second serves (if I even get one in), when just yesterday they were as demoralized as I aced them over and over...

The way I have approached my serve is similar to the way I approached pitching in baseball. On the mound, (from about age 12 on) I had reasonable confidence that I could reach back and throw the fastball where I wanted, or the curve, or the change or the knuckle, and if one of my pitches wasn't as great as the others on a given day, or the hitter was a good fastball hitter, or whatever, I had options to work around it. If my fastball was up or not in the strike zone, I could go through my mechanics points in my head, like dots on a graph, and if I connected them, I'd be reasonably assured my fastball/curveball, etc. would go where I wanted it to. The conversation in my head would be like "Ok, me and you catcher... OK... bend your back, squeeze a little on the index finger, keep your glove hand tucked, feel your right shoulder brush under your chin as you wind up, follow through, don't overthrow, me and the glove, see the target, don't aim it, it'll go where you want it..."

I cannot do this with my serve.

My wife and I take lessons from a local pro twice a week and he keeps telling me "you've got to get into the rhythm and flow of it, you need casual power". Well I've got what feels like casual power, but some days it goes in and some days it doesn't and I don't know what the dots are that need to be connected to result in a serve I can count on. To be fair, our coach is (at our request) mostly focused on my wife's serve in our lessons since she is desperate to learn how not to "serve like a girl" (her words, not mine).

Is this an issue with the type of instruction I am getting? Is the serve taught this way? Is it all too individual to be able to be formulaic from player to player? I keep looking for these mechanics dots to connect, but can't find/see them on my good days to try to emulate them on my bad days. On my bad days, I can't even seem to find something to stop the bleeding... I don't have a "square one" to go back to on those days it seems.

I would appreciate any sort of systems you folks could point me to about this or any advice on how to self-coach or pretty much just any thoughts you folks might have, because I am pretty desperate to at least have an average serve performance that I at least know I can count on not to be a guaranteed winner for my opponent if I even get the thing in play...

Thanks for reading!

It's tough to give useful advice without seeing your serve live or in video. The serve is based on throwing with all that that implies. You place the ball into a space in the air with one hand and you throw the racquet at it with the other. One big distinction between serving and pitching is the angle of the spine. In both cases, you rotate your upper body around your spine. However, when pitching, your spine is more or less perpendicular to the ground. When serving, your spine is angled back (from the knees, not by arching your back), and your upper body rotates around an angled spine.

Having said that, a typical cause of inconsistency on serve is inconsistency with the toss. If your toss is all over the place, your serve is likely to be as well, especially when you are a beginner.

 

[dennis]

I agree with the above - most likely to be a problem with the toss, contact point or balance, but can't help much without a video. It's better if you try particular serves when filming as well eg. slice out wide x 5, kick down the T x 5 etc

 

[Cawlin]

@Cawlin

Did not really read much of you OP or the replies in this thread but I will offer some advice on improving serve consistency just the same. Hopefully I can provide some alternate advice that has not been suggested. Are you employing a very high toss? This can be more difficult to time properly for many players. Can affect serve consistency.

Do you have a consistent toss? Ok to use a different toss placement for 1st and 2nd serves. But for each type of toss, your toss placement should be very consistent. Just prior to releasing the ball, lift your head/eyes up to the point in space where you want you toss to go. Do NOT follow the ball up with your head/eyes. Instead, fix your gaze on the desired toss location before the ball gets there.

I saved the best for last. After the ball release, let your tossing hand follow the ball upward so that your tossing arm is vertical (or very nearly vertical). Your extended tossing hand will provide an excellent reference for the path and position of the ball toss. This is both a spatial reference and a temporal reference. The hand will tell you exactly WHERE the ball is (relative to your body) and it will provide an excellent tool for telling you WHEN to swing at the ball.

With the arm vertical for your trophy position, keep your hand up there for a little while. You should not start to pull the hand/arm down until you start to drop the racket head behind you. You should see the ball 2 feet or so above your hand before you start to pull the hand arm down. It is important to see this space between the ball and your extended hand to get a good fix on the ball. This hand-ball relationship will tell your brain when to swing at the ball and how to adjust your racket swing path.

Lastly, it is also important to keep your head up and gaze fixed on the toss and the expected contact point. Pulling your head down early can adversely affect serve consistency. Try to keep your gaze fixed on the CP until contact, if possible. Or very close to contact. Keep it up for most or all of the upward swing of the racket.

Is your toss consistently in exactly the same place at exactly the same height every time, or are you chasing an erratic toss? You might have good throwing mechanics, but if you can't put the toss up there to hit consistently, your serve will surely suffer.

I agree with the above - most likely to be a problem with the toss, contact point or balance, but can't help much without a video. It's better if you try particular serves when filming as well eg. slice out wide x 5, kick down the T x 5 etc

Thanks all for this advice. Regarding my toss, it's relatively consistent (I've always sort of thought of it needing to be in a space roughly the size of a basketball (in 3 dimensions), and it almost always is within that "basketball sized area" that I'm intending to put it - though the place is different for my kick vs. flat vs. slice serves. Perhaps the basketball sized area is too large and I need to be thinking of more of a volleyball or even softball sized area?

The past couple days (and I mean literally the day before yesterday and yesterday after I made this post) I've been tossing the ball lower and more forward into the court than I usually do. I've changed my release point to somewhere around eye level (though I do follow through with my hand) as opposed to somewhere above my head. This forces my toss to be farther into the court, and my consistency is up, particularly with my slice serve. This does have the effect of causing me to have a more abbreviated swing as well and a bit less velocity, but the damn ball is going in more like 75 or 80% of the time with what feels like 80ish % of my old velocity. I kind of feel like Roscoe Tanner now or something with how abbreviated everything feels and how low my toss is, but that's likely more about the relative newness to me than the actual truth of it. I will refine this technique with some of the suggestions in your post @SystemicAnomaly, so thanks in advance for that advice, I am sure it will help!

I had my wife come out to receive some of my practice serves yesterday evening - ironically she's one of the best returners of serve on our Mixed Troubles team - definitely the best of the women and probably top 3 among the men - she's a better returner of serve than I am - even though she picked up a racquet for the first time this past January - but day in and day out she's been receiving my serve... anyway. Her verdict was that the ball wasn't moving as fast as my "best" serves, but was still challenging to return and of course, she didn't have to wait for me to hit 3 or 4 out before finally getting 1 in play...

With all of that said, I've been down this road before though... having a day or two or even three where I'm serving consistently, only to see it fall apart the next day without understanding why, to my utter and complete "I'm going to quit this fkn game!" frustration. We shall see. I will put much of this advice into use and see how things go over the next few days. It's possible, I imagine that if I get this toss thing ironed out that it will be the first, most important "mechanics dot" for me to hit and then I may be able to more reliably place my serves as well. Over time, I will work on recruiting my legs and core back into my serve with this potentially solid foundation and gain back some of that velocity too... we shall see...

For now, though, I am guardedly optimistic. Thank you all!

 

[Cawlin]

You and i have very similar backgrounds Cawlin. My wife and I got into tennis about 8 months ago too. Although I'm 60 I played college baseball (short and second) and many years of post collegiate baseball a softball. Throwing is like second nature to me and prob to you as well and can play baseball in my sleep like riding a bike. I've played tennis casually since 8 yo and again recently got back into the game after 35 years off. Groundstrokes came back very quickly, serve on the other hand not so much. I too have problems with consistency. Recently played a tourney (my first) and got waxed solely because of my inability to serve at all. Refused to patty cake a second serve in and as such had so many DF it was ridiculous. Since then I have gone to an abbreviated serve motion like Todd Martin and Jeff Salzenstein and some pros use. It has helped tremendously with my consistency. I do give up some mph on serves but placement and consistency are way up and I can actually play tennis with someone instead of DF my games away. What I found also was that the more freely I serve, the more freely my groundstrokes and the rest of my game flows. When my serves are tentative it infuses the rest of my game with doubt and inconsistency as well. Good luck.

Ha! Yes we definitely do have similar backgrounds, nvr2old! I too refuse to pattycake in a second serve, and if the truth be told, by the time I probably SHOULD be doing so, just out of desperation to stop the DF train, I'm usually too rattled to even be able to do that with any accuracy - can you imagine? It's so frustrating!! When I get to that point, the rest of my game is utterly and completely FUBAR as well.

My wife is very new to the game and her own game is actually growing by leaps and bounds according to everyone on our team, but if I could have kept my game under control and had a decently reliable serve - even if it wasn't an ace or double fault and just 90% of the time or better NOT a double fault - I am sure we would be more like 3 and 2 or 4 and 1 instead of 1 and 4 playing together. When my serve isn't on, neither is the rest of my game, and it's just a cascade of awful.

Anyway, see my post above - I have just started using a similar motion to the one you describe and for two days, have had pretty good serves in practice. I will see tonight how it goes as the line 1, 2, and 3 men on our mixed team (the oldest of them is 60 and a former semi-pro soccer player, the other is 59 and a lefty, and the third is around my age and also former college baseball player) have asked me to play with them tonight. We'll likely play a few abbreviated sets (each person serves once, then we switch up partners and do another short set). None of these guys has a serve anywhere near as good as mine can be on a good day, but on a bad day, I don't even belong on the court with them... soo... I"m hoping for the best tonight, or at least not to embarrass myself.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement!

 

[nvr2old]

Ha! Yes we definitely do have similar backgrounds, nvr2old! I too refuse to pattycake in a second serve, and if the truth be told, by the time I probably SHOULD be doing so, just out of desperation to stop the DF train, I'm usually too rattled to even be able to do that with any accuracy - can you imagine? It's so frustrating!! When I get to that point, the rest of my game is utterly and completely FUBAR as well.

My wife is very new to the game and her own game is actually growing by leaps and bounds according to everyone on our team, but if I could have kept my game under control and had a decently reliable serve - even if it wasn't an ace or double fault and just 90% of the time or better NOT a double fault - I am sure we would be more like 3 and 2 or 4 and 1 instead of 1 and 4 playing together. When my serve isn't on, neither is the rest of my game, and it's just a cascade of awful.

Anyway, see my post above - I have just started using a similar motion to the one you describe and for two days, have had pretty good serves in practice. I will see tonight how it goes as the line 1, 2, and 3 men on our mixed team (the oldest of them is 60 and a former semi-pro soccer player, the other is 59 and a lefty, and the third is around my age and also former college baseball player) have asked me to play with them tonight. We'll likely play a few abbreviated sets (each person serves once, then we switch up partners and do another short set). None of these guys has a serve anywhere near as good as mine can be on a good day, but on a bad day, I don't even belong on the court with them... soo... I"m hoping for the best tonight, or at least not to embarrass myself.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement!

Good luck Cawlin. I play tomorrow with a buddy and we'll see hoe my serve holds up. Let me know how things go. There was a thread recently here that asked about throwing a tennis ball over the back fence from the service line and insinuating that the ability to do this was equivalent to the ability to serve well/fast. I tried it and could easily throw the ball over the dance flat footed with both feet on the baseline using only arm strength. My guess is you could do the same. It's only a matter of time before we mater the serve technique is my guess.

 

[Wise one]

If you are 6' 3" you have to be making a special effort to double-fault. In 1997, when I was your age, I hit at least 24 first serves in in a row in a singles match. A week later, I hit 17 in a row. I am 5' 2" and use wood racquets.

 

[Raul_SJ]

I find myself without the same strength from my teen years, but having ironed a few details out with my serve via some online video instruction. The trouble is that I can serve one day like a 4.0+ player - seriously: in the 100 mph neighborhood, upwards of 85% in (not great on accuracy with respect to wide, up the T, or body serves),

Control first. Slow it down until you are able to hit the three targets.

When you learned to pitch, did you throw hard not knowing if it's going down the middle, inside or outside?

 

[nvr2old]

Control first. Slow it down until you are able to hit the three targets.

When you learned to pitch, did you throw hard not knowing if it's going down the middle, inside or outside?

Great advice. I personally have a problem slowing my motion down and hence my second serve constancy it lacking.

 

[Cawlin]

Hey all, sorry for the old thread necro, but I wanted to weigh in with some advice I got from a coach and perhaps it would help others.

So it turned out that my biggest issue wasn't with my racquet mechanics or my posture or issues with my kinetic chain, but with two main problems:

1) The first was my shoulders alignment. It turns out that I would "open up" too early. I start out mostly sideways to the net and my toss shoulder (for me, my right) would move to the right too early rather than staying "closed" relative to the net. This would cause my shoulders to rotate early, throwing off timing and causing numerous other problems, all of which resulted in inconsistency in the actual serve result. I had to consciously force myself to first follow through with my tossing hand and let my arm straighten out, and then to keep my tossing hand up a bit longer, and to keep my shoulder from opening up too soon.

2) Mostly related to the first, but my toss itself was too deep towards the baseline and too far in over my head. Forcing myself to toss farther out and to my left (again, I'm a left-hander) helped not only with consistent impact point, but also helped reinforce item 1 above.

When I do these two things, I am able to hit my first serve in play around 70% of the time - higher chance to hit it in if I take a bit off of it, but I've found it better to "go for broke" with my first serve, and still have an 85%+ good second serve that's still pretty hard - about 80% of my max pace first serve (I save my 95%+ reliable kick serve for my second serve when I'm in "MUST ABSOLUTELY NOT DOUBLE FAULT" points). In my past three matches, I've had 5 total double faults, probably a dozen or more aces, and another 20 or so "free" points off my serve that weren't aces, but didn't come back over either. I've had my serve broken only once in those past 3 matches as well.

It's unbelievable to me how much my overall game has improved based on having the improved confidence in my serve. Now to iron out my ground strokes and get them nice and consistent...

 

[samarai]

just because u were a pitcher decades ago, doesnt mean that the same set of skills will immediately transport to a tennis serve. Sure u have a head start but the skills just dont completely transfer over. They are different mechanical points involved in a overall good serve. I agree, dont think about blasting the ball think about adding spin. Really, u need one serve. A good topspin serve at your height will take u a long way.

 

[Cawlin]

just because u were a pitcher decades ago, doesnt mean that the same set of skills will immediately transport to a tennis serve. Sure u have a head start but the skills just dont completely transfer over. They are different mechanical points involved in a overall good serve. I agree, dont think about blasting the ball think about adding spin. Really, u need one serve. A good topspin serve at your height will take u a long way.

You're completely right! I was a bit ahead of the game based on pitching mechanics. Back when I was pitching, and/or learning a new pitch, I was receiving good coaching all the way through and those coaches were able to show me the various mechanics "touch points" if you will - hold the ball this way for a curve ball, bend your elbow this way, etc. etc. This would create what I call a sort of mechanics diagram of the pitch that featured various mechanics points that if I simply connected, would result in the pitch being what I wanted.

After about age 9 in little league, I never wondered when I stepped out onto the pitcher's mound if I was going to throw strikes or if I was going to throw the ball over the backstop. But that's what my serve game felt like last fall and through much of this winter - I had NO idea if was going to be serving lights-out, or have to resort to some crappy patty-cake serve just to get the thing in play and the most panic-inducing thing about it was that I LITERALLY could not figure out why my serve game was either great, or unforgivably terrible from one day to the next. I was *this* close to just hanging up my racquet because I just could not enjoy playing with that sort of completely unpredictable inconsistency.

It was EXTREMELY difficult to find this sort of instruction on the mechanics for me for tennis serves in various technique discussions, videos, etc. without some actual "eyes-on-me" personal coaching. I found a new coach that looked at my specific motion and mechanics and was able to tell ME what *I* needed to do to "connect the dots". It is starting to come together for me, and I am very happy about it. If anyone lives in the north Atlanta suburbs and is looking for a coach, hit me up in PM, I'll give you this guy's contact info.

 

[Chas Tennis]

Hi, I'm new to the forum. ................reading!

The most common serving technique among active tennis players is the Waiter's Tray serve. Probably >50% use the WT. The high level serve is a different technique.

To quickly diagnose that the serve is not a high level technique look for the racket face to face the sky as in this Hi Tech tennis webpage.

Waiter's Tray Error.
http://www.hi-techtennis.com/serve/big_l_student.php

You don't need high speed video or even video to see this. But you must capture the racket at around the location shown here. If racket is face to the sky you do not have a high level technique. If edge to the ball you don't have a WT. There are many serving techniques in use. Few are described. The high level technique is used by the top 100 ATP servers.

The WT serve works for a lot of rec level players but it is limited in performance. It might be less reliable in my opinion because it develops all racket head speed from the racket face closing as it move forward. The high level serve add a second racket rotation from the joint motion internal shoulder rotation.

First determine if you are using a WT.

There have been some posts on the WT and many on the high level serve. Finding other serving techniques - besides the high level technique - that are described as well as the high level serve will be very difficult. I don't know of any.

There are many posts on the forum describing the high level serve. Search ISR "internal shoulder rotation"

For the high level serve see the Todd Ellenbecker video "Rotator Cuff Injury" and understand what he says about the shoulder and how to hold it for the serve. Nearly all high level ATP servers use the technique described.

 

[heninfan99]

I found a new coach that looked at my specific motion and mechanics and was able to tell ME what *I* needed to do to "connect the dots". It is starting to come together for me, and I am very happy about it. If anyone lives in the north Atlanta suburbs and is looking for a coach, hit me up in PM, I'll give you this guy's contact info.

This is quite masterful. Smooth close.

 

[Cawlin]

This is quite masterful. Smooth close.

Heh, sorry... I debated about whether or not to even include that line, but I was on the brink of quitting the game and this guy got me back on track - it is a big HUGE deal to me. This guy is pretty new to the area and trying to get up and running with private coaching, so I figured I'd try to help him out. I really do believe in his coaching methods, I promise you that is sincere on my part - but if it really comes off as a big advertising thing (which it isn't meant to be), I'll edit it out of my post.

 

[Cawlin]

The most common serving technique among active tennis players is the Waiter's Tray serve. Probably >50% use the WT. The high level serve is is a different technique.

To quickly diagnose that the serve is not a high level technique look for the racket face to face the sky as in this Hi Tech tennis webpage.

Waiter's Tray Error.
http://www.hi-techtennis.com/serve/big_l_student.php

You don't need high speed video or even video to see this. But you must capture the racket at around the location shown here. If racket is face to the sky you do not have a high level technique. If edge to the ball you don't have a WT. There are many serving techniques in use. Few are described. The high level technique is used by the top 100 ATP servers.

The WT serve works for a lot of rec level players but it is limited in performance. It might be less reliable in my opinion because it develops all racket head speed from the racket face closing as it move forward. The high level serve add a second racket rotation from the joint motion internal shoulder rotation.

First determine if you are using a WT.

There have been some posts on the WT and many on the high level serve. Finding other serving techniques - besides the high level technique - that are described as well as the high level serve will be very difficult. I don't know of any.

There are many posts on the forum describing the high level serve. Search ISR "internal shoulder rotation"

For the high level serve see the Todd Ellenbecker video "Rotator Cuff Injury" and understand what he says about the shoulder and how to hold it for the serve. Nearly all high level ATP servers use the technique described.

Thanks for the input, but yeah, the issue wasn't with the "waiter's tray" serve for me... mostly my issues were with some timing problems with rotating my shoulders and opening up too early.

 

[TennisCJC]

Spin the ball. ALWAYS SPIN THE BALL. SPIN the ball at all times. You should spin the ball. Do I say you should use a lot of spin?

If you want consistency, control and placement; you must spin the serve. Pete Sampras averages roughly 2,500 RPM on his first serve and roughly 3,500 RPM on his 2nd serve. The physics of the service box and net height dictate that the ball must bend in flight before the bounce to give the serve a margin of error for net clearance.

Andy Roddick's serves bent a huge amount in flight and I've watched him live a couple of times. Federer's first serves bend in flight too. Even Isner bends the heck out of his serve and he is near 6' 10".

Sampras also had a steeper vertical bend (more topspin rotation and less side spin) than the average ATP pro. tennis player dot com has stats on Sampras serve to confirm his rpm and spin angles.

in baseball terms, think of throwing a fast drop curve as 1st serve and a slower drop curve as a 2nd serve. Both the 1st and 2nd serves will have roughly the same swing speed but the angle of attack will be steeper and more to the server's outside for the 2nd serve. For a R handed server, the attack angle will be 8 to 2 o'clock and a bit to the R of the intended flight path for a 1st serve and the attack angle will be 7 to 1 o'clock and more to the R for a 2nd serve. For 2nd serves, the follow through can be thought of as almost toward the side fence. Think of hitting the 2nd serve 2 feet over the net with good racket head speed. You can actually hit it a bit higher but I've always used 2' as a visualization and the serve can go lower or a little higher and still land in the service box.

 

[Cawlin]

Spin the ball. ALWAYS SPIN THE BALL. SPIN the ball at all times. You should spin the ball. Do I say you should use a lot of spin?

If you want consistency, control and placement; you must spin the serve. Pete Sampras averages roughly 2,500 RPM on his first serve and roughly 3,500 RPM on his 2nd serve. The physics of the service box and net height dictate that the ball must bend in flight before the bounce to give the serve a margin of error for net clearance.

Andy Roddick's serves bent a huge amount in flight and I've watched him live a couple of times. Federer's first serves bend in flight too. Even Isner bends the heck out of his serve and he is near 6' 10".

Sampras also had a steeper vertical bend (more topspin rotation and less side spin) than the average ATP pro. tennis player dot com has stats on Sampras serve to confirm his rpm and spin angles.

in baseball terms, think of throwing a fast drop curve as 1st serve and a slower drop curve as a 2nd serve. Both the 1st and 2nd serves will have roughly the same swing speed but the angle of attack will be steeper and more to the server's outside for the 2nd serve. For a R handed server, the attack angle will be 8 to 2 o'clock and a bit to the R of the intended flight path for a 1st serve and the attack angle will be 7 to 1 o'clock and more to the R for a 2nd serve. For 2nd serves, the follow through can be thought of as almost toward the side fence. Think of hitting the 2nd serve 2 feet over the net with good racket head speed. You can actually hit it a bit higher but I've always used 2' as a visualization and the serve can go lower or a little higher and still land in the service box.

Thanks for the input... I hear you on the spin. Even my "flat" serve has a slight left to right bend to it. I doubt I'm at or even near the kinds of RPMs the pros get on their shots, but when I'm hitting my kick serve well, it will bounce over your head.

 

[sureshs]

Spin the ball. ALWAYS SPIN THE BALL. SPIN the ball at all times. You should spin the ball. Do I say you should use a lot of spin?

If you want consistency, control and placement; you must spin the serve. Pete Sampras averages roughly 2,500 RPM on his first serve and roughly 3,500 RPM on his 2nd serve. The physics of the service box and net height dictate that the ball must bend in flight before the bounce to give the serve a margin of error for net clearance.

Andy Roddick's serves bent a huge amount in flight and I've watched him live a couple of times. Federer's first serves bend in flight too. Even Isner bends the heck out of his serve and he is near 6' 10".

Sampras also had a steeper vertical bend (more topspin rotation and less side spin) than the average ATP pro. tennis player dot com has stats on Sampras serve to confirm his rpm and spin angles.

in baseball terms, think of throwing a fast drop curve as 1st serve and a slower drop curve as a 2nd serve. Both the 1st and 2nd serves will have roughly the same swing speed but the angle of attack will be steeper and more to the server's outside for the 2nd serve. For a R handed server, the attack angle will be 8 to 2 o'clock and a bit to the R of the intended flight path for a 1st serve and the attack angle will be 7 to 1 o'clock and more to the R for a 2nd serve. For 2nd serves, the follow through can be thought of as almost toward the side fence. Think of hitting the 2nd serve 2 feet over the net with good racket head speed. You can actually hit it a bit higher but I've always used 2' as a visualization and the serve can go lower or a little higher and still land in the service box.

I recently watched D1 doubles from very close quarters and many of the players had a serve in which they pronated till the strings were square to the ball at impact and hit very hard from the upper portion of the strings, resulting in a hard flat serve.

We have been through this before. There is usually a small hitting-down component of the swing before impact, and together with air drag which creates a parabolic trajectory, it is enough to clear the net. It is not needed for the ball to be hit upwards with spin to get net clearance. That is one of the major myths I have debunked on this forum.

 

[J011yroger]

I recently watched D1 doubles from very close quarters and many of the players had a serve in which they pronated till the strings were square to the ball at impact and hit very hard from the upper portion of the strings, resulting in a hard flat serve.

We have been through this before. There is usually a small hitting-down component of the swing before impact, and together with air drag which creates a parabolic trajectory, it is enough to clear the net. It is not needed for the ball to be hit upwards with spin to get net clearance. That is one of the major myths I have debunked on this forum.

Thank god for you!

J

 

[Kevo]

It was EXTREMELY difficult to find this sort of instruction on the mechanics for me for tennis serves in various technique discussions, videos, etc. without some actual "eyes-on-me" personal coaching. I found a new coach that looked at my specific motion and mechanics and was able to tell ME what *I* needed to do to "connect the dots". It is starting to come together for me, and I am very happy about it. If anyone lives in the north Atlanta suburbs and is looking for a coach, hit me up in PM, I'll give you this guy's contact info.

Congrats on finding a good coach. It can make a world of difference in a short period of time if you are the type of person that knows how to take instruction. Given your previous sports background it's not surprising to me that you saw immediate improvements once you were able to get someone competent to look at your serve for you.

 

[TennisCJC]

I recently watched D1 doubles from very close quarters and many of the players had a serve in which they pronated till the strings were square to the ball at impact and hit very hard from the upper portion of the strings, resulting in a hard flat serve.

We have been through this before. There is usually a small hitting-down component of the swing before impact, and together with air drag which creates a parabolic trajectory, it is enough to clear the net. It is not needed for the ball to be hit upwards with spin to get net clearance. That is one of the major myths I have debunked on this forum.

You should tell Pete Sampras and Roger Federer and 6' 10" Isner that are serving incorrectly since you have debunked the myth. So, what percentage of Federer's 1st serves do you think spin less than 1,000RPM in a match? My guess is less than 1%.

 

[sureshs]

This is the secret to the serve: every motion you go through should become familiar to you, from the bounce to the impact. It should be like your body feels it has been in this part of the serve before. Too many rec players hurry through their motion and basically each serve is slightly different from others, in a bad sense. They don't know what they expect to feel at every point of the serve because their impatience has prevented repetitive patterns to be ingrained.

 

[donquijote]

This is the secret to the serve: every motion you go through should become familiar to you, from the bounce to the impact. It should be like your body feels it has been in this part of the serve before. Too many rec players hurry through their motion and basically each serve is slightly different from others, in a bad sense. They don't know what they expect to feel at every point of the serve because their impatience has prevented repetitive patterns to be ingrained.

This is what I call consistency.

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

Thanks for the input, but yeah, the issue wasn't with the "waiter's tray" serve for me... mostly my issues were with some timing problems with rotating my shoulders and opening up too early.

Video yourself so you can watch in slow-motion to see what you're doing right and wrong. Especially handy would be to have footage from a good day to compare it to a bad day. Hopefully you can see some major differences.

Maybe do a drill where you start halfway between SL and BL: try to serve with some topspin rather than just hitting flat. The more net clearance the better [3-5']. Try to maintain that as you move backwards towards the BL.

Check out Jeff Salzenstein's video for starters:

 

[stringertom]

This is the secret to the serve: every motion you go through should become familiar to you, from the bounce to the impact. It should be like your body feels it has been in this part of the serve before. Too many rec players hurry through their motion and basically each serve is slightly different from others, in a bad sense. They don't know what they expect to feel at every point of the serve because their impatience has prevented repetitive patterns to be ingrained.

How did a pro player such as yourself learned the required patience to challenge Groth for the 163.8mph world record serve speed? I patiently aweight your advice.

 

[Raul_SJ]

After about age 9 in little league, I never wondered when I stepped out onto the pitcher's mound if I was going to throw strikes or if I was going to throw the ball over the backstop. But that's what my serve game felt like last fall and through much of this winter - I had NO idea if was going to be serving lights-out, or have to resort to some crappy patty-cake serve just to get the thing in play and the most panic-inducing thing about it was that I LITERALLY could not figure out why my serve game was either great, or unforgivably terrible from one day to the next. I was *this* close to just hanging up my racquet because I just could not enjoy playing with that sort of completely unpredictable inconsistency.

You mentioned that you were opening up early on the serve, Curious as to how that works in pitching. I am thinking that on the tennis serve, you are often swinging offline to impart spin and not directly serving (throwing) at the target. Whereas in baseball, there is no racquet and you are throwing directly at the target.

And that difference is likely what caused you to open up early instead of staying sideways more on the serve?

Also, how did you go about finding your coach, word of mouth? what is his background, and was he able to immediately pick up what you were doing wrong on the serve?

 

[borna coric]

@Cawlin lift your head/eyes up to the point in space where you want you toss to go. Do NOT follow the ball up with your head/eyes. Instead, fix your gaze on the desired toss location before the ball gets there.

This is an excellent advice. This is a MUST to have an excellent serve.

 

[Cawlin]

You mentioned that you were opening up early on the serve, Curious as to how that works in pitching. I am thinking that on the tennis serve, you are often swinging offline to impart spin and not directly serving (throwing) at the target. Whereas in baseball, there is no racquet and you are throwing directly at the target.

And that difference is likely what caused you to open up early instead of staying sideways more on the serve?

Also, how did you go about finding your coach, word of mouth? what is his background, and was he able to immediately pick up what you were doing wrong on the serve?

Without going into a terrible amount of text about pitching vs. serving - this short video on Youtube discusses when a pitcher should be "opening up" their shoulders and how that whole motion works. I was doing a lot more of that type of motion with my serve and dropping my front shoulder and squaring my shoulders up to the net early in my serve motion, which would pull my racquet downwards and make my contact point too low. I would compensate by managing the contact point with my wrist, rather than letting the racquet swing freely on the end of a "live arm" - and some days I would nail the timing JUST right, most days, it would be all over the place. Keeping my shoulders closed longer, not letting them come down as if I were pitching enabled me to be much more consistent with contact point and with having a loose, "live" racquet arm - from there it has been a relatively small timing adjustment to get the contact point right - which has been made much easier by virtue of my mechanics and the consistency of them... I hope all that makes sense. Anyway - the video shows all the wrong things to do if you're trying to serve but some of the right things to do if you're trying to pitch a baseball.

It should be noted as well that due to my trying to serve with shoulders like I was pitching a baseball, it was almost impossible for me to involve my legs and core in a full "kinetic chain" motion on my serve - that is what I am working on now - getting the timing and motion ironed out for the full body serve.

As for finding my coach - he was employed by the HOA Tennis Club that was I guess sponsoring an ALTA women's dubs team my wife was playing on. He was giving that team lessons at about the time I was at the end of my rope with tennis and with my previous coach. My wife spoke to him about me and said to me afterwards: "Honey, why don't you check this guy out and see what he thnks. He was excited to hear you were an old baseball player too, and I REALLY think you'll like his coaching style."

So I called him, we had a good talk - he was an old baseball player too and I'm not really sure of his tennis playing career, but I can find a few tennis stats on him online. He says baseball was his first love though, and if that's the case, he must be a HELL of a baseball player because he's a freaking outstanding tennis player and coach. He's from the Dominican Republic originally, worked for a time in the Northeastern US at some of the academies there and recently moved to Georgia here.

As for spotting my issue with my serve - he spotted it in about 30 seconds flat - this was about a month and a half ago. In my first lesson we spent about half of it with him figuring out where my ground strokes and general skills were and then set in on the serve for a bit. After warming up my serve, by the 2nd "full speed" serve I hit, he spotted the issue - 2 minutes later I was able to do what he was saying and there was marked improvement with him continually refining my motion. After 20 minutes of working on that I was almost literally floating because I knew that while I might not have had the motion fully grooved yet, that I would be able to get at least SOMETHING on my serve and get it in and at the very least, I would know why I wasn't able to hit it in... It probably doesn't make sense to those of you who may have been playing a while, but to a guy like me, with relatively little time playing, that was a hugely important thing and gave me a SERIOUS confidence boost.

It should be noted as well that I have very little experience with playing tennis "seriously" so to speak. I've not had any formal instruction before about a year ago, only dealt with two coaches, etc. and so forth. I don't know if my current coaches' "chops" and/or qualifications are legit or anything like that, but the lesson costs are very much in line with the club coaches in this area, and he is helping my game enormously. He coaches me like my old high school and college coaches did - not like a club coach who is afraid that I'll stop coming to lessons if he doesn't sugar coat things or if he challenges me too much. I appreciate that VERY much.

 

[Deleted member 23235]

I recently watched D1 doubles from very close quarters and many of the players had a serve in which they pronated till the strings were square to the ball at impact and hit very hard from the upper portion of the strings, resulting in a hard flat serve.

We have been through this before. There is usually a small hitting-down component of the swing before impact, and together with air drag which creates a parabolic trajectory, it is enough to clear the net. It is not needed for the ball to be hit upwards with spin to get net clearance. That is one of the major myths I have debunked on this forum.

sureshs, please, oh, please, post a recent vid of your research... this should be entert-...cational
OP, post vid!

 

[Cawlin]

This is an excellent advice. This is a MUST to have an excellent serve.

Now that I have one of the big mechanics flaws starting to come around in my serve, I am working on incorporating this advice into it.