please critique my serve, video included

[suuupah]

In the past, my serve has never been much of a weapon in matches, I always rely on my aggressive groundstrokes to win the point. However I'm entering into my final year of high school (aka final year of varsity tennis) so I'm looking to add more pace to my flat serve and more "kick" to my kick serve. I've recently started practicing the kick serve, using every website and video I could find, but my serves, while getting them in, always just seems to sit up into the opponent's strike zone. This is about three weeks in practicing almost every day (just serves).

I know I have a lack of a trophy position (just realized that after looking at my video >.>) but other than that, what can I do to improve my serves?

And what can I do to lessen lower back pain from the kick serves? Like it's been fine, but just yesterday when I woke up it hurt to arch it T_T

Sorry for the wall of text :-| >.<

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1OhOruZ7XE

 

[LeeD]

You have a nice forward topspin serve swing, but really try to STRAIGHTEN your elbow more, getting the rackethand lower and farther away from your right ear. As bent, you lose out on power because you spend all your energy trying to straighten your hitting elbow, and not enough using the shoulders to swing the rackethand fast and forwards.
Toss more behind your head. A topspin serve as you do, and a low bouncing kick serve, just bounces into your opponent's chest high hitting zone. To kick, you have to bounce it OVER his eyes, so about 6' high at the baseline. That means DEPTH, high arc, deep placement, upwards and outwards swing (which you aren't too far from achieving), and toss location more behind your head. A really fast swing is great to have, but you can kick the ball really high using the above advice even with a moderate speed swing, if you use all the tips.
You can lower your rackethand by raising your toss hand higher, so you are facing upwards, and archer's bow position. That means tilting your upper body sideways and backwards, so you can hit UP at the ball.

 

[GetBetterer]

You go racket back before the foot push, which is why you don't have a trophy pose.

Your toss also needs some work - you toss in front of you, it should be parallel to the baseline.

You have very little foot push. I can barely see your feet leave the ground.

 

[tricky]

And what can I do to lessen lower back pain from the kick serves? Like it's been fine, but just yesterday when I woke up it hurt to arch it

Yeah, hold off on your kick serve before working on your normal serve.. If you feel your lower back at all, that means you are off balance in your toss and windup. That you don't really have a backswing also indicates problems with balance.

As you begin your toss, your weight moves forward. In fact, it continues to move forward through the whole windup including the entire backswing. There's a couple of exercises that can help you with this.

Try tossing the ball so that the ball lands on a racquet in front of you. Try a J-toss style, letting the arm drop before tossing the ball up. You are probably familiar with that exercise. Now, try the same thing on one foot. This will force you to move your weight forward as you toss. In particular, notice how your thigh moves and how your weight shifts onto the ball of the foot. Keep working on the one foot toss until that ball consistently lands on the racquet face.

Once you're pretty successful with the toss, then try your toss with both feet on the ground and see whether your back foot moves a la pinpoint serve. Finally, go through your whole service motion from toss to follow through.

Working on your front foot aids serving from ad court. Working on the back foot aids serving from deuce court.

Finally, if you Youtube "Coach Kyril" or "Pat Dougherty", you'll see great videos that'll help you as well.

 

[LeeD]

Players using the twist or kick serves will develop lower back problems after hitting that serve for a few years, or a few thousand times.
That's a fact of life.
You don't see old timers hitting that serve, unless they just started hitting it recently. Oldsters who used to hit that serve all the time gave up hitting it after a relatively short period, maybe 10 odd years.
You can hit that serve for a long period of time, if you modify your backarch, upwards/outwards swing, but you lose effectiveness on the balls bounce and speed.
Currently, a good twist/kick should bounce somewhere around 6' high at the baseline, should continue one bounce to the backboard, and should whizz and hiss, the ball slightly oval, travelling thru the air.
Your body cannot handle hitting this shot for very many years.

 

[Nellie]

A kick serve does not need to hurt your back. You need to turn sideways (shoulders in line with the baseline) and swing along the base line with a lot of knee bend so that brushing up on the back of the ball is part of a natural path of the ball.

The problem your current motion is that you are trying to face the receiver, crouch under the ball, and bend up backwards from the waist to produce spin.

 

[LeeD]

EVERY tennis player who can hit a good american twist serve has back problems from the serve.
You can say what you want about technique and theory, but REALITY is, EVERY tennis player who uses predominantly a kick or twist serve WILL hurt his back thru time. And that time is usually less than 10 years.

 

[Jaewonnie]

Is it just me or are you stopping your follow through?

 

[Falloutjr]

Players using the twist or kick serves will develop lower back problems after hitting that serve for a few years, or a few thousand times.
That's a fact of life.
You don't see old timers hitting that serve, unless they just started hitting it recently. Oldsters who used to hit that serve all the time gave up hitting it after a relatively short period, maybe 10 odd years.
You can hit that serve for a long period of time, if you modify your backarch, upwards/outwards swing, but you lose effectiveness on the balls bounce and speed.
Currently, a good twist/kick should bounce somewhere around 6' high at the baseline, should continue one bounce to the backboard, and should whizz and hiss, the ball slightly oval, travelling thru the air.
Your body cannot handle hitting this shot for very many years.

I think a few thousand times is a really conservative estimate. I probably hit that serve at least 500 times a month between practice and match play, and feel no back problems whatsoever. Maybe a few TEN thousand times is more accurate.

 

[pvaudio]

You go racket back before the foot push, which is why you don't have a trophy pose.

Your toss also needs some work - you toss in front of you, it should be parallel to the baseline.

You have very little foot push. I can barely see your feet leave the ground.

Um no, it should definitely be in front.

 

[LeeD]

Is that spoken from the point of view of a 24 year old?
At 30, I had hit AmericanTwists for over 6 years, easily several thousand, and thought it was fine.
No experience except my own.
Then BudCollins went on to mention back problems for Edberg, Cash, Rafter, Laver, Newcombe, all from twist serves. None of them in later years hit twists.
I quit twists at 50, but now use it at 61 because there is nothing left to break. But my lefty kicks only get up around eye heights for 6' tall players, so best used as a variety, and not every time.
Expereince thru many decades can sometimes trump our own experiences.