types of serves

[bcp]

Forgive me for asking this newbie question, but I have searched extensively and haven't found a clear answer.

My question is about the different types of serves:
I understand the flat serve is a straight ball with no spin. The other terms- kick, topspin, slice, and twist are unclear to me.

The types of serve that I have been learning are: 1) flat, 2) topspin? where I toss the ball almost directly (or just right of center) over my head and hit the upper right quadrant of the ball which creates topsin (I think). 3) ?? I toss the ball to the right and my swing is at about 2 o'clock, hitting right center of the ball creating sidespin.

I'm happy with the serves I am learning, but get confused when reading about the various types of serves. As I am typing this, I realize these shots are very hard to articulate, but I am enjoy reading to learn and have found these forums to be very informative.

Thanks in advance for any clarification.

 

[rk_sports]

Have you checked FYB site? If not, here you go
http://www.fuzzyyellowballs.com/

 

[fuzz nation]

You're about right.

Often times, a side-spin serve will be referred to as a slice serve. No biggie.

A kick serve is sort of a spin serve that's somewhere between a side-spin and a topspin serve. It will fly rather right-to-left from a righty server's perspective, but then kick back to the right when it bounces. The other spin serves can take funky bounces, too, but this serve can be the nastiest one for a returner to deal with.

Keep up the good work with your serves and remember to use a motion that's not so acrobatic that you can use it all day without hyper-extending your back or anything else.

 

[GetBetterer]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/skills/4229090.stm

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

What adds to the confusion is that not all ppl use the various terms in the exact same manner. For instance, myself and other consider the (American) twist to be one of 2 or 3 types of a kick serve.

All kick serves have a strong topspin component that makes the ball "kick" up. But not all topspin serves will "kick" up significantly. Other types of spins present, side spin and spiral spin, will affect how the ball travels (side spin) and and bounces (spiral spin). If these other spins are present in sufficient amounts, they will often be considered as a distinct sub-class of kick serve: topspin kick, topspin-slice kick or twist kick.

Just as all topspin serves do not significantly "kick", not all topspin-slice serves will either.

 

[bcp]

thanks for the responses and links. Very helpful!