Wonder if 3.0 player should learn the trophy pose ?
First of all, if you are going to learn to serve, you need to do it right. Of course, it might require several steps and you might be forced to truncate the motion into something simpler to get things done, but at some point you want to be able to do the whole thing correctly. It simply makes serving SO MUCH EASIER.
So, you need to understand two basic points:
1. You need somewhat of a backhand grip. A continental grip, an eastern backhand grip or something in between. In my opinion, if you want to hit with something else than a clear cut continental grip, make it lean toward the eastern backhand grip and not an eastern forehand grip. The major reason for using backhand grips like these is that they help us get more topspin on all serves;
2. You never swing your arm at the ball on any serve. You always swing your arm up and out -- that is, at an angle away from the ball. You hit the ball despite this arm path because you use internal shoulder rotation and forearm pronation which helps you twist your hand in the right way and sends the racket in the right path... And that is true for ALL SERVES.
Second of all, if you want a tip, I'd advise you to learn hitting topspin serves first (they sometimes are all called kick serves, although some slices, some bounce straight ahead and others twist and most people on this forum only call the last type of topspin serve a kick serve). I have three very good reasons for this:
(1) You can't hit a good topspin serve without remaining closed for longer (i.e., your body is not facing the net at contact) and that exaggerates what you need to do on a flat serve;
(2) The arm action for a kick serve exaggerates swinging up and out, as well as forces you to pronate a bit and, thus, also helps you get the swing on a flat serve right;
(3) While you might not get the twist variant right away, or be able to control the different spins you can put on a topspin serve to surprise your opponent, anyone of those serves is a high percentage shot, it's not hard to control and it still challenges returners.
Most people do two things wrong on flat serves: (1) they open up too much, too early; (2) they attempt to slam the ball down, instead of swinging up on it to get a bit of spin. You can make acceptably looking, yet inconsistent flat serves while doing this, but you can't get anything ressembling a topspin serve doing those. They tend to do this because they learnt serving with a forehand grip, facing the court and swinging at their target by extending their arm and kept a bit of those habits, but that doesn't capitalize on the benefits of using backhand grips. By learning topspin serves first, you correct those mistakes through exaggerations and get immediate and systematic feedback on what's wrong.
For the third point, consider how we play tennis. Of all shots, the serve is the only shot where you do not respond to your opponent, but get to decide entirely what will happen. This is the number one reason why in men's tennis and, to a lesser extent in women's tennis as well, players tend to win more points serving than returning. Moreover, you will start all points either with a return or a serve. Consequently, the serve is the most important type of shot in the game. If you have only enough time to practice one shot and some time to play matches, practicing serving -- this is where each small increment of technical improvement will pay the most. Now, I advised you to pick topspin serves and not flat serves. The reason is that it allows you to put your first and second serve inside the box and to do it with confidence and aggressivity. You don't need huge pace to beat even the best players on the planet. Granted that kick serves in the upwards of 100mph are something, we're still a far cry away from a genuinely fast serve for those players. What you need is to have just enough pace on it for the receiver to be challenged and, then, you need some variety to fool them. At your level, if you can hit both of your serves with purpose, you'll beat most guys hands down without hitting a single flat serve, but as you go higher variants of bounce type (topspin-slice, topspin and twist), placement (wide, body and middle) and pace (topspin serves versus flat serves and hard slices) become more of a necessity.
My last tip is this: the point of your serve, unless you can hit huge bombs and want to hide deficiencies elsewhere in your game, is not to win the point outright with aces and unreturned serves, but to put yourself in an offensive situation right off the return. All you need, at any level of play, is a slight misshit. As I love serving and volleying, I'm looking for a ball that floats a bit too much and doesn't move quite as neatly towards the sideline, so anything struck close enough to the frame is good enough to give me a chance to attack. This off center hit means he won't get as much pace or spin. If you stay back, you want a ball in the dead center of no man's land, bouncing just a bit of the net -- and just a bit of a misshit is enough to give you that. You would also prefer to hit a forehand to a backhand if the return is a bit deeper. This is where disguise and variety comes in handy at higher levels: it forces your opponent to guess, so he reacts a bit later and might misjudge the ball just enough to not be able to neutralize the point. For you, however, just the quality of your serve might be enough. So, keep in mind what is the right intention to have on all serves -- you're setting yourself up for an easy point, you're not hitting winners off the serve.
