In a tennis game, the higher your first and second serve accuracy is will correlate to the percentage of your chances in winning the match.

The first serve is characterized by its speed and power while the second serve is characterized by its slower speed (compared to the first serve) and accuracy. Great tennis players learn to employ the kick serve as their main type of serve on the second serve. The tennis kick serve is employed by players depending on the games circumstances. However, a kick serve is commonly used in professional tennis. Below are some of the strategies and tactics on how to execute the tennis kick serve.

Kick Serve Basics

Before you try to master your kick serve in a tennis match, it is necessary for you to know the basic fundamentals of the tennis serve. You have to know where to stand in the court, proper foot position or orientation, proper body and arms orientation towards the net and ball toss height.

Your position in the court when you serve should be just behind the baseline and near the center line. When you are already standing in the right place in the court, you should position your feet in such a way that one foot is slightly behind the other. If you are right handed, your right foot should be the one behind the left foot. The distance between them should only be a couple of inches apart but it can also depend on how comfortable you are. You have to make sure that you are positioned sideways to the net. If you are right handed, your left side should be the one facing the net.

What does a tennis kick serve do that makes it very popular for tennis players especially at the professional level? The kick serve should bounce high and “kick” up to the returner if executed correctly. This serve is frequently placed to the returner’s backhand in order for the kick serve to bounce away from the opponent.

The Serve Grip

Generally, the continental grip is always associated with the kick serve. The eastern backhand grip is also an acceptable variation for this serve.

Add power on your Tennis Kick Serve

The power on the tennis kick serve comes from utilizing the kinetic chain in a way that allows for the optimal body position heading up towards contact. The kick serve should be hit like a normal serve, the only difference being the type of spin imparted on the ball which is a product of the correct technique.

Since the goal of the kick serve in tennis is to increase the topspin, it is necessary to orientate the body in a way that permit’s a player to achieve the “heavy ball.” There are specific body mechanics involved in the kick serve that contribute to the amount of spin that a player can generate.

At the pro level, we see players hit kick serves with relative ease. This is largely due to the fact that the pros have flawless tennis serve technique, which allows them to produce the heavy topspin needed for the proper kick serve.

For players at the club level, it is important to develop the kick serve with a strong foundation. The kick serve is a serve that requires optimal usage of the body such as the legs, hips, torso, shoulders, wrist and racket. All of these elements must work together in a fluid manner and each of the larger muscles contribute a great deal of power and spin on the kick serve.

Body Orientation for the Tennis Kick Serve

A kick serve in tennis that is properly hit gives the advantage to the server. This is because, once the ball lands into the opponent’s court, the ball kicks up and then moves forward and goes to the left side of the receiver. This will force the receiver to play a high backhand which is a difficult shot for most tennis players.

The proper way to execute the kick serve in tennis is to bend the knees and jump up using the legs. You should keep a slight bend in your hitting arm elbow (the elbow of the hand with the racket) as you swing.

It can be helpful to visualize making a brushing effect using the racket face on the ball with a direction from left to right and across.

Shoulder Turn

The tennis kick serve requires optimal usage of all the available larger muscle groups. This serve requires a strong shoulder turn to assist with the loading phase.

By turning the shoulders, more power is being loaded into the core in order to be released into the serve, producing a massive amount of racket speed at contact.

Shoulder Alignment for the Kick Serve

Watch Sampras in slow motion and notice how Sampras’s tossing arm is fully extended, this along with the torque created by the shoulder turn contributes a large amount of power and topspin for the kick serve.

Toss height

The toss height for the kick serve can vary depending on the player’s own preference and height. Generally, the kick serve is hit when the ball is descending downwards allowing for a natural topspin brushing motion to occur. The key is to brush the back of the ball, and this visualization should help a player hit a heavier tennis kick serve.

One question in the tennis topspin serve is how high should the ball toss be to generate the perfect topspin? The answer is the higher the better as long as the height is comfortable for you. Your body should be at full reach when you reach the contact point. The higher the contact (contact between the ball and the racket head) the higher is the impact.

In a tennis kick serve, the ball toss matters a lot. To execute the perfect ball toss, you have to avoid flicking it out of the hand. You can simply toss the ball by releasing it from your open fingers after you have fully extended.

Swing Path up to Contact

The kick serve is different from that of the flat and slice serve in the type of spin imparted on the tennis ball.

A cOmmon mistake among club players trying to execute the kick serve is hitting the serve downwards or hitting the ball with the strings leading first. This causes one of two things: a flat serve or a waiter’s tray serve.

The kick serve is a serve that requires acceleration combined with the proper angle of attack. It will require good technique, form and posture in order for the serve to become a formidable shot.

Follow through

The follow through for the kick serve should happen naturally on it’s own accord if a smooth and technically sound serve motion took place prior to contact.

Tennis Kick Serve Placement

Placement is an essential part of the kick serve. Once the body mechanics of the tennis kick serve are ingrained, it is important to be able to place the serve accordingly. Hitting a kick serve with precise placement will require excellent technique and practice. A kick serve should generally be hit to the opponent’s backhand. A serve directed to the opponent’s forehand is a big mistake, as it is often a strength and it will be frequently punished.

Does the type of racket matter?

It might sound like a silly question because if your serving skill is really poor, no matter how good or expensive your racket is, it won’t make you the best tennis server in the world. However, if you analyze it deeply, yes it is true; the type of racket does make a difference. The reason for this is the fact that if you hit the ball near the tip of the racket the ball moves faster than when it hits in the other part of the racket. Therefore, if you hit the ball with the tip of the racket your serve should have more speed than when you hit the ball with the center part of the racket.

This scenario urges the tennis racket manufacturers to develop rackets with elongated spots extending up to the tip of the racket. However, you always have to remember that skills and proper technique in executing the kick serve are more important than the type of racket you use.

Learn to Hit a Forehand Like Roger Federer

If you want to jumpstart your forehand and play like the PROS, check out my 70+ page Tennis Ebook that will immediately show you how you can take your forehand to the next level.

The Modern Forehand Domination Ebook is guaranteed to improve your tennis technique, and increase power, topspin and accuracy of your tennis forehand!

Modern Tennis Forehand Ebook
Learn How to Hit a Forehand Like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic

The post Tennis Kick Serve – Secrets of the Kick Serve in Tennis appeared first on Tennis Instruction.

The problem is, few club tennis players have been able to master the tennis technique behind the tennis kick serve, mainly because it requires exquisite timing in addition to synching the body perfectly to unleash on the kick serve.

Every great tennis player will own a kick serve, and while this type of spin is less powerful than the flat serve it can be a major asset on the second serve due to the increased amount of topspin and clearance over the net providing the much needed safety during a tennis match.

Principles behind how to hit a kick serve

The serve is frequently regarded as the most important shot in tennis because it is the shot that begins the point and therefore determines largely how the point will be played out. Often, when we think about players with great serves, we think of the players that hit with the fastest speeds and have the most aces.

While this is true to some extent, another skill that the great servers possess is the ability to hit different kinds of spin serves. There are also great servers who specialize not in hitting the fastest serves but in hitting the best spin serves.

Any good serve, whether by virtue of its speed, placement or spin can be an ace or service winner. Good serves also often force short returns that can be put away easily. Variety in spin and direction, as well as disguise is just as important as speed.

How to Hit a Kick Serve: Mastering the Use of Spins

The major types of spin applied on the serve are topspin, back spin and side spin. Almost all serves have a certain degree of side spin. It is how side spin is combined with either topspin or back spin that determines if a serve is going to be a kick serve, twist serve or slice serve. A kick serve is predominantly a top spin serve.

A twist serve has as much topspin as side spin. A slice serve has backspin and side spin. Spin increases the air resistance on the ball, thereby making it move slower than a flat serve. However, this disadvantage is significantly offset by the increase in the margin for error available and the control provided.

For this reason, spin serves make the best second serves. There is a saying that you are only as good as your second serve. It is true that double faults are a mortal sin in tennis because you are basically giving away points for free.

Spin also greatly affects the trajectory and bounce of the ball, making it awkward to return and preventing the returner from establishing a rhythm. For right handed servers, a kick serve bounces high and slightly to the left of the returner. A twist serve bounces high and farther to the left of the returner.

Differences between the Slice, Flat and the Tennis Kick Serve

A slice serve bounces low and bends to the right side of the returner. For left-handers, the directions are all reversed. Therefore, if you want to improve your serve and have a very reliable second serve, you will need to learn how to hit a kick serve, a twist serve and a slice serve, to go along with your basic flat serve.

For many players, the flat serve is their bread-and-butter first serve. For many left-handed players, it is the slice serve, because this goes wide to the right-handed receiver’s backhand. However, there have been players in the history of the sport who have specialized in how to hit a kick serve. These players include Stefan Edberg and Patrick Rafter, both former top-ranked players and two-time US Open champions.

The US Open is played on fast hard courts and both of these men are serve-and-volley players. The ball bounces high and fast so kick serves are very much useful for setting up a quick dash to the net. The spin makes the ball travel slower through the air, giving them more time to close in to the net.

Benefits of using a Tennis Kick Serve

The high bounce makes hitting a passing shot difficult for the returner. Today’s top singles players don’t serve-and-volley anymore but they still do in doubles. If you want to develop a similarly aggressive, net-rushing style, you have to master how to hit a kick serve.

The technique of the kick serve begins with the right grip. The continental and eastern backhand grips are the main acceptable grips. A variation of the continental known as the hammer grip is also used.

The difference between the two is only in how the fingers are spaced along the handle. The eastern forehand grip is not recommended for the kick serve because the tendency with this grip is to hit only flat serves.

The proper toss is the most crucial thing to learn in how to hit a kick serve. The ball should go up over your head and if you don’t hit it, it should bounce slightly behind your left shoulder. Therefore, the peak of the toss will be almost directly over your head.

Technique on How to Hit a Kick Serve

The general technique of how to hit a kick serve uses the same principle as for producing all other kinds of serves. The directions or sides noted will be for a right handed server. If you are left-handed, simply change each direction to its opposite. At the beginning of the motion, the weight is on the back leg.

The shoulders and hips are turned sideways. As you toss the ball, take the racket back in your usual manner. You can use either the platform or pinpoint stance, whichever is comfortable. The platform stance has the feet about body width apart, while the pinpoint stance has the feet closer together. Toss the ball up over your head and look up to it by turning your head up. You should keep your head up all the way through contact and even slightly beyond.

Trophy Pose for the Tennis Serve

As you take the racket back and go into the trophy pose, your knees bend and your hips, trunk and shoulders coil. However, because the ball is directly over your head, your back will automatically be slightly more arched than on a flat or slice serve, where the toss is more forward.

The forward swing phase commences when the kinetic chain is set in motion. The legs push down on the ground with the balls of the feet. The hips uncoil, followed by the trunk and then the shoulders.

How to Hit Kick Serve with the Correct Contact Point

At the same time, the racket head is taken down by cocking back the wrist. As the shoulders uncoil, the right elbow goes up, leading the forearm, wrist and racket, which remains pointed downward. The shoulder-over-shoulder motion continues as the rest of the body continues to uncoil. By this time, the legs have already extended and propelled the body upward to the ball.

The right way of contacting the ball is another unique and crucial thing to learn in how to hit a kick serve. The arm extends, the forearm pronates and the wrist whips the racket head sequentially in a very fast manner to hit the ball. However, instead of just hitting the ball squarely, the ball is hit from the 7 o’clock to 1 o’clock position (5 to 11 for lefties).

Brushing Effect used on the Kick Serve

The wrist makes the racket head move in such a way that the ball is hit in this manner. It brushes upward along the back of the ball and slightly from left to right. Topspin and a little bit of side spin is applied on the ball. Because of this motion, the follow through will finish on the right side of the body. Through proper weight transfer and timing of the hit, the ball will be a very heavy one that is difficult for the opponent to attack.

The finish of the kick serve should take the body inside the court but the landing should be balanced in order to make recovering for the next shot much easier. Alternatively, after landing, immediately sprint to the net.

How to Hit a Kick Serve Using it to Your Advantage

The kick serve is most commonly aimed at the backhand wing which is usually the side less adept at handling high balls. However, in order to be truly effective, your kick serve should have variety in direction as well.

Practice aiming it to the right hip in order to jam the returner. You can also hit it occasionally wide to the deuce side, making it bounce high to the forehand. Keep your opponent guessing by changing it up. Also, mix up your kick serve with other kinds of spin serves as well as your flat serve. Through constant practice, you will learn to be proficient with it. Above all, use it in a match in order to gain experience and confidence with this particular shot.

Learn to Hit a Forehand Like Roger Federer

If you want to jumpstart your forehand and play like the PROS, check out my 70+ page Tennis Ebook that will immediately show you how you can take your forehand to the next level.

The Modern Forehand Domination Ebook is guaranteed to improve your tennis technique, and increase power, topspin and accuracy of your tennis forehand!

Modern Tennis Forehand Ebook
Learn How to Hit a Forehand Like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic

The post How To Hit A Kick Serve – Learning the Proper Tennis Kick Serve appeared first on Tennis Instruction.