It’s obvious to say it, but a good ball toss is one of the most crucial parts of any serve – without an accurate, good toss your serve is set up to fail.

Try to throw the ball to the exact same spot every time, and make sure to toss it high enough so that you have plenty of time to prepare for your shot – but not so high that you’re unable to control it.

Actually, it’s worth mentioning that the height of the toss is a really important factor – if you think about it, it’s logical that the further away from you the ball gets, the harder it is to control its position. So the optimum toss distance is a) high enough to allow you time to prepare for the swing, but also b) low enough not to lose control over placement and speed. It’s a balancing act, and one that takes thousands of throws to perfect.

Also, pay attention to the direction of your toss in relation to you and your opponent, and make sure it is consistent with the direction you want the ball to go in (this also makes sense really). This will help you to achieve consistency in your serve and make it easier to control the precise placement of the ball on the court.

Tip 2: Harness the natural power of your legs

Your legs contain the biggest muscle in your body (the gluteus maximus), and true service power is derived from your legs, so it’s important to use them in the correct manner to generate maximum serving force. When serving, try to deliberately and consciously push off the ground with your legs (aka jump!) to transfer all of that kinetic energy into your racket and the ball. This will help you hit the ball with controlled power and speed, and will also help maintain good balance and control.

Tip 3: Remember your elbow

In a good serve, your elbow should be pointing at an upward angle when you hit the ball – as this will help generate topspin and ensure that the ball clears the net and lands firmly in the court.

Take time to study pictures and videos of pro players serving and you’ll see the elbow angle that I’m talking about. Our Tennis Serve Analysis section is a good place to start.

Keeping your elbow up will also help generate power and will allow you to control the direction of your serve. To do this, try to keep your elbow as close to your body as possible when you swing, and make sure to extend it upward as you make good contact with the ball.

Tip 4: Always, always follow through

This goes for pretty much every swing or strike in tennis. After striking the ball, be sure to follow through with your swing. This will help you put more power and spin on the ball, and will again also help maintain your balance and control. In fact, all of these technique tips will help with balance and control. To do this, try to extend your arm and finish with your palm facing upward.

Practice makes perfect (especially true for serving in tennis)

As with anything, practice is key to improving your serve.

Try to incorporate serve practice into your regular routine and focus on refining your technique. Consciously think about each of the four tips above – your toss, your legs, your elbow and the follow-through. Practice hitting serves with a focus on each of these four elements individually. Also try different amounts of power and spin, and aim to hit specific targets on the court to improve your accuracy.

As you improve, you’ll be able to think more about the placement of your serve, so that you can hit different parts of the court and keep your opponent guessing.

By practicing regularly and focusing on the details of your serve, you can gradually improve your technique and become a more accomplished server. Good luck, and keep it up!

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 Some quick tips to improve your tennis serve appeared first on Tennis Instruction.

The serve is widely regarded as the most important shot in tennis because it is the shot that begins every single point. If you have a good serve, you put pressure on your opponent to try to hold on to his or her service games because of the intimidation factor that your serve will pose.

If you are serving well, chances are, the rest of your game will also fall into place nicely. The serve is definitely a confidence building shot. With all these in mind, it becomes clear why you have to do tennis serve training.

The good thing is that the serve one shot in tennis that you can practice completely all by yourself. There is no need for any elaborate drill to get better doing this shot. In fact, the most basic and useful tennis serve training method is to take a basket with about 100 balls, get up on the baseline and practice serving over and over again. It has been widely recommended that you should do this every day.

The endurance of your serving muscles will also be developed this way. You should have the ability to serve just as hard at the end of a 3 hour match as you did in the first few minutes of the match.

Basic Tennis Serve Training Tips

Ideally, you should be practicing all kinds of serves. You should practice the flat, kick, twist and slice serve from both the deuce court and the ad court. You must also vary your placement to all areas of the service boxes.

Try to hit out wide by aiming up the side line, to the corners and to an approximate position that would theoretically jam the receiver. To facilitate your placement, you can use targets like cans of balls, cones or towels.

Tennis Serve Training on Technique

Use your tennis serve training sessions to remember the correct way of hitting each type of serve. All serves use the entire body from the feet all the way up to the wrist. The main differences among the different serves are the toss and the way you hit the ball. As such, you should practice tossing the ball to the right position for each type of serve.

To review, the toss for a flat serve is out in front. The toss for the slice serve is also out in front but slightly to the right for right handers. The toss for the kick or twist serve is above the head and slightly to the left for right handers.

In the flat serve, the ball is hit squarely from behind. In the slice serve, the strings brush down and around the right side of the ball. In the kick and twist serve, the strings brush up behind the ball and from left to right.

Tennis Serve Training on the Toss

Remind yourself constantly not to hit the ball on an errant toss because this leads to errors in form and technique. For example, if you are practicing a flat serve and your toss goes over your head, you will not get the proper forward momentum to hit the ball powerfully.

If you still proceed to hit this toss, you will end up with an uncoordinated motion that produces a serve lacking in power. Your body might remember this motion and you might have a tendency to do this even in a match.

Whenever you practice your serve, keep in mind a few tips so that once you play an actual match, you will be automatically applying these lessons. First, you should keep your arm loose and relaxed. Do not grip the racket too tightly.

Tennis Serve Training: Relaxation & Reducing Tension

Second, think about hitting fast instead of hard. The word ‘hard’ is associated with tension and effort. A really good serve should produce effortless power due to correct mechanics instead of brute muscle strength.

Third, inhale as you wind up and exhale as you hit the ball. This also helps in relaxing the arm muscles during the forward swing phase of the stroke. Fourth, keep your head up with your eyes focused on the ball.

Tennis Serve Training: Keeping a Stable Head Position

Do not pull your head down too soon and look at your target. Fifth, use a strong upward leg drive to launch up to the ball. Do not think about how high you should be jumping up at the ball. It should become an automatic part of your motion. Sixth, rotate as quickly as you can during the uncoiling phase of your motion. Seventh, try to maintain maximum racket head speed even after contact.

Tennis Serve Training to Increase Speed

If you want to increase your serve speed, you can add these drills as part of your tennis serve training. Firstly, it must be mentioned that the mind sometimes forms a barrier to hitting the ball hard.

You are afraid to hit the ball hard in a match because you think that the ball will go out and you will lose the point. In order to let go of this inhibition, try hitting a serve all the way to the back fence of the opposite court.

Adjusting your target will get your body more accustomed to using a faster and more powerful motion. Once you are able to hit this target, adjust accordingly so that you are aiming for the service boxes again. However, try as much as possible to keep using the same racket head speed.

Tennis Serve Training Using Shadow Swings

The second drill is to take an old racket and practice your service motion without a ball. However, instead of holding on to it after contact, go ahead and throw to your intended target at the opposite service box. The service motion is akin to a throwing motion. The only difference, obviously, is that you don’t actually throw the racket.

Tennis serve training is all about practice, practice and practice. There is simply no secret to developing a better serve other than to constantly practice it. However, there are some exercises that can be done in order to make your service motion smoother, more efficient and capable of producing more power.

Tennis Serve Training Exercises

These exercises should be incorporated into your general off court training routine. You can consider them as part of your tennis serve training regimen, but they are actually useful for all other strokes as well. These exercises are the following:

Tennis Serve Training Exercises For the wrist:

• Grips
• Wrist curls
• Wrist extensions
• Forearm supination and pronation

Tennis Serve Training Exercises For the arm:

• Bicep curls
• Overhead tricep extensions

Tennis Serve Training Exercises For the shoulder:

• Overhead shoulder presses
• Lateral shoulder raises
• External rotations
• Internal rotations

Tennis Serve Training Exercise For the chest and upper body:

• Bench presses
• Cross over cable pulls
• Overhead medicine ball throw or slams to the ground
• Side medicine ball throws
• Over the back medicine ball throws

Tennis Serve Training Exercise For the core:

• Twisting crunches
• Standing trunk twists with medicine ball
• Back extensions on stability ball

Tennis Serve Training Exercise For the legs:

• Squats
• Split squats
• Leg presses
• Lunges
• Side lunges
• Calf raises
• Squat jumps – this is a more advanced exercise used to develop greater power and should only be performed if the player already has a good foundation of lower body strength
• Squat thrusts
• Barbell powerlifting exercises – also an advanced exercise for developing power.
• Aside from strength, the service motion requires a flexible body. You should stretch your shoulders, wrists, arms (especially the triceps), and the trunk with twisting and bending stretches. Stretching is also a key to preventing injuries.

Tennis Serve Training to Develop an Efficient Serve Motion

Tightness in any joint or muscle group will compromise the efficiency of your service motion and result in hitches in the swing. These may start as small problems but gradually lead to bigger problems that can eventually break down your technique. Small injuries may develop into major ones if no proper strength and flexibility training is done.

Improving your serve also helps you to become mentally tougher, knowing that you can rely on this shot under pressure. The serve might just be your key to improving overall as a tennis player.

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 Serve Training Tips appeared first on Tennis Instruction.

Tennis Serve Tips – Guideposts to the Tennis Serve

Tennis serve tips are meant to help tennis player improve the tennis serve, and may take form in tennis instruction. These tennis serve tips are meant to be guides and specific advice relating to the tennis serve technique. A tennis serve tip alone may not be enough without the proper practice and refinement. A great tennis serve takes hours of practice to achieve true mastery.

Tennis serve tip 1

The most important tennis serve tip is to use the proper grip for the tennis serve. The continental grip is the ideal tennis grip for the serve, as it allows a tennis player to properly pronate and generate the maximum power and topspin on the serve. Virtually every professional tennis player uses a continental grip. This tennis serve tip is important for achieving great success and reaching higher levels of play.

Tennis serve Tips : The Tennis Serve

We see tennis players like Roger Federer and Nadal, who use their tennis forehand to their advantage and the forehand shot is one of their main weapons. A tennis player must believe that this is so for their very own forehand to blossom.

Tennis serve tip 2

Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect. This tennis serve tip is one of the most overlooked but nonetheless critical. A tennis player must practice using the correct tennis serve technique. Simple practicing with poor tennis technique will do nothing but ingrain bad habits deeper into the muscle memory.

Tennis serve tip 3

A great tennis serve tip is what I call target practice. The tennis serve must be constantly practiced and refined to maintain the precision and power. Tennis serve tips only benefit a tennis player if it is properly integrated in practice sessions. A rifleman would not expect to have perfect aim without engaging in target practice on the field. The same is true for the tennis serve. Put out cones in the service box and practice hitting specific targets on the court. This will pay dividends when it comes time to perform the tennis serve under pressure, and you can place the tennis serve into the location of your choice.

Tennis Serve Tip 4

A essential tennis serve tip is to develop a natural and fluid tennis serve that flows seamlessly from the beginning to the end. Develop a personal ritual prior to the tennis serve, and stay consistent with this ritual. Work on developing a consistent tennis serve with the least amount of variables. An efficient tennis serve will not break down under pressure. Eliminating unnecessary motion on the serve and focusing on the fundamentals in the tennis serve technique will allow the tennis serve to develop and grow into a powerful weapon. This tennis serve tip is the basic quality of all great tennis serves. An effective tennis serve is a product of the tennis serve technique.

Tennis Serve Tip 5

In order to master the tennis serve, a few key components must be mastered. My fifth tennis serve tip is on the serve tennis technique. The most important of all is the tennis serve technique. The tennis serve technique is key in allowing the player to maximize the power, spin and acceleration on the serve. Only a fluid, adaptable and explosive tennis serve motion will allow a great tennis serve to emerge.

Watch Johannson’s Tennis Serve above and notice how fluid and relaxed his tennis serve is. His tennis serve technique allows him to power up the serve on contact and hit the most accurate placements. The majority of the acceleration does not take place until the last few moments prior to contact. He does not abruptly take a big swing, instead he waits and loads the power utilizing the entire body. The explosion happens at the last second, the last part being the racket. All of that energy is then transferred in seconds like a rocket ship taking off NASA. It’s like a race car taking off a tunnel at full speed going from zero to sixty miles per hour in seconds.

Tennis serve tips are useful in tennis instruction as an aid to help tennis players learn how to serve in tennis as well as the tennis serve technique. A tennis serve tip can substantially fix the tennis serve provided the tennis serve tips are accurate.

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 Serve Tips – Technique and Instruction appeared first on Tennis Instruction.