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Developing a real serve at 18

7K views 33 replies 13 participants last post by  willnersepp34 
#1 · (Edited)
When I was like 13, just starting tennis, I had a weird, but semi-real serve. Then I somehow broke a rib playing tennis and sort of abandoned it.
Since then, I have had a "pancake serve." It is like I am a 12 year old 3.0 level player based on form alone, but it has actually gotten acceptably good. I play D3 college tennis, played top 6 this last year, played disappointingly badly but stayed top 6 all year. Still with a serve like a 6 year old. I had a player (who beat me 6-0 6-1) tell me he'd never seen a pancake serve be as good as mine.

But I do recognize it is not right, and can't get better really. So I am trying to develop an actual serve. I have some coaching from someone who I am actually better than, but who has a real serve. I will try and upload a video of my efforts soon. It's progressed pretty well, allows me to get much more spin and hit a much better second serve but it's still unreliable and double faults infinitely more than the old one. So please help.

I will try and post a video of my new work-in-progress serve tomorrow.

Here is a youtube video of 15 year old me (I am about to turn 19 now) hitting a serve- I will try to find a newer one soon. It, and the rest of my game, has progressed quite a bit since then, but the form sadly isn't much better.
 
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#2 ·
I am hardly Karlovic myself, but the first thing you need is the continental grip, then add some slice and spin.
 
#4 · (Edited)
:spit: My god, that serve

You must have a heck of a baseline game to compensate.

Have you tried studying videos of Tsonga? He looks like he had somewhat of a pancake serve.
I do have a pretty damn good baseline game. Have to, as I start on the defensive on basically every return point and every second serve point... I have really good anticipation (my greatest strength) and good speed. When I'm on my forehand just doesn't miss from any position and can generally get to neutral off any shot. My backhand isn't great by any stretch but well, I just don't hit very many of them. But it's not good enough to make up for the serve. Lesser opponents I can grind down, but I'm just constantly on the defense against anyone better- I am the king of embarrassing losses. I beat the guy who played above me on our team 6-1 6-0, but if I play a set with someone he can get to 4-6 with, it's 0-6 for me. I resolved to get an actual one in the off season, because we are getting better players next year and I'm in danger of not being top 6 next year.

The serve is better now, it's not that bad anymore. I am about to go try and hit some, will try and take a video if I can. Actually, Tsonga is basically the one player in the top 10 whose serve I haven't looked at at all in the past week. Will do that now.

I've hesitated to put a vid of my serve on here for some time because it's just so bad. Makes Groove look like Isner.
 
#6 ·
That's a very bizarre service motion . You seem to slice it a lot you might get some joy with it but I think a lot of people will crucify it . You seem to chop the ball , some are pretty fast to be fair . You could get it so much better if you just hit the ball down into the court instead of chopping at it . Your taking away a lot of power , at 18 thought this is no biggie . I am sure you could get some success with it .
 
#7 ·
Yeah, like I said, this is my third day with a motion that is even a tennis serve motion at all. Very much a work in progress. Thanks for advice, though I was planning on learning to spin it well first before adding pace- funny because my old serve (one in OP) got to where it was pretty fast, but had zero spin ever.
 
#9 ·
That's more or less what I'm doing. He deemed that one acceptable though not ideal (though he's no expert, he is someone with a pretty enormous serve). Main thing he changed was my grip which was very incorrect and is now more mildly so.
 
#10 · (Edited)
A couple of progressions:

1. Practise your throwing motion at first. Just throw 150-200 tennis balls from the "trophy position" and make sure the angles of your non-hitting hand and hitting hand are correct before throwing each ball.

2. You need to switch to continental grip (see this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJCyMldkGM8). It's a must, if you want to have an effective serve.

3. Practise your serve by starting from the trophy position. Don't practise the full motion, but focus on your upper body and the correct throwing motion (don't use your legs at all at first). See this video for instance, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9QU8_pAVTM. I'd say stick with this one, until you can do it fluently. Mastering this will also require a consistent ball toss and I'd say you should work on that as well (see this for more information https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnG4txyeBaM).

4. I'm not even going to explain the last progression because I seriously recommend that you'll work on the first three progressions at first.

But I'm sure you can do this. You'll struggle and be unsuccessful at first but eventually you will improve. It just takes hard work and a lot of high-quality repetitions.
 
#11 ·
Another day of attempting to refine- largely focused on grip correction and also a higher ball toss. It's slow AF though at the moment. Just hit serves for an hourish and then played a bit. Seeing this bit on video made me realize how ugly my other strokes are as well. It's hard to make a one-handed backhand angle winner ugly, but I actually even manage that at 0:55

 
#12 ·
1. Don't worry about hitting the ball hard and focus on getting the motion right. Don't even worry about getting the ball in the service box - get it over the net at first.

2. If you want to copy someone's serve, copy Serena Williams' - that's a bomb-proof serve. John Isner's is a nice simple serve as well.

3. Have someone show you the Continental Grip because you are NOT using it when you serve, even in your "Tennis shit #2" video (if you can bounce the ball with your racket without cocking your wrist awkwardly, you do not have the continental grip). Yeah, it may feel weird initially and yeah, you will want to drift back to your old serve grip, but you should fight the tendency. Eventually Continental will feel natural on serve (and volleys).

4. Slow down your ball toss. Right now you're flinging the ball up. You want to gently place the ball where you want to hit it - having a straight tossing arm helps reduce variability. Practice the ball toss until you can get it to consistently peak at the same height and land at the same spot (place a bucket there to catch the balls). I suggest doing this with the correct shoulder tilt and racket hand up to reinforce the proper trophy position.

5. You need to simplify your service motion - there are way too many things going on and they change with each serve. Forget your feet for now, forget the backswing; start at the trophy position. Toss the ball then reach up towards it so that you are fully extended. (The first few times you might want to try to hit the ball over the fence - this is harder to do than you'd think specially as you have a tendency to let the ball drop too low on your serve.) You can play effectively with this kind of abbreviated serve. You can add the knee bend and hip tilt later on.

6. Don't think you can fix your serve in a matter of weeks. When my serve grip was changed from Eastern forehand to Continental, my coach and I worked on it all summer constantly adjusting and reinforcing the correct grip - and I didn't have near as many issues with my serve as you do. When my service motion was analyzed and compared to Azarenka's the worst the pro could say was that my knee-bend wasn't as deep and I didn't land as far into the court.
 
#13 ·
2. I'm not really trying to copy one at the moment, just get something in with a correct grip
3. I'm not bouncing the ball with the same grip I'm serving with. I know it's odd, but I'm just used to bouncing the ball that way. Of course, I'm sure the actual service grip still has issues.
4. I actually did that a bit yesterday. This is actually the improved version. I've always had major issues with ball toss.
5. Thanks, I'll try that
6. Yeah, I know it's going to take a while to make anything with even semi-correct form actually be acceptable as a serve. Yesterday I had 15 double faults in a 6-3 6-2 win :tape: I'm planning on going to an actual coach in a week or two (after exams) and getting further help from him

Thanks for all the help by the way
 
#14 ·
I worked on it a bit with a coach, it's better form now, much simpler motion. But tons of doubles and serving about 30% still. Channeled Johnny Groove and lost to a 15-year-old girl 0-6 0-6 1-6 today (she's top 5 in the state for her year, okay?!) and I had tons of doubles. Don't even think I ever had game point though I had like 10 BPs (awful conversion) and it seemed to get worse as the match went on. Ball toss seems a major issue, and when I get tired it gets even wilder.
 
#15 · (Edited)
I'll give you one tip with the ball toss that worked for me: look at the space where you want the ball to be when you toss (basically the contact point) and only hit the ball when it's there. This way you only hit the good tosses. If you look at Djokovic specially, you'll see he's not looking at the ball during the toss but at the location where he wants the ball to end up.

ETA: also relax when you serve. i know it's difficult when all you can think about is not double-faulting. what i usually do is loosely my racket (still continental grip) and kind of sway it back and forth with my wrist limp, arm relaxed while on the line. it's just a reminder what loose relaxed muscles feel like and it loosens me up.
 
#16 ·
The easiest way to fix a serve is to break it down into individual parts. For example: hit about 100 balls just work on your body rotation, toss the ball and twist your torso away from the court, and then twist back through while hitting using a simple motion. Next hit about 100 balls just bending your knees and exploding into contact (no body rotation). Then hit about 100 balls working on proper pronation (up and out as opposed to snapping down or brushing forward). Then another 100 balls just tossing in front and getting your weight behind the serve. Afterwards you have to slow start integrating them together, and I suggest doing it in the order I listed. It will take a very long time, probably a week or 2 hitting serves every day, but it is the easiest way.

100 balls for each might be a bit excessive, you could probably get away with 50.
 
#17 ·
#21 ·
THis is probably sound advice but who has the time to practice 'shadow swings ' 200 times per day? the kids 18 years old and is obviously a keen player, he seems to win a lot of matches against players of his level so I'm not sure if he's going to want to put the time in to radically change his serve and then start to lose matches. if he followed your advice I'm pretty sure he'd improve as we all would but he plays tennis for recreation, for fun so where is the motivation for him to develop a proper serve?
 
#18 ·
Its mighty hard to change a tennis or any stroke for that matter, you ask a QB who's been playing for more than five years to change his throwing motion from a sidearm to an 'over the top kind of motion and watch him struggle, IT AINT easy! I used to tinker with my serve to the point where I got the serious case of the yips!! I just couldn't release the ball!!, Id stand there on the baseline appearing as if I'm going to serve but I was really mentally telling myself to release the ball, all because I wanted a ' proper serve'. Anyway, I went back to my old motion and focused instead on the basics like the ball toss/placement, e.g. the height and how far in front I wanted the ball and also racket head speed in the throwing action, I still have off days but my serve is solid now. I've seen both your video clips and you have deffo improved the action a bit but it still seems a little rushed and jerky, it may never be as smooth and wrinkle free as Sampras' or Serena Williams but then it again it doesn't need to be exhibit A, former pro Carsten Braasch keep at it though
 
#19 ·


Serve+ just game now. This is morning after New Years Party where we went to sleep at 5, so the quality of tennis is low low low. But you can still see my shitty strokes. Won 6-2 2-6 6-2. This video is last game of 2nd and 1st game of 3rd set and features a 4 unforced error game from me, a horrible camera angle, and a point where the ball hits a dead spot on the court and just doesn't bounce. My service game starts at 1:44.
 
#20 ·
You've watched enough professional tennis to know what a proper service stroke looks like...and you've watched your videos so I assume you can see what you're doing wrong... I'm curious, what are you actually doing systematically to correct your serve?

Here's what I see:
- Your feet are all over the place. You need a stable base to have a stable serve. By the time that ball is out of your hands, your feet shouldn't move except to push up to the ball.
- You need to hit the ball higher. Right now your elbow is bent almost 90 degrees by the time you hit the ball. Either toss the ball higher or don't let it drop so low.
- You're still using the wrong grip when you serve. That is the easiest thing to fix because you do it outside of the service motion - it just takes a while to get used to, but it's easy to fix.
 
#27 ·
Step 1: Get a hopper full of balls
Step 2: Go to Home Depot and get some duct tape
Step 3: Drive to tennis courts
Step 4: Duct tape your hand to the racket while using a continental grip
Step 5: Practice hitting serves

Just get the right grip down first and then you can work on the rest of the motion.
 
#29 ·
Step 1: Get a hopper full of balls
Step 2: Go to Home Depot and get some duct tape
Step 3: Drive to tennis courts
Step 4: Duct tape your hand to the racket while using a continental grip
Step 5: Practice hitting serves

Just get the right grip down first and then you can work on the rest of the motion.
Yes! The right grip makes it really difficult to hit the serve with a bent arm the way OP is doing so that solves one of his problems.


This is my serve as it is today...I'm self taught and the serve just developed this way without coaching, I know my take back is a little abbreviated and I kinda 'bowl; the ball in, Ive tried to change it but each time I do, my whole sh*t gets messed up, its not poetry but its consistent :)
http://youtu.be/D4iBdQQmqJc
If your serve is consistent, controlled, and works for you, there's no need to change. When I started I had a serve similar to yours and it was actually pretty good - I could hit fast flat serves and maybe some slices with a bent arm and semi-western grip - but my coach and I spent two months changing my serve because I needed a better serve. I hit hundreds of serves everyday to get used to the changes we made on my grip and swing.

Have you tried this http://www.tennisflex.net/servemaster/ It will force you to do complete swings and do it correctly (with the proper throwing motion over your shoulder with a high elbow), otherwise the ball will hit you (and it hurts). A knotted towel can give you the same feel. It's exactly like Serena Williams going through the service swing when she's up at net before the coin toss.
 
#32 ·
So true. I think people concentrate on hitting serves as hard as possible that they don't pay attention to the mechanics (but who can say no to free points when you're a beginner, right?). It's only later that they realize the right mechanics from the beginning would have eventually gotten them the fast serves with control and variety, but by that time the wrong motion is ingrained and they now have to work with all that baggage. I'm sooo glad my coach insisted I hit proper serves.
 
#31 ·
Hit the gym first of all! Give yourseif the incentive of knowing that once you do switch to a real serve, it will be a million times better.

I worked for 6 months on my leg strength, and went from serving around 80mph each time on first serves to around 100mph.

Three things I always think about are knee bend, backscratch and jump!
 
#33 ·
I think most of us who play wont have service actions that are text book perfect ( and I include myself in that ) but unless you're competing a high standard ( county, regional, state etc ) it wont be that big of a deal, even allowing for that, I wish I'd had some coaching on my serve when I started playing, my serve aint bad but has a tendency to break down at times due to inconsistent ball toss
 
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