Understanding the precise movements and mechanics involved with serving can be an eye-opening demonstration of power and athleticism, helping players realize their full potential and advance their game.
Tennis serves are built upon optimizing force transfer from body center of mass to ball. Muscle sequencing, shoulder internal rotation and elbow flexion all play important roles.
Preparation
An effective serve can make a crucial difference to the outcome of any tennis point, becoming a true weapon in modern tennis. Top players typically possess impressive speed and spin in their serves; to get there requires physical preparation such as strengthening, flexibility, and conditioning of your body to accommodate such high-level serves.
At the core of every successful tennis serve lies an effective stance and weight transfer. For maximum results, servers should stand a bit wider than usual when performing this step and move their body toward the baseline – this will set up an ideal foundation for their serve motion.
Practice should focus on the initial movement and ball toss. Next, they should gradually add power to their serve without overdoing it – otherwise there’s the danger of injuring themselves!
To execute an effective serve, the ball must be released with proper arm mechanics. For maximum power and distance on every serve, the racquet hand should advance ahead of the tossing arm during release.
Bending of the elbow during toss is a key aspect of an effective tennis serve. When the elbow bends, knees should also bend slightly at this time to maximize force transfer from legs to racquet hand; this process is known as “elbow drive.”
Effective servers leverage their rear lateral shoulder and pelvis tilt to store energy for speed and spin during the acceleration phase of their serve, and then transfer this potential energy directly to their racquet hand for explosive ball contact rotation.
Follow-through is the final component of an effective tennis serve, where the body regains balance after impact with the ball. This part is crucial, helping prevent injury and avoid throwing off balance; although mastering all aspects takes practice and dedication from any recreational tennis player willing to dedicate themselves.
Loading
As soon as a player steps forward into the serve preparation phase, their legs, hips and trunk begin to fill up with power. Muscles lengthen under tension as potential energy is stored to be delivered during acceleration and contact phases of their serve. Their torso then winds like a corkscrew to capture that energy and transfer it through shoulders, elbows and wrists into an explosive serve!
To produce a high velocity serve, it is vitally important that all segments of the kinetic chain (leg, hip, trunk, shoulders, arms and wrists) function optimally and healthily. An effective functioning chain enables forces to transfer from one segment to the next with minimal mechanical stress or loads and no loss in speed or control.
Research has demonstrated that loading, arm speed and racquet head speed (SV) depend on several physical factors. Key among these are lower leg drive, hip rotations, trunk rotations, upper arm internal/external rotation and strength levels in joint positions involved with serve kinetic chain. Strength levels related to MIS/RFD in serving chain should also be prioritized during any program aimed at increasing serving velocity production.
Anthropologic characteristics like greater body mass index (BMI) and leaner limb proportions have been shown to correlate positively with success at tennis. However, because its demands may cause unfavorable effects on agility and change-of-direction speed, professional tennis players must work to maintain an ideal body composition throughout their careers.
As an example, if you have spent all your practice and playing time focused on not missing your serve, your body and brain may develop an unconscious pattern of only hitting slow serves. Over time this slower movement becomes hardwired into your muscles and brain – making it nearly impossible to ever regain the speed you were once capable of serving at. In order to reinstate a fast serving style it’s necessary to work first on loading process, then accelerate, before decelerating during contact and follow through phases and finally decelerate during follow through phase.
Rotation
Tennis serves are driven by rotation of shoulders and upper body to create powerful upward contact with the ball. To maintain power while also preventing injury, body balance must also be considered during serving motion – an easy mistake for many players is to focus solely on arm motion while neglecting torso movement – leading to excessive bending, lacking hip drive to create power, leading to weaker serves overall.
Effective servers must establish a stable and repeatable starting position that allows for maximum shoulder and hip rotation during the wind-up phase of their serve, with their feet spaced slightly wider than shoulder width and pointed towards their target. They should remain in this position until impact.
Once a player has established a consistent and repeatable starting position, it’s time to initiate the cocking sequence. At this stage, players should rotate their shoulders backward to set up for power before rotating forward for speed during service delivery. Cocking stage plays an integral part in developing speed and spin on tennis serve while creating momentum with follow-through.
Cocking phase requires significant external shoulder rotation to generate sufficient power, with studies by Elliott and Fleisig showing an abduction between 83deg and 101deg of the glenohumeral joint during this phase; unchecked, these abduction values could cause impingement injuries in the shoulder.
Acceleration phase. Here, an effective server utilizes both their legs and core to generate explosive acceleration of their racket for upward contact with the ball. At the same time, there will be rapid rotation of their lumbar spine as well as shortening of their tensor fascia latae/iliotibial band/quadratus lumborum muscles.
Effective servers must keep their arms in a “flat” position during acceleration to increase wrist snap speed and prevent their wrist from becoming too rounded. This helps generate additional speed through wrist snapping while protecting their wrist from becoming overly rounded.
Impact
An effective tennis serve requires the combined effort of several factors, including power, velocity and placement. Physiologists like Mark Kovacs have studied and worked with top players worldwide to maximize their serve speed; effective serving requires having developed technical ability with the appropriate equipment as well as proper technique (14)
Key to producing high racquet head speed is rotational movement of the upper body. Shoulder internal rotation torque is created through muscle actions of latissimus dorsi and pectoralis major/deltoid muscles. This creates an angular momentum which is transferred directly onto linear momentum at impact of racket.
As well, the torso must provide a solid platform from which rotational movements can be transferred through the kinetic chain to the arm. This requires coordinated lower leg drives which serve as strong predictors of serving velocity and placement (15,16). A front knee flexion angle greater than 15 degrees at load phase as well as peak hip rotator activation are two indicators of this dynamic motion (17).
An essential factor affecting velocity production in tennis serving is being able to generate maximum force quickly, using RFD and IMP together as one component in creating high-velocity serves (18,19). Rapid generation of force by shoulders and wrist during serving action is assisted by the flexors and extensors of forearm; RFD in elbow joint is controlled by biceps brachii muscles while IMP depends on triceps brachii and shoulder muscles (19).
Although the serve has often been compared to baseball throwing motion, there are key distinctions that must be considered when analyzing its performance characteristics (5-14). These include planes of motion of nondominant arm when tossing ball; trajectory and release force production and release; tennis racket that modifies lever arm; variety in ball placements and goals during serving motion; etc. In this article we present an 8-stage model which specifically targets these tennis-specific aspects of stroke compared with earlier 3-stage models discussed clinical tennis literature. This 8-stage model also improves upon 3-stage models published previously in clinical tennis literature.