Step one in improving your tennis serve technique is developing the appropriate rhythm, as this allows for effortless power transmission from contact point to contact point.
First step to getting into trophy position (racquet in front of body). Reach up with tossing arm and extend towards heaven to achieve this position.
The Grip
Grip is an integral element to every tennis stroke, enabling you to generate power and spin easily. Serving is no exception: its first step requires the perfect grip; otherwise the entire stroke could go off track. A neutral wrist with palm facing side fence provides optimal results; index finger should be spread wider for topspin production while remaining two fingers should be held tightly for maximum control.
Once you have the right grip, it is imperative to ensure a straight and accurate ball toss. Many players complain of their toss being all over the place – this can make your serve harder to hit and less effective while leading to it bouncing out of your service box more often than it should. Luckily this issue can easily be corrected!
Your toss should coincide with your backswing: when tossing, move up as your dominant arm swings down; throwing will follow, increasing accuracy.
Focus on your tempo of service as a beginner player. While beginners might feel uncertain of how fast to swing their racquet when serving, generally going slowly at first then speeding up towards contact point can produce maximum power and speed in a serve.
Beginners often overlook an important component of their stance – foot positioning. If your aim is the center of the service box, making sure your feet line up with this zone can help to increase precision in your serves even if your technique is imperfect. While this might not be a major problem for beginners just starting out, but anyone hoping to enhance their serve should work towards improving this aspect!
The Stance
There are countless components that make up a perfect serve, but stance is one of the most crucial. It serves as the cornerstone upon which all other aspects of serving rest; without proper posture and alignment you’ll never reach power and accuracy necessary to produce great serves.
As part of your stance, start by planting both feet firmly on the ground. Place yourself shoulder width apart with one leg pointed towards either right (if right handed player) or left ( if left handed player). Once both feet are in their proper positions, take some time to assume a trophy pose – an integral component of serve because it allows you to build momentum before hitting the ball with force!
Achieve the trophy pose by raising your tossing arm all the way towards the sky while keeping the racquet closed and in neutral. Be careful not to move into this pose too early or late as that can alter your swing and affect how much power can be generated from each shot.
Players often commit the error of bending their knees too much, which reduces power output by forcing the back arching and taking away energy from other parts of your body.
To avoid this from occurring, it’s a good idea to practice the trophy pose drill. Doing this will teach you when and how to jump for your serve and bend your knees so as to generate maximum power and speed in your serve.
Apart from practicing your trophy pose, it is also necessary to focus on various drills to help refine your tennis serve technique. These may include the ball toss, first move and body position – all these elements come together to form the ideal serve, which if perfected can become an arsenal in itself.
The First Move
No matter if you want to add power or spin to your tennis serve, creating a solid service motion is the first step towards successful server. Tennis Beyond has created this video explaining 5 foundations of proper service motion beginning with proper stance. Creating this foundational service motion is vital since not the power or spin alone determines success; rather it is how consistently and frequently your service box is hit that matters the most.
Step one in creating an effective tennis stance requires placing feet shoulder width apart for right handed players and wider for left handed ones, and evenly distributing your weight across both feet with balls facing forward towards the net when looking at your target. Next step requires turning shoulders in the direction of service box that you are aiming at as this ensures rotation in arm rotation as well as follow through of stroke to ensure ball goes where intended.
To do this successfully, it’s essential that your knees bend at the same time that your elbow bends for your toss – this way you’ll generate maximum leg drive on your swing, giving it speed and power that allows it to hit into your service box.
Step two of creating an excellent tennis serve involves forcing power from their body into their serve instead of letting it naturally develop from a good base stance. By dedicating some time and energy into this drill and concept, your tennis serve will become smoother and easier to control; by performing continuous swings using the 3/4 serve drill or using slow-go concepts in its initial movement your tennis serve can truly improve.
The Body Position
Once all the pieces of a good tennis serve are working in unison, the results can be incredible. Body positioning is one of the main contributors to making this happen successfully.
As part of your preparation, make sure your body is ready to explosively leap up and forward into the ball when it makes contact with it. Some players may jump onto the court when this occurs; for others who cannot jump, simply standing sideways toward the net is sufficient. Either way, use any possible momentum into the court for an effective serve.
Before hitting a ball, it is beneficial to assume the trophy position – this means having your tossing arm fully extended toward the sky with racket face still closed – this allows your shoulder turn to maximize accuracy and power; also be aware of when back leg pushes off ground; it is vital that both feet balance weight evenly during this pose.
Making sure that you’re in trophy position is also the best way to avoid squatting and wasting energy, which will not only decrease the effectiveness of your serve, but will also take up valuable energy that could otherwise be used to generate more power in your swing and hit harder.
Understanding the relationship between your ball toss and contact point of your serve is also essential. If your ball toss is too high or far back, accuracy could become an issue; on the other hand, too little spin may result from too little contact point. Finding a good contact point requires practice but with persistence you should eventually develop one that suits your serve perfectly.
Add some variety to your ball toss and contact point, then hit some serves against a partner to see where you stand. Have them call out when the ball lands middle, wide or body and focus on strengthening those aspects of your game until you become an accurate server.