Seasoned tennis players and fans will agree that the service is the most important shot in the game.
Sure, rally consistency and groundstrokes are pretty vital too, but the serve outweighs them all, because no matter what kind of surface it is, nowadays the most of the points, are ended by the first four shots. So, it is very important to neatly utilize the only ball that the opponent has no control over.
The serve sets the precedent for the rest of the point, and sometimes the match. In theory, four decent services are enough to win you a game with even average shots. Hence a good serve can put you in a winning position and a bad one can make the rest of your arsenal useless.
Through this post, I am going to share a few tips that will help you to improve your serve. I will give beginner tips as well as advanced tips so players of all levels can benefit. Here are the tips you should use:
1) Before the toss 2) Toss and 3) After the toss.
Before The Toss:
- To improve your serve make sure that your elbow is away from your body when you are in the pre-throw position, this will help you to get a better throwing action of the racket towards the ball.
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- Keep the ball near the tips of your fingers, Avoid holding it in the middle of the palm as this would affect the toss execution.
Toss:
- The most typical blunder that many players face is that their toss goes behind their head, leading them back rather than forward which sometimes results in not committing the shot. And if you want an effective first serve, Your MUST have a toss that is out in front, leading you into the court. For this, Imagine having a clock above you and toss the ball at the 1:00 o’clock direction of the clock if you are a right-handed player. In the direction should be at 11:00 o’clock if you’re a left-handed player.
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- Don’t change your toss height just because someone else is acing with that toss height. You should always stick to toss height that you are comfortable with.
- While tossing the ball up, make sure to keep your arm straight and racket behind your body because it makes it much easier to keep the ball in front of you which in turn will help to blast out into the court when serving.
After the toss:
- Once the ball is tossed, when you are about to go up and make contact with the ball, make sure that your wrist is holding the racket at an angle of 90 degrees with the forearm.
- Try to contact the ball when it is at the apex of the toss. You should always do this because it the ball rests at the top of the toss. It is much easier to hit a ball at rest than a ball moving up or back down. The next part of this serve tip is to keep your head up, this will make it much easier to catch the perfect time to hit the ball at the apex.
- When you start to lean forward towards the net, for the service, transfer your weight to the front foot (i.e. left foot for right-handed players), this will help you in putting more power into your shot.
That’s all for today. I’ll come back to SERVE you more tips, with new posts. Until then, ENJOY PLAYING TENNIS!
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