The serve is understandably the most important shot in tennis. Having a consistent, accurate serve can get you ahead in points enabling you to win a higher percentage of them to consistently hold your service games.
Note that we aren’t referring to winning “free” points because too many of our students mistakenly associate having a good serve with hitting aces and service winners. That should not be the focus when developing the serve – instead the focus should be on mastering the technical aspects to achieve the target percentages. For example, if a player can put in 65% of their first serve and win 85% of those points over the course of a match, the odds are very good that they will win the match. The first serve target percentages can be adjusted based on the player’s ground strokes, net play etc.
Solid serving technique combined with a player’s physical development (strength, flexibility, explosiveness, genetics) will ultimately determine whether you hit a 130 mph serve, a solid consistent 110 or somewhere in between.
Here are five plain, simple pointers to help improve your serve:
- Stance – the stance should be comfortable and balanced to allow for good knee and back flexion into the service motion. We recommend the toe of the back foot being in line with the heel of the front foot, with the hips pointing toward the net post. This can be slightly adjusted for the type of serve and the players core rotation ability, lower body flexibility etc. The key goal here is achieve good torso rotation into the serve.
- Toss – ideally, the highest point of the toss is the same height as the maximum racquet reach of the player. So when the toss reaches its peak, the player is stretched out and making contact with the ball. For the first serve the toss goes out slightly in front, for a second serve, allow the ball to drop a few inches to impart spin onto the ball. A consistent toss is key to having an accurate, reliable serve.
- Racquet arc – this is where serves can get complicated with players incorporating unnecessary movement into the swing. For maximizing speed, the racquet should “scratch the back” i.e. the racquet should drop well below the players back so it can gain momentum and racquet head speed, as it moves up to strike the ball.
- Contact – Advanced players should attempt to drive the racquet towards the ball with a closed face, to maximize racquet speed approaching contact. This also leads to natural wrist pronation after contact.
- First shot – players should be ready to anticipate where they want to position themselves for the first shot. This depends on the type of serve being hit (flat, topspin, kick), the anticipated angle of the return (cross, middle, short) and the player’s strongest shot (volley, forehand or backhand). Ideally the players hits a majority of serves so that their strongest shot is the first one they hit in the rally (see patterns that Federer or Nadal employ where they almost exclusively hit a forehand as their first shot). An effective first shot will make your serve seem bigger and more potent to your opponent.
About Us: LTA Tennis Academy is based in Ashburn, Virginia. Our mission is to bring elite tennis player development to youth and adults in the NoVA region including Chantilly, Aldie, Sterling Vienna and Fairfax. Our head coach, Lorenzo Popescu, has trained professional tennis players globally and now brings the latest in tennis coaching techniques to players Northern Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC.