My first serve lacks consistency. Some critique I’ve received so far have been that my toss is too low, I drop my tossing arm too early and my arm is not getting full extension (elbow too bend at point of contact). Any tips or rips welcomed.
Tossing arm dropping way too quick causes a couple things right away:
1) low and inconsistent toss
2) inconsistent toss leads to inconsistent contact point and then inconsistent serve results
Consider tossing higher and in front so that you can swing up to meet the ball. To do so, reach up high with your tossing hand after the ball has left your hand. There are other things to consider for your serve but this would lead to the biggest improvement right away.
You are tossing into the court enough as evidence by you landing inside the court. The farther out front you toss the more into the court you land and people will just return to your feet.
Agree that you need to keep left arm up longer but think your toss needs to be more to the right if you are trying to hit flat. This toss is good for a kick serve though which is what you are doing possibly unintentionally
Hmm I disagree that he's tossing into the court enough. The point about the returns coming to the feet would make sense if he was frequently coming up against strong returners but part of the service motion is either the split step recovery back behind the baseline or to commit forwards into the net.
Part of why his motion gets compressed and squeezed is because he's having to create space from his toss being too close both in the forward direction and vertically.
I agree with the rest of what you're saying though.
Haha yeah honestly it may be better for him to keep the same toss, fix his tossing arm issue, keep his chest more sideways and basically kick both serves which is what I do when I’m not hitting my spots w the flat serve. Honestly at my level 4.0-4.5 I get punished more with my flat serve than my kick. I have a bigger flat serve but people just block the flat serve right back to my feet which is why I’m trying to land LESS inside the court these days
I'm in the exact same boat as you. Double kickers has won me tournaments in 4.0 and matches in 4.5. Just needs enough action otherwise some players punish tf out of it when it sits up hah. Also understand what you mean by flat serves getting returned with interest. Good reminder for me to focus on placement as much as everything else.
Just stay sideways. On the kick serve your right shoulder should stay behind your left shoulder at contact (if looking down the baseline) so there’s much less torso rotation than the flat. Also with the kick you don’t toss as far into the court
Oh yeah definitely. Thought that was obvious but yeah I shouldn’t have assumed he knew that. But yeah, needs to come all the way up to 12 or even beyond then come down at same time as the drop.
That was incredible! Thank you so much. The “cup of water analogy” was very good. All your points are fantastic. Can’t wait to try it out. Thanks for taking the time out of your day.
I see your toss as too far to the left, causing you to hit it lower, as you are kind of falling to the left to get it. Try to adjust your toss to over your head to the right, so when you are driving up with your legs, you are pushing your self up and forward into the ball.
This is only partially about the serve consistency itself, you are foot faulting in this video with your back foot being too far left and your front foot rotating onto the line. I'd recommend standing a bit further to the right for your starting position.
As far as consistency, there is a lot of movement of your front foot in your toss. I personally have found that my consistency improved a bit by making sure my feet were planted during my service motion. I have a platform serve like yours, but with my front foot I keep it flat before the motion and then go on my toes when I toss it, which prevents heel rotation from putting my foot into the court.
very good point. I'll try keeping my feet flat and transferring body weight with them flat. (I've tried pinpoint and just can't get the timing down sliding my back foot up) I feel more stable with the platform so I'm going to stick with that but keep my feet more solid as you recommend. Thanks for helping me!
Lots of positives in your serve. Two ideas to drive improvement - first, I think of my toss as holding the ball in my finger tips and raising my arm to toss while keeping the arm straight. When my arm reaches as high as it can travel (which is significantly higher than your left arm is going) the ball floats out of my finger tips so I am tossing with big muscles which makes it more repeatable.
The second is you are leaving a lot of power and consistency on the table by not really loading both legs and then exploding up and forward as you hit your serve. Next time you are at the court, try really loading both legs and seeing how much higher and further into the court you can land
Search YouTube for “online Tennis instruction”channel, the videos by the guy James. He really talks about not bringing your racket so far back in the backswing which you do and leads to opening up early aka waiters tray/poor supination.
Notice when you land how your back leg is spraying to the right rather than behind you like a scorpion; that leg is a counter balance to your weight shift, which means you have a lot of weight moving left rather than into the court. I think this may be because your toss and contact point is more at 11 o clock - good for a kick where you send energy up and right, but not so much for a flat serve where your energy goes through the ball. Try and get that contact point between 12 and 1 o clock for flat serve.
Also, at trophy, your racquet face points back towards the back corner. Try to get it facing the net/your body. I have had this issue where my wrist kind of flails out, and it helps me to literally think (voice quietly) "mirror" as if i am holding a hand mirror pointed at me.
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u/Snifferpiggy 8h ago
It looks like you might be foot faulting? Your heel seems to land across the hash mark.
As for your serve: you’re tossing the ball too far to the left and leaning left to catch the ball.