Perfect Tennis Serve - Make Your Opponents Run Around

At this point I had finally managed to create a good serve and the only thing left was to create a perfect tennis serve!

I learnt about how adding a slice or even an American kick serve could have your opponents running around in frustration.

Unfortunately this isn't as easy to learn but I learnt to master my serve....now it was time to master the perfect tennis serve

Tennis Serve Drills - The Road To Perfection

I hated my serve with a passion. I would find myself spending my free time either in the back garden or on the court practicing serve upon serve until y arm ached. It did help a little bit but I never found it to be that much of an improvement.

I learnt that this is the wrong way to practice serving, you need to go through tennis serve drills that are both fun and also ones that put you under match pressure so that you can use them in a real game.

My favourite tennis serve drills was called Under Pressure and this is how it's done...

1. You are on 30 and your opponent is on 40
2. Your goal is to win through serving and as you can tell if you mess up your first two serves your opponent wins

You can also make this harder by starting on your second serve giving you one chance to hit that perfect serve.

This puts you under real game pressure which is where many people lose their calm and mess up their serve so by doing this drill you will hopefully get yourself used to the pressure and improve your serve.

Apart from this drill there are many other tennis serve drills that you can use to help you become a threat from the service line...

How To Serve In Tennis - Move Like Water

The serving motion was probably the hardest part for me to learn. I had trouble with the hand and eye coordination and then multitasking the racquet and the ball toss at the same time made it even worse.

One of my trainers told me that if I wanted to learn how to serve in tennis properly I would have to learn to make my serve "move like water" (Yes I know it sounds like something from a Kung Fu movie) and he was right. When serving I focused on one thing at a time when I needed to just let everything go at once...

The motion - Ball hand
The hand holding the ball has a simple task to do (it's harder when you put the two together though). What you want to BEFORE you toss the ball up is picture a small box slightly in front of you where the ball should fall if you miss (this helps you lean into the serve adding more power). Something I found useful was to go and toss the ball slightly higher than I usually would, this helped me make my racquet movement smoother and my serve better.

The motion - Racquet Hand
This is slightly harder than the ball hand. What you have to do with this hand is as you toss the ball up you want to make a loop movement so the racquet ends up behind your back (like a backscratcher). At this point the ball should be at its highest point and all that is left for you to do is explode up from your knees and hit the ball on its way down.

This is the hardest part to master when you are learning how to serve in tennis properly but when you do you will be able to start improving your accuracy and consistency to create a deadly serve!

Improve Tennis Serve Now - Master Your Stance

As you are told in any other sport your footwork/stance is a vital factor that if mastered properly can help you improve tennis serve efficiency.

I had quite a good stance for my tennis serve but apparently it wasn't great. I learnt that the best stance for preparing to serve is...

• Bent Knees - This helps add some power when you explode up to hit the ball
• Feet shoulder width apart - This helps by improving stability for when you serve and then allows you to move quickly for the return
• Front foot away from baseline - This will help you stop getting a fault
• Facing your opponent side-on - This coils your body so when you go to hit the ball your body unravels adding more power

These are just the basic essentials you need to help improve tennis serve efficiency. You may see people use different methods to serve but all will have these essentials added in.

Tennis Serve Grip - You're Doing It Wrong!

I wasn't a beginner at the sport, in fact I was pretty damn good but the only problem was my serve. I had been playing for just under a year (a long time to put up with a sloppy serve) before I really started to get concerned about my serve. So I asked my new coach (this was about my 3rd PERSONAL coach) if there is anything I was doing wrong with my technique and he said "Your tennis serve grip...you're doing it wrong!"

I was confused, this is the way I was taught to hold the racquet by my first coach, why should I believe that this is right?

He told me that many beginners use the basic forehand grip (Eastern forehand) because it comes naturally to them and is more comfortable but it isn't the most effective grip to use....

The continental grip is more widely known for serves and volleys and is used by most (if not all) of the professionals.

Unfortunately some coaches don't even tell their students that they're holding the racquet wrong and just let them progress like that....

For more information on the Continental grip check out some tennis serve grip tips.

Fix My Serve - A Personal Experience

My serve was starting to take all the fun out of tennis for me. It was both embarrassing and frustrating (as I gave away points) and not to forget expensive (getting personal coaches and new racquets) and I decided if I couldn't fix my serve then I would just get up and quit tennis all-together.

Thankfully I found it - the cure to fix my serve (and in the nick of time too). Now my serve is consistent, accurate, powerful and more importantly DEADLY - A serve that before lost me points but now commands respect from my opponents!

Read and re-live some of the things I went through and maybe you too could become a threat from the service line!