Tennis Serve Drills - Building A Fluid Motion

A fluid motion is essential when serving as it allows a nice smooth build up of power through the body and through to your wrist, hand and racquet. 

So how can you build up this type of fluid motion with tennis serve drills?

Swing a towel to eliminate any hitches and enhance the smoothness of your service action. 

The best servers make it look easy. When they serve, the arm moves freely and the racquet never stops. A common problem for players who have trouble getting pace on the serve is that their motion is too mechanical. Their parts aren’t connected and as a result many times the racquet pauses during the delivery. 

One way to cure this is to take a beach towel and tie a knot at one end. That will function as your racquet head. Grab the other end and perform your service motion. When you get to the top of your motion, the knot will naturally drop the towel down, allowing you to swing forward. At the completion of the serve, go right into another without stopping. At no point should the towel hit any part of your body, but more importantly, this is how light your racquet should feel on your service motion. You should never feel like you’re trying to serve.

Improve Tennis Serve Now - The Little Things

If you're looking to improve tennis serve now then something you may want to look into is taking a closer things at the little things and seeing if there's anything that you can do to improve it.

"Improving the little things can make a big difference in your serve.
Players are always looking for ways to tweak their mechanics in order to beef up their serves. They try things like increasing racquet-head acceleration, but they often overlook the basics. Instead of implementing new techniques, the fastest way to improvement is by upgrading the skills you already possess.

For the serve, it starts with a dependable toss. If you watch any of the great servers, each one puts the ball in the right spot every time. Yet club players are constantly chasing bad tosses, which throws off the rest of their motions. You can get away with some deficiencies in your swing if you have a great toss—that’s not true the other way around.

Being consistent with the toss requires rhythm and practice. During workouts I encourage players to get in their serving stances and extend their arms up, let go of the ball, and catch it. To find the ideal place to put the ball, fully extend your racquet upward and toss the ball just above the top of the frame. Remember, it’s better to toss the ball too high than too low. Do this 10 to 15 times before you even hit a serve in practice.

Once you feel good about your toss, it’s time to hit some balls. Before I worry about hitting a serve in, I like to hit what I call length-of-the-court missiles. I try to hit the ball well over the net so it lands around the baseline. They’re not huge power shots, but it helps me loosen my arm and get full extension. I get nice height and length on my serve while letting my arm go a little bit. Hit half a dozen of these long serves and you’ll be ready to bring them into the box.

When you practice hitting real serves, it’s always better to make a high percentage. Don’t worry about pace at first. So many players just try to crank their serves, and most of them land out. Since it’s just practice, it doesn’t bother them. But when they get into matches, their serves aren’t any better.

Set up challenges for yourself such as hitting a certain number of serves in a particular part of the service box. For example, see how many out of 10 you can hit wide or down the middle. Or how many second serves you can make without missing. Only after you get into a good rhythm where you’re making a handful of first serves in a row should you start to increase your power. A gradual progression like this allows you to amp up the pace on your serve while maintaining consistency."

Improving small things like this can be great for improving your serve, as people say - its the little things that count. 

Putting the toss in the correct position

If you have problems with getting the ball toss in the correct position such as behind your head making it harder to hit, then we have a solution for you that may be able to help.

"PROBLEM
Your service toss is hard to control and tends to drift behind your head. This prevents you from getting forward momentum into your swing and makes it difficult to hit the serve with pace and control.

SOLUTION
When you’re in the set position before you serve, start with your weight on your back foot. As your tossing arm goes up, shift your weight forward onto your front leg. This will help you get your toss in front of your body. It will also get you leaning into the serve and your body moving into the court as you swing through the ball. With the ball in front of you, rather than behind your head, you can hit a stronger flat or slice serve. Initially you may feel like you’re falling forward, but with some practice this momentum will add even more power to your serve."

 

 Remember practice makes perfect so make sure that you practice plenty to make sure that you are able to get this done so you don't have to deal with drifting tennis balls.