Welcome to my new “Teach yourself tennis” series, using the best YouTube videos
I’ll be your video curator / instructor ! selecting the best free coaches out there…
Serving is often a big problem for many tennis players. A weak serve sets your opponent up for an easy winner; forcing yourself to hit it harder often makes you double fault (which is even worse, a winner on a plate). We therefore often see the second serve being a slowed down version of the first serve which makes it so weak and predictable that it gets put away.
The key point is to understand that a second serve should be very different from a first serve:
- The first serve should be trying to win you the point with an ace. It is powerful, hit flat for maximum speed and precisely placed.
- The second serve should be different: the aim is to reliably put the ball it in play while making it hard for your opponent to return a winner. There are usually two common options: a sliced second serve or a kick second serve.
Back when I was a teenager, I use to make the same mistake. The coach then forced me to only ever hit second serves (for the first and second) until I was confident that I would get my second serve in if I went for a big first serve. To this day, I serve many more sliced and kick serve on my first serve than flat serves, and I find that, when well executed, they are nearly as effective at my level of play.
This video explains the difference between all three serve types and demonstrates them in not too much detail. I will cover each serve in a lot more depth in later posts. I just want to keep it to the end of this series so that the people I play tennis with don’t copy my favorite weapon too soon š
Hope you found this serve “teaser” video interesting…Join me for further shot and serve specific videos soon.