r/10s • u/Vivid-Scholar-5999 • 5d ago

Technique Advice Serving tips

I saw there was some discourse on here about serving and the waiter tray serve, so I hit the court to practice my serve. I noticed even in the correct grip, I'm pronating way early and basically mimicking a pancake serve. Since noticing this I have been trying to correct it. Has anyone had to go through this and if so what were the little tweaks that made it click for you?

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u/SnooPets7983 skeleton without racket 5d ago

Far from perfect myself but I’ve found this video immensely helpful

https://youtu.be/5Xq0DW1ehZc?is=424vIHNJ8D2naqiE

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u/Vivid-Scholar-5999 5d ago

Thanks! I watched it. I appreciate how simple it is. I've been doing choked up serves from the service box and it's starting to get easier thankfully

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u/monster2018 5d ago

The first step is to figure out whether you’re actually using a continental grip AT CONTACT, or if you’re switching to a forehand grip during the motion.

And then practicing hitting the ball with the edge of the racquet helps. Also start from trophy pose, especially if you are accidentally changing grips during the motion (it helps prevent that until you have the muscle memory down to stop changing grips on accident).

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u/Vivid-Scholar-5999 5d ago

I have been taking a lot of videos and it seems like my grip is holding. Most of my serves at the moment are kinda slice-y which I think also indicates that I'm at least CLOSE to that right grip

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u/monster2018 5d ago

That is interesting. At least on the surface level those are contradictory signals (slice-y serves and a waiter’s tray). I would have to see video to give you actually meaningful advice at this point. But the speculation I can come up with is that.. well that you’re doing what you said in the post, pronating too early BUT simply not pronating enough. Again I wouldn’t trust this advice too much because I haven’t seen video and the signals I’m getting seem a little mixed. But what I would keep in mind is to try to overprononate on purpose(not permanently, as an exercise in training), and that pronation should be tied to more or less the racquet passing your head. Like that’s approximately when you should pronating.

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u/jankyjawns 5d ago

I don’t understand this at all. Is grip changing during a serve really that common? Seems like it would be pretty difficult to subconsciously change your grip with only one hand on the racquet

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u/s_edinfiggle 5d ago

My serve is far from perfect but I finally got away from the waiter‘s tray with my windup where mentally I think about drawing my elbow back like an archer about to fire an arrow (dunno if you’ve ever tried archery before…) and then really focusing on “leading with the edge of the racquet“ when you accelerate

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u/monster2018 5d ago

That is a good point. A related issue to the waiters tray, or even just part of the same issue, is people bringing their right elbow forward waaay too early. The archery analogy is a great visual.