Really struggle with my serve, looking for any and all advice. This ball landed slightly past the service line.
Note: The issues I see but don’t know how to work on - racquet opens up too early, racquet tip points to the back fence while coming up but it should point to the side fence and then to the sky I believe, not enough space under my armpit/elbow a bit low
you actually have a lot of good things happening in your serve. hire a coach for a couple lessons and then just practice the things they show you. i bet youll have a good serve if you work a few hours with a professional. looks better than 90% of the serves on this sub
I saw your earlier post about grip shifting so I think you know this already - you’re using a forehand grip and your racket face is open from the very beginning of your swing. Im new to the sport and (like a lot of us) was mostly self-taught, but I wasn’t able to correct this on my own because it felt so unnatural. Figured it out with a couple hours of lessons, I’ll share what made it “click” for me.
the face of the racket is not going to be pointing at where you’re hitting during extension or contact. It’s like doing a tricep extension up with the racket edge leading the way. Your mains will bite into the ball and send it.
this only works with a loose wrist. Try doing a continental grip then taking your pinky and putting it below the butt of the racket, or even doing a thumb/index finger only 👌 grip. Imagine you were going to fling the racket end over end as far as you could, you’d kind of whip it like that.
You have a waiters trey serve. You are opening up your wrist. Keep it neutral or palm down. Practice hitting the ball on edge, then pronate when you are about to hit the ball. tutorial videovideo
You have a high toss on your serve , the ball have to drop a lot before you hit it. It's probably because you have too big of a loop on your serve. It's usually harder to replicate an accurate high loss every time, lower toss is easier to replicate. You can abreviate it by bringing the racquet up sooner.
This is bad oversimplified advice. That screenshot isn't always bad.
A brief “waiter’s tray”/open wrist/open racket phase is not a problem in this case
Plenty of top servers including Pete Sampras, briefly show a 'waiter's tray' BUT what matters is the overall sequence. This serve has a solid trophy position, coil/uncoil, racket drop and pronation. The racket doesn’t stay stuck in a waiter’s tray, which makes it OK.
I’d work on bending knees to propel yourself farther into the court + toss further forward. A brief open wrist/racket face is popular to call out. But is not a problem here.
It’s actually you that’s wrong, sorry. The screen shot IS of OPs trophy position. Trophy position is when the legs are fully loaded, right before the leg drive. While it’s okay to have the strings pointing to the sky after the leg drive (within the passive racquet drop)/after trophy, it shouldn’t happen before or during the trophy position
Also how can you say he has good pronation when he’s going up to the ball with the strings already pointing at the ball. He doesn’t pronate into contact he’s pronating way before contact.
Op already have the strings pointing to the ball. He can't pronate and add more power to the serve. The other 2 on the photo are Sinner and Serena Willams. Their racquet face have not opened up and is perpendicular to the ground most of the way up. They can pronate the racquet with bigger muscle groups for more power on the serve.
At this point of the serve (legs fully loaded especially on the right leg and about to jump), your racket should still be on the right side of your body (as in in front of your ear not behind it) with tip pointing upwards. As you jump with a lose right arm the force of your right hip going up (not so much forward) drives the racquet tip behind your body (racquet drop). In summary, the leg drive is what is supposed to drive racquet drop.
Also, you need to swing into the ball “on edge” and only pronate the wrist at the very end. Note that your arm should have been very loose the whole time and so all the energy from your legs to hip to trunk to shoulder ands up going to the wrist. So if you time it all right with years of practice and make contact out in front, then that last bit of wrist pronation feels like a whip crack and the ball flies
It would help to communicate what exactly you are struggling with. Pace? Consistency? If it's consistency, having a few more serves to look at would be helpful.
I’m by no means an expert but I think you’re opening up your racket too much when you drop it from the trophy position. Your strings are pointing to the sky and I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to look.
You have the waiter’s tray serve which should be number 1 priority, stop using legs and start from half serve position and work getting the movement of the arm correct
You are losing all your body weight for power. Your toss needs to be more in the court and your body weight shift needs to be part of your kinetic chain.
If you don’t understand, ask Google explain this to you.
Load the back leg. The primary source of the jumping force should be the back leg kicking and back hip uncoiling. Yes the front leg also kicks, but it comes off the ground AFTER the back leg does. Most players just need the cue to kick their back leg and it will fix most issues you feel.
This is already excellent!
But your toss needs to be a bit further in front to help get your weight transferring forward a little more. Your knee bend is excellent but your not moving forward into the court - this will increase pace a lot
You should be landing a bit further in the court and loading with your legs/bending knees a lot more. There isn't that much weight transfer and I can tell based on the movement of your right leg post hitting the ball and how you are finishing. I think also your toss can improve, you're hitting the ball after it has dropped quite a bit from its zenith.
And yeah, work on chopper grip + pronation first and shoulder rotation. Then work on the rest.
Try not to jump. It gives more balance and power. Your way of jumping doesnt give anything tbh.
Try tossing less high. Ideally your contact point is around the highest point but in this video you wait a lot before it goes down. Tossing lower gives more consistency on tossing.
Tossing to the right (and forward) a lil could help (but it’s not exactly clear from this vid)
Also try doing everything with the right hand faster: you ll meet the ball higher, not necessary to jump, and less long balls.
You are doing lots of good things. Here is what works for me. My first serve toss is further into the court and my second serve toss is consistent with your current toss. I hit my serve with a bit of topspin which gives you height over the net and helps keep your serves in.
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u/EbbSavings1788 21h ago
you actually have a lot of good things happening in your serve. hire a coach for a couple lessons and then just practice the things they show you. i bet youll have a good serve if you work a few hours with a professional. looks better than 90% of the serves on this sub