I’ve been struggling with my serve lately and decided to go back to the basics and try to get the feeling back. I’m usually a fan of watching good video content and then doing practice swings at home. Do that until you’re confident of the mechanics and then take a bucket of balls to the training court and work hard.
What you can do is to bring notes (like a short bullet list) with you to the court so you remember the basics.
Here are a few notes I would bring:
1. Positioning feet towards where you’re going to hit the serve. Always have a plan for the serve you’re about to hit and where you’re going to hit it.
2. Extend your toss arm. Keep it straight.
3. As high a toss as is comfortable.
4. Eyes peeled on the ball. This is key for all tennis shots obviously :)
5. Relaxed racquet and grip. Beware of gripping your racquet too tightly.
6. Pronate. – There are a video explaining this moment well below.
7. Explode.
Pronation video:
It’s important that the serve motion goes from calm, then accelerates and explodes in the last moment. The rhythm is very important for the serve to be consistent.
But there are loads of resources online where you can get good serve advice. Here are a few:
Tennis Warehouse has a good channel for video content and below you have an excellent video for the basics of the serve. This is Andy Gerst from TW:
Like for everything else, there is a wiki on how to improve your serve as well.
Good luck and let me know how your serve is doing in the comments.
