The tennis service or tennis serve is one of the most important shots in tennis.  So carefull attention should be dedicated to learn it. Nevertheless you should also keep in mind that the serve is one of the most natural movements in tennis that is tied to other motions kids often use playfully, such as:

- Throwing a stone

- Throwing a baseball

- Throwing a cricket ball

- Throwing an American football

- Throwing a stick for your dog to catch and so on...

Kids produce all of these movements  in a natural way including one called pronation.  Which in tennis looks like this:

1  2  3

How do I pronate?…and Why?

At first by looking at frame 1 it seems impossible not to hit the ball with the edge of the racket instead of the strings but, because the player in frame 2 starts to pronate towards impact and the racket face has turned (rotated) presenting a flat racket face to the ball it becomes possible to hit the ball with the strings.

In frame 3, if you would take away the tennis racket, you'd see that the player's palm faces outward and forward — in a full pronation position.

Why pronation?

 Because pronation happens before ball contact (witha snapp of the racket head) therefore creating tremendous momentum which translates in wicked spins and awsome speed. Therefore pronation becomes a key element to your service developement.

But as I said previously, it is kids play and you should not focus on it but, rather let it happen naturally.

Serve stand position

The ball toss

One of the best ways to learn a consistent ball toss is to do it in isolation. That's by practicing the ball toss only.

Why?

Because we learn better by doing one thing at a time.  And the ball toss is one of the key elements of a great serve. 

Go to the baseline and position yourself in the serve stand position.

Hold a tennis ball in your non playing hand. Stretch your arm at shoulder level and naturally pointing at the net.

Drop your arm towards your front leg almost until your hand touches the thigh, at this point start the upwards motion. 

When your arm reaches shoulder level it is the moment to start releasing the ball from your hand until you reach a full stretch of your arm at an approximate 160 degree angle in relation to your torso.

Two important points:

1. The ball should reach an height of 1 and a half to 2 arm lengths of yours.

2. You should be able to drop your extended arm back to shoulder level and catch the ball there without much adjustment. A 3 times 10 tosses with breaks in between each series should get you going.

The racket motion

Now combine the ball toss with the racket motion

- If you are a complete beginner I advise you to move towards the net within 3 to 6 feet from it.

- Put both motions together "ball toss" and "racket motion" go through both without trying to hit the ball if it happens it's all right. Do it about 10 times.

Tennis ball Contact

- Put both motions together "ball toss" and "racket motion" and now contact the ball softly so that it gets into the service box across from you and bounces inside of it at least twice. Repeat this 5 times close to the net.  If you are having plenty of success, gradually increase your distance from the net until you reach the baseline.  (For this exercise you may need about 25 to 30 tennis balls)

The lower body (legs)

The finish

The various spins.

A flat, or spin-less, serve does not exist! All serves have spin, no matter how fast they are and the reasons why are simple, the need for control, accuracy and a consequence of the pronation movement.

There are some teachers that call certain serves "topsin serves" they do not exist either! Topspin is (forward) roll and the ball as an orizontal axis of rotation which makes it an impossibility to execute on a serve!

Why?  Simple all serves are hit with an angled upwards motion on vertical axis of rotation and never in an orizontal axis of rotation.

What varies the spins then? Where you hit the ball, take it as if the ball was a clock:

In the "Kick Serve" the ball is hit (brushed) in the upward direction fron 8 o'clock to 2 (lefties Is 4 o'clock to 10 o'clock).

In the "Slice Serve" the ball is struck right in the middle and then brushed around 3 o'clock (lefties is center 9 o'clock).

In the "American Twist" there is a more pronounced upwards lift and the racket head tends to end extremely to your right (lefties left), before re-addressing to the center and finish at the bottom of the swing.

These are only guidelines, there are plenty of other variations, you can get as creative as you wish and experiment.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not listen to people telling you to toss the ball more to the right for a "slice serve" or more to the left for a "kick serve" or whatever!
Why? Simple, tennis players are very sharp individuals with computer type brains that detect the slightest change in your toss to immediately know where you are going to play the ball. If you have the unfortunate idea of developing a serve that has toss variations such as these below:

The solution?

- Have one single toss for all your serve variations.
- Use the spin variations at ball contact, that I have shown you above with the ball-clock and let your racket pronation take care of the rest.
- The least you will give away to your opponent the less reaction time he will have and the worst he will return.
- Learn to disguise your serve from the beginning.

As I always say, I prefer letting young players develop their own grips, I do not teach them, but I rather let them find out.

In this case I will show you the grips the girl in the video found for herself.

Notice how the girl in this tennis video lesson executes the serve relaxed and simple, no more no less then throwing a stick for your dog to play with.  :-)

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