My Strokes and Serve. Please Help.

[drichards2013]

What a great feeling, isn't it? You can feel that way at the end of every day, barring the occasional off day. That's great Dylan.

What's up with hitting only kick serves. Any good lefty worth his salt has a big slice in the bag. Use it in combination with the kick serves. Look for the Stan Smith on the serve thread, it's on page two now near the bottom...there is a good video about serving tactics there.

Never change a winning game but always change a losing game. If you get beaten in the first...rethink your tactics. You will have to bite the bullet sometimes if you are reworking some of your technique however. Keep practicing...it doesn't happen overnight!

Sometimes golfers will borrow another guy's club...hit it great and then start to think about changing equipment. Golfers call this "the other man's club disease". I am not much of an equipment expert...what is a Blx Tour 90?

There is a guy on the forum who is an equipment guru. His name is geoffwilliams...he has been rather quiet lately. I hope that everything is ok with him. geoffwilliams?

The Blx Tour 90 is the Federer racquet. 90 inch head size, 12oz weight.

I decided to only hit kick serves for a few months because of one of the advanced tennis articles I read on this website. It said that the best way to learn the kick serve and become more aggressive with a flat serve is to only use the kick serve for a very long time

[don_budge]

Service...

I think that you need to develop a good service motion...make that a great service motion.

Here's a couple of ideas about practicing the serve.

Hitting your serve against the wall is actually a good method of practice. As usual you should always be aiming at a target and hitting against the wall allows you to let it all hang out and give it a good smack...using a perfect motion of course.

When practicing on the court I like to set up four targets in each of the deuce and add courts. In the deuce the targets are short and wide to the right handed forehand, deep and wide to the forehand, serving into the right handers body on the backhand side and wide down the middle. Being left handed you could add slicing into the right handers body as well. On the add side...one target is up the middle, one into the right handers forehand, wide and deep to the backhand and shorter up the sideline and wide. Learn to hit all of your spins to all the different targets. This gives you a lot of variation.

As I mentioned the Stan Smith video has some great ideas about all of the possibilities in terms of spin, tempo and placement. Learn to serve tactically like a baseball pitcher...mixing it up and setting your opponent up for the next delivery. I am not certain that I am buying hitting all kick serves to develop the flat serve. I think that number one it is paramount that you develop a motion that enables you to hit all of the spins and placements with virtually the same motion. You could start with working with tennis_chiro's figure eight exercises and work to incorporate this into your service motion.

Being left handed you really want to learn to take advantage of this built in advantage and mega develop your service. If you can come up with a great service game backed up by a nasty lefty forehand and a ultra dependable backhand this is a good game to build upon. Is McEnroe still in the area? If so, if I were you I would try to get into any program or camp he has going on. For a left hander there is no better model of all court tennis...although his forehand may be hard to replicate.

But off the backhand side his one handed backhand is a beauty...and a great model. He doesn't hit a tremendous amount of winners with it but he makes no mistakes and he is alway moving his opponent out of position with it...with subtle placement, spin and changing the tempo of the shots. He really keeps his opponents off balance and guessing. He was murder on the two handed players from his era.

Strategy wise? I would avoid cross court rallies with my right handed opponents forehands to my backhand. That is the equivalent of his strength to my weakness. I want to limit the game to my weakness to his weakness or preferably...my strength to his weakness. Try to establish the rally down the line with underspin backhands which will open up their forehand side for a short and wide slice or a deep slice or drive into the corner and then immediately reset the point back on the backhand side. Be patient and keep the ball in play. Be a retriever as well as being aggressive. Mix things up...and hopefully you will develop a really good forehand and learn to pound it into your opponents backhand, get weaker and weaker replies which will enable you to finish him by forcing him to make an error or by pressing the issue at the net. Continue to focus your practice in developing more solid structure in your forehand...and the ability to use it in a variety of ways. First things...first.

Eventually the service is the key, though. The ability to hold serve consistently enables a tennis player to put more pressure on his opponents serve. Eventually you want to be thinking...ATTACK with the serve to set up the point for the rest of your game.

I am left handed by the way. Conventional tactics...are a bit different for us...and if you play it smart it works out to your advantage. Tactically wise the possibilities are vast. Remember that only 10 percent of the population is left handed. Right handers are not as used to playing against left handers as left handers are used to playing against right handers. I think that Nadal has made a great living the past few years using this as a big advantage...as a huge asset.

[don_budge]

Structure...what did tennis_chiro mean?

Thanks. I'll check out that serving thread right now. But basic structure on my strokes? What's missing?

I really like that word as it applies to ones tennis strokes. Structure. What did he mean? Obviously you had a question about it, too, because you asked.

Structure implies some sort of built up entity and in order for this to exist you require foundation. You see...tennis_chiro's trained eye revealed to him a lack of structure...or a lack of sound organization in your method of producing shots.

Philosophically you must begin to understand these terms and what they mean as they apply to your game...and what they mean when applied to your opponents game.

First your game. Let's keep it simple here and we will just make a couple of comments about your forehand. Your original forehand structure enabled you to hit one basic type of forehand. Now we want to lay a foundation that will enable you to first of all hit the ball relatively flat and then we can build upon that. Your original forehand was a fairly flat stroke, which I think for you is fortunate. I try to lay the foundation of my students forehands with a design in mind to produce some overspin but not excessive spin. This is somewhat diametrically opposed to the existing conventional wisdom these days where excessive topspin is the norm...but I believe that in the end this may be a limiting design. I feel that it is more difficult to teach a student to hit penetrating shots from a foundation built to produce heavy spin than the other way around.

By modifying your backswing we are trying to structure your forehand to do the following...we want you to retain the ability to hit the ball with a minimum of spin in order that you have a shot that penetrates. At the same time we want you to have the ability to produce topspin...and eventually as much as you need for any given situation. You can hit topspin from a classic stance such as the Federer model that I cited and the Ferrer model that bottle cited will enable you to produce more spin...for offensive, neutralizing and defensive purposes. The factor that hasn't been discussed yet is we also are designing this forehand to hit underspin shots too. By taking the racquet back higher than the ball you will have this ability built into your stroke. Underspin for approach shots, volleys, dropshots, defensive lobbing and change of pace. This gives you options.

First things first however...continue to groove you backswing and retain your ability to hit the ball relatively flat. The two targets on the wall will start you in the direction of additional spin by learning how to hit up into the ball's path gradually...a little at a time. Building structure comes after laying the foundation.

Second is your opponents game. When you start warming up with your opponent you must learn to make a quick read of him and his tendencies. Sort of like tennis_chiro and I are able to read in a limited amount of video. You eventually should be able to gather quite a lot of information regarding his game in the ten minutes that you are afforded a preview and this enables you to make some rather instantaneous decisions regarding your strategy going into a match. On the forehand side for instance...we limit our discussion to enable you to process one bite at a time, you can begin by examining his grip, the shape of his swing and from where in the court your opponent prefers to play his forehand and how he prefers to play it. Ultimately, you analyze his structure to understand what it is that he will do best during the course of a match and if there any inherent weaknesses built into the structure of his stroke.

This is only a starter, the tip of the iceberg, a drop in the Atlantic...there are mountains of literature available. This site has tons of information...some might say too much information,but not me...there is never too much...but you must know how to sift...how to separate the seed from the chaff so to speak. The ability to discern. You are at the beginning here...as a young man, as a fledgling tennis player. The key is to have an idea of where you want to go...and that is what I am only introducing you to here or anybody else that cares to read, for that matter, then hopefully you will acquire the ability to know what information pertains to you and what does not. I am merely providing you with a map...the rest is up to you.


Go get 'em Tiger(s)...we used to say that a lot in the Detroit area.

Structure...think about that word and how it applies to your forehand...as you continue to lay the foundation. Eventually the more options you have, the more choices you have to keep your opponent off balance in order that you might manipulate him, instead of the other way around. Tennis is much like boxing...you work many rounds on your opponent to keep him off balanced in order to break down his game and then you hope to be around for a knockout opportunity. Match point. Good night Irene.