Serving

[marty]

Is the racquet ment to stop in the trophy position on the serve?

[johnyandell]

"Meant to" stop??? Not sure what you mean by that, but no I don't think it comes to rest for many servers, probably none. Hrbaty probably comes closest, but at that point the racket is still moving pretty slowly compared to the drop and the movement to the ball.

[kenknight]

Around when your racquet moves into the full trophy position, your knee bend should uncoil and bring the racquet around again and through the swing.

It shouldn't stop at the position, if you've got any kind of knee bend it prevents that.

[marty]

I have been doing my serves without any nee bend to start with.

[marty]

My racquet seems to go in the drop but slows down to much.

[marty]

How far out in the court should I toss the ball? bloody ball toss drives me nuts I ethier toss it to high, to low, to far left, I end up geting really fustrated and end up where I was before.

[gzhpcu]

Read Scott Murphy's article on the serve, part one, in classic lessons. He explains how to achieve a consistent "toss" (actually more of a "placing up"). There is no getting around it: you must practice the toss over and over again daily...

[marty]

I don't try to do nee bend but I still land in the court.

[johnyandell]

There is more on the toss in the Federer serve articles in Advanced Tennis.

[marty]

In found out that I'm landing to much to the left in the court and this was throwing my serve off. I think this was because I changed the contact point. Would I be right in saying that from the nee bend to landing that the foot stays in a vertical line | ?

[marty]

My server is based on fed. I am using a platform stance with feet parallel to each other so I don't get any shoulder turn to make the server easier. When contacting on the serve it’s a loud pop but not spinning sounds. I seem to hit down on the ball. I stop at the trophy postion.

Ok I will list the problems I'm having.
Landing to far left or right.
Not relaxing.
Left arm not allways going up fully.
Not geting any spin.
Toss different place every server.
Seem to be really hit down on the ball.
Get fustrated and give up.

[johnyandell]

Marty,

At this point I think you need to get yourself filmed and send in the video--you can actually attach it and upload it right from your computer. There is no way for me to say anything further that would be productive and it's obvious I haven't helped you that much with just the words so far anyway. So bite the bullet and make that happen!

John Yandell

[marty]

Ok I have some questions about the nee bend. I think I'm waiting in full nee bend for the ball to come down would this be messing my serve up?

Also today I will list some things that went rong.

I went up in the air and landed in the same spot. Would this be to do with not tossing the ball anuf in the court.

Landing to much to the left again dam I cannot work out what is causing it.


I stoped the nee bend all togther and was serving much better.

[marty]

How far out in the court do the pros really toss? The toss of flip looks like its really far in the court. Do you have any videos of the serve that are more side on?

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/mark_philippoussis/MP_serve/MP_toss/MP_toss.html?MP1stSAdTossSide.mov

[shootermcmarc0]

Check out the court level side views, they all show how far into the court they throw.