The Serve Mystery:
Hit Up or Hit Down?

John Yandell

You hear it both ways. Hit up on the serve. Hit down on the serve. If this question has puzzled you, here is the reality.

What's that reality? The reality is both. The motion is upward but also has a small downward component. But the most important question is what should your intention be?

Downward Flight

As Jim Fawcette's Amazing Tour Portraits showed last month (Click Here), the flight of the ball off the racket face is without dispute at a slight downward angle. This is also obvious in the High Speed Archives, and it's the same for both first and second serves. Check out the sideviews of any of the servers there. (Click Here.)

So if the flight is downward, the racket face must also be angled slightly downward. So does this mean the correct explanation is you have to hit down? It's not that simple and that idea overlooks most of the critical elements in a good motion.

All the Factors

The serve motion from the racket drop to the contact is complex. It's affected by multiple factors. Whatever the racket head angle at contact, the various motions until just before contact are all upward.

The leg drive off the court. The rotation of the body. The extension of the elbow. The internal or counter clockwise rotation of the hand arm and racket. And also the upward and forward movement of the shoulder, technically shoulder abduction. It's just the last fraction of a second that creates the downward angle.

Using the legs, players are getting up into the air from anywhere to a few inches to a foot or more. That leg drive is taking the entire body upward, and with it, automatically, the racket. As the body rotates, the right shoulder is rising as the left shoulder is going down. So that's also upward.

At the drop the racket head is hanging along the player's side, with the tip below waist level. Since the contact is above the head, the racket obviously has to travel several feet upward to get there.

The major upward component on the way to contact is the extension or straightening of the elbow. The elbow is bent 90 degrees plus at the racket drop. It's straight at contact.

So that motion alone is raising the height of the racket head several feet. Further, as the elbow is straightening, the upper arm is also rotating in the shoulder joint, part of the prevailing upward movement.

So how is the downward angle created? By the forward or tilting motion of the hitting arm in the shoulder joint. At contact, the arm is not straight up and down, or perpendicular to the court. It's tilted slightly forward.

The high speed footage of great servers shows how this angle changes in the fractions of a second before contact. Watch in the animations how the angle of the arm—and therefore the racket head changes from straight up and down to the slight forward tilt.

The arm goes from pointing straight upward until it is angled forward at maybe 10 to 20 degrees, depending on the player. And if you look closely you can see that this means the arm and racket tip do move downward a couple of inches below their highest point in the upward swing.

So Down or Up?

So there is a downward component. But is that something that players should consciously try to create. Consciously hit down? I say no.

Why? Because this forward arm tilt is required to reach the location of the tossed ball. To a greater or lesser extent, all the players are tossing the ball forward into the court. At contact, the ball is anywhere from a few inches up to a foot inside the baseline. Or if we look at a player like John Isner, up to 4 feet inside the baseline--as Jim Fawcette's measurements show.

So the final increment of the serve motion is necessary to move the racket forward into the court in order to reach the ball. The exact position of the toss determines how much.

And the only way to move the racket this last increment forward, is by tilting the arm forward in the shoulder joint. And that tilt is what is creating that slight downward angle of the arm and racket head.

This in turn creates the downward shot line off the racket face. So are the players consciously “hitting down”? After a few decades listening to players and coaches, it's possible that some players are thinking this. And technically it is true at least to some relatively small extent.

What I believe however is that this slight forward tilt happens automatically in the context of the overwhelmingly upward motion.

You can see this by comparing the different contact points of the top players. Roger Federer's contact point is just about at the edge of his face. The arm and racket tilt slightly forward to reach it—it would be impossible to make contact otherwise.

John Isner's toss is significantly further into the court. His contact is therefore also further into the court. So his tilt forward is more, again, because it has to be to reach the ball.

What About Rafa Though?

But take a look at a player like Rafa Nadal. Unlike Federer or Isner, his contact is significantly further back. Even on his first serve contact is behind the front edge of his rest of his body.

Guess what? Since he doesn't have to reach as far into the court to make contact, his forward arm tilt is visibly less—barely past perpendicular. Maybe half as much as Federer's and visibly less than Isner's.

Even though Rafa's serve comes off the racket at a slight, possibly lesser downward angle, it would be hard to describe it as a pronounced downward hit. We know Rafa is touchy about taking advice on his serve—and sued a Spanish coach who went public about filming him and giving him input. But tossing the ball slightly more into the court and making contact more in front might be a suggestion for him to consider...

Conclusion

So my conclusion is that the downward flight is a definite reality. As is the downward tilt of the arm. But I think the best way to describe the actual motion is predominantly upward and outward.

The outward reach to the ball happens automatically because it has to happen, not because players are hitting consciously down. If you are keying hitting downward, serving 100mph plus and getting 60% plus of your first serves in, don't change.

If you are having trouble with your percentages, and especially if you are hitting faults into the net, try focusing on the dominant upward dimensions and then reaching forward to the ball at contact.