Tennis Topspin Serve Practice Drill

Brent Abel of www.WebTennis.com demonstrates an easy drill to get a better feel for how to generate better topspin on your tennis serve.

Brent's Serve Lesson info page:

http://www.webtennis.net/Tennis-Serve.htm

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• tennis
• serve
• spin
• topspin
• tip
• lesson
• instruction
• brent
• abel
• webtennis
• webtennis.net
• able

[armykidd89]

Hey brent when i serve i keep going long

what can i do to bring my serve back into play?

[webtennis]

@armykidd89 Hey Army. 1st thing would be to make sure your contact point is slightly out in front of you.

Sometimes the serve can go long because the toss is too far behind you.

Also, are you getting plenty of spin to help bring the ball back down or is your serve too flat?

Brent

[musicmaniacs1113]

Hi Brent, I was wondering what debi10s is referring to by serving over the fence? Is she referring to trying to make the ball kick high enough so that it can bounce over the fence?

[webtennis]

@musicmaniacs1113 No she's referring to standing on the outside of the court and serving up and over the fence into the tennis court.

It helps give you the feeling of how swinging up creates topspin for your serve.

Brent

[dannyyang78]

he pulled like 7 balls from his pocket... big ass pocket lawl

[webtennis]

@dannyyang78 Hey, a great drill for learning the rhythm of the serve is to hold 4 balls, serve one at a time without stopping the motion (no footwork of course)...

Brent

[chrisrei10]

i hope this helps my pathetic serve...i have pretty good groundies...but my serve always seems to be the bugaboo.....i either hit the net, or im long........so i end up standing farther back just to get it in..and then my rotten opponents drop shot me....

[debi10s]

Old teaching pro trick.....go outside the court and try to serve over the fence....this gets the student understanding the up motion quickly.

[armykidd89]

i would have to say too flat

[kevintoti]

heaps of effort when into those first two serves lol listen to him 0:00

[KooKookid520]

@Kapperillo

1. Top spin second serve isn't really about power.

2. You lose precision by throwing it too far to the right.

3. That's the price to pay for a very accurate and effective 2nd serve.

I can't flat serve to save my life, so I actually do my modified version of the top spin serve for my first. I jump into it a little and toss the ball a little bit more above my head (rather than to the right) and a little farther into the court. Generating enough spin and power for an occassional ace

[OhhShaadoow]

He's a Grandmaster

[getarunshyam]

Thanks Brent. I am able to get a topspin(high arc) on the second serve. However I am worried about the speed of my second serve. Though my opponent (an amateur like me) finds it difficult to track the ball due to the spin on it, I am quite sure that an experienced player can read the ball easily. Is there a way to increase the speed of the second serve or is the key to the second serve to impart more topspin and thus making the opponent to move back to the baseline? Arun (India)

[wholesumtennis]

Guys like Sampras & Federer can hit just about any serve off of the same toss. As Brent mentions here it's next to impossible to impart topspin when the ball is of to the right. With all serve tosses you want your arm extended upward inline with the same shoulder then extend upward to the ball with the racket. Have fun

[wholesumtennis]

I think there's no argument that Andy Roddick does not lack speed and power on any of his serves. I've seen him place a 130 mph kick serve down the T no problem. In most cases the ball placement is not really behind you but it is slightly closer than a flat serve would be.

[wholesumtennis]

@Kapperillo Take a look at Patrick Rafter, Andy Roddick and Johny Mac. All arguably great servers. The only one I can think of that had some back issues was Johnny Mac. This is why his service motion was a bit unorthodox. Pat Rafter has an incredible topspin kick serve as do many other players. Now all of these players used a topspin serve and slice as well as kick serves.