How To Hit The Perfect Tennis Serve In 5 Simple Steps

Hey everyone, Simon here from Top Tennis Training and in this video I want to help you hit the perfect tennis serve in five simple steps. So step number one is using the ideal grip to serve with. Now this is the continental grip, sometimes known as the chopper grip. It's also known as the hammer grip and the reason we use this grip is because it allows two things to happen. It allows us to hit all the different serves, the slice serve, the kick serve and the flat serve and the variations and combinations between all three with one grip but also allows us to use pronation and supination which is something that happens above just around the time of contact. Now it's very important that we have this grip because if we don't have that grip we won't be able to use that supination and that pronation on serve and we won't be able to hit all the different spins and all the different types of serves with that one grip. The easiest way to find that grip is to put your racket out like this and imagine you're going to shake somebody's hand. You're reaching in that position and then you grip the racket. So as you can see from this angle that is the continental grip and from the bottom that's the continental grip. Now from this position on the grip you will have variations. So for a second serve you might go slightly further around so you can hit more spin especially on that kick serve and this is something that the pros do. First serve they go the normal traditional continental and the second serve they might have a slight variation where they twist the hand slightly further around this way which allows them to hit more spin. So now that we have the correct grip step number two is now the ball toss. Now the ball toss is one of the biggest issues that players around the entire world are facing on their serve. So the first thing we have to understand on that ball toss is that it's not a throw. I'm not throwing the ball in the air, I'm placing the ball in the air. Now once you have that mindset that you're not throwing it you're placing it that makes a world of difference straight away. So that first step is that I'm placing the ball. So I'm not throwing the ball because when I'm throwing the ball I tend to go quick with my hand but when I think about placing the ball I tend to go slower and almost just place it on the spot. Now the ideal height for the ball toss would be about six inches or no more than six inches higher than your contact point. So if I'm going to make contact here I don't need to throw the ball up there and let the ball travel down because the higher I throw the ball the quicker it's traveling when I'm trying to make contact. If I throw it really high let's say two or three times higher than I need it to be by the time it's coming down it's actually traveling with quite a lot of speed so it's hard to hit that ball and to time it perfectly time and time again. The other issue is when you have a high ball toss it's going to move around a lot so it's going to go sometimes to the right sometimes to the left sometimes behind me. It's hard to get a consistent ball toss the higher you throw the ball. If you can place the ball just around six inches higher than the contact point then that's going to be ideal. The lower even if you can do it three inches that's even better. The easiest way to place the ball is by holding the ball in my fingers like this not in the fingertips but in my fingers so my fingers are now gripping the ball. A common issue is players holding it in the palm and then as they release the ball is rolling off the fingers. You want to hold it in the fingers not in the fingertips but in the fingers and you almost want to feel that you're placing that ball and you're just releasing with the fingers. That's a very easy way to instantly improve your ball toss holding the ball in the fingers and not in the palm and as I come down with the tossing arm this left hand I'm not going too quick I'm going slowly down and slowly up because I'm placing the ball I'm not throwing it I'm placing it. That's a very easy way to instantly improve your ball toss. Step number three is now reaching a good trophy position. A good trophy position is where you'll see the players have a slight pause some players have a slight pause some players go through that motion very quickly but they all reach a position which is very similar. Now the common things that you want to be looking for the common fundamentals of a good trophy pose would be your tossing arm has stayed up so your tossing arm is pointing up to the ball this is to help keep the upper body balanced but also to allow this shoulder over shoulder to happen. So when I toss the ball me being a right hander I now the left hand goes up and my right shoulder starts to drop so my right shoulder starts to go down when my left shoulder starts to come up so in the trophy pose my right shoulder is going to be lower than my left shoulder and later on in the serve it's going to have that cartwheel shoulder over shoulder but to begin with to start in that trophy pose I'm reaching a position where the right shoulder is down and the left shoulder is up so I've got my left arm pointing up to the ball my left shoulder higher than the right shoulder my right shoulder is dropped and relaxed and I've got the racket in about a 90 degree angle in this hitting arm so in this position from here if I drop the right shoulder and lift the left shoulder it's going to look something like this so the tip of the racket would be pointing up to the sky and you also have a very relaxed arm just like I was going to throw a ball so if I was going to throw a tennis ball I'd reach a position similar to this where I'm going to go from that position I wouldn't go from here and I wouldn't go from here so I wouldn't go too far away from my body I wouldn't come too close to my body with the ball I'm going to have a little bit of a gap but it's going to be relaxed and then from here I'm throwing that ball this is the exact same thing that we want to do on the serve we want to reach a position where we're feeling that from here I'm now throwing the racket up into the ball up into that contact point so the easiest way to find that trophy pose and easiest way to find an ideal one would be if you start off with both hands like this you bend this hitting arm to about a 90 degree angle and from here I now just drop my shoulder so I've got that tilt I've got the shoulder over shoulder and I've also got a perfect throwing position in my hitting arm which is my right hand now from here I also want to use my legs if I can so some players they email us and they say I'm an older player and I don't have the power to use my legs that's okay but if you can use your legs then you definitely want to because that's where the the energy starts the the the force from the legs is what drives off the ground so the explosive leg drive that goes through the legs into the trunk up through the core all the way up into the shoulders and then finally into the arm and then into the racket but it all starts from the ground up if we can use the leg drive 100 you want to get into a good knee bend whichever stance you use some players out there might be using the platform where you're in that position here some players might be using the pinpoint where you're in that position either way you want to feel that you're in a good knee bend if you can and you want to feel that your arm is in that throwing position almost like the night tick that you see on the night clothing so that position right here now something very important to note is that when I reach that trophy position we aren't stopping well we aren't having a big pause you might have a brief pause you might have a very slight pause when you get to that position but you're not holding this position for too long and the reason behind this is firstly when we start the service motion we start however we get into that trophy position we have that swing path now I'm building momentum I'm creating momentum to get the racket up into that position if I have a pause it's almost like the whole motion is reset it's starting from scratch because I'm getting into that trophy position and I'm stopping so it's almost like this part there's no reason to have that part I might as well serve right from that position the other thing is the longer I stay in that knee bend the more power I'm losing from the legs the more explosive power I'm losing from holding that position now if I were to jump and I were to jump as high as I could I wouldn't go into the knee bend and stop I'd go down and I'd come straight up and that's the exact same thing we want to feel we're doing on our serve we're not having that big pause we're not going down and pausing we're going down up straight away so down and up the more explosive we can make that the better for our serve so once again we're reaching the trophy position but it's just for that brief second some players like Stan Wawrinka they might reach that position have a slight pause and then drive out but he isn't holding that position for two or three seconds he's holding it for split seconds he's just barely passing through that position but he is reaching that position that's the key you want to reach that position a lot of coaches they'll say don't get into a trophy pose now by not reaching the trophy pose what else are you going to do you're going to go through the motion and the racket might never reach an ideal throwing position this is the ideal throwing position for me once I get into that position I don't want to stop there I want to go through that motion but I want to reach that position I don't want to be doing this on my serve and then having a pause where I drop the racket behind my back or so on so I'm reaching that trophy position but I'm not staying there for too long and step number four is using pronation on your serve so prior to contact we've reached that trophy position now from here because of my leg drive if I have a leg drive the legs will drive up as I've already said in the video the energy then goes through the trunk into the shoulder now the racket starts to drop and then from here I now have this almost like this this part of the racket the edge of the racket is leading forward onto the oncoming ball so in that position that is where my wrist is slightly in a supinated position so this is supination on serve so what exactly is pronation and supination pronation is where my palm is facing downwards like this now if I turn my forearm the opposite way to facing up to the sky now my forearm is in a fully supinated position so if I grab the racket now this is fully supinated position my racket and my arm cannot turn any further than this so this is prior to contact now some players never reach that full supinated position but they'll reach a slight supinated position so from here now my hand is up to the sky supination I'm pronating now but I haven't fully pronated but I am pronating so I'm pronating now I've reached a kind of medium zone and now I fully pronate where the palm is fully facing to the ground so on the serve it's going to be like supination I'm pronating now but I haven't fully pronated at contact and after contact I fully pronate so once again supination pronating and then fully pronated and the issue is a lot of players never reach that full pronation mode they reach a position like this and then they come down with the racket flat like so if you want the full range of motion and to be able to hit all the different spins you want to go from here to here and the only way to do this is by having that continental grip if I were to do that with a forehand grip for instance let's say I'm using a semi-western forehand grip to serve if I do that same motion the racket's going to be like this and if I hit a serve it's going to go off to the right side of the court so I need that continental grip to be able to go supination pronating fully pronated so that's exactly why we use a continental grip and this is in fact what allows us to hit the different spins with that same grip because prior to contact all we're doing is slightly changing the racket angle to hit the different spins and the different serves and step number five is having a good relaxed follow through and finish so a lot of players that I see even some players that I coach when I have my first lesson with them I see that they serve and they have a very stiff finish or they don't finish all the way now if you look at most of the top players they're all finished for the right handers most of them finish around their left hip with the racket head so they're going from contact point pronating and then they're coming down in that relaxed fashion to their leg to the left hip now what this does is it allows the body to relax the arm in the most natural way if I were to throw a ball and I was to stop like this that's a lot of stress on my shoulder and on my elbow if I were to do that with the serve it's the exact same thing there's a lot of stress there so after I hit the ball I want to be able to hit still accelerate through the contact point but then relax in a nice way at the end of the serve and by finishing near your left pocket you're allowing that to happen so I'm not forcing it I'm not doing this but I'm allowing it to happen in a relaxed way this will save your shoulder this will save you from getting injured hopefully and this will help you to accelerate through the contact point and give you a better serve so here's a brief recap we have step number one using the continental grip which will allow you to hit the different spins the different serves without having to change the grip but also allow you to use supination and pronation later in the motion step number two is having a good ball toss no higher than six inches above your contact point step number three is reaching a good trophy position not pausing there but reaching that position almost like you're going to throw a ball so reaching an ideal throwing position step number four is using supination and pronation during contact which if you are using a continental grip should happen naturally and if you are changing your grip from a forehand grip over to a continental it's going to take some time but eventually you'll start getting the feel of pronating during the contact point and step number five having a good relaxed follow through that will allow you to slow down the racket in a natural way but also allow you to accelerate during the contact point so there you have it guys five steps to hitting a perfect tennis serve there are many other things that we could add in this video but to keep it simple let's keep it at five steps and if you want more help with your serve we have an entire serve blueprint course with the world's fastest server sam groff and if you want to watch the free videos from that course click the link under this video and you can see those videos for free if you enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up leave a down below as well did you enjoy the video did you learn something new and do you already use all of these five steps signing off simon from top tennis training all the best guys