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How do top players develop the ability to place the ball to the corners on second serve? In the last two articles in this series, we looked at the technical variations in Roger Federer’s serve for the different placements for the first serve in both the ad court (Click Here) and in the deuce court (Click Here). We saw that there were slight differences in the angle and path of the racket face that were invisible to the eye, but that were clear in Tennisplayer high speed video. On the first serve, the key is the timing of the rotation of the hand and arm in the upward swing. This rotation in turn varies the angle of the racket head at contact, creating placements to both corners and everywhere in between. The same factor–the timing of the rotation of the racket–and the resulting angle at contact explain the placement on the second serves as well. So let’s see how that works in both courts. Toss Before we do though let’s review a key difference between the first and second serve, the placement of the toss. We looked at the differences in the ball position between the first and second serve…