The Lesson Process: The Serve: Part 2

Let me show you how to develop your serve into a weapon. My experience as a teacher shows that the serve is often the most difficult stroke for the average player to develop—and the hardest for tennis instructors to teach. In this series, I want to present what I have learned about the serve in 25 years as a player and an instructor, with the goal of helping you develop your own serve into a weapon, whatever your level. In part 1 of this series (Click Here), we looked at issues including spin, grip, balance, pronation, body rotation, and the wind up. Now let's move on and discuss the tossing motion, the contact point, the advanced use of the legs, and what I mean by serving rhythm. Then we'll return one more time to the hotly debated issue of pronation. Finally, we'll look at the merits of the analogy commonly made between serving and throwing a ball. Toss The toss motion and the path of the ball are frequently misunderstood in tennis, and this has lead to some counterproductive teaching ideas. The tossing motion is not "straight up and straight down." And neither is the flight of the ball. The...