Tennis Serve Motion: How Do I Segment it into Smaller Moves?

Mentally preparing to serve is a very important and often overlooked aspect of the tennis serve motion. Over the years, I developed a routine of three ball bounces before serving. This gave me a a ritual moment of focus to decide where I was aiming and what type of spin to put on the ball.

I take into account the last couple of serves that I have hit and try to change it up some. I may want to serve and volley, so I take some pace off to allow me to get up to the net. I might want to try a one, two punch by swinging the opponent out wide, then hitting a solid cross court shot. The point of the preparation is to find a ritual you can be consistent with.

After preparing, the next most important of my serve is the toss and pose with tossing arm and racket pointing to the sky. The initiation of tossing the ball out in front of your body will determine the rest of your tennis serve motion.

It is vital to practice getting your toss in front of your body so that you can launch into it. Take the time to practice tossing by pretending you are starting a serve and letting it drop. Notice where it lands. It should be at least a foot in front of you.

The pose, as I call it (childhood lesson term) is when you have just made your toss and your tossing hand is pointing at the ball and your racket has just been brought up at the same time. As you are posing, you are basically cocked and ready to finish your tennis serve motion. Your legs should be deeply bent and ready to explode you toward the ball.

The swing itself can be thought of as a series of rotations in rapid succession. Your elbow starts the rotation as the racket dips behind your head. Next, your shoulder rotates the whole arm toward the ball at a high as point as possible. While this is happening, the coiled energy is also being released from your waist.

At the same time your legs need to be timed so that the cumulative untwisting of your body is focusing all of the energy at the point of impact. This timing is what makes the serve such a difficult skill to learn in tennis. As a final act on contact, all of this energy is focused even further into the natural whipping of the wrist with a full extension of body and arm.

The follow through ends the tennis serve motion. As your swing begins, your tossing arm should be tucking into your body as an opposite force to counter balance the racket and arm movement. Impact is not the end point of the serve.

The racket should be ending across your body. Your leg launch should have catapulted you INTO the court, with you landing on the opposite leg of your serving arm. If your tennis serve motion is working as it should, your body is balanced and you can quickly do a split step for the anticipated return. But you probably aced your opponent so no need, right?