How to Hit Your Perfect Tennis Serve

The most natural looking shot in tennis can be the most natural feeling -- provided you don’t try the wrong things too hard or too often The serve in tennis is just an elaboration of a simple overhand throwing motion. Pretend to throw your racket over the net – that is the blue-print for Your Perfect Serve.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Tennis Court, Racket, Balls, Opponent

1. Find the Continental grip by locating the "V" between the thumb and forefinger on your service hand on the same ridge as you did for your backhand grip.
   
   Now, rotate that grip slightly toward the forehand grip. The Continental grip is half-way between your forehand and backhand grip.
   
   If you find yourself holding the grip on the identical spot you did for your fore-hand – you’ve rotated a bit too far.
2. Once you have your grip, step to the service line to serve to the deuce court, standing just slightly to the right of the middle line.
   
   Let your arm swing loosely – then bring the racket throat to rest in your free hand.
   
   The service is really equivalent to throwing. If you stand at the service line, and pretend to throw your racket over the net, you have just perfectly emulated Your Perfect Serve.
3. The serve can best be mastered by breaking the throwing motion into two unequal parts. –
   
   a— Allow our arms to swing freely, until they are raised slightly above your waist and to the side.
4. Your free arm performs the toss. The location for the toss for the first serve is slightly in front and to the right of your right foot, (if you are righty.Opposite for lefties). It would drop about four in inches into the court and about four inches to the right.’
   
   This entire gesture is the first segment.
5. The next steps two come in very close succession.
   
   We perform the throwing motion through the ball, turning our shoulders from the side to the front. If we think of the rotation of a pitcher's body as he goes through his full motion, we can understand the serve in the same way. The wind-up leading up to the toss and a sideways body rotation is all embedded in the first step.
6. The full turn through the ball as we execute the throwing motion is equivalent to the pitcher’s coming out of his wind-up preparatory to releasing the ball.

Tips & Warnings

• We locate the toss for second serve straight over head – so that if it were to land, it would drop into our upturned face.
• To strike the ball, we want to bend our legs as the toss heads upward, and then push off over and upward over the top of the ball. This is the classic second serve producing the top-sin and kick bounce.
• The first and second serves are identical, for the all-important location of the toss.
• The correct cadence ofr the serve is 1 (pause) 2:3 where 1 represents taking the racket back slowly -- the pitcher's wind-up.
• 2 & 3 represent the forward motion of throwing.
• Align your feet comfortably, so that a straight line across the toes will take you right to the net post.
• Do not take the racket back rapidly. It misdirects the corect cadence --