Passion for Tennis

Want to serve bullets? A fast arm, loose wrist, fluid swing, and take-no-prisoners attitude are all you need.

You can argue about many things when it comes to playing tennis, but there’s one issue that’s not debatable—the racquet hits the ball. And the simple fact is, if you want the ball to travel fast or with a lot of spin, the racquet has to move quickly to do it. All the bending, twisting, and grunting in the world won’t do you any good if your racquet is slow. So if you’re looking to rip your serve, the first thing you have to consider is what your racquet is doing. Put the shoulder turn and deep knee bend on the sideline for now because the smartest way to increase the pace on your serve is to speed up your racquet. Here are some drills and tips to help you achieve that.

FAST ARM
Use only your upper body. At the 2004 WTA championships last November, Serena Williams suffered an abdominal injury in the final against Maria Sharapova. Because of this ailment, Serena served the entire third set using only her upper body. With this abbreviated motion she still reached 90 m.p.h. on the radar gun and hit a couple of aces. Unfortunately, she didn’t have enough to win, but you could see how much power she could muster just by using her upper body.

So practice your serve while eliminating your lower body. I’ve had students stand in ball hoppers to keep their legs quiet, but you can do it by serving just like Serena did. You simply toss the ball and accelerate the racquet. By taking away a part of the body, you’re forcing the other elements to do more.

Have your coach or friend toss the ball for you. Sometimes, by disrupting your timing on the serve, you can speed up your racquet. I’ve found that players actually serve much faster when I toss the ball for them. I intentionally toss the ball a little low so the player is forced to get the racquet to the contact point more quickly. This breaks up the original rhythm, which for whatever reason was a little bit slow or disconnected, and gets the racquet flying.

Try it yourself by getting into serving position and having someone stand off to your right (left for lefties) and toss the ball in front of you. Don’t be concerned with a big shoulder turn or loading up your legs. You’re just trying to whip your racquet around as quickly as possible.

LOOSE WRIST
Hold the racquet with just your thumb and index finger. Strange as it may sound, some players try too hard when they serve. They want to hit the ball with such force that their bodies get tense, especially their arms. When you squeeze the grip tightly, your wrist practically locks and the racquet slows down. So even though you think you’re swinging with all you’ve got, the racquet is sluggish. Combat this and get the feeling of a loose wrist and free-flowing racquet by hitting serves while holding the grip with only the thumb and index finger. Now you’re allowing the racquet to move naturally and do the work instead of muscling the ball. The wrist is more playful and snaps the racquet through contact. After experimenting with this kind of grip, you’ll better understand how much tension to have in your arm and hand when using all your fingers on the serve.

Snap balls into the court using only your wrist. Most players don’t do exercises or drills that enhance the fluidity of the wrist. There’s one that I call “wristers” that’s helpful in developing a good snapping action. Hold your racquet with a Continental grip and bend your wrist forward so that it’s bowed. Lean forward slightly at the waist, toss a ball around waist level in front of you and snap it down into the court using only your wrist. There are two things you’re looking for here: (1) the sound that the ball makes when it hits the court, and (2) the height that it gets. Obviously, playing on a hard surface will help, but you’re trying to get an explosive sound and the ball 20 to 30 feet in the air. If you use a lot of arm or shoulder rotation, you’ll have trouble generating much pop and you may fall over or hit yourself on the follow-through. Using the wrist is the best way to achieve these two goals, and it will carry over into helping you get a good snap on your serves and overheads.

RELAXED AND FLUID MOTION
Swing a towel to eliminate any hitches and enhance the smoothness of your service action. The best servers make it look easy. When they serve, the arm moves freely and the racquet never stops. A common problem for players who have trouble getting pace on the serve is that their motion is too mechanical. Their parts aren’t connected and as a result many times the racquet pauses during the delivery. One way to cure this is to take a beach towel and tie a knot at one end. That will function as your racquet head. Grab the other end and perform your service motion. When you get to the top of your motion, the knot will naturally drop the towel down, allowing you to swing forward. At the completion of the serve, go right into another without stopping. At no point should the towel hit any part of your body, but more importantly, this is how light your racquet should feel on your service motion. You should never feel like you’re trying to serve. It’s an effortless motion that will reward you with something I call “liquid power.”

TAKE-NO-PRISONERS ATTITUDE
Use a radar gun. I think it’s very helpful to have goals to shoot for. Some coaches and players don’t like to use radar guns because they think a player shouldn’t be consumed with serve speed. But I see a definite difference in people’s intensity levels when they know their serves are being clocked. The simple fact is they want to serve harder than the next guy, and that causes them to let go and try to tear the cover off the ball. It’s no longer about the lines and getting it in. If you don’t have a radar gun, turn around and serve as hard as you can into the fence. Or serve from the baseline and try to hit the fence on the other side of the court. People at the club level seem to serve harder in these instances because they’re not trying to hit it in. There are no repercussions, so they’re totally relaxed. The goal is to adopt the same mind-set when you do need to get the serve in the box. If you do, I guarantee you’ll have a lot more zip on your delivery.

Article by Rick Macci, Photos by Manuela Davies/Propix – Tennis.com