Serving

Presenting your opponent with a challenging first return shot is quite a difficult, often daunting task. A myriad of factors affect the way you serve, including your audience, energy level, and even the sun. It is essential for any tennis player to serve with consistency, while following a decent set of guidelines. While basic in fundamentals, serving is often complicated during matches or competitions with the presence of spectators. By learning to serve consistently well, you will come to develop a reliable serve, which can evolve into an effective weapon when further improved upon.

To start out, you’ll need a tennis racket, a can of tennis balls, and a court. Begin by asking yourself: am I playing alone or with someone else? If you’re playing singles, stand behind the furthest line back on the court and just to the right of a small line that juts out in the center. In doubles, it is essential that you stand about three large steps to the right of the singles position. The stance becomes crucial for strategic positioning after the serve; in doubles it is necessary that you remain on your side of the court, and singles will require you to be more centered on the court, ready to return any shot that should come to you.
Once positioned, keep in mind that your goal is to hit the ball over the net, into the adjacent box on the other side of the court. Begin by leaning forward and placing about 75% of your body weight on your front foot. Then in a smooth motion, equalize your weight distribution, while tossing the tennis ball slightly in front of, and about five feet above your head. Upon releasing the tennis ball at launch, continue to point at it with the same hand, while following it with your eyes. This is the point in a serve that essentially dictates the outcome of the serve. Tennis rules allow you to launch and catch the ball as many times as you feel necessary, until you have a good launch. This is where the mentality of the server tends to favor hitting the ball no matter what the launch, in order to avoid embarrassment. At least a few times each match, I’ll have a bad launch, though I proceed to hit the ball regardless, typically resulting in a fault. Catching the ball after launch gives the appearance that the server is inexperienced in such tasks. While this may be true, it is always wiser to catch the ball, and re-launch it, for the chances of faulting are greatly reduced.

At this point, bring the racket behind your head and bend your knees slightly. As the ball begins its descent, if the launch was good, proceed to swing fully through the ball. Be sure to make your best attempt at hitting the ball with the center of your racket and hitting the target. Remember that speed is not important, for hitting the ball hard is no good to you if your serves don’t go in. Realize that variations of the preceding steps exist, but omitting, reversing, or overlooking any of the steps in this process is highly recommended against, for your serve will almost always result in a fault.
Should your serve not hit the target, it is called a fault, and you are allowed another serve. At this point, should your second serve also be a fault, you have double faulted and your opponent will gain a point. If either your first or second serve grazes the net, and still manages to shamble across the top of it into the target, it is considered a “let”. What this means is that that particular serve becomes void, and you are allowed to redo it.

Remembering to follow each of the different phases of a serve isn’t difficult to remember once you are acclimated to them. It is implementing these fundamentals in a match that is the key to your success. More times than not you will have an audience, while maybe not large, that will be watching your every shot. It is often intimidating knowing that every mistake that you make will be seen by your audience, who will develop their opinion about you based on such mistakes. This causes a tendency for the player to perform in a more conservative fashion, which leads to mistakes and most noticeably, errors in serving. It becomes crucial to make every attempt at adjusting to having an audience, for it will improve your game. Just remember the fundamentals, and take your serving slowly if that’s what it takes to hit the ball in. After practicing some, you should be able to hit a consistently in-play serve, which is the basis for the development of a lethal weapon later on. You must start somewhere, and this the best place to do so.