Tennis - Advanced Serving Techniques

Doug Kegerreis: Hi! I am Doug Kegerreis, President of Chantilly International Tennis, and today you are learning how to play tennis.

This is our second clip on the serve. On the first clip on the serve we showed you how to hit a beginning serve out of the forehand volley position.

As you progress, youre going to make your serve more of a throwing motion. So, instead of being right into a forehand volley position, youre going to try to repeat a throwing motion. You still will have your left shoulder blade pointing to your target, youll be sideways and then with your racquet hand you would actually make the same motion you would as if you are throwing a ball.

So, it would look something like this. There is the throwing motion, and hopefully youll toss the ball only as high you can reach and the ball toss will just get in the way, your racquet path will hit the ball and the ball toss will just be right in the middle of the racquet path.

Now, as you progress on the serve after you get forehand volley position and you get the serve in play, then you create a throwing motion with your racquet arm. The next step to get a little more zing on your serve is to have a loose and active wrist. I call it a Waving Motion, where I am actually breaking my wrist and a loose wavy wrist.

The last thing on the serve, are the grips. Again, there are different types of grips you can use and be successful on the serve. The forehand grip is a very common grip. For most beginners to intermediate-level players thats all the only grip that youll need. For more advanced-level players, they will need to move more towards the backhand grip or the continental grip. Why that grip? It puts your wrist in a more flexible position, so that wrist action I was talking to you about can be more pronounced. Whats the downside of using the backhand grip? The same thing for using the continental grip on the volley, it tends to tilt your racquet face at awkward angle. So, you have to learn where your racquet face is pointing and it will put your wrist in a very flexible position.

That wraps up our tennis tips. Tennis is a great game to play. Ive tried to introduce the skills to you in the easiest way to allow you to be the most successful that you possibly can be in the shortest amount of time.

Good luck and hope to see you on the tennis courts.