The Tennis Serve-Proper Stance

Frankie Dell: Hi! I am Frankie Dell, I am a professional Tennis Instructor. You are watching 'How to Serve'. Next, I will show you the proper stance for serving. Next, lets talk about the proper stance for hitting a serve. You might ask, where do I stand or how do I stand? where do you stand depends on whether you are playing singles or doubles. If you are playing singles you want to stand close to the middle because after you serve you have to cover the whole court so you want to be in the middle so you can go over here or there easily. Now, if you are playing doubles you might want to move out here and serve because you have a partner who is covering that half of the court, so you only have to cover this half of the court.

Now, you want to line up on the baseline with your foot slightly at an angle. What I always tell people is point your foot at a post that's holding up the net, just like this. Now your back foot should be parallel with the baseline. Now, it depends on your personal preference, how close you want to have your foot to your other foot. I don't suggest having a wide stance like this because eventually when you hit the ball you want to reach up as high as you can and it's just too difficult to reach very high when your legs are spread out this far. So somewhere in here shoulder width maybe. And then as you go into your serve, again personal preference, you can choose to move your foot up or you can leave it in this place. Personally, I leave mine here and then serve and step in. That's the proper stance.

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