The Tennis Serve-Backscratch & Other Serves

Frankie Dell: Hi! I am Frankie Dell, I am a professional Tennis Instructor. You are watching How to Serve. Next, I am going to demonstrate the Back Scratch. Okay, next is the Back Scratch and Swing. Alright, we have already gotten into Trophy Pose. You have already released the ball so this arm begins to come down and this arm drops into the Back Scratch position. We call it a Back Scratch position because it looks like you are scratching your back although you don't really want to scratch your back and you don't even want to touch your back with the racquet, its just behind you with your elbow up. Now, from here we are ready to go into the Swing. So you want to turn your body and rotate and you are going to bring your racquet up. Now, while your racquet is back here you want to keep it turned on its edge as if you would come through and hit it on the edge of the racquet. I don't want to see you with the racquet back like this as if you are waiter and about to serve the ball, okay. It should be turned on its edge here. Now you rotate it, you are coming around. At this point you turn your wrists so that the strings are facing the neck and that's your Back Scratch and Swing. So we have learned the basic Flat serve. Now, let me show you a couple of more. Now on the Flat serve we came through with the racquet strings behind the ball and you just slapped forward through it. Now, we can also hit what's called a Slice Serve and instead of coming behind the ball flat this way you are going to come to the side of the ball as if you were a face of a clock and you want to hit it around 3 O' clock. So you will come around this side like this. You can even hear the difference almost like a flick sound. Then there is also a Topspin serve. The Topspin serve is a little different because you are going the be tossing the ball in a different area. This time you are going to toss it a little bit behind you which will require you to arch your back and then you are going to come from under the ball and behind it over. This will make the ball spin forward or top, topspin. And those are three different types of serve. I am Frankie Dell, I hope you have enjoyed this lesson on the serve.

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