July 09
Fluidity in the Service Motion
Over all the years I have watched tennis I have to say there have been people who serve very hard and then there are those who can serve hard and do it well under pressure. Ultimately, it is important to make the serve in the court and start the point--that is for sure.
There are a good many players today who use a motion that is less than fluid. This type of motion depends on the player taking the racquet to the place in their motion it needs to go with muscles instead of allowing gravity and momentum to do the vast majority of the work. It is my belief the best servers/players in the history of the game served and used a very fluid motion.
A fluid motion relies on gravity and momentum to get the work done. Gravity and the momentum created will always be the same whether you are playing in America or Africa or whether it is the first point or the last point of a tiebreaker in the third set. So this will in turn produce for you a serve that is consistent under pressure.
To get a fluid motion on your serve think about and try the following:
1. Take a racquet and weight the end of it and begin to swing it. You will find with a weighted racquet it is harder to start and stop the motion. So keep the motion going and strive for a non-stop fluid motion on your serve. Don’t actually try to hit a ball with the weighted racquet. Instead just swing it through the proper motion.
2. Make an effort to think about relying on gravity to move the racquet instead of the strength of the arm in the motion.
3. Keep no tension in the arm when you go to serve. Allow your arm to go loose and as Vic Braden says “Let it go spaghetti!”. This will allow you to have a fluid motion if the arm is kept loose.
I believe these concepts can work best on a serve over time. It may or may not be the key to a serve with a lot of pace. But under pressure it will be there for you when you need it more times than not. |
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