How can I improve my serve?

Question

I hit it good sometimes, I'll hit out, not far enough, or not in the box. I'm playing a tiebreaker match tomorrow and I'm serving. Any suggestions? Thanks =)

Answer 1

My Suggestion is, warm up properly with your shoulders get a basket of balls and get some cones out and place them on the T or if you ain't got no cones use a triangle/pyramid of tennis balls and then try and hit the cones. Basically it will be target practice for your serve. And the key thing is keep drilling(practicing) your serve until you feel technically things are moving in the right place.

My advice again is relax and open up the shoulders whilst your arm is serving and start off slow until you feel more warmed up and ready to hit harder.

hope this helps!

(another thing is to keep things simple and natural with your and that will naturally evolve the more you practice)

Answer 2

warm up your shoulder, keep a lose arm, and reach for the ball

Answer 3

hitting hard is not always best for the player. When I started playing tennis I thought about hitting hard and yes sometime its in and sometime its out. Then I found out about Slicing, which is also a very powerful weapon. Instead of serving a ball so hard so that it make your opponent uneasy to return, slice the ball instead. In real tennis game people usually use their powerful serve first if they get a fault they slice it for the 2nd serve. Slicing a ball will make the ball drop after it pass the net and create a rotation which will bounce to the right thus making your opponent run alot making them lose stamina and it is also very hard to return.

check this site http://tennis.com/ go to Video and watch the "Wicked Serve"

Answer 4

Um... I think you should practice with a partner. And the person keeps on throwing the ball to u.

Answer 5

If you have a general idea of how to serve, then just pick up a hopper of balls (I take like 40-50 tennis balls) and just whack away.

Answer 6

Line your feet with the right net post (if you are right-handed). Toss the ball and release at eye level. Pull up, and then down hard. That's the basics. You need spin, so here's the tricky part: when you toss the ball at 2 o clock, make sure you lead the racket and swing towards the net post on your right. That will create spin and you'll be able to keep balls in. For a flat serve, pronate your wrist a little after contact.

Answer 7

The key to a good serve is practice, practice, practice.  Things to work on would be a consistent ball toss and trying to make sure you aren't going for to much on your serve.  Hit a serve you know you can get in.  

If you have a match tomorrow I would highly recommend going and hitting 100 serves tonight.  As you work on your serve try to learn to put more and more spin on the ball, this will make you more consistent with time.

Good luck.