do you have a serve like this in other words a waiter serve where there's absolutely no racket
drop and the racket face is open it looks like a waiter tray like you're serving somebody food on
a waiter tray like this if you have a serve like this this might not be that big of a problem but
it's going to depend on several factors let's say that you're just starting with tennis you
recently picked it up and you're serving like this don't worry if you learn the fundamentals of
the serve if you concentrate on the most important aspects of the service motion which is going to be
syncing the toss arm with the hitting arm a lot of people fail in this regard they're
very uncomfortable tossing the ball at the same time taking the racket back I've made several
videos where I can make your life a lot easier by teaching you how to compartmentalize the serve
I'm going to put a link of a YouTube video that you can watch in my description so don't worry
if you're a newbie to tennis but learning the fundamentals and continuing to add different
fundamental elements to your serve this waiter serve will go away I've seen it in hundreds of
cases however there are some players out there who have been playing tennis for 10 years 20 years
sometimes even 30 and 40 years and have always had a waiter serve in other words it's a chronic
waiter serve I'm sure you've seen players like this at your local club or maybe you are one of
those players who suffers from a chronic waiter serve well in today's video I'm gonna show you
three agonizing progressions to get rid of The Chronic waiter serve Yes you heard right these are
not going to be three easy ways to get rid of the waiter serve because that's absolutely ridiculous
and I'm going to explain why in a minute these are going to be three agonizing ways to get rid
of the waiter serve and let me now tell you why that is the entire reason why you have a waiter
serve is the ball you are trying to make contact with the ball it's a very intuitive thing that's
happening in fact it happens to every single beginner I have not seen one beginner player who
approaches the serve with the edge this doesn't make sense this is a counter intuitive movement
so beginner tennis players intuitively will open the strings towards the ball very early and this
guarantees them that they will indeed make contact with the ball now some of these players never took
lessons or took lessons and didn't take them seriously or took bad lessons whatever the case
may be they got stuck with a waiter serve and now all this repetition throughout the years has made
it very difficult if not impossible to get rid of this chronic waiter serve so I've had many
examples of players with a chronic waiter serve throughout the years and some are so frustrated
with it they just don't want to work on it because they know exactly what's going to happen open and
that's the following thing these players will go through the progressions that I'm going to show
you in today's video and they do well with these progressions they execute them correctly and when
it's time to hit a normal serve guess what happens they go right back into the waiter tray serve
that reason I'm calling these three progression agonizing because it's going to take a lot of
time but not only that it's also going to take commitment and perseverance you can't give up you
have to continue to put in the work to break this bad muscle memory that you have developed through
the years so what you need to do regarding these three progressions you need to give yourself a lot
of time set a goal of a year or maybe two years to get rid of the waiter serve it is going to be
absolutely impossible to get rid of a chronic waiter serve in one lesson or by watching One video
this is going to be a marathon and you have to be committed to getting rid of this problem because
let's face it this is a bad problem pronation into the contact is a very important fundamental
element of the serve but not only that a racket drop is a huge power source so if your racket is
going to here you don't have pronation into the contact and you don't have a racket drop either
you are going to lack a tremendous amount of power potential and you'll never be able to
serve to your full capacity in other words the range of motion is extremely limited when you
indeed have a waiter serve okay guys so now I'm going to show you the progressions that
are quite simple and the first progression is that we're right away going to start from the
correct approach towards the ball this is going to be very uncomfortable because it's going to
be a quite an unnatural position for you to get into especially if you're not used to it so what
you have to do is put the tip of the racket down towards the ground that's going to depend on your
flexibility and you're also going to have the edge going towards the ball and you're going to toss
the ball to your yourself and simply think about high-fiving the ball now you're going to do 50 of
these the next progression is going to be the Jay Berger serve remember the player who was in the
top 10 Jay berger who had a very bad shoulder injury he served like this he put the racket in the back
scratch position so to speak so this is exactly what I want you to do on the second progression
you're going to start here you're going to toss the ball up you're going to whip the racket out
to the side and you're going to serve the ball over the net and finally the third progression
is going to be starting from the trophy phase and then going into your racket drop whipping
the racket out and making contact with the ball now you're gonna do 50 repetitions of each one is
it important that the ball goes in this is one of the only circumstances where I don't care
that much where the ball goes in or not because these are going to be very unnatural positions
that you're putting yourself into so don't look too much into where the ball is going we're just
working on Breaking the muscle memory let me go through the progressions one more time first one
the rack is going to be right here you're going to toss the ball up and high five the ball you don't
have to worry about finishing it now the second progression is going to be the Jay Berger serve
where you're starting to back scratch you whip the racket out and make contact with it and then
the third progression is going to be from the trophy phase you're going to go in and out like
that now mind you that if you have any trouble with each individual progression you hold off on
advancing in the progression so in other words if you're doing pretty good with the first one
you can do 50 of these progress to the next one if you're having trouble with the Jay Berger progression
in other words you're starting with a back scratch but then the racket comes out like this
it's not time for you yet to go to the second progression so it's going to depend a little bit
on your development it would be good if someone is next to you that can take a look but also
if you don't have access to a coach or someone that can keep an eye on you you can record
yourself and keep track of what you're doing now here's the hard truth that you probably
don't want to hear and it's the following one once you let's say hit 200 serves with these
progressions and you take a real serve what's likely going to happen is that you're still going
to have a waiter tray serve and this is where a lot of people give up okay they
pay money for a lesson and the coach tries hard to work with them to get rid of these problems
but then the student gets frustrated because they think oh this is all a waste of time I'm
never going to be able to get rid of my waiter serve I keep serving like this no matter what
and then they completely abandon the hard work that it's going to take to get rid of this
problem so therein lies the issue that people get so frustrated with the work that they have to do
they get frustrated with the lack of results that they're achieving they want a quick fix
and they give up and now they're stuck with a waiter serve for the rest of their tennis
life so what I'm telling you is something that I told you in the beginning of the video you have
to be patient you have to persevere you have to work hard remember that tennis is a marathon not a
Sprint and there is a way to get rid of a chronic waiter serve but it is going to take a lot of work