nice one carla just go wide okay
more in front okay if you let the ball drop it's dropping right here right on the baseline
i want you to imagine that dropping slightly inside the court okay and then very close to the
contact like about when you start the racket drop you're gonna start leaning forward and
you get really effortless forward momentum that way so don't be afraid to throw it in front
oh my god now it's too far in front okay so that's the other extreme like if you let that
bounce it would have bounced here that's way too far in front do you feel yourself reaching forward
yeah it's too far you got to find the middle ground okay too far in front take your time
don't rush the bottom portion of your serve take your time you got all the time in the world
yes i love the way that it sounded it was good pace unfortunately it was a little bit long
though okay now here's the interesting thing what happens on the serve most people believe when you
throw the ball oops you're going to stand around the baseline let's say you throw the ball a little
bit behind you yes there's a big cause of the ball going long but interestingly also if you
throw it too far in front not only is there a chance to go into the net but also you can miss
it long you know why because subconsciously you know even without realizing this you know that
the angle is impossible to get it over the net so if you try to make contact with way out here
the angle is impossible the racket face would be too closed you can get over the net so naturally
what happens with most players they start doing this they start opening the racket face like this
and then they steer the ball along so even though you're throwing it way in front
missing long is actually a very common problem of the ball going too far in front on the toss
again too far in front
and throw a little higher come on carla maybe your best serve so far
good miss if it hits the top of the tape i consider it a good serve
you're literally like millimeters away from making it so
what do you think tell me exactly you can feel it right yeah
no i dropped the racket head that was so weird did you see that well what i saw was you you dropped
because the toss was a little bit low but what i saw was exactly what was talking about before your
racket opened like this this was the angle that's why the ball went way out oh wow yeah so it's one
of those things like that was an impossible toss the toss was so off that it was very hard to
make that serve so there's a question whether you should maybe catch that one and do it over again
good try do it again
love that serve karla it's an ace here we go nice uh even better ace nobody's getting
that back that side is working well okay so let's practice now to slice down the T you
know how to slice we've done it many times you're going to slice it down the T that's going to
be a change up serve you're going to use every now and then okay all right here we go come on
it's all right just picture a more vertical swing path so picture this movement of the
racquet finish with your palm of your hand up towards the sky the strings up towards
the sky it's more of this movement on the slice toss can be the same as your flat serve okay
it's all right
i like those serves Karla even though they're not going to the
target that you're intending to go to those are still very good serves
that is an ace so that's a serve that definitely is a lower percentage serve compared to the wide
one simply because that target is a little bit closer you have less room for error even though
the net is lower but most people have a harder time getting those targets than the ones wide so
i would say if you're playing a service game i'd go 75 of the time out wide not only is that the
higher percentage sir but also it's going to the righties backhand return which is usually weaker
but that doesn't mean that this serve is not important it's very important every now and
then you surprise them you can get kind of a easy ace that way while we're here on the
ad side let's practice the kicker a little bit so let me see your kick it's good I know it's good
all right that's not bad it's all right
okay couple more that's good actually i don't mind that at all
so carla you got a great kick serve all the kick serve components that you need
are there you're staying sideways you're tossing the ball correctly but the only thing is
it doesn't have too much pace which is not a problem i'd rather have you served like this
and be very consistent with your second serve than overhitting and missing but having said that since
you have some good fundamentals going on let's try to get a little bit more zip on the kicker so what
you're going to do is right now you're tossing the ball straight along the baseline i want you
to actually try to throw it inside the baseline a little bit and then slightly lean on the kicker
lean on the kick and here's the thing you can actually lean on it a little bit earlier
than you can then you do on your flat serve see the leaning in on the flat and the slice
has to be a little bit delayed so somewhere it starts somewhere around the racquet drop
and goes into the contact on the kicker because we do want to make contact right above our head
we don't want to make contact in front of our head to get a little bit of a higher bounce and
a higher net clearance we can slide our body inside a little bit sooner that was better
carla so you want to you understand the concept you're going to lean on that server a little
bit more get your body in there earlier and it's going to give you more pace all right here we go
toss it at one o'clock get it more at 12.
maybe the best maybe the best serve you hit so far it was a little bit wide
but it was the proper way to do it you was you were leaning in early on there that was good
slide that toss slightly more towards 12 o'clock come on
okay that was a powerful serve but they had very little kick on it do you know why
well here's what happened you threw the ball again 12 30 the racket head straightened out
so you got a little bit of slice on there but you didn't really get any kick
so you got to do is here go ahead and turn sideways i'll show you turn sideways
okay carla so here's the here's what i want you to imagine when you are tossing the ball up
it's going to be in this area over here it's going to be right on top of your head
and it's going to be towards your left ear or you can even picture the right ear for that
matter it's going to be slightly this way of your head so that would be 11 45 11 30. okay past 12
o'clock you're going to make that toss go past 12. and now what's going to happen as a result
of that your racket's going to be naturally be more towards the side and you'll get more kick
on the ball all right let me try again i'm going to now i'm going to move the camera again we have
to assume that you're going to lean early that you're going to throw it in front but now we
got to make sure we catch where exactly you're tossing it okay so go ahead and keep serving
a little bit more to the left K come on now that was more like 10 30. that was too extreme
yeah you couldn't reach it back it was too far over again that's like 10 o'clock it worked you
got a hold of it but it's kind of an extreme toss get it at 11 and you're gonna be in perfect shape
what do you think where was that one o'clock right
absolutely perfect what do you think about that serve
you see but on this one unfortunately you didn't do the other thing we did before
which is to go forward and get a little bit more body behind the kicker
so those two things are huge when it comes to the kick serve you got to get the toss right
and also to get more pace i mean there's nothing wrong with that kick serve that you hit
but you get a little bit more zip on it get more forward momentum all right but good job your
kicker is looking great now let's work on the can opener slice out wide all right just like
you don't know what it's called can opener never heard that here watch it's like a can opener ah
right there i don't know why it's called that i'm pretty sure it's called that i believe
absolutely spectacular was that on the line oh it was a little bit wide still a good serve though
okay here's the deal with the toss on the on the slice personally i like the
slice from 12. but some people have a trouble with it they're more comfortable slicing from
like one or 12 30. how about you i mean i was just trying to go straight up so 12. straight
up 12 you like that location well i just find that some players have a hard time getting the
lateral swing pad when the toss is more in the center on the other hand it gives other players
a little bit more room to swing to the side so you get a little bit more range of motion
so it depends on the player you know angelique kerber yeah yeah she throws it way to the side
i was going to say like two o'clock would be for righties but she's lefty so she throws it at 10
way over there and she's got a great slice so it depends but personally if you're if you
are comfortable slicing from 12 i think there is more advantages to it i personally prefer it too
i think there's more power potential there more range of motion all right here we go
there you've that one you flattened out
yeah picture that lateral swing path
absolutely beautiful slice carla that is fantastic you're very versatile with your serve i love it
there it is alright now i've got a surprise for you okay i'm going to surprise you something
we've never done we've been working together for how long now six years i got a surprise for you i
want you to serve the hardest serve of your life okay flat down the T okay absolutely demolish
the serve okay i'm gonna get something from my bag okay keep serving super hard i'll show you something
hardest over your life
60 miles an hour i don't know it's not picking up any speed
it's so slow no i might have to stand in front oh karla now you saw what it is it's a radar gun
okay you want to know how fast you're serving right yeah all right please don't hit me get
lower uh no let me do it from this you go through the t i trust you hold on go on
no no no i'll see i'm looking at the ball it's fine i'll get out of the way
wow carla 20 miles an hour it's 30 miles an hour wait let me hit this one out uh this way
i feel like i have a really strong serve that way yeah 30 mph just hold on i'm ready
go flat
didn't detect that one do another one
it didn't detect that one either do it again
i paid 300 for this by the way three hundo carla
it's supposed to work from behind too you keep serving
this one they didn't detect this one at all yeah i'll just do it from here go ahead
78 carla
78 78. all right it works from behind so it keeps her in flat that was a little bit of slice
let's try to get it up to 80 okay
no no no no don't do that like just try to get the power hold on one second it's very good thing you
brought up when it comes to power on the serve the most power you'll ever get when it feels the
most effortless it feels like as if you're put as if you were putting no effort into it whatsoever
so just execute the fundamentals correctly think about your toss
and the power is going to come by itself don't try to force it and arm it
you actually serve slower that way all right here we go
carla 83 83. this is good speed actually it's very good speed
74 but you caught that one you caught that one a little bit off
74 again
that was a really clean serve 67. because you put a little cut on there anytime you slice it it
takes speed out now do a kick you'll see it'll go way down you'll probably kick it will probably be
on your serve i'm guessing like 55 do you think yeah probably like do a kick like what we just did
actually 68 on that one but i don't think it was a kick or the slice do it again
what'd i tell you 57 57 on the kicker all right now one more
give me a bomb now don't blow your shoulder out okay execute the fundamentals i don't want you
to arm the serve you get the most power if you do a fundamentally perfect serve
that's the most power you'll ever get and also personally what i think when it comes to speed
when i go down the t it always takes some speed out because naturally there's some
slice on the serve when i aim there so my max speed on this particular side is uh out wide
carla 84 84. this is a good speed i'm telling you carla hi carla here i want to do one more
exercise with you this is a consistency exercise as important as speed is there's a reason why
i never bring out the radar guns and all that i think it is fun and it gives you an idea of
like your serve speed and all that but when you play at the recreational level you never know
how fast your serve is when you play match so obsessing on that is um not the greatest thing
but also i will add that a lot of people when they get a radar gun they start serving wrong so what
they'll do is just picture somebody at those um radar guns and tournaments that they have you've
seen those right those cages you just see people how they serve into those it's always the same
serve they won't use the body and just they just blow out their arm watch they just go like this
they like completely accelerate the arm as fast as possible and number one you hurt your arm that way
and number two most importantly you don't even get your fastest serve speed like i told you before the
fastest serve you'll ever hit is the one that's the most fundamentally sound and 84 mile an
hour the radar seems to be pretty accurate that's pretty good i think you can get actually up to 90.
and eventually up to 100 to keep working on it but one more thing we got to do
speed is nice to have but what's better to have is consistency all right so i'm going to give you
10 serves give me that one ball i'm going to put 10 balls on my racket and you do the serve you're
choosing i don't care what you do you just got to tell me what you're going to do and we're going to
see how many out of 10 you're going to get in okay okay all right what are you doing i'm doing kick
slice flat slice to the t you mean or you really mean slice out wide on the ad side yeah why not
interesting i don't really do that because you know what it is if you slice wide there the ball
will won't it will break the rightward trajectory a little bit if you slice it really well
in the middle will go towards the court yeah it'll still have a rightward trajectory but it'll break
the rightward trajectory so i usually go flat there or kick if i go slice i go through the t all
right then i'll do flat flat out wide all right here we go i'll keep track for you i just think
i like accidentally slice it so that's okay if it's accidental there's nothing you can do come on
one out of one
you don't have to call the direction just tell me what serve you're doing slice all right
no all right let's start over carla let's start over we got a little confused with the direction
actually i don't want to put additional pressure on you yes that's the way of doing this exercise
but the degree of difficulty is super high so i just want you to want you to tell me what serve
you're doing where you're going keep that to yourself then if it doesn't go exactly where you
plan it still looks like a good serve so we just decrease the degree of difficulty a little bit and
make the pressure less and just tell me what serve you're doing we'll start over first serve kick
one out of one
one out of two stay positive come on
two out of three kick
no yes it was good three out of four
no three out of five stay positive take your time don't rush
okay
that's the best serve you hit so far no five out of eight seven seven six seven five out
of seven thank you carla you're the one that's good at math thank you for helping me all right
i said no jokes i've made a joke be inside your service motion very bad
bad coaching i'm sorry it was good six out of eight very nice six out of eight
you got two more so no more no more jokes here we go oh kick it wasn't a joke anyway
long and we got six out of nine last one if you get this one's good
that'd be good huh seven out of nine six out of nine there's six out of nine right now
come on you got one more you can get 70 percent
and you got 70% fantastic now the only serve that i think was wrong but you said
there was one you said kick and end up being a slice
i forget which one it was but there was only one wrong serve so this is a great
drill because have perfect command of what type of type of serve you're hitting and also
decision making you you if you feel like you have confidence to go for a flat serve go for a
flat serve you proved it there you did on on the last one you ended up hitting flat and you made
it and seventy percent it's a good score thank you all right nice serving karla good job today