hey guys in today's video i'm going to show you the four biggest flat serve myths this
is the last video of the serve myth series if you missed the kick serve myths or the slice serve myths
i'm going to leave a the link in the description below myth is a really tough word to say i said
it way too many times in this intro but let's get right into the flat serve myth and the funny thing
is the actual flat serve is becoming a myth in itself and here's the reason why what i've been
observing at the junior level at the college level at the high level and even at the very
elite level is that the flat serve is becoming almost extinct of course there are still some
big-time flat servers on tour there is no argument about that players such as raonic isner
opelka sam querrey nick kyrgios daniel medvedev and there are many others as well who still have
a good flat serve so back in the day in the 90s there was incredible servers on tour arguably
much better servers than we have today i'm not the only one saying this i heard an interview
with boris becker i'm going to link this interview in my description below where boris becker also
said that the serves have become weaker and one of the main reasons for this is that players do not
utilize flat serves like they used to anymore often it's a hybrid serve something between
a kick and a slice serve the true flat serve is very rarely seen in today's game and guys the most
common technically sub optimal flat serve that i see at the elite level is a situation for example
where players will toss the ball too far too the left if they're right-handed and then
they flatten the ball out from that position it looks something like this they will throw the ball
way over to the left and then flatten it out and often uh players will lose balance on their finish
as a result of that and I can give you one example of an elite level player possibly the next
number one in the world with a sub optimal flat serve technique and that's stefanos tsitsipas
if you watch him hit a first serve you will see that it looks a little bit awkward and the reason
is he's sideways way too long which is more of a kick serve characteristic he also also
has a tendency to toss the ball a little bit too far to the left which is also a kick serve
characteristic as a result of that he will often have to bend his body in an uncomfortable way
to make contact and he often lands and then quickly loses balance after hitting a flat serve
now he's such a great player he still has a great serve but in my opinion if he did those two things
different it would be even better so ask yourself how is this possible how is it possible that the
flat serve is going away well i can give you uh one possible reason and that is the obsession on
the kick serve do me a favor go into the youtube search bar type in how to hit a flat serve you're
going to get very few videos but if you type in how to hit a kick serve you will get thousands
upon thousands of kick serve videos so there's an obsession on the kick serve and the flat serve has
gone by the wayside so why is the flat serve so important well this is the reason why we have two
serves see the kick serve is the perfect second serve if you want to know in more detail why
that's the case check out my video on why the kick serve is the perfect second serve the flat serve
is a riskier serve no doubt about that but this is the hardest serve we have this is when we reach
our max speeds and why shouldn't we do that when we have two serves available it doesn't matter if
you miss that flat serve because you have a second serve as a kick serve that's going to be very
reliable of course you can't always serve flat you have to mix it up every now and you throw in
a slice or even throw in a kick as the first serve but it's a shame if you don't have a flat serve
that's going to give you some free points or some possible aces i made an entire video on how to hit
a flat serve again i'm going to leave a link in the description below you can check it out but i'm
going to give you a quick recap of this lesson so basically what you need to utilize when you hit a
flat serve is torso rotation and also you want to leave the toss at least at 12 o'clock or ideally
a little bit past 12 o'clock somewhere around the 1 o'clock area so between 12 and 1 o'clock
is going to be the ideal position for your toss and now it's a very simple serve you're going to
be rotating your torso into the contact and you're going to have more of a down and forward delivery
what i do with players that have trouble with the flat serve i actually have them practice overheads
because the technique is very similar again we're hitting down and forward the same way we would
on an overhead let me try another one so you can practice overheads and the technique is going
to translate well into your flat serve so now when you go to the baseline of course you're not
going to be hitting that short like you would on overhead the serve has to be a little bit longer
in general but the technique is very similar in the sense that you're simply rotating into the
contact and then going forward and down okay guys let me demonstrate a flat serve i'm going to go
out wide and i'm simply going to focus on rotating into the contact and then hitting
down and forward okay not bad and this was cold i did not warm up so there you see flat serve is
a great serve because we get our maximum speed and if we hit it into the right target this can easily
translate into a service winner or an ace and now on to the actual flat serve myths so the first one
is the idea that we can only hit a flat serve in a continental grip so actually there was some
elite level players some of the best servers of all time such as boris becker and patrick rafter
who served with an australian grip for you guys that don't know what an australian grip it is the
corner between the eastern forehand grip and the continental grip so if you place your base knuckle
at that edge that is the australian grip so if you find yourself a little bit over to this side i'm
actually okay with it and some players experience more power in an australian grip compared to a
continental grip now if you watched any of my serve videos you know that i'm a proponent of a
continental grip for the simple reason that once you have the continental grip you don't really
have to worry about grip changes on the serve so this is my recommendation however there are some
players who find more strength if they go slightly over towards the forehand side so remember not to
go over towards the eastern forehand side you are going to get problems with this type of grip this
is going to be too severe but grip change but if you're just slightly over on that edge which is
called the australian grip and this is perfectly fine to use on your flat serve and guys the next
flat serve myth is the idea that a certain type of pronation will give us a flat serve this is
absolutely not true fact is that even at the elite level some players will continue to pronate on
some flat serves but they will very often not continue to pronate on others so in other words
all high-level players will pronate into the contact so they will pronate into the contact from
this position but then what happens afterwards is either a continuing pronation or a non-continuing
pronation this is true for all serves if you're more interested finding out in detail how this
works check out my video continuing pronation versus non-continuing pronation so what happens
in reality on a flat serve or any other serve for that matter is that you're gonna have absolutely
no idea whether you're continuing to pronate or not this part of the serve is over in a blink of
an eye these are milliseconds you're not going to know whether you did this or this and therefore do
not obsess on it if you find yourself watching slow-mo footage of your flat serve you see
this type of movement after the serve don't worry some of the greatest servers of all time such as
ivo karlovic will sometimes do the same thing they will not always continue to pronate after the
serve so this is not a cause of concern at all and finally the most important flat serve myth is the
idea that we are snapping the wrist on a flat serve this is a very dangerous myth and i want you guys
to understand this is absolutely not what happens on any serve but especially not the fastest serve
we have which is a flat serve if you indeed would try to use your wrist on your flat serve this can
cause some serious injuries and here's the reality of trying to use the wrist on a flat serve what
you will need to do in order to accomplish this is a slowing down of the most important part of
the serve which is the contact what naturally happens is that the serve will be abruptly
shortened because of it and it looks something like this i'm going to try to focus on my wrist
and i'm going to snap it down and i can tell you this does not feel good i actually do feel pain
a little bit in my wrist i'm just doing that one serve so under absolutely no circumstance should
you ever try to do this there's no flat serve at the high level that happens with a wrist snap the
wrist is in a stable position if you take a look at the wrist on a flat serve you will see that
it's absolutely not moving even when continuing pronation is present see the wrist will not snap
down this way the continuing pronation will occur while the wrist is still in a stable position
now one confusing thing is this sampras technique a lot of players will try to copy the sampras flat
serve technique which is basically a bending of the forearm it looks something like this
so sampras used to bend his forearm down but even this technique which i don't necessarily recommend
because it does put a lot of strain on the arm if you can pull it off that's fine absolutely nothing
wrong with it but if you're trying to do the same press technique and you're feeling some pain in
your elbow or your shoulder by no means should you continue doing that you're much better off keeping
the arm straight as you're finishing your flat serve but even on the sampras technique the wrist
is not used if you take a close look at the sampras technique and this is what happens
sampras would go down with this forearm like this and the elbow will pop up if you take a look
at the wrist it's absolutely and not moving when this movement of the forearm is taking place the
wrist is still in a stable position so even on the sampras technique there's absolutely no
wrist movement whatsoever and guys just think how seriously dangerous the idea is that
on the fastest stroke in tennis which is the flat serve that we're going to make all the power
by using our wrist the wrist will not be able to absorb this for very long very soon you're
going to find yourself catching some kind of wrist injury so again trying to snap the wrist
on the flat serve is possibly the most dangerous myth there is in tennis and under no circumstance should
you try to do this so what should you do instead well don't think of the wrist at all naturally
the wrist will not hurt itself unless you force it to by forcing this type of movement of the
wrist right around the contact you are exposing yourself to possible injury so when you don't
think of the wrist naturally the wrist is going to be in a more neutral position throughout the
contact zone and it's going to be perfectly safe to hit the flat serve at high speeds