roger federer has one of the best serves in the history of the game and even though he has served
many aces throughout his career he doesn't always use a flat serve or is looking to hit an ace
or win the point outright he will often revert to slicing or kicking the serve to set up his
forehand which is his best weapon and because of that federer's serve has some unorthodox
technical characteristics that you don't really see from other top servers so if you try to
copy the federer serve you might develop some problems along the way so let's start off with
federer's stance and the amount of coil that he produces on his serve and how that can affect
your serve in a negative way so federer will have his feet laterally apart like this and i
made a separate video titled pinpoint versus platform stance where i discuss in detail
how the stances on the serve are correlated to the amount of coil that players get so if you have
your feet wide apart like this you will naturally get more of a coil so your elbow is going to be
behind the body like this with your chest slightly turned towards the back fence so while federer and
many other atp players such as sampras have no problem coiling this much they have very fast body
actions they accelerate a lot on their serve and they're able to come out of a turn this large
quite effortlessly so personally i don't have a problem coiling this much i'm able to come
out of this coil so in other words when i have my elbow way on the outside like this
my racket after it drops comes out on the other side of the body like this
but often recreational players do not have as much acceleration and when they coil this far the
racket will actually drop on this side and there will be a sideways approach to the ball so the
racket will approach the ball laterally and this is not a good thing because often when there's a
sideways approach towards the ball the racquet will continue going towards the right
which will create an accidental slice serve so if you try to copy the Federer stance and
the federal coil and you find yourself lacking power or getting accidental slice serve the simple
adjustment that you need to make is have the feet closer together do not allow the elbow to
go very far back and now you're going to have a forward approach to the ball where you can hit
slicer serves and flat serves and also the rotation is going to be a lot easier now let me show
you so i'm going to not allow the elbow to go back and i'm not going to lose much in power
another part of federer serve that doesn't translate well to the recreational level
it's this toss so players who have a large coil and also have a lateral stance will often early
go into the coil so the starting of the motion will often be the coil itself and naturally what
happens with that the entire unit turns and now the arm will be moving parallel to the baseline
and while professional players do not have a problem getting the ball into the court
when the arm travels parallel to the baseline recreational players often struggle because
it does require some finesse to maneuver the ball inside the baseline when the arm is traveling
parallel often requiring a j movement of the arm so the arm has to go into the court at the very
top portion of the toss to get the ball inside the court another problem with this type of toss is the
ball will have a significant arc so the ball will fly from right to left on right-handed players and
professional players have such finesse on this type of toss is that they can maneuver the ball
to fall right through 12 o'clock like this recreational players on the other hand will
often make the ball travel too far to the left and making the serve very uncomfortable
and this brings me to the federer serve which is quite unorthodox when it comes to the toss
so what federer does he will very early on initiate the coil so he will go like this
the arm will go back and the body will turn and now the arm will go up parallel to the
baseline and interestingly federer is one of the only players who doesn't throw the ball
inside the baseline he will usually throw the ball either on the baseline or slightly in front and
the reason why he does this is because federer is one of the only players who doesn't lean forward
on his serve so as he gets into his loading phase you will see that federer is more positioned like
this he's not leaning forward into the court and because federer is so talented even though his
toss is directed more towards the baseline and he doesn't lean forward he still manages to get a lot
of forward momentum landing well inside the court on all his serves if you try to copy the federer toss and
position the ball right along the baseline you also don't lean forward you have this position
in the loading phase you will have a very difficult time generating forward momentum
in the way you can tell that you're not is where you're landing so most recreational
players who do not throw the ball in front of baseline who do not lean in will land on
the same spot where they started from which is an indicator that you're not generating
forward momentum so let me demonstrate i'm going to try the federer serve i'm going to
throw the ball right along the baseline i'm not going to lean in and let's see where i land
so there actually i went backwards a little bit it's very difficult for me to generate
forward momentum that way and i look at this simple adjustment i'm going to throw the ball
slightly inside the court i'm also going to lean in and take a look where i land when i set the
serve up in this way
you can see that i'm landing well inside the baseline and all i need to do
is simply throw the ball in front and lean forward and lastly another thing
that federer does on his serve that might cause problems at the recreational level
is his rhythm so federer has a very fast rhythm in the beginning portion of his serve so he will
go quite fast back like this he will toss the ball and go back fast and then he will slow the
racket down and come to a small pause right in the trophy position this is one of the biggest
mistakes at the recreational level recreational players will often go very fast back and toss
the ball very quickly and two things will happen when players do this number one they will have
to pause in the trophy phase which is much more difficult to time the serve that way and also
because the toss arm is rapidly going up they have a very difficult time controlling the toss as well
so what can you do to correct this well you have to do the exact opposite you want to go slow to
fast and build the speed up gradually and also you want to have a continuous movement where the
racket doesn't pause and this goes for the toss arm and the racket arm independent of what kind of
rhythm you have if you have a lag or an up together serve making the bottom portion of
your serve slow will guarantee you that you will be more continuous once you get to the
trophy area so let me demonstrate on this one i'm going to go up fast with both arms and take a look
see i'm forced to pause on that serve its creating problems with timing and on this one
i'm going to do very slow in the beginning phase of my serve so the bottom portion is going to be
very slow and i'm going to gradually speed up as i get closer to the trophy phase take a look
so guys if you try to copy the federer serve and you'll find yourself having problems with some
of these things that i just described apply the corrections that i demonstrated and remember that
while these things are working great for federer they might not be working well for other players