alright guys i'm going to show you the american twist take a look
see that ball twisting it is the american twist serve that one didn't get as much
twist on there let me try it again here comes the american twist there you go
i'm going to try one more i'm really going to twist this one take a look
in today's video i'm going to explain what the american twist is and how it relates to the kick
serve or the topspin serve some of you guys are confused between these three terms american twist
kick and topspin and i gotta tell you these are all the same serves so don't be confused
about these three terms because all these serves are identical and the way we generate
spin or kick or twist on a serve is very similar the way we do it from the baseline so let's take
a backhand for example and what's going to happen on a backhand if we want to generate
topspin the racket will have to move vertically over the ball and now the ball is going to spin
in this particular way so on the same side of the body for right handers the racket is going to be
angled in this position so it's not going to be possible to angle the racket the same way we would
on a backhand for example and get real top spin is going to be what i call three quarter top spin and
this angle of the racket face is what generates this three quarter spin and it is exactly the same
on the twist the kick and the topspin and to clear up the confusion we can combine the term
kick and topspin into one term there's really absolutely no difference between these two terms
but the term american twist is different from the kick serve in a way this serve was delivered
so back in the day and i'm talking tennis even before the second world war in the 30s players
would get topspin on the serve but it did it in a different way than the players do it today and
they called it the american twist and one possible reason for this was that this serve did not have
as much power as the modern kick serve and the ball didn't necessarily bounce very high but it still
it would twist to the side and one characteristic of this american twist serve is that the swing
path was very lateral so the swing path wouldn't go forward like it does on a modern kickserve
you've got to realize that the swing path on a kick serve is not completely lateral it's actually
diagonal so the racquet will meet the ball at this particular angle and now the racquet will continue
to go forward into the court imparting a little bit more power on the modern kick on the american
twist however the racket would completely move in a lateral way behind the player's body like this
so let me show you what that looks like so on the american twist the racket is moving completely
lateral behind the baseline and what happens with this type of serve is that the racket actually
finishes behind the body like this if you want to see this serve in action you can for example
google fred perry and check out his second serve and he would hit it in this particular way the
racket would go behind the body and would stop somewhere around here so let me demonstrate it one
more time i'm gonna throw the ball a little bit behind my head and finish laterally across my body
so what is the american twist lacking well it lacks forward momentum because we are
hitting the ball behind the head we are not able to get our body weight
into the serve like we would on a kickserve for example because the modern kickserve
will have a toss that's slightly inside the baseline and players are leaning forward
and then naturally the racket will go more diagonally across the body
you got to remember that back in the day the players were not allowed to leave
the ground with both feet so the serve lacked a lot of forward momentum because of it
but it's not only that when we make this diagonal swing path happen on the kick serve we do connect
the ball to the string bed a little bit more and employ a little bit more force onto the ball as
opposed to a american twist where the swing path is completely lateral like this this is more of a
thin contact so we're not quite able to generate the same amount of power and this is possibly the
reason why back in the day they didn't call this serve a kick because the ball didn't really
kick up very high but because we're putting a lot of spin with this lateral swing path the ball did
indeed twist and that's a possible explanation why the serve was named the american twist
so should you try the american twist serve absolutely not you're giving up
a lot of easy power that's generated with a modern kickserve this is not something that's ever going
to come back however if you are a beginner this might not be a bad way to get the feel
of how a kick serve should work so basically what you could do is do a very similar serve
to an american twist serve where you basically stay in a stationary position and you just kind of get
used to making contact towards your left and then having the racket go towards the right so in the
very early stages of learning a kick serve this might actually be something that's okay to do
so a couple of things i want you guys to remember from this video is to stop confusing top spin and
kick is basically the same thing and american twist is really the same thing as the kick
but it's just something that had a lot less power and a different swing path and it's a serve that
doesn't exist anymore in modern tennis so what you have to do you have to learn a proper kick
serve and i'll give you a quick recap how to do it what you're going to do is throw the ball at least
the 12 o'clock you're going to not rotate you're going to hold your torso rotation you're going to
stay more sideways and also you're gonna try to get into the court and stay kind of upright with
your body and what's gonna happen is you're gonna be able to generate kick on your serve take a look
also what i want you guys to remember when you're kicking the ball it doesn't have to kick
out towards the side this is something that some players get obsessed over and they end up double
faulting a lot if they try to push that kick serve a little bit too close uh to the singles line so
it's actually okay to have a kickserve go very central into the box if you put enough kick on it
the ball will still skip a little bit to the side and your opponent will most likely not go for the
winner and guys lastly and most importantly i still see some american twist action at the
recreational level so there's some players that believe that the modern kick serve has a lateral
swing path meaning that the racket is traveling parallel to the baseline this is simply
not the truth now if you take a look at slow motion of the best kick serves in the game players
such as roger federer sam stosur or dominic thiem you're going to see this diagonal swing
pass so the racket is very much indeed going into the court just slightly i always say this is going
diagonally into the court if you take the baseline as a reference so the american twist will have a
parallel swing path and the modern kick serve has a diagonal swing path
and this is the biggest takeaway from today's lesson do not force the racquet to go laterally
across like this it will hit the ball very thin you're not going to get enough height
you're not going to get enough power so what you have to do is allow the racket to naturally move
diagonally into the court like this and you will get a lot more spin as a result of that and when
we talk about spin this can be sometimes confusing because the american twist does have a lot of spin
on the ball so the ball is spinning a lot but it's lacking a very very important
element of the serve which is power so with the modern kickserve we can combine power
and we can manufacture just as much spin as the american twist