Hey everyone, Simon here with Top Tennis Training,
and in this video we're going to compare the slice serve versus the kick serve in tennis.
Now both serves are very important in your arsenal it's important to develop
both the slice and the kick serve but it's also important to know the differences between both
and how to use each one effectively and that's exactly what we're going to cover in this lesson
now before we get into the lesson i just want to mention if you're serious about improving
your tennis and this includes your forehand your back and your serve all aspects of your tennis
then make sure that you have subscribed to the channel and you turn on the notification bell so
that youtube will let you know whenever we release a new lesson so let's talk about the slicer first
so slice surf is a great way for you to open the court
on the juice side if you're a right-handed player
and on the outside if you're a left-handed player now this is a serve that you'll see
a lot of pros using to open up the court take their opponent way off
into the tram lines and then i'll have the rest of the court open for that third shot
another good reason to use that slice would be to go into the body and jam the player
and on the outside you can slice it down the tee if you're a right-handed player
now the slice-off can be used on the first or the second serve
but in general it's going to be used on that first serve
except if you don't have a good kick now the kick serve can be really effective
for that second serve especially down the t on the juice side you're serving into most players
weakness that's the backhand wing and the ball is bouncing up hopefully and out of the hitting zone
on the outside the kick serve will help you to open up the court so this can be used on the
first or the second serve especially if you're playing on clay or on a high bouncing hardcore
now let's talk about the mechanics of both so for that slice of
if we imagine the ball as a clock now it's a flat clock face
when we're making contact with that slicer and we really want to get a short angle
especially on the juice side try to make contact around one or two o'clock on that bulb
now many times i've heard people coaches and players
say for the slicer for a good slice of hit the ball around three o'clock
now the issue with that is if i hit with very little pace i might get it in the box but once
i start to increase my racket head speed and start going for more power this three o'clock
will make the ball sell wide or so long because it doesn't have that dipping effect
but by making contact around one or two o'clock on the ball i'm now hitting the top right side of
that ball that's going to create that slice it's going to create that spin but it's also going to
have that dipping effect so when the ball reaches the other side it dips into the service box
it has that short angle to then pull the player way off the court on that juice
side on the outside it's the same feeling you're still making contact around one or two o'clock
now the three main things that you should be focusing when you're hitting that slice of
number one is where you're making contact on the ball so that one or two o'clock position the top
right side of the ball if you're a right-handed player number two we want to be opening the
shoulders at the time we make contact so imagine you're throwing this right shoulder into the ball
and you're almost imagining that you're going to hit the ball with this right shoulder
now this is very different to the kick serve as you'll see later on in the video
but we want to feel that we're completely open when we make contact and the third thing you
really want to master for that slice of is before you actually make contact so that non-hitting hand
i'm tossing the ball now with my left hand and as the ball reaches that apex the left hand is
pointing towards that ball it's pointing towards the target now for the kick serve and for many of
the other serves that you hit in tennis you pull the left hand in and you stop it here so that you
don't open the shoulders too early but with the slicer if you want to pull the left hand down
and away which will then initiate that opening of the shoulders that uncoiling
so the faster you pull this left hand away from the point of contact the faster your shoulders
will open and the more acute angle you can produce on that slicer for the kickstart there are three
main things that you want to focus on and this is very different to the slicer so for that
slicer we're coming on level with the ball and we're making contact around one or two o'clock
for the kick serve however we want to be brushing up and across the ball
now if you're just learning the kick serve and you want more spin and you want that safety of
that high neck clearance then seven o'clock to one o'clock will work really well for you
so as the racket is traveling up towards the point of contact the racket is traveling
from the bottom left hand side of the ball so this seven o'clock position
i'm making contact i'm brushing the ball now and i'm going up towards one o'clock
this seven to one will allow you to get that nice net clearance
and a high bounce hopefully as you progress and as you want more of that kick
so that side spin you then start to progress more towards eight o'clock to two o'clock so
instead of going up as much with that rack ahead you're going up and across so the racket traveling
across the ball will produce that side spin and that kick when the ball bounces on the other side
now in order to actually hit the ball from seven to one you'll have to let that ball
drop a little bit lower if i toss the ball really high and i try to make contact at my highest spot
so it's at a maximum position with my hand from this position now i can't reach up any further
i can actually brush up the ball this is where a lot of players struggle they don't
allow the ball to actually drop to a lower ball position than their normal first or their slice
of now before we go any deeper into this lesson i just want to mention that we have a free serve
a pdf that you can download right away that guide is called five steps to hitting the perfect
tennis serve those are five of the main fundamental things that you need to learn
how to do on your serve to maximize the power the control and the spin so
if you want to download that i'll leave the link below this video all you have to do is
click on that link that will take you to our website you simply enter your email address
and we'll send you that free pdf right away now in order to actually hit that ball from seven to one
or from eight to two we have to be side on if i open my shoulders when i'm making contact
with this kick serve that's when it will turn into more for slice of i won't get the same
angle and i won't have that same brushing effect from left to right across the bowl so in order to
actually travel from eight to two or from seven to one and keep my racket traveling from the left
side of my body to the right side of my body i now have to make sure that i stay side on only
when you have finished with your racket in that position the ball has already left your strings
you're in this side on position that's when you'll see the players starting to open up
with their shoulders in their trunk but when they're making contact their side on
this left arm has tucked into the left side so this left arm is almost glued into my left oblique
i'm in this side on position here and i'm staying in that position until the ball
has left my strings and then only when the ball is actually traveling towards my opponent i'll
then open up the shoulders so staying side on is crucial that will help you to have that shoulder
over shoulder effect so the shoulder over shoulder effect is where when you're reaching
that trophy position your right shoulder will drop down and your left shoulder will rise up
and then prior to contact the shoulders will swap over so the left shoulder comes down
and the right shoulder goes up it's like that seesaw effect when you go to a child's play park
you have one child on one side of a seesaw and you had a child on the other side one child goes
up one child comes down so it's like this that same effect we want to have on that kick serve
and on all serves but especially on the kick to produce that upwards motion with that point of
contact so right shoulder drops right shoulder rises right shoulder drops right shoulder rises
and the first thing you want to master for that kick serve is your racket path now if i'm
hitting a flat surf if i'm going for my normal flat serve and that's the court down that way
the racquet is traveling from behind my body i'm making contact out in front
and my racket's traveling in front of me so i'm pronating
out in front of my body and my racket ends up way out inside the court inside that baseline
now that's for my normal flat serve that's the same for the slice
i'll be starting from behind the body i'll be curving the ball inside
i'll be then pronating fully but that pronation is happening way inside the baseline
now with the kick serve the racket path is completely different if we want to make sure that
we're brushing the ball from eight to two o'clock we don't want to actually have that forward power
the effect of that kick all happens because we're going across the back of the ball this will only
be possible if our racket is traveling from left to right so instead of having the racket traveling
inside the baseline i'm traveling across the baseline so my racket's going from the
left side of the baseline to the right side of the baseline when i'm going for that kickstart
and the line is actually a really good indicator if you're traveling from left to right the single
sideline is actually a good way for you to work on this and to feel the different swing paths
so for that flat serve my racket is traveling in line with this singles line it's going this way
but when i'm hitting my kick serve i now want to be traveling this way so my racket's now traveling
instead of forward it's traveling from left to right now the ball tosses should be slightly
different between the slice and the kicks off for the slicer especially when you're learning how to
hit that side of the ball and to really produce that slice it's better to throw more to your right
so we're talking about right-handed players here for the lefties it will be the complete opposite
so for the right-handed players we're throwing it more to the right and this will allow you to
really curve the side of that ball and hit it at one o'clock now for the kick serve you want to
do the opposite you want to throw it more to your left and slightly behind your head which will then
allow you to go from seven to one or from eight o'clock to two o'clock now where a lot of players
go wrong with the kicks of is they try to toss the ball around the same spot that they normally would
for that flat or slice so they're trying to hit a kick surf from here so play around with the ball
toss experiment see how far to the right you can throw the ball and still hit that slice of and see
how far to the left and behind you you can throw that ball and hit the kick now as you progress
as you get better hopefully you'll start to disguise your slicer and your kick serve
so that the opponent won't know where you're actually going because if you're always tossing
it to the right and you're slicing that ball they'll know that you're going to hit the slice
and whenever you toss the ball more to your left they'll know you're going to hit the kick
so it's important that as you develop you start to develop that disguise that's one
of the reasons a player like federer has such good disguise because he can toss the ball in line with
the baseline so from the right side of the court to the left side and he can hit the surf at the
different uh positions of that rainbow ball toss so the ball toss is coming from this side to here
and if he's going for a slice he'll hit it earlier in that rainbow
motion if he's going for a flat surf he'll hit it just in front of his head and if he's going
for the kick he'll let it drop further down to his left and then he'll go for that kick
serve so learning how to disguise your slice and kick will also have a huge impact on the
effectiveness and the ability for the returner to actually read those serves and get their racket on
it so when should you use the slicer so the slicer for the right hand is the most effective one
is that out wide on the juice side you're curving the bowl the opponent will then have to chase it
into the tram lines hopefully and you'll have the rest of the court open for that next shot
on the juice side you also have curving the ball right into the body so jamming the player it looks
like it's coming to the backhand side but because you have a lot of slice the ball then bounces and
curves into them hopefully jamming them up you could also slice it down the tee when you want
a little bit more margin you want to maybe go into their backhand but you don't want to go flat so
you can go down the tee with that slice and this is still a very effective serve to actually hit
now on the outside the down the tea serve with that slice will be your best option the ball will
then bounce and curve away and making it a very hard serve for the opponent to deal with lastly
we have the l wide serve on the outside now many players will use this slicer for one main reason
mix-up play now if i'm only kicking the ball out wide to my opponent's backhand
number one they'll start to read it and they'll get familiar with that bounce
the better returners will then start moving forward and taking that kick serve on the rise
but if you throw a slice of every now and then and mix it up with a kicks off so you might hit three
or four kick serves in a row to their backhand and then once you hit that slice of just to throw
them off to make the ball travel in a different way and to give them a different look on that
bounce now for the kickstart your best option on the juice side is serving down the t hopefully
it's going to bounce and then force the player to return around shoulder or even head level
you don't really want to be kicking it out wide on the juice side because then
it sits up into their forehand and it's very easy for them to attack
now on the outside the best option without kickstart is again serving out wide so with the
serve out wide especially if you hit a good kick serve it should take them way into the tram lines
hopefully they're hitting the ball really high up in their slot and it's going to force them to play
from a very defensive position you could also use the kick serve on the outside into the body
so it might look like it's coming onto their forehand side and then when the ball bounces
it kicks up to them so it's a very effective way but you have to be quite an advanced player to
actually pull this off because you need a lot of racket speed a lot of power on that kick
serve because if you go for a kick serve into the body and the player is quick and you haven't hit
a good enough kick they'll then move around and hit their forehand in an aggressive way
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as we can signing off simon from ttt all the best and see you soon guys