hey guys in today's video i want to show you the different toss locations that you can
choose when hitting a flat serve a slice serve and a kick serve and i'm of course
going to tell you which toss locations to avoid but before we get started i want to clarify
one thing that a lot of recreational players get wrong and they refer to throwing the ball behind
to what body position that they're in when they're serving the unfortunate thing about that is
that the body position will change throughout the service motion so that is not an accurate way to
measure when you're throwing the ball behind you so let me give an example so behind my body would
obviously be towards the left here now depending on what serve i'm hitting my body position
will change i might be coiling i'm also going to be rotating so that is not a good way to describe
what behind the body means when we're talking about the serve the contact is the most important
thing and if the ball ends up being behind the body at contact that is a catastrophe for
the serve you're gonna have a very difficult time getting the serve in so what i refer to as behind
is behind the baseline there's the most simple way to describe a toss that's going behind so you take
the baseline and if the ball is landing behind the baseline that is behind if the ball is landing in
front of baseline that is in front and then if the ball is going towards the right that is going to
be the right side and then obviously if the ball is going towards the left that is going to be
the left so i'm using the court as a reference to where my toss is going and i'm not using my body
to do so all right guys so regardless of what serve that you're choosing to hit
i'm going to tell you a couple of things that you should never do on your serve toss
and thankfully this court is multicolored and the red happens to be behind the baseline so
on this court i'm always going to avoid throwing the ball into the red even on my kick serve because
here's what's going to happen in the context of how we're going to load the serve so ideally
we want to be leaning forward on all serves even the kick serve so what will naturally happen
if you throw the ball into the red and you lean forward this is going to guarantee that you make
contact far behind your head and what will happen if you make contact behind your head
you're going to be losing a lot of power this can actually hurt your shoulder because you're going
to be forced to drag through the contact and this is a very weak position to be in you will not only
lose power and strength but also the trajectory of the ball is not going to work out for you you're
going to be missing a lot of balls long so by all costs you must avoid throwing the ball behind the
baseline on all serves now here's another thing you should avoid and that is throwing the ball
too far in front because the trajectory is not going to work out for you will be forced
to reach forward and now a lot of players do when they throw the ball too far in front they're
forced to open that racket face to get that ball over the net so you should definitely not throw
the ball too far in front and i set down these four balls to show you where exactly to throw
the ball depending on what serve you're choosing so if you happen to choose to hit a kick serve
you want to basically lay four balls down and the first two balls is going to be the zone that you
want to aim for on your kick serve so you don't want to be behind the baseline even on the kick
you want to be in front because you still want to be leaning slightly forward you're going to
want to get that forward momentum but you also don't want to be too far in front because what's
going to happen biomechanically on a kick serve is that the contact is going to be further behind
compared to the flat and the slicer the contact is going to be right above our head and our toss must
match that contact we therefore need to throw it a little bit further behind that we would on
a flat and a slice serve so where you should aim for on a kick serve is the first two balls so
let me demonstrate i'm gonna hit a kick serve and i'm going to throw it in front but just slightly
and actually there i felt like i threw it a little bit too far in front so what will happen
on a kick serve if you throw the ball too far in front you're not making contact
in front of your head this will make the height of your kick serve a lot less so
the more behind you make contact on your kick serve the more you get your body underneath
the ball the more height you will get on the other side so let me try it again i'm going
to adjust my toss and get it a little bit closer to the baseline but yet throw it inside the court
so that felt a lot better i felt like that contact with the ball
was a little bit closer to this zone that i was aiming for and i was able to get more height on my
kicker now on my flat serve and my slice serve on the other hand i'm going to be throwing the ball a lot
further in front because what's going to happen on a flat and a slice serve is a contact that's occurring
in front of our head so the toss must match that contact point so when it comes to my flat and
my slice i'm going to not be afraid to throw the ball further inside of course i'm going to lean
in because if you throw the ball in front and you don't lean in you end up with a jackknife
serve this is something you definitely don't want so anytime you throw the ball in front you also
want to be able to lean in so now i'm attempting to get those first two balls as my toss location
so that serve right there was definitely too far in front and i can feel a little bit of a loss
of power there so i'm going to try another one and i'm feeling a slight reach when i served that serve
so i know just by feel that it was a little bit too far in front because let's face it we don't
have the pinpoint accuracy that you think we might have at the high level we don't exactly know where
to toss was we go by feel so that's why i go by zones i'm not going to be able to pinpoint my toss
i'm not going to be able to exactly know where it was so i'll go by zones this is going to be
a zone for the flat and the slice and this is going to be the zone for the kick so let me try
one more time i'm going to adjust my toss to be in front but a little bit less than the last serve
that was actually still too far in front and one interesting thing that happens when you throw the
ball too far in front and today's a little bit of a windy day i got the wind behind me
not the best day to do a toss video but in any case what will happen when you throw it
about too far in front is that naturally in order to get the ball over the net the
racket angle will change slightly you're going to open the racket face a little bit
and so the common cause of error when the ball goes long is actually throwing
the ball too far in front most people would think that you would start dumping
falls into the net when you throw it too far in front which is definitely something that will
happen from time to time but also players have a tendency to miss long when they throw the ball too
far in front as well so let me try it again let me try to adjust this toss and go in that first
zone where the first two balls are this is going to be perfect toss location for my flat serve
that was a really good serve i felt like that was an ace i served it right down the t
power level was good i felt like that was right on the money
so let me try one more this time it's going to be a slice serve
okay i missed that at the top of the net but it actually felt pretty good one thing that
i want to advise you is that there's going to be a big difference between doing a dry toss
where you're not actually attempting to hit the ball versus doing a toss with a real serve so a
lot of recreational players will have no problem just standing and throwing the ball up like this i
on one hand have a more of a problem doing it dry than doing it in a real serve my serve
toss a lot more consistent when i do it in conjunction with my with the rest of my body
but a lot of players will be the opposite they have no problem standing there throwing the
ball in the exact location but as soon as they start doing the full service motion they start
rocking back and forth they start syncing the non-dominant arm with the dominant arm the toss
goes out the window okay guys let's talk about the clock so the way the clock is going to work
on the serve is going to be lined up with your left shoulder if you happen to be right handed
that's what we're going to have 12 o'clock right where that left shoulder is and let's start with
the flat serve where you should attempt to throw the ball on your flat serve is between 12 o'clock
and 1 o'clock this is going to be an adequate toss position for your flat server you should avoid
is throwing the ball at 11 o'clock that's going to be too far away now remember what needs to happen
at the moment of contact on a flat serve you need to have a position of the racket face that is more
vertical so the more you throw the ball the left the more angle you'll get on your racket face
now it's not impossible to hit a flat serve like this but it's definitely something that
will take power away from your flat serve and it's going to make it more difficult to get extension
as well the easiest thing to do on the flat and the slice is to throw it between 12 and 1 o'clock
which will give you the best chance to have that full extension and a more vertical position of
the racket face at contact now when we're talking about the slice serve this is where it's going to get a
little bit more complex and i want you to really pay attention so one drill that i do with a lot
of my lower level students when we're talking about intermediate level players is i have them
throw the ball at two o'clock which will turn into a guaranteed or automatic slice serve and the reason
for that is if i throw the ball at two o'clock now my racket is traveling towards the ball
and it's going to continue traveling laterally after contact naturally because i'm going
towards the ball that's a two and i'm naturally going to continue going that way which creates
slice on the serve and this is an adequate way of doing it at the intermediate level maybe even at
the advanced level however there will be a loss of power on your slice when you do so this is
the case for any serve the more we hit the ball away from our core the more power we lose so what
i recommend is that you learn to hit your slice serve at 12 o'clock if you happen to be at the advanced
level the advantage you will get from hitting a serve a slice serve at 12 is that now you will
have more range of motion when you make contact at 12 o'clock there's more room for the racket to go
laterally across the ball when you make kante at two o'clock the arm is already extended there's
not that much room to continue going that way on the other hand when you make contact at 12 there's
a lot of space there to accelerate the racket laterally after the moment of contact so another
reason why you should learn to hit your slice serve at 12 is disguise because if you always
are throwing the ball further to the right if you happen to be right-handed when you're slicing this
is going to be super easy to read by your opponent and if you throw it at 12 actually you can do your
flat serve from 12. your kick serve from 12 and your slice serve from 12 o'clock this is going to
be a great disguise and your opponent will not not be able to pick up when you attempt to hit
a slice serve now when it comes to your kick serve you will not be able to get any kick on your
serve if you throw the ball at one o'clock or even further at two o'clock simply because the angle of
the racket face is going to be too vertical and the way we create kick or spin on the surface
by having a more angled position on the racket face and going laterally across the ball this
way that creates topspin or kick on the serve so unfortunately when you throw the ball at one
now the racquet will naturally be more vertical and you will not get topspin you will get slice
on your serve so what needs to happen on your kick toss location you will need to have a toss is at
least at 12 o'clock or even better you actually slide it towards 11 30 or 11 o'clock of course
the more left you go on your toss the more you will have to bend your body backwards and a lot
of players especially at the recreational level have range of motion limitations so
in that case it makes a lot more sense to keep that toss at 12 o'clock but in any case
the toss on the kick serve needs to be at least at 12 o'clock and if you're flexible enough
you can slide it even further towards the left and keep it between 11 and 11 30. now some of you
guys might ask nick what do you do on your serve well i have a little bit of a problem with my toss
going towards the right on my flat and my slice serve but pretty do a pretty good job throwing the ball
to my left on my kick what happens on the serve if you throw the ball too far to the right is
gonna be an inability to bend the body backwards so naturally when you throw the ball towards the
right and i'm going to demonstrate here is that your body will naturally be more straight up
what happens very frequently on a wta tour when the ball is to the right the body will not bend
backwards it makes absolutely no sense so what i'm trying to do on my serve since i'm becoming less
athletic with my age i'm trying to get a little bit more power from my body because my arm speed
is deteriorating so what i'm trying to do is get all my tosses at 12 o'clock which gives
me a better chance to bend backwards and use some of my core muscles to help me get power
you can see there on a windy day i actually missed that serve so let me try one more i'm gonna throw
it right at 12 o'clock and i'm gonna blast this one oh man that wind is really blowing the ball
let me try one more i actually dropped too low and it took it too far to the left that actually
was too far to the right let me try one more i'm gonna get this toss right at 12 o'clock and
i'm going to try to bend my body backwards okay that's pretty decent serve let me try one more
so guys there you have it those are the toss locations on the serve
i want to stress that depending on what your level is if you're a beginner
or even an intermediate player you might be for example doing a stationary kick serve
in that case it makes absolutely no sense to lean forward you're going to be just standing there
throwing the ball up in that case you can actually throw the ball a little bit behind the baseline
and also if you're just learning the slice serve it's fine to throw it over there
at two o'clock if you happen to be right-handed for the advanced level i highly recommend
that you try to do the samper's wig which just hit all serves at 12 o'clock okay guys so let
me demonstrate what i mean by the sampras way i'm going to hit three different serves all at
12 o'clock so let me start off with the slice down the t i'm going to throw this thing at 12.
okay i didn't get too much slice on there but it was a good attempt anyway now let's go flat
out wide i'm going to again attempt to throw it at 12. okay that was an ace and let me try
a kick serve and i'm going to again throw it at 12 but i'm going to adjust a little bit how
much forward i throw it there's the kicker so guys there you have it if you're at the advanced level
it's a big advantage to try to make all your serves at 12 o'clock