Having a weak second serve is a big problem at the recreational level and
maybe you find yourself having a pretty good first serve,
usually flat like this and then on the second serve basically you do a slower
version of this serve and just gently tap the ball into the box. Or maybe you
do a little better than the tap in and you have a slice serve as your second
serve and it's something like this. The tap in second serve will work to some
degree. At the lower recreational levels returners will actually get confused by
the slow pace of the ball and they might give you some return mistakes but as you
reach the higher recreational levels the 4.0 the 4.5 these type of serves
tend to be hit very aggressively by the returner. The problem with having a slice
serve as a second serve is that the ball will have a lower trajectory. So even on
a slice serve you will not be able to hit the ball with full speed and you
will have to be careful as you execute the second serve as a slice. So this is
not a good option for the higher recreational level. You might be able to
get away with a slice serve as a second serve up to the 4.5 level.
But a lot of the 5.0 players will be able to hit slice second serves very
aggressively and put you on a lot of pressure because you will not be able to
serve with a lot of speed. So the solution for you to play a high level
recreational tennis is to learn a kick serve and basically your kick serve has
many advantages over the tap and over the slice as a second serve. And if we
look at the biomechanics of the kick serve we are going to be positioned
sideways with our torso when we make contact and the toss is usually going to
be either a 12 o'clock or slightly over towards 11 o'clock for right-handed
players. As a result of that and when we make contact the racket will be
positioned slightly pointing towards the left and now as we hit down the racket
will go up over the ball this way. Because we're going to be positioned
sideways at contact and have our tip of the racket pointing towards the left. Now
as our hand goes down the tip of the racket will go up over the ball and
making the ball spin this way. Now this obviously is gonna
be great when the ball finally lands on the other side of the court. The
ball will be more lively and have more action, but there's another reason why a.
kick serve executed in this fashion is a big advantage as a second serve.
A flat serve and a slice serve will have the tip of the racket just slightly pointing
towards the side when the racket makes contact and what that means is as the
player is finishing there will be more of a downward trajectory on these two
types of serves and the ball will usually clear the net and about this
level. And what that means is, it is not such a good thing as a second serve
because we are going to make more mistakes if we hit the ball with a lower
trajectory. And if you don't possess a kick serve and are using the flat or
the slice serve as your second serve you know the fact that the ball is clearing
the net lower to be true and maybe this is even happening at a subconscious
level. You know that if you hit the ball too hard as your second serve there's a
big chance of double faulting and exactly that is the reason why you are
slowing down your slice and your flat serve if it's used as a second serve.
Now on the kick because we have the racket positioned further towards the side,
now we're not going to immediately go down on the ball this way the racket
will travel up across the ball this way and that will keep the ball higher. It
will not be as low of a trajectory and therefore once the ball crosses the net
it's gonna clear the net a lot higher than any other serve. And this is
fantastic when it comes to second serves because now not only do we have net
clearance and are safe from missing Internet but also the ball will have a
tendency to go shorter into the box and we're also safe from missing long.
What about massive kick? Is it something that you should learn? Well
absolutely not because there's no such thing as massive kick at the
recreational level. Yes there are some professional players such as Dominick
Thiem and John Isner who can make the ball bounce extremely high but this is
something that's very rare even at the professional level. And most of the time
what you're seeing at the high level is trajectory and not kick. So basically if
I'm standing on the left and I'm serving to the ad side I'm gonna have a
rightward trajectory regardless of what kind of serve I choose. So now if I
choose to hit a kick serve even at a slower pace you can see that my ball is
going to kick way to the right after it bounces and this is regardless of how
much kick I put on the ball. Now if I do this in conjunction with kick obviously
the ball it's gonna shoot off way to the right. The true test in finding out how
much kick you have on your serve is trying to execute a kick serve from the
deuce side and having the ball a curve to the right if you're right-handed.
And this is not something you should ever concern yourself with because the
primary objective of a second serve that's struck with kick is control and not
power. Yes the big advantage of having a kick in addition to having a higher
trajectory and the ball landing in a safer spot is that you can hit the ball
with more racket head speed but this doesn't mean that the serve is
necessarily going to have more power. Anytime we're putting a spin on the ball
we're in fact slowing the ball down and exactly for that reason because we are
slowing the ball down by putting spin on it we are then able to hit this second
serve with a lot more racket speed as opposed to a for example a tap flat
second serve that we have to hit very gently in order not to over hit it.
And a well struck kick serve doesn't even have to be that fast 60 miles an hour is
sufficient for the recreational level and you even see some professional
players especially on the WTA Tour that serve between 60-70 miles an hour and
even the men will sometimes only serve between 70 and 90 miles an hour and the
speed is sufficient for you to have a good second serve. If I hit a flat or a
slice serve with that slow 60 mile an hour speed then this speed would
probably not be sufficient but since I'm hitting the ball with spin even though
the ball is moving slowly it is rotating enough and making a lively bounce that
the returner will most likely not go for the winner return and if they do they're
gonna make a lot of mistakes. So serve like this a medium-paced second
serve struck at probably somewhere between 60
to 80 miles an hour is a serve fast enough even at the professional level of
the game.
So in order for you to have a better second serve you must learn the kick and
there's no quick fix when it comes to learning the kick serve you must treat
this as a long-term plan and do not have short term goals because this will
only lead to frustration. Give yourself six months to a year to properly learn
the kick serve because then once you have this serve automated and you do have
the muscle memory you will eventually be able to use it in a match. And the only
way you're going to improve your kick serve and have it match ready is by
repetition and without this repetition your kick serve will not be an automatic
shot and you will not have the courage to use it in a match and now you're
going to be stuck in this cycle where you're not practicing the kick serve
enough and then having to always go back to your slice and your tap on the second
serve. So the only way for you to have a consistent kick serve that you are using
in matches is by repetition. Grab a basket of balls two to three times a
week and maybe you can get up to hitting 2,000 serves a month but if you multiply
that over course of a year these are a lot of serves and this is how you build
muscle memory. If you're interested in learning all the fundamentals to the
kick serve I have another video that's more detailed and step-by-step titled
how to hit a kick serve I'm gonna put a link in the description below. If you
have any questions about this video feel free to comment and don't forget to hit
that like button and subscribe if you haven't already. I'll see you next time.