How to Get Your Kick Serve to Drop Like a Boomerang!
Hi guys, I’m Clay Ballard with Top Speed Tennis.
Today I have a great drill for you guys who are struggling with your Kick Serve.
Do you feel like you tend to push, even on your kick serve?
You’re not really getting that snap, the ball’s not really diving down into the court
the way you’d like it to?
I have a great tip for you guys to really help you get that ball to dive.
It’s pretty easy to do.
We’re going to go over the proper motion and then give you some drills to help ingrain
this.
Let’s go ahead and get started!
When we’re getting the Kick Serve, the key to a great Kick Serve is to really have that
racket snapping upward, so you get a lot of topspin on the ball as it’s making contact.
To go ahead and demonstrate this, as we’re getting this Kick Serve we want the racket
not only to be moving forward...
If I’m going this direction, I want my racket to be moving forward, but I also want it to
be kicking up and really grabbing these strings to put a lot of spin on that ball.
Most of us understand that, but it really comes down to the technique and how we do
that.
There are two pieces that are really going to help you to do this, but first let’s
demonstrate the incorrect motion.
A lot of times what I’ll see people doing when they’re trying to get the Kick Serve
is they’ll get their racket loaded up.
Instead of letting the racket drop down and then kick up, what they’ll do is take the
racket back and then immediately try to push up on the ball.
It just doesn’t have that snap.
If you look at the tip of the racket in relationship to the butt end of the racket, the racket
comes here and then from there it immediately goes up.
They’re just pushing through that shot.
What we need to have happen are two things.
Number one, we want to go ahead and let the tip of that racket drop down.
That’s what they call the Racket Drop; you’ll hear people refer to that many times.
As we’re going up, the racket comes up and then the racket tip drops down behind my back.
Now you can see the butt end of the racket is well above the tip of the racket.
From there, that’s so crucial because now we can kick up with some good force as we
come on through.
That racket is really snapping as we’re coming into that ball.
It’s getting a lot of speed on that upward motion, and the strings are really going to
grab the ball and get a lot of spin.
The second thing I see that people really struggle with on the Kick Serve, that goes
hand-in-hand with this, is getting their arm far enough behind their head.
As you’re doing the Kick Serve, you want this hand to be moving behind your head so
that you have plenty of room to let this racket drop.
If I get the racket over top of my head, if I let it drop it’s going to hit my right
on the top of the head.
Obviously, I don’t think you’d do that more than once!
If you go ahead and get this hand going behind your body enough, let that racket tip drop
down, then you can kick up really, really nice.
What I want you to do to get used to this, is first just go slow motion.
We’re going to do this in three pieces.
First off, we’re going to go ahead and get into the trophy pose.
As you’re doing this, when you’re getting in the trophy pose you want to make sure that
your hand is getting well behind your head.
This would be in line with my head.
Now this would be behind my head, where the racket’s actually moving back this way a
little bit more than you would with your first serve.
That’s the first piece.
Go ahead and do this a few hundred times, to really get comfortable with that racket
moving back behind your head in that direction.
The second piece is going to be the drop.
We’re going to go ahead and go Piece #1, pause.
Piece #2, I’m going to let that racket drop so my hand is rotating until now the tip of
my racket is pointing down toward the ground.
Piece #3, we’re going to go ahead and just act like we did on the normal serve, like
we’re going to throw that racket up toward the ball.
I want you to imagine the tip of that racket kicking up in this direction to help get that
spin.
Piece #1...Piece #2...Piece #3, we’re really getting that to snap as we come on through.
Do these three pieces in slow motion.
Once you get comfortable with that -- at least a few hundred reps.
Once you get comfortable with that, let’s go ahead and do all three of them together.
I’m really letting that racket kick up into the ball.
Once we’re comfortable with all three of those and we’ve moved them into one fluid
motion, now let’s go ahead and practice with the racket.
We’re going to do this by making it a little easier on ourselves at first.
I’m going to grab this racket a little bit up on the handle here.
I’m almost to the end of the grip, so I have more control over the head.
I’m going to simply do a couple of these drills and practice getting that ball to snap
down into the opposing side of the court.
There we go, that ball is really dropping down.
Once I’m comfortable with that, slide all the way out to the end of the racket.
You’ll have a little more speed, maybe not quite as much control.
Gradually build up that speed until you become very, very comfortable with this.
Hey, guys.
I hope you all really enjoyed this video!
As a bonus for you all, I have another video from our Power Serve series.
I’m going to play a preview from this.
If you want to watch that entire video, plus the entire Power Serve series absolutely free
of charge, just click the link that pops up on the bottom of your screen, or down in the
description if you’re on a mobile device.
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Good luck to you guys, and good luck with that serve!
...bow and arrow, like an Indian bow and arrow.
I’m going to go ahead and hold this racket out, going directly across the court.
I’m going to pull this racket back just like I’m shooting an arrow.
I’m going to get this racket to load back as far as I can go.
The tip of the racket is going to pull back as far as I can.
My elbow is now going to pull away from my body and I should feel a good stretch in my
right pec, and in my right shoulder.
I should be fully loaded here.
The only difference between this and the trophy pose, is two things.
Number one, I’m going to do this again and instead of my racket facing forward, now my
racket is going to be facing up at about a 45° like this.
Again, I’m going to pull this arrow back, turn my racket up to a 45°, and now I’m
in the correct position.
Number two, instead of shooting this arrow directly across the court, now I’m going
to shoot the arrow toward the ball that I’ve just tossed up in the air.
Let’s again imagine that I’ve just tossed the ball, and now I’m going to...