Hey guys in today's video I'm gonna explain what a waiter serve is and let's
get right to it. So basically on a waiter serve the wrist will extend backwards
like this not allowing the racket to drop very low and it looks something
like this. The player will execute the service motion the wrist will lay back
like this and they will gently push into the ball in this fashion. And if you do
indeed have a way to serve two factors are gonna hold you back when it comes to
serve power. And number one that is the range of motion. So we have a normal
racket drop where the racket drops somewhere to your lower back or in a
high level it's even lower than that you have a lot more range of motion compared
to a serve where the racket drops only to about right here.
And also on a waiter serve you are not pronating into contact. So normally what
happens on the serve is the racket will drop and it will come up on edge and
pronation into the contact occurs when the tip of the racket is pointed
straight towards the back fence that's when the forearm starts to pronate. Now
on a waiter serve this is not taking place. So the wrist will lay back in this
position and there will be a straight forward push into the serve and you are
going to be lacking a lot of acceleration because of that. And having
a waiter serve is one of the worst habits you can develop on the serve. It
is very difficult to get rid of it especially if you've been using this
type of serve for a long time. So you have to apply the right corrective
techniques to get rid of this problem. Now here are a few things that might not
necessarily be connected to a waiter serve. So if you are serving with a
forehand grip. So in this case I'm using a semi-western forehand grip I am not
necessarily going to have a waiter serve. So check it out I'm going to do a serve
in this particular grip you can see here that my racket is still going to drop
the normal amount that would take place on a regular serve with a continental
grip. So take a look at a serve with a forehand grip and pay attention to the
racket drop.
So you can see there my racket dropped sufficiently low enough. I of course
couldn't control the ball because the angle of the racket face at contact was
wrong. Another technical element of the serve that's often mischaracterized as a waiter
serve is the open-faced racket drop that's used by some of the greatest
servers of all time including Roger Federer and Pete Sampras. So there's two
types of racket drops. We can drop the racket on edge like this or we can have
a racket drop that occurs with an open racket face. And again a waiter serve is
identified by a very shallow or non-existent racket drop and this is not
the case on the open face racket drop. The racket will drop sufficiently. Now I
happen to have the open racket face style and you can take a look at my
serve and you will see that my racket drops sufficiently and this type of
racket drop doesn't influence the serve negatively in any way.
Before I show you some corrective techniques on how you can correct the
waiter serve let's first talk about why the waiter service taking place in the
first place. So players when they're first started playing tennis maybe they
haven't had any lessons it feel a lot of safety in hitting the ball like this.
They're approaching the ball with the strings. This is a very safe feeling. Now
if this doesn't get corrected early on and if that particular player continues
to serve like that this will go into the muscle memory so even when they try to
accelerate when they try to add all the fundamental elements of the serve
unfortunately this type of racket drop will remain on the serve. And even if
this particular player is trying to get rid of the waiter serve by doing all
kinds of dry exercises where they're dropping the racket they might be able
to execute all these exercises but unfortunately when they step up to the
line and when the context of the ball is there and they're trying to get the ball
in the box. Unfortunately the waiter serve will come
right back. Now these corrective techniques are for what I call chronic
waiter serves. So players that have had a waiter serve for many years and have had
a very difficult time in correcting it. So in this case I want you to isolate
the racket drop and this is what its gonna look like. You're going to drop the
racket like this. You're going to toss the ball and you're gonna serve from
this position and you're gonna do this every time you practice your serve.
You're gonna have to isolate this movement so you can get some muscle
memory out of it. Let me try a couple more. I'm gonna drop the racket as low as
I can toss the ball and then serve from there.
And let me try one more. I'm gonna drop the racket as low as it can go and
toss the ball and swing. And this will feel very awkward at first because
you're not going to get any momentum but through a lot of repetition there's a
chance that your body will remember this movement that when you then go into your
regular service motion you will be able to drop the racket a little bit lower.
And the reason why the racket drop is so difficult to correct is that we're not
conscious of how low the racket is dropping. That part of the serve is
occurring in a very short time span. For example, if I hit a serve I have
absolutely no idea how low my racket is dropping.
So for chronic waiter serves players that have had this problem for many
years the only way to correct the waiter serve is to consciously execute parts of
the racket drop. Unfortunately, if you just continue serving like that
you are not going to drop the racket any lower. So this corrective technique that
I'm going to show you would actually be a mistake on a fundamentally sound serve.
So let me explain it this way. So someone that has a sufficiently low racket drop
shouldn't slowly go into the racket drop portion of the serve. The serve should
accelerate to the max once the racket reaches the trophy phase. However, on chronic
waiter serves I want you to do the exact opposite I want you to slowly go into
the racket drop so that you can feel it. And it looks something like this. You're
going to slowly go into the racket drop until you feel the racket going down and
then you're gonna accelerate from a lower place. Yes you will lose some
acceleration in comparison to a fundamentally sound serve but in
comparison to a real waiter serve where you're accelerating from here
accelerating from down here will be a bonus. So let me show you the difference.
Here's a waiter serve. I'm gonna accelerate with absolutely no racket
drop okay and here is a serve where I'm going to consciously drop my racket into
the racket drop and I'm going to accelerate from a lower place. You can
see I'm gonna get more power on this serve.
And the disclaimer is that if you
have a fundamentally sound serve with a sufficiently low racket drop do not try
this technique because it will make your serve worse. I never want you to
consciously execute the racket drop because I want you to accelerate to the
max. When we are consciously executing actions of the serve that are supposed
to happen in a very small timeframe you can only do so by slowing them down.
So these corrective techniques where we're isolating the movements in the
racket drop part of the serve are only for chronic waiter serves. And you're
going to do these exercises for a couple of months and then you're actually not
going to think about the racket drop at all and hopefully through muscle memory
when you execute your serve you will achieve a lower racket drop. And then
hopefully your waiter serve will be thing of the past.