hey guys in today's video i'm going to show you the biggest slice serve myths and why they
might harm your serve and also what you should be doing instead and the first myth is that pronation
makes slice some people believe that if you pronate a certain way on your slice serve that that
movement will impart slice on the serve this is absolutely not true first of all all high level
players will sometimes continue to pronate on their serves and sometimes not and this is also
the case for the slice serve so even at the elite level you will sometimes see a lateral swing path
without continuing pronation and sometimes you will see a lateral swing path with continuing
pronation so this part of the slice serve after the ball has been struck has absolutely no effect
onto the ball the only thing that will impart slice on the serve is a more vertical position
of the racket head at the moment of contact and then a more lateral delivery so if i make
the racket go this way you can see that the ball is spinning in this direction this is slice
so what happens after the ball has been struck in this way absolutely has no impact onto the serve
if you want to know in more detail why some serves continue to pronate and some not even at the elite
level check my video titled continuing pronation versus non-continuing pronation also do not worry
if you don't continue to pronate on a slice like i said before even elite level tennis players do not
always continue to pronate on their slice serve so if you have a swing path that looks something like
this with the racket you're just kind of scooping around the ball there's absolutely nothing wrong
with that the next myth on the slice serve is that we make slice with the wrist this is absolutely not
true you do not make slice with the wrist if you do you're going to develop serious problems on
your serve number one the stroke will abruptly end so it will happen if you try to use your wrist the
finish is going to be impacted by that and you're going to have a very thin type of serve you're
going to be lacking a lot of power what needs to happen is that you don't really have to think of
the wrist naturally the wrist is going to be in a protected position and it's not going to be
active at contact and shortly thereafter however if you want to use your wrist a little bit on the
finish this can help with a more lateral swing path so what i usually instruct my students to
do is to have the palm of their hand towards the sky and also have the strings face towards the sky
this will be initiated well after the ball has been struck and it's going to be completely safe
on your wrist because the racket is going to be decelerated by the time you initiate the wrist
movement and like i said before this movement on the finish will help with a more lateral
swing path so let me show you what that looks like i'm going to intend to have my palm go up
towards the sky on the finish this will help me with a more lateral swing path on the slice
you can see there i bent my wrist afterwards it was absolutely fine at the moment of contact my
muscle memory did not allow me to do anything wristy up here because that would be dangerous
could possibly cause some injury so this part of the serve occurred without any wrist movement
and then when i regained consciousness of my racket i started using my wrist a little bit
would help me with a more lateral swing path therefore imparting more slice on my serve the
next myth is that you should be serving with an eastern backhand grip to get more slice this is
not something that i recommend to my students i always recommend the continental grip for all
serves and here's the reason why when players switch to the eastern backhand grip on a slice
the danger of framing the ball or hitting the ball too thin is much greater so let me try it out i'm
gonna go in an eastern backhand grip and let's see what happens to the slice serve try a couple more
see i feel like i'm getting a lot less power on the ball because i'm hitting the ball
a lot thinner what happens when the racket is in an eastern backhand grip and i've previously
used the continental grip is that the wrist has a little bit different muscle memory and the racket
face is going to be a little bit more open at the moment of contact because of that now let me show
you why that is so if i'm in a continental grip and i stretch my hand out all the way up to the
sky and you see that my wrist has a certain muscle memory at the moment of contact and now if i turn
my racquet over towards the eastern backhand grip i'm likely going to be in that same position at
the moment of contact however you can see my racket is way more open and now when the contact
is made with the racket head this severely open number one you're gonna have a very difficult time
going down the t on your slice so you're going to be okay going wide on due side and down the
t on the add side as a right hander but you're going to have a very difficult time
directing your serve to other locations another thing that will happen if you make contact on your
slice serve with a racket face that's this severely open is that you're going to be hitting the ball
a lot thinner you're going to get a much fuller contact when the string bed is in a more neutral
position so when you hit the ball thin like this you're going to be losing a lot of power
so therefore i do not recommend for any players to use an eastern backend grip on their serve if they
have previously used a continental grip however if you are someone who has used the eastern
backhand grip on the slice or maybe even on some other serves then it's okay because most likely
your wrist is going to have a different muscle memory and you're going to be in a more neutral
position at the moment of contact and there are even some elite level players that have used
an eastern backing grip on the slice from day one such as stefan edberg so unless you've always used
the eastern backhand grip on your slice stick to the continental grip this is the best grip for
all serves when it comes to the slice you're going to be impacting the ball a lot fuller and you're
not going to lose the ability to make spin and you have a bigger chance to get a better impact with
the ball and get more power on your slice serve and finally the biggest myth on the slice serve is
the idea that we are carving around the ball in other words we're coming at the ball with
the racket face open and now we're carving around the ball and making slice and the confusing thing
is that this movement of the racquet will make slice however if you try this the ball will go
way to the left if you're right-handed let me show you so i'm going to impact the ball super
thin i'm going to carve around and let's see what happens to the ball you can see it's going
to the fence now am i getting slice on the serve absolutely yes but even the previous myth that
i mentioned you are going to be losing power and most importantly when you impact the ball
with this severely open racket face you're going to be losing directional control
as well now the confusing thing about this myth is that the rack of face will
have to be slightly more open if a right-handed player aims out wide so the way aiming works
in tennis is a completely intuitive process and it's generated by the angle of the racket face at
the moment of contact so if you imagine me hitting this way if my racket is completely neutral this
ball will go straight so if i slightly open the racket face now this ball will go to the left and
this is the case for the slice serve that's directed out wide yes absolutely the racket
face will be more open compared to a serve that's directed down the t but the angle
that we're talking about is minimal it is maybe a centimeter difference this is an intuitive process
that doesn't need to be adjusted most of the time when players start to tinker with the angle the
racket faces contact they open the racket face way too much and now they have very little chance
to get that ball inside the singles line they're going to spray a lot of balls wide because of that
so do not under any circumstance think about carving around the ball and approaching the
ball like this you will have very little chance to get power on your slice and you have very
little chance to get your serve consistently inside the box a much better mental image is
trying to achieve a lateral swing path and what i tell my students to imagine
is to scoop ice cream so if you can imagine an ice cream in front of you and you have a scooper
you're going to come at the ice cream like this and now you're going to scoop
around the ice cream now take a look at my hand naturally when you make this scooping action you
will naturally get a more lateral swing pattern this is going to impart slice on the ball if you
remember one of my previous myths i advise you guys to have your palm of your hand up
towards the sky that's exactly what the scooping action does you're going to approach the ball
and then you're going to imagine scooping the ice cream out of the sky and this will naturally
impart a more lateral swing path and therefore give you a good slice serve so let me show you
what that looks like i'm going to imagine a scooping action on my slice i'm actually going
to now use my body i'm going to put a little bit more heat on this one and let's see if i can get a good slice
okay that's pretty good uh what i usually look for on the slice that the ball exits the court prior uh to crossing the baseline
so i get my slice serve to go off the court before it gets the baseline gets to the baseline i'm usually happy with that so all i did on that serve
is i placed my toss in a good location which on the slice should never be more than 12 o'clock
so you can do it from 12 o'clock all the way to 2 o'clock and then basically just imagine
a scooping action around the ball do not worry about continuing pronation do not worry about
the angle of the racquet face and that is in most instances going to give you a great slice serve