Hi guys! Nadim here again for Online Tennis Instruction!
Today's drill I want to talk about your serve and how
you can improve your balance on your
serve and it has mainly to do with the
technique of your toss.
So what am I talking about? As you can see i've set up a
little diagram here which if you have
these yellow lines you can do easily or
if you play on clay you can mark these
lines with your shoes into the clay.
The point is I want to work on your arm
technique on the toss so that the
mistakes players make when they're off
balance don't occur.
What I want you to do is the following, okay so let me be
very clear on what i mean by arm
technique on the toss.
This diagram is supposed to represent your starting
position, your release position of
the toss and then I
want you to have that ball move.
So how can that happen so that the ball moves correctly?
Now when I begin, I begin
over the front of these 2 lines
right here and I want to turn away from the target.
Now when players have
problems with the toss one of two things
really happen. The ball either stays on
the right side or goes over to the left
and because of that happening...
their feet are adjusting in the mid of the swing.
So you have players
either coming around here or you have
players make way this way to connect and
they do that while they chase bad tosses.
So we want to fix that by improving the
technique of the toss.
So here's what I want you to focus on, after you set up
these lines I want to be very clear on how
these mistakes happen and then what you
need to do to focus on fixing them.
So it is very important to keep in mind that
when you toss...the ball is in the
tip of your fingers okay number 1.
Number 2 your wrist and your elbow are isolated.
They are not active during the
tossing motion okay that is necessary in
order to replicate a solid toss over and over.
So if i do it correctly and i'm
gonna start with what i do correctly first.
So I'm going to start over the
front lines, then I'm gonna turn away from
the target with a straight arm, I'm going
to release around eye level and I'm going
to finish the
tossing motion and if I do that
correctly the ball will travel slightly
right to left so i don't have to adjust
my feet in order to make contact.
So i start here, slight right to left and the
ball comes back towards the first two lines.
One more time. Turn away, finish the
tossing motion and the ball will travel
slightly right to left.
Here's what happens when players don't do it
properly when the arm is too active.
If players release the ball too early and
or don't finish the motion of the tossing arm,
the ball will likely stay out on the
right side and because of that they come
over and the feet are almost at the same
level and then the hips are opening and
they're chasing that bad toss out to the right.
Losing power and consistency!
When they are releasing the ball slightly
late and or flick it at either of the
2 joins elbow or wrist. The ball will
travel more behind
them and to the left and that's when
they open up the left foot or pivot the
left foot again to make room for a bad
toss and still connect with the ball.
So I want you to go out there, set up
this little diagram and see whether you
are one of these candidates that does that.
You may not have even realized at
this point that you do that, but I want
you to pay very close attention and once
again the focus is on the technique of your toss.
You need to have a calm toss
arm and you want to make sure you lift
only off the shoulder! There is no wrist
and there's no elbow involved.
You want to make sure you release on eye level as
you turned away from target and finish
this tossing motion so the ball does
this traveling, this way you don't have to
change your position that is the key and
if you get that done and actually go out
there and do 50 to a 100 of them and
see how many of your tosses land in
this short distance right here and not
outside of those two lines and you will
see how you improve your serve
just by having an improved balance by
getting a better toss technique!