Hello! Nadim here for Online Tennis Instruction. I have a serve video for you
today. And this happens to be one of my favorite parts of teaching the
serve is the beginning of the service motion. I want to go a little bit more
into detail what I mean. A lot of players I work with personally on court have the
issue of starting incorrectly and you can start incorrectly in a couple
different ways but I'm mainly talking about the speed with which they begin
using their hitting arm. And that often time leads into some sort
of erratic motion or even a pause in the swing. So what I find is very, very useful
is to begin with purpose really, really slow and that can be a challenge because
you need to coordinate your toss with your motion. The
typical thing that I hear is 'I don't have time to hit the ball'. So I want
to show you what I do when i work with that. Now I'm a big proponent of
separating toss from arm action and toss an arm action, why? Because you work on
the toss separately from your arm action okay and then you put them together. And
when the end product looks something like this. Toss...arm action! One
more time. Toss...Arm Action! And what I want players to do who struggle or find
themselves recording themselves and seeing okay I'm going a little fast or
hey there's a hitch or hey I'm tight or something along those lines or you have
received a review from us. I want you to work on this following motion. Let me
come a little closer so you see that. So when you toss the ball, your right arm or
your hitting arm should be very inactive still. So I like to call it like almost
like a little bit of a wave, you see how my arm is waving away. I turn my body, I
toss and my arm is so loose that every single joint is moving through the
air. It is not active but because I turn away you see how nice and relaxed my arm
is. My elbow goes up first. My rest of the hand
follows and I can get the full execution of the toss going at that time and look
where my hand is. This is an exaggeration I understand that but when players deal
with this issue or this issue or this issue by the time the ball is up in the
air, or even this issue then this is a very welcome change and it takes some
time. So I want you to practice tossing the ball and when the ball is in the air
and comes down you're still here and by here I mean elbow below shoulder and
elbow away from body. Okay elbow below shoulder and elbow away from body with
the tip of the racket pointing when you are a righty to the right, and when you're
lefty to the left. This is too much, this is not correct. So anything that does not
satisfy the requirements. Tip of the racket if you're a righty to the right.
If your lefty to the left, elbow away from body and below shoulder level. Once
you are tossing that ball and this is that wave thing that I'm talking
about. If you activate the racket first or the hand first, you're breaking that
wave. I want you to toss that ball, not be concerned what happens don't go
for it and just see whether you're in this position right here. Now you may say
okay that looks good but how am I actually gonna do this when the ball is
in the air I'm gonna freak out.Yyes you will at first but trust me this works if
you do it often enough and you don't lose patience looking for something else
to fix. So, if you have an issue at the beginning of your service motion do
this! Toss the ball, be here. Now I'm gonna hit the ball. Okay same thing! Toss and
then I can still have plenty of time if I accelerate properly. Now this is only
one of many things to work on on the serve but I do think that if you begin
very slowly that's the point of this video. You toss completely but you begin
with your hitting arm very slowly. If you're in the right position you can
still increase with this speed sufficiently enough to make contact and you
see it does work. So let me let me give you a couple more serves I hope they are
decent examples! but the idea is not can I make the ball in the box. The idea is
am i improving my swing flow. Okay so toss, hit that ball!
Okay toss here this is where I'm at when the ball is tossed this is where I met
when the ball is tossed. This is where I'm at and then I can go for it. Okay so
it doesn't look abrupt, I don't have a stop in the motion. It's smooth and slow
at the beginning it's smooth and fast towards and past contact! I hope this
little tip helps you. Let me know underneath this video whether it does
and if you can apply it and we'll see you next time. Take care!
you