This is a great drill for learning how to achieve a nice smooth release of the ball in the proper location, but I've found that it helps as you progress to practice it while using your racket to coordinate the timing of your toss with your swing.
This is very good stuff. Those who still have difficulties to place the serve precisely into the corner they want should try a methodology similar to the inch-by-inch toss-up explained in here. Prerequisits: 1) you have to have a solid toss up like explained in here 2) lots of balls in a basket Meter by meter method: Start 2 meters from the net hitting serves. Target each corner. Start with the outer corner until confident. Then target the middle until confident. Finally target the inner corner until confident. Repeat the same in the other service box. Once confident at that distance, step back a meter and repeat. Once confident there, again step back a meter and repeat. Go on like this until you stand behind the base-line. Focus on technique, a smooth, uninterrupted motion sequence and correct timing. This is the moment you want to clean up your entire serve! As long as your very close to the net you may use a simplified swing starting with the racket behind the head. Once you feel tired to the point where it affects your consistency, go home. Don't try hitting big serves. Just focus on one serve of your liking (flat, slice or top-spin) and hit it roughly like a slower 2nd serve. Easy and make sure to stay relaxed. Don't use force. This isn't going to make a big server out of you over night, but you'll definitely get there after some time (and many, many hours of repeating). Warning: If you try to enforce it and hit big, powerful serves, you may fail. Not only will you continue to lack the "target sensors", but you may actually even hurt yourself. Talking from my own experience here... Even if you're an advanced player albeit with a shitty serve, there's no shame in starting from scratch. Why does this step-by-step, or inch-by-inch (meter-by-meter) methodology work? It's because you build up feel for the distance and for the place you want to hit. Similarly when playing ground strokes where you feel the target as if you were connected to it by invisible wires. You have to develop a similar feel (and consistency) for your toss-up and equally important for the serve itself. I had to find out the hard way. No one told me even though I had multiple trainers across the years. Thank me later.
Very good video. As a late starter who never took actual lessons, my mechanics have never been the best and my serve toss has been horribly inconsistent. This helped a lot! Thanks
Great video. It looks like your contact point is at 12:30, about 1.5 feet into the court. And the circle is about 3 feet into the court (where the ball would land if you did not hit the toss). Is that about right? I want to practice the toss in isolation (no hitting) and trying to figure out where to place the circle target.
Thanks Raul. That's about right. There will be small variations based on the type of serve you're practicing your toss for. But as a general "Jumping off point" that's a great start!
Hi Ramon, Below you agree with the following: "It looks like your contact point is at 12:30, about 1.5 feet into the court. And the circle is about 3 feet into the court (where the ball would land if you did not hit the toss)." My question is: If your contact point is 1.5 feet into the court, wouldn't your ball toss also be 1.5 feet into the court (where the ball would land if you did not hit the toss).
That's a really nice and creative tip, just also make sure to minimize the use of your wrist, toss using arm only, that will help with accuracy of the toss.
Wow this video was really good! The bestI've seen on toss where i struggel most in tennis. Yes its true. My toss is so bad but when I do a good toss I also do a good serve. Tried the ringfinger technique and really like it will try that when playing match today. I think its very important how you hold the ball because there was it where I struggle the most. WIll try the ring for another day. Thanks for the video! Have a great day Ramon
Thanks for the video. It's amazing that I can throw a baseball with good accuracy across a field but I can't for the life of me toss a tennis ball consistently. It's all over the place for me.
its great to see the open minded: there are many ways of holding the ball. Just find the one works for you. Plus the inch by inch technique is really simple and effective
Bravo Ramon! I will try this today with my son Gabriele, he has improved a lot all his strokes but he still has problems with the serve. Lets hit some balls togheter one of this days! I have improved a lot too since our last match!
Great tip, but when playing on a windy day you may need to compensate for the wind when you toss. In that case see where the wind blows the ball and adjust your toss. It's trickiest when the ball is being blown towards you and you must compensate for that by tossing the ball away from you into the court. So, basically this is a good way to start when working on your toss, but the toss can sometimes feel like landing a plan with cross winds :-)
@@winningtennis4914 Ramon, do you know of any lower back stretches to help with lower back muscle spasms ? and to strengthen the lower back to make sure lower back problems doesnt' come back ?
This really works for me 😋😋😋❤️❤️❤️Thank you so much for helping me with the toss I am about to do this technique since I will go to a tennis match in 3-4 weeks🎾🎾🏅🏅🎾
I'm gonna have to try this. I had a fantastic coach when I was a teenager who held a hopper up in the air in front of my for about 15 minutes straight for me to practise my toss, but it seems to have left me recently!
@@winningtennis4914 @Umut Kara it's been so hard to play this year cos of the damn virus I haven't had much chance to work on it. Plus I have a one month old baby now so no time for tennis! I did give this a go though and I think it made a small difference.
For me it's not so much the location of the toss, but the timing of the toss with my swing. It's a new habit I need to work on, but for me it helps to sequence windup-toss-hit, rather than the old toss-windup-hit, which used to get me swinging late, frantic ,and out of control with not much effective power.
11/17/2018 For each video that you record, The first words out of your mouth should be the date. Say the damn date, like this: “today is [date], and we are going to .....”
Why, pray tell, does it possibly matter what the date is? Does the calendar date impact the way I should toss the ball for my serve? In other words, what the hell is wrong with you?
