How To Hit A Flat Serve? 

I think is backhand instead of forehand grip, index's neckle on bevel # 1. am I wrong?

Muyu, you said it well 👌

OMG 😱 Muyu!!! If I would have that much of observation, I gonna defeat many, many in fact. I really wish I had! Thanks for your time and analysis!

My pleasure shakermaker 👍

🔥

Jorge, Thank You 🙏 🤝

For sure

Ira Do, 👍🙏

atliakinci, 🙏👍

I'm saving-up for your Intuitive Serve course. (I've never had to think too much about serve mechanics personally other than top-spin / kick; my punters are likely to be less simple to unravel however.). You Croats do some strange (serving) body stuff!

🙏

Hi Dmitry I think you are just rotating without going forward, basically just spinning around your left foot. Toss the ball inside the baseline and lean forward

@@IntuitiveTennis Got it! Thank you!

Cliff, sounds like a good plan. 👍

Even at your height you still need spin to bring the ball down in to the court . A straight line from the top of your reach will not touch the ground in the service court when projected . The geometry of the court will not permit this . You would need to be a whole lot taller .

John, I don’t recommend shadow swings, because we are consciously thinking about parts of the swing that we are not aware of during the acceleration phase. The shadow swing will therefore never match the real swing. I will do a video on the racquet drop in the near future.

Dnomde, my pleasure

futures ToT, impossible for me to give advice without seeing the serve sorry.

Ezzony, the clock is in front of you. Picture the clock face strapped up to the middle of the net. So where the net strap is would be 12 o’clock

@@IntuitiveTennis But does that hold for both the ad AND the deuce? Serving from the deuce, wouldn't that put 1 o'clock too far to the right of the net strap? I envision the clock face as perpendicular to the vector/line connecting you and your serving target.

Some players have a range of 90 degrees: It could be at front of you, at 45 degrees or parallel to the baseline

@@franciskwok3515 Yes, the same for both. You can slightly angle your body to adjust for ad vs deuce (or doubles).

tennis92, thank you. The right shoulder is definitely not ahead of the left shoulder on the flat serve. That would be more of a throwing motion and we don’t want that. On the flat serve, we are simultaneously releasing/extending/pronating the forearm and rotating the torso into the contact. At contact the shoulders will be parallel to each other while the right shoulder is above the left shoulder. However, any spin applied to the ball will leave the dominant shoulder behind the non dominant shoulder.

@@IntuitiveTennis thanks a lot Nik 🎾

tennis92, my pleasure

Nick you may not remember but I was one of your first maybe the first video review a few years ago as a beginner. You took a look at my serve. I’m playing 4.5 now and up to UTR 7. I’m able to play competitive sets with d3-d2 kids now. You said I had potential to hit the highest rec / club level and I have a lot in part to your videos. Thanks for all your help over the years. The gains have slowed now and I have to work on specific things now in hitting. Next steps for me are finishing more points at net and getting a bigger flat serve. I was clocked at 112 at MSUs indoor facility but I mostly hit slices and kicks. At 4.5+ you need the occasional free point especially indoors so that’s my next target a good 115 bomb at around 50% into a decent spot. I think it’s possible there’s a guy on here on Winston’s channel that’s probably 5’6” hitting close to 120 at times so at 5’9” I think I can do it. Anyway have a great weekend and would love to see more of you playing competitively. I used to think at around 4.0 that I was good. When you get into 4.5+ there’s a whole new world that opens up and you realize you have no chance against players or your caliber. There’s this guy at our club in his 50s that was a former top atp guy. He routinely destroys the very best juniors and top club guys in our area. And those too juniors and college guys destroy me. It’s still fun though the endless grind. But realistically getting to 5.0 or utr 10+ isn’t likely for me at 35+. So with that said at my level … and I realize this now is that you would likely double bagel me. Maybe I sneak a game off some errors from you but that’s probably it. Good to see your channel grow over the years.

Glad it was helpful!

💯

Multitude of reasons why serves go long

@@IntuitiveTennis Before I got a chance to practice flat serves after watching this video, I had to go to play a match this morning. I tried to apply the keep elements you mentioned in the video, body turn, elbow bend, it worked out like a charm. Hitting my targets, aced my opponents, and several love holds service games. It was such a great feeling. THANK YOU! THANK YOU and THANK YOU!!!

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RReBwUHe1ug.html

Mark, full rotation on flat serve

Thank you Here a video on that subject ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fkyxz0fxeRY.html

I don’t know Tango, could be a multitude of things. I’d start by adjusting your toss.

+Jim Parker- could u describe ur "mouse trap" flip, pls?? thx

Rock, that’s a very good question. At the high level, players do not serve randomly. The type of serve (flat, kick, slice) and the target is selected prior to serving. When it comes to the execution, the entire thing is performed intuitively without thinking about any mechanics.

@@IntuitiveTennis what happens to me is that whenever I choose a target, I will automatically have a spin in order to serve in that spot, based on the natural swing path of the racquet I guess. For example for a wide serve on the deuce side, I would usually hit a slice if I don' t consciously think about a different spin. I wonder if that's something I should change. What do you suggest?

Rock, very common problem. You are getting spin/slice by accident. Yes, it’s easier to spin out wide to ad side and slice out wide to deuce, but I suggest learning to hit all serves to all targets.

@@IntuitiveTennis thanks Nik. Will try that. Funny thing, I actually can, but whenever I don't think about it, I just have "the spin by accident" thing 🙂. Thanks again

Yes they can

Do you need to think about that? The grip helps force it.

50% for flat serve (1st serve)

@@IntuitiveTennis Makes sense

Thank you, that’s an interesting question. I’ll devote an entire video on it...

@@IntuitiveTennis oh nice, cant thank you enough!

Thank you SP, pronation into the contact is the same. Continuing pronation will depend on the individual, in Sampras case it appears that it occurred on all his serves.

Intuitive Tennis thanks for the response and awesome videos! My coach told me to start watching your videos so have been religiously following them lol.

Thank you SP, glad to hear that 🙏🙏

It does not

It happens on its own

I get into the clock analogy here 👉 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PXt7NbymwRw.html

Could be

Predrag, depends on your style of serve and how far you lean forward into the court. Federer throws the ball slightly in front (slightly in front the tip of his left shoe) on flat serves and he doesn’t lean in much. Raonic on the other hand throws the ball well inside the baseline and leans in quite a bit.

Tough question, on flat serve I try to toss something like ball drop 40cm from the baseline, for the second servе little be shorter. But I do not force flat serve too much, I prefer rather have a high percentage of 1st serve. Hvala na odgovoru.

Predrag, high 1st serve percentage is very smart. 👍👍 Nema na čemu

Easy tip: Serving to deuce court, line up your toss arm with the net post, release ball at shoulder level, straight up. Serving ad court, line up your toss arm slightly right of net post, release at shoulder level. BOOM!

Yes

Yes good observation Without use of body on a demonstrative serve I don’t throw it in front, however, on a full body serve I do

@@IntuitiveTennis ok thank you for clarifying. next question - I tried striking my flat serve today at 11 o clock on the snap instead of the usual 12 o clock and it was heavy but still going in. Am I imparting sidespin? or some kind of spin. wait, am I essential hitting it the same way as if someone used a eastern backhand grip????

This video answers your questions in great detail 👉 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-U39OzzOxaMM.html

Dr, 👍👍🙏🙏

Alfando, that’s a good question. I think it’s possible, but most players will struggle hitting flat with a eastern backhand grip.

@@IntuitiveTennis can you give any players name having this habit, hitting 1st and 2nd serve using continental grip with slightly to the eastern backhand?

Alfando, I don’t know. I have a suspicion Edberg had a slight eastern grip on all serves. Pat Cash and Pat Rafter would have different grips for different serves. This is very much a product of the serve and volley era, where players tried to mix the serve up as much as possible. Nowadays you don’t see this too often. Some players like Becker and Rafter had a slight fh grip on the flat serve. I talk about it briefly here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bnSf8XjTMuU.html

Ron, always pronation into the contact. Continuing pronation will not occur every time.

It’s doesn’t look like it, but it’s too far away. I can’t tell for sure