I watched probaly 100s of videos about the kick serve progression. Yours is one of the best - short, concise, all on points, no water! Well done and thank you. You should be doing more instructional videos for sure!
Incredibly thoughtful and succinct demonstration of kick serve drills. At 1:40, where you describe how the kick serve is the inversion of the "side spin drill," this really hits the point home. In my many years playing tennis, I've never seen it described in this way and it really resonates with me. Bravo!
Agree with others this is the best video on kick serves I’ve seen, and I’ve gone through a lot. The breakdown, and explaining it as the reverse forehand top spin motion is really helpful.
I have been teaching kick serve with a lot of success and use all of the steps in your progression plus a couple more, such as serving from outside the fence or over a fence to teach upward trajectory. I would like to add one key element not mentioned - contact point and orientation of the racket. For maximum kick, the toss needs to be contacted at a height where the main strings are parallel to the ground. (Same as for groundstrokes, simple physics for maximum friction)
Can you elaborate a lil more though. Are you saying racquet is facing the sky at contact or facing the ground at contact. Or are you saying parallel from the vertical plan so pretty much racquet head is facing 9 o clock
Another great video, thanks! I like how you cut the serve down into small steps. Will see if I can replicate this next time I go for some serve practice :)
Nice progression, Coach. It would be nice to see it from the right side also. I find way easier to hit a slice serve from right instead of a kick. Keep up the good work
Great video. But I'm always wondering how come when the pro's hit these serves the ball ends up very high at the back wall? Also at a more flat first serve...
Because they are pros haha! Although an exaggeration with the back wall, my kick serve is nowhere near that of the pros. But these methods work, and if you practice them consistently, over a period of time, you can serve like the pros too! The main difference, is the racket head speed they are able to generate, as well as leg drive.
The full motion pronation looks different than the pre-full motion pronation. Do you have a way to post a slow-mo versions of the full motion pronation?
the part that is missing in your kick serve is the penetration through the ball. When you play a topspin groundstroke, the pace of the incoming ball helps a lot to let the ball sink into your strings and create power. On the kick serve there is no real incoming pace of the ball. Just hitting up at the ball is not going to create any power and is not going to produce a lot of topsin / kick on the serve. The friction is not high enough. Framing the ball is usually a sign of hitting too much up on the ball and not having enough forward momentum into /through the ball. When you look at the path of your racket and look at all your progression drills they mostly focus on the upwards motion when it should be through and up. That's how you get decent kick. The 'through' part comes from having the correct loop / swing path of the racket during the racket drop behind your body and most importantly from the correct timing of the pronation. If you look at the pros and view their kick serves from a side angle you will see that they hit through the ball while hitting up :)
look at the side view of fereder in the clip: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iyWStQmfYQE.html In the very beginning you can see how much the racket actually hits forward and through the ball. Your demonstrations lack that for the most part and it is a very common reason why people don't have good kick serves. Most coaches don't focus on that part which is arguably the most important part of the kick serve. This is a really good video to learn the kick serves and avoid the mistakes: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lV9qtQZKsCU.html
Nice. Although I don’t compete anymore, I am still looking to constantly improve.. so I appreciate the feedback. And I do agree with you. This video is more aimed towards those just starting out with the kick serve, and I find getting the correct type of spin is a priority during the initial stages. When starting out, for many trying to ‘hit through’ (which definitely is a crucial element to the kick serve) will find this often takes away from generating the correct type of spin.. which is of course top spin. Whilst hitting up and still allowing yourself to penetrate through contact, is a little more advanced. Given the kick serve is already an advanced and very complicated shot, I don’t like tackling this early on. Perhaps I’ll do a more advanced video focusing on this. Something that I can totally work on myself! You make good points and seem to have good technical understanding of the game. Thank you for your comment and maybe you can help me out with the next kick serve video 😉👍
yeah the kick serve is very advanced and many people never manage to get a consistent good kick serve in their entire tennis life The reason I commented is that I think without the context or a disclaimer that your video is a starting point and not the whole progression towards learning a good kick serve, people might get frustrated because they think it is their fault for not executing your steps correct when in fact your steps aren't suitable to learn a complete and effective kick serve. Great effort though, I know how difficult it is to post content like you did and then you get a lot of criticism
Don't worry so much. The efficiency of even the best video tutorials is close to zero, no matter how detailed you explain it. Effective tennis training occurs only in direct contact between the coach and the student.
One question.. when we imagine brush from 7-9 in a click analogy are we talking about clock on ball or clock from a racquet travels on top of our head?appreciate your efforts
Good question. I always think of the face of the ball. But around the moment of impact, you want the racket to move from 7 to 1 o’clock of course. So whichever helps you more. Perhaps both.
My own experience, many times when I tried to hit 7 to 1 o clock hitting direction , in reality , I was actually hitting 9 to 3 o clock , resulting in slice serve . Then I tried to hit 6 to 12 direction , then only I get some kind of kick serve .
There is a guy i play with who does really great kicking serves. They swerve, change direction in the air a few times and bounce high. How do I effectively return a good kicking serve? I'm at a loss.
Have you tried standing a little wider and a little further back? Many pros stand literally several metres behind the baseline on return, especially on clay. This gives you more time on the ball to read the ‘kick’. As you’d be giving up a lot more ground than usual, make sure to hit a heavy deep return to make up for that. Look at standing wider and running around your backhand to hit more forehands. Maybe chip/slice a few returns.
I play a couple people that have incredible kicks. I like to move forward to cut off angles and take it on the rise. I don't give it the chance to bounce up and away from me. I'm an aggressive returner and I'm doing this in doubles so it might be a completely different plan if you're playing singles and just looking to get it in. Foot speed always plays a part. My hands are much faster than my feet.
@mightbefire definitely a good way of countering the kick. Same for singles too, although having the extra space in doubles, reduces the risk slightly. Good job 👍
This is more like a topspin in my opinion. A true kicker doesn't follow the same path. The ball breaks away from the receiver when it lands. This serve as far as I can tell bounces high towards the receiver but it's still follows the same path, it doesn't deviate the way a well struck kick serve should.
I find it a little low percentage unfortunately as I frame the ball too frequently. By the way I wish you had mentioned shoulder over shoulder motion which goes hand in hand with staying sideways. Great video anyway.👍
Try these drills. REPEAT over and over, get used to the toss, the motion. And then try the full swing at a much slower pace. Within a few months, you will feel more comfortable and start to frame less. Also, getting good height alone, will give the serve a high bounce, making it difficult for your opponent. Once you get a consistent motion and good height over the net, then you can start to accelerate more and prioritise the spin. Hopefully, by then you will frame the ball less and begin to see a real difference. Keep me posted!
@@SupremeTennis I've been doing that 7-1 for a while and still can't get that left to right kick... I've been teaching tennis part time for a long time ... and yet still can't. I have plenty of topspin (when I want to) and yet... I even tried the follow through with the serving arm elbow up and the forearrm dropping out to the right and across the baseline. Anyways ... I'm still trying. I even tried 8-2...blah blah blah . Still experimenting... but I love the ones that have a nice kick to the right that you have. I'm still a pretty good (5.0) player and I've seen some lower level players have some nastly kickers (it almost sounds like a missed hit too .. especially the lefties). Thank you for your replied ... and a good video.
so is a kick serve better than a flat serve? Cuz ive been playing about 7 months and don't really have any technique on my serve ( i know it's flat cuz i throw the ball up and then swing like i'm hitting it with a frying pan lol) BUT I can get it over 100 Mph - had it clocked by a college coach (best one was 111 mph) and when they are in, nobody in our local club can handle it. would i be better learning proper technique on a power serve and maybe getting it up over 125 ish or trying to learn a Kick or SLice My Goal is to win a tournament by end of the season this year.
111mph is huge! You got some firepower there! Learn the slice and the kick too. Adding variety will keep your opponent guessing and also bump up your first serve percentage. If I go flat all the time, I know my first serve percentage will drop below 40%. Adding the slice and kick to your repertoire, also allows you to be more precise with placement. You will be able to target your opponents backhand easier and bring them out of court better.
@@SupremeTennis haha yah I joke around when I'm going to go all out on a serve and yell out "unleash the cannon" some people don't appreciate that especially when i land it IN haha (just yesterday I blasted a serve that went right between someone's legs cuz they couldn't move out of the way haha) but i've been trying the kick serve like you show...and when i get to the full version OMFG it's SOOOOO SLOW and loopy. but maybe it's just cuz it's been only 2 days lol and i'm impatient :P Gunna keep practicing tho and check your channel for some forehand tips
Thank you for your comment. The primary purpose of a kick serve is to offer a safe and reliable second serve, helping to avoid double faults and keeping the ball out of your opponent's strike zone. Unlike a flat serve, which is more focused on power, a kick serve is usually 20-30% slower. This slower pace allows for better placement, often targeting your opponent's backhand. The key point here is that pace isn’t everything. If you prioritize speed, your accuracy and consistency will likely suffer. While a 60 mph second serve wouldn't be effective at the professional level, note that even the top players in the world still only typically hit their second serves at around 80-90 mph. By the way, what level do you compete at?
Kick serve will only going to be effective if you can serve it wide and make your opponent go far away to return, so that you can either come to the net or use the open space to hit a winner (esp in singles). If you serve it in the centre or the T, it ll be not of much benefit other than keeping the ball inside the service box!
The last progression is an exaggeration of the high elbow to prevent the racket following through to my left hip. At full pace, my elbow doesn’t hang as high as I demonstrate in the drill. But I still say side on which is the crucial point I try to get across. When you feel comfortable letting the elbow hang, later doing what is most comfortable at a quicker pace, becomes down to personal preference (provided you’re still getting good kick of course). Sampras had a high elbow finish, and I think mimicking his finish would be ideal for most. This isn’t my preference when accelerating at a faster pace. I find it prevents me from getting decent power and this is why you see a slight difference in the finish towards the end of the video. Understand where you’re coming from though.
@@SupremeTennis this is where no matter how good your technique, if you hit this serve too often on the deuce court, your lower back will at some point give out
@@SupremeTennisI don’t struggle I have a very good kick serve . Tip for you : On the baseline keep your right heel on the ground until you make contact is forcing you to let the ball come down more and not turning to early , for direction : the moment you use your wrist “ i call it hammer motion “ which is actually a short motion ( radial to ulnar deviation combined with flexion for topspin and combined with supination for kick ) the side of the frame goes in the direction you want
The kick serve requires skill when players used ‘real’ tennis rackets. The kick serve today is easy as the rackets and strings in todays tennis provides the spin, control and power for the player. The wonders of modern tennis giving to the player. 🤔🤔
It still requires lots of skill. Most 3.5/4.0 don't have much of a kick on their serve. Getting the toss and motion right still takes plenty of practice.
@@SupremeTennis I played varsity tennis and even the guy with a really good kick serve couldn't even properly explain to me how to do it. It wasn't until years later that I saw some youtube videos where some things clicked.
There is no power in your kick. You lack full arm pronation all the way from the shoulder. True kick should bounce only once before hitting the fence or the wall. Not single of your kicks did that.
