How to get a faster first serve – four simple tips for more speed
First serve frustratingly slow? Always feel like you could get more power but for some reason it’s just not quite there? Go back to basics with these four simple tips and you’ll be serving bombs in no time…
You want to hit your serve faster.
Who doesn’t?
I know how difficult it is though. The serve is such a complicated and technical shot. Maybe you’ve tried everything to get a few more miles per hour on your serve and it’s still not happening.
Complicated. Difficult. Technical.
It’s so easy to overthink the serve. Adding speed to it can seem like a hot mess of different mechanics.
The clue is in the title here. Let’s keep things simple. Here are four simple tips to give you more pop on your serve.
(By the way if you want to know how to return fast serves, read this post: How to return FAST serves effectively – five practical tips)
1. Throw The Racket
The absolute #1 rule to getting more speed on your serve is to really feel like you’re throwing your racket.
You can try all manner of things; raising your non-dominant arm higher; bending your legs; loading the shoulders; turning the hip through; etc. etc. etc; but all these technical nuances won’t count for anything if there’s not a fundamental throwing motion through the service action.
My serve used to be extremely hitched. I knew everything about the serve but could not for the life of me put all the pieces together.
My coach gave me an outside perspective and stripped everything back.
“Just throw the racket at the ball.”
Forget everything else for a second. There has to be some sort of throwing action through the ball to generate any sort of racket head speed.
If you’re struggling to find a fluid throwing motion, literally throw your racket a few times. Then do the same thing with the ball in front of you. Just pop the ball up and throw your racket at the ball (without letting go this time!).
I find it helps to completely remove the service box to develop the throwing motion and focus on getting the ball on one side of the court i.e. playing as though the service box extends all the way to the baseline.
See how much pace and fluidity you can create trying this and this alone.
Nothing else.
Simply throw the racket at the ball.
2. Toss as high as you can reach with your racket
As simple as it gets but so so so often overlooked as a key component to the serve.
The toss is crucial to controlling power.
Ball in the wrong place when you throw it up? Your timing, your balance and the motion of the serve are all going to be completely skewed.
Let’s keep things simple.
How high should you toss?
Ideally, toss as high as you can reach with your racket.
You know all those mental ball tosses on the professional tour that are travelling like a rocket on the way down? Yes, those players are gaining power on their serves but a lot of those players are also partial to a double fault. The timing of the serve can also become less fluid with a high ball toss.
I would teach a junior to toss the ball about as high as they can reach with the racket. Not much higher but certainly not lower.
And where should you toss?
Slightly inside the baseline and to your dominant side (for most players, to their right).
Don’t throw above your head at the moment (there’s a time and a place for that).
Certainly don’t throw behind your head.
Slightly in front and to the right is the ideal spot for creating power. You can even try throwing the ball up and letting it bounce in front of the baseline and to the right to practice the toss before you try hitting the thing.
Keep the simplest part of the serve steady. Toss the ball slightly in front and to the right and throw as high as you can reach with the racket.
3. Stay Balanced
How often do you watch club players serving and think “that looks awkward”?
Often, this can be a result of trying to get certain technical parts of the serve right. In reality, this can leave the player with a very hitched motion that completely overlooks the importance of the toss of the ball and the fluidity of the motion.
The service motion finishes and the player is left in a crumpled or off-balance position that looks very uncomfortable.
If you have your throwing motion and toss down, here’s how to consistently get the serve in and start to add miles per hour to your serve easily.
Stay balanced.
Falling to the side after you’ve hit the serve? Collapsing forward? I don’t care if you’ve got the fastest arm in the county—if you’re off-balance after you’ve hit the serve, consider it a bad serve.
It’s so important you’re able to keep your core steady and controlled as you deliver the serve. Thinking technically, this will give your racket a stable centre on which to decelerate and ergo accelerate through the motion…
Yadda yadda yadda. We’re keeping things simple, remember?
Start by trying this.
Have your chest pointed to the right (or your dominant side) when you serve. Then finish the motion with your chest pointed forward. At the end of the motion, pause for a good three seconds and challenge yourself to stay completely steady. You can even raise your right foot onto its tippy-toes as you finish the motion to challenge the balance further.
Provided your toss and your throwing action are okay, stay balanced from the beginning to the end of the service motion. You’re going to start to develop a much more reliable and potent service delivery.
4. Use both your legs
These tips have been purposefully ordered…
Your toss is in the right place. There’s a nice fluid throwing action to the serve. You’re balanced throughout the entire serve motion.
Once you’ve got the hang of these three components, now you can start to use your legs.
Firstly, use your legs—plural. Some players make the mistake of putting all their weight onto the back foot when it should really be more of an even spread. You should be focussed on jumping up into the serve rather than jumping forward. Forward momentum absolutely helps but:
1. It’s a lot harder for you to stay balanced when you throw yourself into the court too early in the development of the serve.
2. You won’t be able to feel the topspin you create with a nice healthy upwards motion into the ball.
Again, landing into the court is a good thing but players make the mistake of over-exaggerating this to get more power which can lead to all of the other fundamentals breaking down.
Secondly, don’t go crazy with the bend.
You’re looking for a bend that you can easily synchronise with your throw—the deeper the bend, the harder motion is to time. If you’ve really got your other three fundamentals down, you’ll really start to feel just how easy it is to have your legs add plenty of pop to your serve.
Don’t force it. If things feel forced, make sure your other three components are perfect. It’s all down to timing and balance.
Start to sync your legs up with the rest of your service motion to really notch up the pace.
Summary
Simple. The fundamentals to getting more pace on your serve. Work on these and then you can start to make all those minor technicals tweaks to beef it up even further.
1. Feel as though you’re throwing your racket through the ball.
2. Toss the ball in the correct place - as high as you can reach with your racket.
3. Stay balanced throughout the entirety of the service motion.
4. Use your legs to add power once you have those other three fundamentals in place.
As always, any questions or thoughts, tweet me @ontheline_jack. Happy hitting!
Jack Edward is a tennis analyst and host of the On The Line podcast, which takes regular deep dives into ATP and WTA tour matches. He’s also a qualified LTA coach and on Talking Tennis he brings his unique analytical insights to help club and recreational players to be more effective on the court.
See also:
Tennis tactics: 4 simple, effective singles strategies for club players
How to beat someone who is better than you at tennis
How to return FAST serves effectively – five practical tips
Tips for playing smart tennis in bad weather and tricky conditions
Tennis tactics: 5 simple, effective doubles strategies for club players
