I learned to serve from a pro at Memorial Park in Houston. My coach was Hoke Hill. He taught me not to worry so much about the straight left arm. He said "push the ball up, and set it on an imaginary shelf!". I tried it, and it worked. From that point on I worked on making the shelf higher. It worked for me. Then I remembered that had said to chase the ball up by pushing straight up with my legs until I was on the tips of my toes when the raquet contacted the ball. One other thing he taught me was to pull my left elbow into my torso to keep from netting the ball. My serve comes in fast and low and barely in. Another part of it is to look look look at the ball floating in the blue or gray sky and rotate as fast as possible while pulling the left elbow into my left side. My serve got so good that I would hit winners on first or second serve consistently. The only bad thing was that after a couple of years I hit a second serve so hard that I snapped my rotator cuff. That's ok. The 7 months off helped me learn how to drive my car with a suicide knob on my steering wheel. I figured that " If it does not kill me, it will make me stronger." If you aren't familiar with that quote, search it.
Meike, just getting back into tennis after not playing for about 30 years. Your videos are great. I bought the Titan Tennis ball machine using your link. What an incredible machine. By far the best machine out there!
When serving, thinking of too much info could be detrimental. I only think three things: toss high, reach high and snap my wrist. Toss is everything for me. If I can toss to the one o’clock position and a little bit in front of me, I will have a good serve.
great video again, i'll try next time as the full service swing in not helping me to serve. Half service does not mean weak serve. And welcome to Spain
Very very good. Simple and basics as u explained definitely goes well. I'm 74 years old and I practice to serve every day. I' ve achieved my dream. I love you.
Hello Meike, this is a great video. I'm a good player (4.5 US - 15/1 France) in my fifties and the serve has always been a strong suit in my game. But your video made me realize that I was loading equally on both legs, if not slightly more on the front leg. I consciously focused on loading on the back leg on a match I played last night, and got an instant bump in speed as well as consistency. I guess that not loading enough on the back leg means "falling" into the ball and not clearing the net as well, and also hampering the weight transfer which takes away power. So now, I am basically down to only 3 things I really focus on when I serve: 1) keep my (left) tossing arm high as long as I can, 2) keep my (right) hitting hand and wrist as relaxed as possible, 3) load on the back leg. If I do these 3 things, I am going to serve well. Funnily enough, my right hamstring is a bit sore today. I must have been doing something right ;-)
What a great video! I’ve always had a big serve but as I’ve gotten older (54 yrs old now) I have instinctively moved my ball toss closer to the baseline because I no longer have the leg drive I did when I was younger. I love your García and Roddick examples. Older and recreational players listen to this lady she is speaking the truth!
this is an excellent video I have tried Garcia's serve before with mixed results. I tried again today, maybe 25 serves and not bad. Getting into the tilt position and keeping feet stationary helps. I am only 4.0 NTRP and my serve always my weakest shot. thanks for video
Hi, yes, great video. Interesting to me, because I've been working on correcting late trophy position (and not much racquet drop). And I saw a Patrick Mont.. vid, where he just did some serves starting from the trophy position. They were just smooth, relaxed semi-powerful serves. So I tried that and it was an excellent exercise. I think it teaches us the muscle memory for that part of the serve and we can always add before it, once we get used to it. Thanks for sharing.
I was washing dishes ... my video finished and this started. Love Spain...delivered a yacht to Banus in 1980 and purchased there. Was a member at Puente Romano tennis club. Borg was the pro for the month of August during the early 80s, and later Manolo Santana. Was trying to figure where you are...doesn't look like Andalucia...enjoy.
Hola! Happy to see you going to Spain! And yes, great video! I actually had those same problems as you express and explain here and I did start using the new Garcia serve style and my toss is consistent…and now I’m serving like 90% to my targets and people keep saying I have a great serve. Crazy! But I’ll take it! I’m working on it with your advice and it’ll keep getting better each time I do it. Gracias Entrenadora 🎾
I am a senior citizen newcomer to tennis and I absolutely need an abbreviated tennis serve. I am no young chicken, but I want to play tennis and I want to be able to have a repeatable serve. This video is very helpful.
Love your videos - your skills as a pedagog are really the best - This video and Ryan's "birthday hat serve" are two videos I can comfortably share with any of my tennis friends who struggle with serve, knowing they will get a lot of things resolved - I hope you will have a wonderful time i Spain on your new tennis-academy
I follow other tennis channels and while they gave me valuable insight, I still had to sort of journey and find what I was missing, and complement it from several different youtube tennis coaches, some of which contradicted each other. Most of my service motion is fine now, and I'm fiddling with fine tuning the toss and getting more and more leg drive, but it was a big struggle to get to the point where everything happens automatically. This video would have saved me quite a bit of trouble and set me on the path sooner. Subscribed and looking at some other videos/tips.
I'm looking forward to practicing with this method. My serve is inconsistent, mostly bad, and leads to a softball second serve. I dont need a monster serve, but I would like to dial in a consistent solid serve. Thank you for the tips.
Another excellent video! Would you say that the right elbow actually drops a little when you go into your maximum tilt and load position? I’ve been experimenting with that “feeling”’ on my serve. It also seems to help my loop.
Meika I’ve watched your videos and really like your simplistic methods…I agree with everything you coach apart from the one thing you’ve mentioned in your serve videos which I’m conflicted on due to the many differing opinions between coaches about loading the back leg and in particular when you’ve said ‘back heel’…I coached 15yrs and always had a pretty strong serve as a reference that I’m not a beginner spitting rubbish😅😅…I never thought about which leg I was loading much in my younger days until a friend of mine mentioned his coach was telling him to put all his weight on the back foot and drive from there, so we tried it for a while and realised it’s actually not really possible, I saw one comment on one of your videos asking how to toss the ball then if your weight is going to the back foot...and that’s a struggle, the ball toss doesn’t go up as you rock back and nor can you toss as your transferring weight forward and then get your weight back to the back heel, that’s just not natural at all…then slow motion video came along and you can see that no one actually does that, not even Boris Becker(who I thought did)they certainly load the hip as you’ve stated but it certainly looks like everyone has a bit more weight forward over the front foot during the knee bend..and everyone’s heels are up…I saw a video years ago where they had a pressure pad on the ground and showed like 60/40 weight distribution to the front foot…I’d like to see that done again and analyse a bit more because when I serve, I feel the hip loading but also more weight on the front foot so it’d be interesting to see what’s happening and when exactly and I watched Kovacs studies/videos on this any he says 60/40 in favour of the back foot which is closer than people think if that’s actually correct, I see people trying to load their back leg thinking ‘Put all my weight on back leg’ which is actually impossible to serve like and no one actually does..Thoughts?
Interesting that I have been doing this or the “half serve” and it just feels much easier. Was blasting serves with little work. No worries about the swing and timing! I can even pronate better into contact this way. I think even Iga starts a little higher at the beginning of her motion these days as well. Good stuff
Meike, one thing I keep asking myself and answer inconclusively is: is the racquet drop a completely passive action in terms of dominant hand action and only a “side effect” of the torso rotation and leg drive, or is there a bit of a push, initiation that dominant hand makes from “L” trophy moment in order to make it happen. What I discover is that when my arm is a bit more straight in the pre trophy phase of the take back, the motion of bringing it into the “L” position (basically making a similar movement to saluting) helps the racquet kinda go over the “tipping point” and continue into the drop (Dominic Thiem or Borna Coric serves come to mind). This saluting movement momentum obviously is not the force in an abbreviated serve where the arm is already in “L” position , or even in serves with a pause at trophy phase (such as Alcaraz for example) which suggest to me that the saluting momentum is perhaps not needed. OR - perhaps there are two distinct ways of making the racquet drop - one more active using the momentum of the take back, and one more passive where the drop happens on its own. To be clear, I don’t mean the entire trajectory of the drop, but just its initial stage. Thank you so much, I hope my question makes sense.
Even if you don't want to have a permanent abbreviated action, it is a game changer for service practice. Before you do your usual service exercises, do a series of them abbreviated like shown in this video. It lets you laser-focus on trophy position form and uncoiling properly. It feels weird the first few times, but it will help you tune even dynamic stuff like overswinging and racket drop.
Good tips. I’m stalled in my progress serving. Definitely not getting into trophy with load on tight leg. Perhaps the abbreviated version will help. Thanks.
Funny, with my struggling to learn to serve, I take racquet with a continental grip and dangle it behind my head. As ball drops, I hit the ball. I’ve been getting in the box most of the time. This racquet drop is something pros do for more power, but they are doing it in a fast S motion from toss to trophy to racquet drop before hitting.
oh nos, I've been using the "easy" motion as my real serve :( well need to find the full video of the pro to confirm. But yeah, I do set my weight back to counterbalance the tossing arm. The only thing I'm not sure is shifting the legs, I bend and shift/step onto the front leg as I hit the ball. Some people though keep some weight on the back leg and push off both feet. BTW, congratz on the move to Spain! vamos.
Yes, very true. Honestly, I never think about Jay Berger because I never think anyone will even know him. Only the true tennis nerds (and I mean that in the best possible way!!) remember him.
I got into a mess with my serve by gradually rotating too much - I actually fell over. I get tons of spin but in trying to get more speed I was over rotating. To correct I've been doing what my coach calls the 'baby serve' - I just start with the racket already dropped behind my back then load and serve. Its not top speed but its much more reliable. I'll keep experimenting but may end up with a bit of a 'Roddick'. The thing that stops me definitely deciding this route is stubbornness i.e. I should keep serving 'properly'.
In general, it is very hard to have a good toss while raising the racket at the same time. Too much body movement. That is why lot of players use two stages approach: toss the ball a bit higher then raise the racket. This way you can achieve a good toss since the other hand doesn’t create much movement. The disadvantage is that hitting a high-toss ball requires good timing.
I've found shoulder over shoulder from the trophy pose (i.e. half serve) when hitting the ball (as opposed to shadow swings) quite difficult. What I noticed with my shadow swings is I'm not keeping my head up, but when I look up when I'm hitting the ball I'm much less steep with my shoulder over shoulder. I tried this for months and didn't fix it. Any ideas?
I tried this but could not do it. My toss is completely tied to the movement of my lower body and racquet swing from low to high. It is a good hack if you can do it, though.
Great video! The key is target audience. Weekend warriors should NOT try to emulate pros with exact elbow, shoulder, hip, pinky finger and knee bend angles. Just stick to the basics and you'll be fine.
Ja, wir sind ganz nach Spanien gezogen. Ich mach dann hier auch camps bzw. auch Sachen in Deutschland. Email mir zu meike@meikebabel.com wenn du auf meine Newsletter Liste möchtest
Not sure why so many instructors make a big deal out of the "shoulder over shoulder" movement. Doesn't this come naturally? Unless you're serving underhand.
I see a hitch in your swing motion and that is: Letting your tossing arm drop down too early as you swing up the racket instead of leaving it up a little until your racket has almost in contact with the ball. This will allow you to tuck in your tossing arm down towards your tummy after you hit the ball thus creating that torque.
That's a good technique, too. Remember, anything you can adopt to bring about a good result is a technique. Certainly, there are always exceptions to standards.
I learned to serve from a pro at Memorial Park in Houston. My coach was Hoke Hill. He taught me not to worry so much about the straight left arm. He said "push the ball up, and set it on an imaginary shelf!". I tried it, and it worked. From that point on I worked on making the shelf higher. It worked for me. Then I remembered that had said to chase the ball up by pushing straight up with my legs until I was on the tips of my toes when the raquet contacted the ball. One other thing he taught me was to pull my left elbow into my torso to keep from netting the ball. My serve comes in fast and low and barely in. Another part of it is to look look look at the ball floating in the blue or gray sky and rotate as fast as possible while pulling the left elbow into my left side. My serve got so good that I would hit winners on first or second serve consistently. The only bad thing was that after a couple of years I hit a second serve so hard that I snapped my rotator cuff. That's ok. The 7 months off helped me learn how to drive my car with a suicide knob on my steering wheel. I figured that " If it does not kill me, it will make me stronger." If you aren't familiar with that quote, search it.
Meike, just getting back into tennis after not playing for about 30 years. Your videos are great. I bought the Titan Tennis ball machine using your link. What an incredible machine. By far the best machine out there!
When serving, thinking of too much info could be detrimental. I only think three things: toss high, reach high and snap my wrist. Toss is everything for me. If I can toss to the one o’clock position and a little bit in front of me, I will have a good serve.
Yes, keeping it simple
That is what works for me. Also, thank you Meike for this excellent tip!
You are 100% correct. Very well explained. 1 o’clock and just a little bit in front and pronate.
@@awa3374 pronate is 1/3rd of the movement though…
Funny. I just changed my toss from very high to very low( hitting when the ball is on the highest point)
What a great teacher!! Wish I had a coach like you here! Congrats and thank you!
great video again, i'll try next time as the full service swing in not helping me to serve. Half service does not mean weak serve. And welcome to Spain
Yes, so true! If it helps you make your serve more consistent you’re on your way!
Very very good. Simple and basics as u explained definitely goes well. I'm 74 years old and I practice to serve every day.
I' ve achieved my dream. I love you.
Hello Meike, this is a great video. I'm a good player (4.5 US - 15/1 France) in my fifties and the serve has always been a strong suit in my game. But your video made me realize that I was loading equally on both legs, if not slightly more on the front leg. I consciously focused on loading on the back leg on a match I played last night, and got an instant bump in speed as well as consistency. I guess that not loading enough on the back leg means "falling" into the ball and not clearing the net as well, and also hampering the weight transfer which takes away power. So now, I am basically down to only 3 things I really focus on when I serve: 1) keep my (left) tossing arm high as long as I can, 2) keep my (right) hitting hand and wrist as relaxed as possible, 3) load on the back leg. If I do these 3 things, I am going to serve well. Funnily enough, my right hamstring is a bit sore today. I must have been doing something right ;-)
What a great video! I’ve always had a big serve but as I’ve gotten older (54 yrs old now) I have instinctively moved my ball toss closer to the baseline because I no longer have the leg drive I did when I was younger. I love your García and Roddick examples. Older and recreational players listen to this lady she is speaking the truth!
Thank you! And we all have to adjust :)
this is an excellent video I have tried Garcia's serve before with mixed results. I tried again today, maybe 25 serves and not bad. Getting into the tilt position and keeping feet stationary helps. I am only 4.0 NTRP and my serve always my weakest shot. thanks for video
What a brilliant idea! As long as you get to that ‘loading position’, it doesn’t really matter how you get there. Thanks, Meike.👍
Just gave you a thumbs up for acknowledging how difficult & complicated serving is in tennis. Thanks
I struggled with it a lot so I know the pain!
Hi, you are an amazing teacher. Your energy and enthusiasm are very contagious! Thank you 🙏🏻
I love your clear explanations, thank you
Thank you
Hi, yes, great video. Interesting to me, because I've been working on correcting late trophy position (and not much racquet drop). And I saw a Patrick Mont.. vid, where he just did some serves starting from the trophy position. They were just smooth, relaxed semi-powerful serves. So I tried that and it was an excellent exercise. I think it teaches us the muscle memory for that part of the serve and we can always add before it, once we get used to it. Thanks for sharing.
You're an awesome Coach! Thank you for this lessons.
My pleasure!
I always practice this.and I always do this with my students, but after 10 years I learned a few new new things and I'm excited to learn more......
I was washing dishes ... my video finished and this started.
Love Spain...delivered a yacht to Banus in 1980 and purchased there. Was a member at Puente Romano tennis club. Borg was the pro for the month of August during the early 80s, and later Manolo Santana.
Was trying to figure where you are...doesn't look like Andalucia...enjoy.
I’m in Gijon, a bit tricky for tennis because of the rain but we love it.
@@MeikeBabelTennis Sounds great...should you find yourself in the CR Panama border area have a great club with covered courts
I noticed Iga has taken off some of her windup this year, too. Love this video, so helpful!
Yes! Thank you!
Good points. I find I can serve just as well if not better with an abbreviated action. Going for placement is more important than power
I agree!
Hola! Happy to see you going to Spain! And yes, great video! I actually had those same problems as you express and explain here and I did start using the new Garcia serve style and my toss is consistent…and now I’m serving like 90% to my targets and people keep saying I have a great serve. Crazy! But I’ll take it! I’m working on it with your advice and it’ll keep getting better each time I do it. Gracias Entrenadora 🎾
That is so great to hear!
Incredible work, I really appreciated that you are videoing it on a lesser perfect court !
Yeah, it’s not a great court but you take what you can get
How thankful for this! Comfort in thinking that the abbreviated method is a problem with such highly accomplished players, too
I am a senior citizen newcomer to tennis and I absolutely need an abbreviated tennis serve. I am no young chicken, but I want to play tennis and I want to be able to have a repeatable serve. This video is very helpful.
Then this is an either a really good start for you or you’ll just keep it forever. Either one works :-)
another great lesson ! thank you very much, and great video too
Love your videos - your skills as a pedagog are really the best - This video and Ryan's "birthday hat serve" are two videos I can comfortably share with any of my tennis friends who struggle with serve, knowing they will get a lot of things resolved - I hope you will have a wonderful time i Spain on your new tennis-academy
Wow, thank you!
amazing tips like always Meike.
I would like to play on that court. it has personality on it and it would be interesting.
Great hack! Świątek also recently changed her take back and it is semi abbreviated. Before she had a huge take back swing.
Yes, that’s true. I didn’t think about her when making his video.
@@MeikeBabelTennis check Kateřina Siniaková serve
Thanks for a great explanation! Super helpful!
You’re very welcome
I follow other tennis channels and while they gave me valuable insight, I still had to sort of journey and find what I was missing, and complement it from several different youtube tennis coaches, some of which contradicted each other. Most of my service motion is fine now, and I'm fiddling with fine tuning the toss and getting more and more leg drive, but it was a big struggle to get to the point where everything happens automatically.
This video would have saved me quite a bit of trouble and set me on the path sooner. Subscribed and looking at some other videos/tips.
Thank you for your kind words!
I'm looking forward to practicing with this method. My serve is inconsistent, mostly bad, and leads to a softball second serve. I dont need a monster serve, but I would like to dial in a consistent solid serve. Thank you for the tips.
Let me know how it goes, always good to get feedback
great video - as soon as i started watching.... i immediately thought of Roddick
Very good video. Well explained.
Congratulations and so exciting on your new move!
Thank you!!
Iga Switek also does the abbreviated movement on wta
Another excellent video! Would you say that the right elbow actually drops a little when you go into your maximum tilt and load position? I’ve been experimenting with that “feeling”’ on my serve. It also seems to help my loop.
Yes, I’d say that’s right
@@MeikeBabelTennis Thank you!
Hello Meike. Welcome to Spain. I love your videos and I hope you the best here at your new home.
Great video! Many thanks! greetings from BCN
Meika I’ve watched your videos and really like your simplistic methods…I agree with everything you coach apart from the one thing you’ve mentioned in your serve videos which I’m conflicted on due to the many differing opinions between coaches about loading the back leg and in particular when you’ve said ‘back heel’…I coached 15yrs and always had a pretty strong serve as a reference that I’m not a beginner spitting rubbish😅😅…I never thought about which leg I was loading much in my younger days until a friend of mine mentioned his coach was telling him to put all his weight on the back foot and drive from there, so we tried it for a while and realised it’s actually not really possible, I saw one comment on one of your videos asking how to toss the ball then if your weight is going to the back foot...and that’s a struggle, the ball toss doesn’t go up as you rock back and nor can you toss as your transferring weight forward and then get your weight back to the back heel, that’s just not natural at all…then slow motion video came along and you can see that no one actually does that, not even Boris Becker(who I thought did)they certainly load the hip as you’ve stated but it certainly looks like everyone has a bit more weight forward over the front foot during the knee bend..and everyone’s heels are up…I saw a video years ago where they had a pressure pad on the ground and showed like 60/40 weight distribution to the front foot…I’d like to see that done again and analyse a bit more because when I serve, I feel the hip loading but also more weight on the front foot so it’d be interesting to see what’s happening and when exactly and I watched Kovacs studies/videos on this any he says 60/40 in favour of the back foot which is closer than people think if that’s actually correct, I see people trying to load their back leg thinking ‘Put all my weight on back leg’ which is actually impossible to serve like and no one actually does..Thoughts?
This is awesome Meike!! Thank you!!
Interesting that I have been doing this or the “half serve” and it just feels much easier. Was blasting serves with little work. No worries about the swing and timing! I can even pronate better into contact this way. I think even Iga starts a little higher at the beginning of her motion these days as well. Good stuff
I found temporary use of abbreviated serve to be useful when reconstructing my serve recently
Great to see you in Spain. Can you make videos on how to serve T and wide from ad court?
Totally agree with this HACK tip. I use it when I've been away from the game for awhile and need to recalibrate.
That’s a great time to use it
Meike, one thing I keep asking myself and answer inconclusively is: is the racquet drop a completely passive action in terms of dominant hand action and only a “side effect” of the torso rotation and leg drive, or is there a bit of a push, initiation that dominant hand makes from “L” trophy moment in order to make it happen. What I discover is that when my arm is a bit more straight in the pre trophy phase of the take back, the motion of bringing it into the “L” position (basically making a similar movement to saluting) helps the racquet kinda go over the “tipping point” and continue into the drop (Dominic Thiem or Borna Coric serves come to mind). This saluting movement momentum obviously is not the force in an abbreviated serve where the arm is already in “L” position , or even in serves with a pause at trophy phase (such as Alcaraz for example) which suggest to me that the saluting momentum is perhaps not needed. OR - perhaps there are two distinct ways of making the racquet drop - one more active using the momentum of the take back, and one more passive where the drop happens on its own. To be clear, I don’t mean the entire trajectory of the drop, but just its initial stage. Thank you so much, I hope my question makes sense.
Very good tip.
Thank you
Many thanks. This is a great video. What do you think is the best for female players? Platform vs pinpoint position and why?
Cool explanation. I'll try it
Iga abbreviates her serve now too
Super helpful video!! Thank you coach Meike
Phenomenal video. Thanks.
Glad you liked it!
Even if you don't want to have a permanent abbreviated action, it is a game changer for service practice. Before you do your usual service exercises, do a series of them abbreviated like shown in this video. It lets you laser-focus on trophy position form and uncoiling properly. It feels weird the first few times, but it will help you tune even dynamic stuff like overswinging and racket drop.
This is brilliant
Thank you so much. ❤
Iga has simplified her serve movement recently as well
Hi Meike - now you're in Spain there's a 0.00000001% chance I might fly over from sunny Devon for a lesson :) :)
Or my camps that I will start this fall. :-) Email me at meike@meikebabel.com if you want me to put you on my email list
😂😂😂😂
Great concept, thanks! I just wish you had done a few more reps. There's only a couple of actual serves done this way. More demonstrations please.
3:49. Has Garcia's toss landed yet?
Still rising :-)
great video, do you have any drills to synchronise leg drive and arm movement - avoding early racket drop or late leg drive?
Good tips. I’m stalled in my progress serving. Definitely not getting into trophy with load on tight leg. Perhaps the abbreviated version will help. Thanks.
What a great leader! Like a great Army officer or College Professor!
such beautiful teacher
Hi Maike! Sorry to hear you moved away from Denver. We miss you here! -Alex D.
Your loss is my gain. A lot nearer to the UK now :). Where are you Maike?
Hi Alex! We had a great time in denver and it was so great to work with you in team Colorado
I’m in Spain. I’ll be holding camps later this autumn. If you’re interested, email me at meike@meikebabel.com and I can put you on my email list
Thank you Meike. Do you intentionally raise your right elbow when serving?.
Funny, with my struggling to learn to serve, I take racquet with a continental grip and dangle it behind my head. As ball drops, I hit the ball. I’ve been getting in the box most of the time. This racquet drop is something pros do for more power, but they are doing it in a fast S motion from toss to trophy to racquet drop before hitting.
She is what I call "a teacher".
Many thanks, great. Where are you in spain. Regards from murcia
Great tip breaking down the basics for everyday players, are you running tennis camps in spain?
Brilliant
Come to Torre del Mar near Malaga x
oh nos, I've been using the "easy" motion as my real serve :( well need to find the full video of the pro to confirm. But yeah, I do set my weight back to counterbalance the tossing arm. The only thing I'm not sure is shifting the legs, I bend and shift/step onto the front leg as I hit the ball. Some people though keep some weight on the back leg and push off both feet. BTW, congratz on the move to Spain! vamos.
I like the common sense in this video. In the end what you want is a well placed serve with decent speed, rather than a festival of serves going out
Delbonis is another player with an abbreviated motion. Then there was Jay Berger from the 1980s who had a pretty powerful serve.
Yes, very true. Honestly, I never think about Jay Berger because I never think anyone will even know him. Only the true tennis nerds (and I mean that in the best possible way!!) remember him.
I got into a mess with my serve by gradually rotating too much - I actually fell over. I get tons of spin but in trying to get more speed I was over rotating. To correct I've been doing what my coach calls the 'baby serve' - I just start with the racket already dropped behind my back then load and serve. Its not top speed but its much more reliable. I'll keep experimenting but may end up with a bit of a 'Roddick'. The thing that stops me definitely deciding this route is stubbornness i.e. I should keep serving 'properly'.
I think a “rodick” serve would be a good compromise
In general, it is very hard to have a good toss while raising the racket at the same time. Too much body movement. That is why lot of players use two stages approach: toss the ball a bit higher then raise the racket. This way you can achieve a good toss since the other hand doesn’t create much movement. The disadvantage is that hitting a high-toss ball requires good timing.
Your presentation is very good. I love it!
I've found shoulder over shoulder from the trophy pose (i.e. half serve) when hitting the ball (as opposed to shadow swings) quite difficult. What I noticed with my shadow swings is I'm not keeping my head up, but when I look up when I'm hitting the ball I'm much less steep with my shoulder over shoulder. I tried this for months and didn't fix it. Any ideas?
shout out to those sharp fitville shoes!
This also looks like what iga is doing these days. Personally, I like to let the racquet drop down to generate power. This is a great drill though.
Hey Meike, are you playing the Vcore 100 or 98?
When I saw Roddick & Federer (3rd most aces of all time) not doing the pinpoint step, I never looked back on that part of my serve.
I tried this but could not do it. My toss is completely tied to the movement of my lower body and racquet swing from low to high. It is a good hack if you can do it, though.
Yes, if it doesn’t work for you, don’t force it.
Link in video seems to be missing?
Great video! The key is target audience. Weekend warriors should NOT try to emulate pros with exact elbow, shoulder, hip, pinky finger and knee bend angles. Just stick to the basics and you'll be fine.
so......... what was the hack? getting as close as you can into your loading position?
OK kids so here's the question: if an abbreviated action is just as good why are we all taught the full monty..?
I see Carlos Alcaraz using this style of serve
Ah, Du kommst wieder dichter an die Heimat zurück 😊. Bist Du nun (erstmal) dauerhaft in Spanien?
Ja, wir sind ganz nach Spanien gezogen. Ich mach dann hier auch camps bzw. auch Sachen in Deutschland. Email mir zu meike@meikebabel.com wenn du auf meine Newsletter Liste möchtest
Not sure why so many instructors make a big deal out of the "shoulder over shoulder" movement. Doesn't this come naturally? Unless you're serving underhand.
Yes, and the best servers elbow leads their hand like a football passer.
It all starts with the Backfoot. The most underrated principle in the tennis serve. Even among the prof players.......they still don't get it.
What kind of surface is that? It looks SUPER rough...
Thats tarmac , not used anymore mostly in schools who havent the money to upgrade .
I see a hitch in your swing motion and that is: Letting your tossing arm drop down too early as you swing up the racket instead of leaving it up a little until your racket has almost in contact with the ball. This will allow you to tuck in your tossing arm down towards your tummy after you hit the ball thus creating that torque.
The hack that changed my serve was when i realised my shoulders needed to be square to the net by the end of the serve.
1:22
I don't have the strength for all the weird stuff. I just hit the ball
That's a good technique, too. Remember, anything you can adopt to bring about a good result is a technique. Certainly, there are always exceptions to standards.
Awww, sorry to hear you're no longer in the U.S.
*promo sm*
How tall is he?
Garcia moved from Platform → Pinpoint
Pretty sure the video on the right isn’t Caro. She’s not sponsored by Nike. Went from ASICS to Yonex.
@@djgulia3656Nike -> Asics -> Yonex. She made the adjustment 20/21 I believe
i like how she never actually hit the ball