Winning Pretty:
Keys To the Kick ServePart 1
Chris Lewit
Is there anything harder in tennis than learning a great kick serve? The topspin serve is, in my opinion, the most difficult shot in the game and arguably the hardest to teach. Students often struggle for years before figuring out the proper mechanics--sometimes only by luck or trial and error. Other players give up and relegate themselves to hitting only slice and flat serves. A few talented players will pick this serve up easily, but for mere mortals--the less gifted 99 percent rest of us--learning the topspin serve comes as a tremendous challenge. I spent years in the juniors hitting thousands of balls before finally mastering this serve in my twenties. That was not until after college when I was competing on the ITF pro futures tour.
For me, it happened because I found a new coach, Gilad Bloom, who was a master of the serve, and he shared with me the secrets of the kick. I almost want to cry when I think about all the hours I spent hitting buckets and buckets of serves. My coaches in the juniors were great guys, but they didn't provide me with the technical framework and the checkpoints I needed to understand and master the shot. This is the same problem most players face. They are never exposed to the right technical framework or training system.
My goal is to present the technical elements and checkpoints that are critical to learning and teaching a high bouncing, pretty, and effective kick serve. As you will see, there are many components to master, and this is what makes the serve so challenging. Using these key checkpoints, I have taught hundreds of junior players to hit great kick serves, from as young as six year old beginners to 16 year old top national players. I have also taught the same serve to serious adult players at many levels.
First—one caveat: The kick serve is not appropriate for everyone. Players with previous shoulder or back injury may want to avoid this serve altogether. Seniors and women tend to prioritize a slice serve, and less powerful players may not be able to generate enough force to make the kick serve effective. For those players who have been dreaming about a kick serve, and for coaches who want to know how to teach it, this chapter will cover all the details to win pretty with a kick.
The Three Kicks
In this chapter, "topspin" and "kick" are used interchangeably to describe any high bouncing serve with forward rotation on the ball. In reality, however, there are three variations of the kick serve. These three variations are what I call true topspin, slice topspin, and twist. The differences are in the path of the ball through the air, the path of the ball after the bounce—and most importantly—to understand how the racket moves to the contact to produce these differences. Let me define what I mean by each of these three serves.
True topspin bounces high and straight ahead. This serve is the most basic kick serve and most players will use it for the second serve a large percentage of the time. When well executed this serve is heavy and difficult to deal with because it can bounce well above the returner's preferred contact height. Slice topspin bounces high but (from the server's perspective) also has a right-to-left movement after the bounce. Players will use this serve less frequently than the true topspin, typically when hitting second serves down the T in the ad court, or into the body or out wide in the deuce court. The advantage here compared to the true topspin, is that the ball fades or curves away from the returner (or in the case of a body serve, jams the returner). This serve is a must to hit effective second serves against left handers.
The third topspin variation is the twist. The twist serve bounces high but actually moves from the server's left to his right. Typically it is hit to the returner's backhand, especially in the ad court, where it kicks high away from the player after the bounce. This serve is used to pull the returner out of position, force him to take additional steps to the ball, and play a contact point at shoulder level or even higher. It is used most often on clay, but can also be extremely effective on hard courts--especially gritty or high-rebound hard courts--when hit with the right combination of speed and spin.
The Technical Components
There are multiple technical components in the kick serve, and this complexity makes the serve difficult to master. Even though there is a lot of information, it is important to understand each of the components clearly, and then how to put them together in the complete motion. Let's go over the components from start to finish starting with the grip.
Grip
The grip is critical to learning an effective topspin serve. Most players who come to me do not demonstrate a strong enough grip to effectively hit heavy spin. I call this grip a strong continental. The problem is that most players try to hit the serve with a milder version of the continental, or even with a grip rotated toward an eastern forehand. The frustrating thing about defining the right grip is that coaches--and especially coaches from different countries--use different terminology and also tend to have different opinions about the position of the index knuckle.
Whatever you want to call it, I believe in this strong continental, with the index knuckle very near bevel 1 (top bevel). This grip promotes heavy spin without slowing down the ball too much, as a more extreme backhand serve grip can do. I also believe players can hit the first serve with this grip, rather than making a dramatic grip change between first and second serves, which can hurt disguise. Players can also have a subtle change between first and second serve grips.
Of course, some players are extremely talented with their wrists and hands, and they can get away with a less extreme grip. There is also an alternate option to using one grip. Rather than using the exact same grip for both serves, some players choose to make a subtle shift of the palm position--or even of the knuckle position--between the first and second serve. I would estimate that this includes a quarter of the top players or slightly more, based on my first hand observations.
Whether a player shifts grips for the second serve usually depends on personal preference and the philosophy his developmental coaches had when building his game as a junior. Some players don't even realize that they make a shift. They naturally adjust the heel of the palm slightly more toward the top of the frame--to maximize the brushing action upward to the ball. I believe that this is acceptable. However, the grip shift should not be extreme and the shift should not be noticeable by the opponent.
When building a world-class serve, disguise with all the serves--flat, slice, and kick--should be an important priority. Many elite coaches insist on the single grip, but I allow for a subtle change if it helps the player and does not hinder disguise. From a developmental standpoint, encouraging this grip shift can help a player break through a learning roadblock. As a player develops, the placement of the hand can be moved toward one universal grip and most players should be able to use one grip for all serves.
The Mid-Swing Switch
When a player is learning this strong grip, the coach, or the player himself, must watch the student very carefully in mid-swing. Many kids show me the right grip before the kick serve and then, somewhere in the backswing, whether consciously or unconsciously, they slip back to a weaker grip (closer to the eastern forehand) before they hit the ball.
Coaches and players must watch that hand like a hawk. The way to make sure the grip is remaining the same is to check the grip at the end of the swing, not at the beginning. Using video analysis is also an excellent way to monitor the grip. The hand can often shift midswing, so you have to be strict if you are coaching and honest with yourself, if you are a player.
The Foundation
The foundation of a good spin serve is a stance that really closes the hips at the start of the motion, with an angle of about 130 degrees to the baseline. A closed body maximizes disguise, spin, control, and power, and the stance promotes body turn. The feet should generally be about shoulder width apart, unless the player has a step-up action, in which case the feet can be a bit wider.
This closed hip position will promote a deep turn of the back and shoulders during the tossing phase of the swing. I believe this closed hip position helps players in the directional control of the serve, especially in learning to angle the kick serve sharply out wide.
Many players do not have enough hip and shoulder turn on the kick and this prevents them from getting enough spin action on the ball. They may be able to hit a decent topspin serve with a less coiled hip and shoulder position, but unable to hit a great twist.
With this foundation, the player will begin to get the feel for the right sequence of the hip rotation--something I call the hip drag, as discussed in more detail below. When building a world-class kick serve, the body must be appropriately coiled. This is why I believe that an alignment of about 130 degrees will yield better kick serves and especially more twist action.
Tossing Mechanics--Two Schools of Thought
Tossing is another debated topic, especially on the kick serve. How far should the toss move to the server's left? Should the toss be more over the shoulder at 11 o'clock at contact, or is 12 o clock the correct position? How far forward or back should the second serve toss be? And a related question, should the player coil the shoulders during or after the toss? The toss position will determine your ability to hit the third most extreme kick variation, the twist. Toss location may affect the ability to disguise your serve as well. The different viewpoints here can be very confusing. The actual placement of the toss for the kick serve will depend on the philosophy of the player or coach.
There are two main schools, and here we find the origin of the kick serve tossing debate. The first school of thought says that the toss should be more centered above the body. These coaches will argue that this gives the serve more disguise--and that the first and second serves cannot be differentiated easily. These coaches usually do not value a back arch (which is directly related to how far the toss is thrown to the left).
In fact, they tend to discourage the back arch altogether. These coaches believe that tossing too far to the left and arching the back can cause a breakdown of the lower back and injury down the road. For this reason they encourage their players not to toss to the extreme left. The trade off for this school of thought is less twist action for more disguise and (presumably) less risk of injury.
The issue is not only related to the perceived potential for injury. It is also related to court surface and style of play. Disguise of the serve tends to reward the player more on fast courts. Coaches and players who subscribe to this school therefore tend to be from regions with predominantly fast surfaces, surfaces like grass or fast indoor courts or carpet. This tends to include coaches from the Scandinavian countries, England, India, Australia, and many parts of the US.
The second school of thought says that the toss should be more over the shoulder to the left of center. Coaches from this school believe in getting maximum twist sidespin and aren't as concerned about the potential for injury from arching the upper back. These coaches value the twist serve as a means to really make the returner move and to pull the returner off the court--they want the extreme angle. This philosophy will be more common in regions where clay court tennis is dominant, such as South America, some parts of France, and in Spain. Coaches and players from these regions want angles, angles, angles! The coaches want their players to open up the court and run their opponents coast to coast. So the natural corollary to this philosophy is to promote serve mechanics that maximize the angles, and these mechanics are toss to the left and a more extreme back arch.
Most of these coaches would argue that the risks of arching the back can be minimized with a good stretching and strengthening program. They don't value disguising the kick serve as much, because, on clay, disguising the serve does not provide the same benefits as on super fast surfaces. Clay is slow enough that the surprise factor is minimized and thus the returner usually has time to make last minute adjustments, even on a perfectly disguised serve. This school of thought will take the extreme angle and heavy twist action over disguise any day. That's different than on a grass court or a slick hard court where the ball shoots through the bounce faster. Here good disguise on the serve can mean a lot of free points.
The clash of these two serving schools is the main reason we have so much debate and confusion about the kick serve mechanics today. You will have to decide which side of the fence you want to call home. Do you want disguise or do you want more twist action and angle for your serve or your player's serve? Do you anticipate that you or your player will be more of a slow court grinder or likely to be more successful as a fast court attacking player? These types of individual considerations are factors in determining how you should develop the mechanics of the kick serve, and the serve motion in general.
I would like to offer two points of personal opinion. I believe that the risk of back injury with the twist serve has been exaggerated. I firmly believe that a player can develop a serve with an upper back arch (thoracic and cervical extension) and use it effectively and safely for a career if the proper stretching and strengthening programs are in place. The problem is that many players do not have such a program and thus expose themselves to a higher chance of injury. Players often incorrectly arch their lower back (lumbar spine), which is a mistake.
Most coaches are avoiding teaching this serve out of fear, and in this litigious society, you can understand why. One prominent coach now actually makes his students sign a legal release before agreeing to teach them the kick. One problem is that the back arch and stretching/strengthening programs are not being taught to players at a young enough age. Coaches wait until players are 13, 14, or 15 to teach kick serve mechanics. There is this idea that at a later age, the player will be more physically developed and thus less likely to get injured.I believe the opposite. I think players are more likely to get injured if the kick serve is introduced later. I think the motion should be introduced at 7, 8, and 9--before puberty, when the body is more supple, just as gymnastic moves are taught to the very young. I think the kick serve and a good stretching/strengthening program should be introduced very early on to take advantage of this developmental window.
In the next article, we will look more into tossing for the different types of kick serves, and I will demonstrate with my students exercises you can use to develop the motions needed for a great kick serve.
Stay tuned!
