How to Hit a Great Kick Serve in 6 Easy Steps!

hi this is Jeremy with fundamental test in this video I'm going to show you how to hit a reliable and effective second serve I know you may be struggling with the quality of your second serve maybe you're double faulting a lot your second serve can be putting you on defense straight away to start the rally here's a great video for you to help you with the quality and consistency of your second serve specifically what I will be showing you is progressions very simple progressions in which you don't even need a coach or another player with you just need a few tennis balls these progressions are going to show you how to hit a kick serve now for those of you who don't know what a kick serve is a kick serve is a type of serve in which you're making the ball have topspin and a bit of a diagonal side spin so the ball has topspin and spins from 7 o'clock to 1 o'clock if we think of it as a clock now the reason you want to have a kick serve is because you can swing as fast as you can as fast as you want and that ball will still go in the service box because of that topspin just like a ground strip when you hit top spin it makes the ball drop before it goes long past the service line if done correctly now the benefits of hitting a kick serve is also that it can make the ball bounce away from the returner or into the returners body based on your tactical intent now also the ball bounce is very high more so than any other type of serve so not only do you get good height over the net with a kick serve but you get good height after the bounce and that will get the ball to go above the returner strike zone so in these progressions of learning a kick serve I'm going to talk about the contact points the swing path the grip and the toss so these four things are the only things or the most important things you need to hitting a kick serve so let's dive right into the video and I hope that you enjoy first thing we need to establish is what grip should you use for the kick sir in other words how should you position your hand on the grip of your racket now the correct grip for the kick serve is the Continental grip so to find the Continental grip you want to hold your racket as if you're hammering a nail so the Continental grip is also referred to as the hammer grip for this reason again pretend that you're holding a hammer and you should naturally find the correct grip for your kick sir another way to find the right grip is if we take a look at my racket I'd like you to have your racket like mine is in which the frame of the racket is pointing up now if we look at the grip there are eight sides or eight bevels to the grip if I have my finger right now on bevel one which is the top bevel if we go one bevel to the right we are now on bevel two which is the golden bevel that is the Continental grip so what part of our hand goes in line with the second bevel or the Continental bevel now I have two x's on my hand I use as a reference to finding the grip this is the underbase index knuckle that goes on bevel two and then this is the center of the heel pad that also goes on bevel two so find bevel two by having a frame of your racket pointing up we put our finger on bevel one which is the top bevel and move your finger one bevel to the right you now have found bevel two here and I just put the X's or the under base knuckle in the center of my heel pad in line with that second bevel so now that I have the hammer grip now that we have the Continental grip you have a chance to have a great kick serve I want you to really understand what a kick surveys are how to do a kick serve so that when we do the progressions it really makes a lot of sense so the first thing I want to talk about is the contact point when you do a flat or slicer the racket head is going to be pretty much directly above the hitting and as you can see here however on a kick serve the racket head should be well to the inside of your hitting hand so the racket is is diagonal to to your left or the tip of the racket is pointing to your left if you are a righty now the reason the contact point should be like this as you see the contact is lower here compared to a flat surface here the reason the contact should be lower on a kick serve is because just like a forehand or a backhand ground stroke you have to swing low to high now in a kick serve if I hit the ball as high as I can I can't go any higher so I've already done the low to high part prior to contact now the contact should be in the middle of the low to high so I swing up to contact I make contact here and then after contact I continue up up up that's what creates the topspin just like a ground stroke again just like a ground stroke your swing low to high to create topspin so contact is to the inside of the hitting hand and it's lower therefore the ball toss has to drop lower prior to contact then again after contact you just continue to go up so it's different in that sense compared to a flat serve a slicer now when it comes to the swing path when you hit a flat serve a slice serve the swing path has much more towards the target so if you are my target the camera is my target I'm swinging this way however on a kick serve the swing path is much more along the baseline as opposed to towards my target now if we have a clock around us I want you to visualize as a righty swinging more towards two o'clock or 2:30 as opposed to swinging towards twelve o'clock so the reason the kick serves swing path is more to the right as already is because that is what's going to help you create that side spin right so we've got contact lower for the topspin and we have the swing path more along the baseline for the side spin when it comes to the toss if you have a good toss for a kick serve and don't hit it the ball should land about right in between your eyes so the main difference and a kick serve toss compared to a flatter slice serve toss is if there's a clock above us here now the ball toss should go towards 11 o'clock as opposed to 12 o'clock so the toss is more to the left the reason being is getting that stalks more to your left is going to allow you to get that establish the swing path to the right okay so the toss should land about on your head contact is lower on a kick serve and the swing path is very much up and to the right if you are a righty in this first progression you don't need a tennis racket you simply need a tennis ball and you're just going to take your non-dominant hand hold it at head level with the palm of your hand facing you notice how the fingers of my hand are together I don't have them separated so fingers together palm to your face and the palm palm of your hand is at head level you're going to take a tennis ball now and sandwich the ball in between both of your hands this progression is great to work on the contact of the kick serve and especially give you a feel for the swing tap that you need so from here you're just going to roll the ball up your non-dominant hand a few times and sure that your non-dominant hand is stable with the fingers together and after you've done a few rolls like this you take the ball push it against the bottom of your non-dominant hand and simply swing up like so and I held the finish and let the ball hit me because I want it I want to emphasize that high that load a high swing path and ensure that I finished higher I'll show you one more time sandwich the ball in between your hands and you're simply going to go up a few times if you want and then notice how that ball went high after I released it so if the bolt doesn't go high that means that you're not swinging up enough or you're changing the angle of your non-dominant hand so try a few reps of that and then you'll soon feel what it's like to have the kick serve swing pass we're going to do the same thing we just did in the previous progression but time you now have a racket so you sandwich the ball between your hand and the strings of your racket your hand and the ball should be at head level they start with the ball at the bottom of your palm as you can see here and then from here you're going to swing up and then finish with the tip of your racket pointing up and you're hitting arms straight I'll show you one last time sandwich the ball between your non-dominant hand and the strings of your racket now from here you're going to maybe roll up the hand a few times get a feel for it and then from here we go here hold the finish see all my hitting arm is straight iraq miss putting up remember to ensure that your grip is correct you have the Continental grip and that that progression is great to feel again the contact point the swing path and get you out of the habit of the flattened slice serve in which is a very different contact point and swing path the next progression is a bit of a two-parter or I should say two options that you can choose from two variations that you can choose now the first option you can do is you're going to hold the top of the grip up near the throat and you're going to start with the racket in front of your face as you did for the previous progression however you are going to toss the ball up a little bit and after contact you're gonna fish in the same position so I toss contact and finish so I hold the finish make sure that I finish as high as I could I'm gonna show you from the back view the same thing I just did so I start with the strings right in front of my face facing the target I tossed a little bit not doing the typical higher toss is a very very low toss pretty much just tossing to where your racket is so I toss the ball up a little bit make contact and then I finished high so you should see the ball spinning end over end forward like a bicycle tire if you do it correctly you should see that topspin now another option here is some of my players have difficulty with that progression so I like to have them do this so have the frame of the racket gently on the top of your head you're gonna toss the ball up wait as long as possible before contact hit it just a couple inches above your head so I'll show you from the back view here so I'm I wait for the ball to come down make contact and I've finished higher that wasn't my best toss let me try again I'll show you from the side view frame of the racket gently on your head you toss the ball wait as long as you can make contact and then after contact you continue the racket up and with the racket pointing to the ceiling so remember you want to make contact prior to your highest reach as you may have noticed each progression is going to be a bit more challenging a little bit more realistic and we're going to add a parts to the serve and each progression so in this progression you're going to hold the racket at the bottom of the grip now I'd like you to throw from the add side if you're a righty and if you're a lefty you serve from the deuce side now you can also serve over curtain or over a fence as it's a very high target to hit over so I like to do this with a lot of my players to encourage them to swing up what I'm going to do this into the court or rather I'm really just trying to get the technique down and not necessarily trying to get it in the high of that ball goes after I hit the more I can see that I have done it correctly I can hear the spin I can see the spin so we're going to hold it again at the bottom of the grip I start with the rack and all the way down my back and move forth so you can see me here we're going to top the ball wait as long as possible before contact wait as long as possible to swing up because it's very common that players swing up too early on the kick serve and they make contact too high because they're so used to on a flat serve and a slice they're playing the ball higher exaggerate you'll see how long I wait for the bone and see how low I make contact so I toss it above my head pointing up my arm is straight so I hold that finish to make sure that I've got the high part of the load of high swing trap rack it down the back toss it above my head wait for it great everything there was terrific except I hit the frame I'm not perfect either now this time I'm going to swing do my serve over the curtain I'm going to hit it over the curtain and I think again I think that's a great idea I think it's better to do that to these first there's next couple progression so I toss the ball up wait as long as I can contact I'll be really good I almost hit the ceiling there so really exaggerating the low to high we're not trying to get power if you're trying to get power and your swing path will probably be incorrect so you should see a very high trajectory you should feel the difference you should feel the brush and you should hear it you just to be clear I don't want you using your legs or jumping off the ground just yet when learning to kick serve it's important to use as little body parts as possible and keep everything simple just to get a feel for the swing path and how everything works so in this progression now I'm going to be on the ground knee on the ground I'm going to be hanging the ball over a curtain here but you could be standing up doing the same thing or you can serve it into the service box this is just the variation I chose because I love to do this with my players as it makes them feel very short and of course it so it really encourages them to hit up and the tall curtain here is just a bonus so now we're going to start in the trophy position with the hitting arm in this L position or throwing position you got to toss the bowl up rack it down the back throw the racket up at the ball and finish with the racket pointing up so I toss it as if I might toss it onto my head contact of low and I finished holding the fish so we're not following through just yet that's in another progression or two when we get the finishing touches so trophy position I got my continental grip toss the ball over my head wait for contact make contact hold the finish check the finish you should hear the spin it should feel different and that is it for this progression last two progressions I want you to get into your usual serve ready position you're going to do the motion that you've always done with your serve although we have now of course adapted our technique to a kick serve and that the toss is different as well as the swing path and contact is a little different so I'm going to show you from the side view first one last time we're going to finish with the racket pointing up and then soon we're going to get that full follow-through so not trying to kill the ball or not trying to hit as far as we can we're not looking for a ton of acceleration just yet because you're just starting these progressions the first time you're doing a kick serve maybe the faster swing the more likely you are to go back to your old technical habits so not looking for a ton of rapid head speed here but we're doing the full motion besides the follow-through let's see how this one goes right and one more time so I'm going to show you from the back view here last progression you just simply finish the swing although you should be doing the same things you did with all the other progressions where you make contact low after contact and then your usual fall through the fall through should naturally finish more on your dominant side a bit more so than than your other type of notice hopefully you see that after a jump to the right and that's really hard to to read that ball you're gonna find yourself on offense a lot you can get a quality kick serve like that so remember the most important things we've got the toss we've got the grip we've got the the swing path and the contact point you master all four of those things use these progressions do each each progression slowly gradually make sure you don't go the next progression until you've mastered the previous progression you are gonna have a great kick serve in no time so once again my name is Jeremy and I'm with fundamental tests please give me a like subscribe let me know what you think of the video and I certainly enjoyed making this video I hope you found great value in this and I hope to hear from you soon and and I love you to continue watching my future videos as I think that you can learn from those as well you you

Channel: Fundamental Tennis

Views: 207,981

Rating: 4.934413 out of 5

Keywords: iMovie

Id: zhbn_iE9hSU

Length: 19min 8sec (1148 seconds)

Published: Sat May 04 2019