Tennis Serve Lesson for Beginners - How To Hit a Serve

Are you just getting started in tennis and struggling with figuring out how to serve? Or maybe you've been playing tennis for a while and your serve has just always lagged behind and been a problem. So this video is for you and unfortunately the big problem is that most tennis players who have problems with their serve never learned how to throw effectively, and that's really the foundational mechanics or movement behind a good serve. Well that problem gets solved right now I'm about to teach you how to throw effectively and then show you step by step how that translates into a great serve. First we're going to begin with a [3-step] series of progressions on how to throw. All you need is a tennis ball and any open space. Preferably someplace with a wall where you can throw the ball against and you're going to begin by [turning] to the side of the direction that you intend to throw in and start by taking your arm and your hand back now your set up position is going to be Sideways with your hand facing forwards or sideways to the direction where you intend to throw. And what's going to happen here as you rotate forwards is your hand will rotate in towards you and Then it will rotate back out again. So what's happening? Here is your hand is initially facing out then facing in and then facing out again, so out in out This is the mechanical foundation of a good Overhand Motion and it has to do with how you're using your shoulder. How you're using your forearm in your hand and Syncing that with the rotation of your body so we'll begin by [doing] that in kind of a Segmented Fashion at first so that you can really see and feel those different positions as you move through them and then slowly and gradually You want to start making that a fluid smooth motion where your body is rotating forwards and your hand is facing out then in then out Out in out and you start to make that a Continuous fluid smooth motion then eventually you want to take a ball and as you go smoothly Slowly through that motion actually start to release the ball and throw it towards a wall now I highly recommend that you start off very slow and relaxed in fact being fluid and smooth and slow and relaxed at first is Essential so you can be aware [of] what your body [mechanics]? Are you get get a feel for those different positions? And you can really control what you're doing and do it correctly then as you start to get comfortable You can start to accelerate a little more, but as soon as you feel like you start to lose those mechanics and those different positions Slow it [back] [down] again [gain] some awareness and make sure that you're doing it correctly and smoothly without getting tight intense Now you have a [step-By-step] practice plan that you can use at home to learn how to throw Correctly and this is the foundation for a good serve and this will keep you away from those embarrassing looking throws and service motions that you've undoubtedly seen at your local courts that looked very weak and just basically pushing the ball over to the other side just Like a weak throw that you'll see somebody execute who doesn't know how to use their shoulder arm and body correctly so now that you know how to do the throw let's put the racket in your hand and move in the direction of a Fundamentally sound service motion and that all begins with the grip [if] you don't have the right grip then you'll naturally Gravitate towards more of a pushing motion and the grip that you want to have is Continental and what you want to look for is the big knuckle on your dominant hand [your] index finger big knuckle to be on the second bevel of the grip starting from the top So if you put your racket straight up and down the bevel all the way on the very top is number one and then you Just want to go one angled section of your grip over to the right That's where your big knuckle of your index finger [should] be with your hand spread out across the handle now that we have the same grip we're going to go ahead and line [ourselves] up sideways to our intended Target and just Like we did with our throwing practice We're going to start off by taking our arm and our hand back so that our hand if we were to open it is Facing away from us forwards in the same direction that we're facing And sideways to our intended Target and just like with our throwing practice We're going to start off [with] [our] hand facing outwards Then as we turn forwards our hand will rotate to face inwards towards us And then rotate back outwards again as our hand and shoulders straighten and go up towards full extension and Just like with the throw we're going to begin by segmenting this so hand outwards hand inwards and hand outwards again Start off by segmenting it very closely and just one step at a time So [you] can really see and feel what you're doing, and then just like with the throw Start to bring it together smoothly Again following those same three steps hand out hand in and hand out slowly increase your speed while maintaining a high [level] of relaxation and smoothness and Now you're on your [way] to having a fundamentally sound motion with your shoulder arm hand and body Your next step is going to be that start to actually hit the ball Beginning from this abbreviated starting position with your body turned to the side your arm and your hand back your palm facing out away from you in the same direction that you're facing I during your set up and As we get to this point the toss is very important What you want to avoid is hinging at the wrist and hinging at the elbow and flipping the ball up into the air? It's the biggest mistake that Especially beginning players make but also experienced players make this mistake as well You want to keep your arms straight and lift smoothly at the shoulder and guide the ball up into the air Once you've got that down What you want to do is guide the ball up into the air and then move through those three phases of our overhand swing Palm facing out palm facing in and palm facing out again as you reach up and make contact with the ball Now if you feel yourself breaking any of those different parts of our motion then go back to just doing the racket again take out take the ball out of the equation and just Get a feel for it before [you] reintroduce the ball again This is critical because if you just throw the ball up and just do whatever comes natural to you You'll probably go back to your old habits and you won't actually retain any of the practice that we've just completed with our racket or with our throne as You start to get comfortable making contact from this abbreviated motion you can slowly start to Accelerate a little bit more but not much. I wouldn't go really beyond [25%] of your max swing speed Instead keep it slow and smooth and just make sure that you're very aware of what you're doing with your body So you can get some really quality repetition repetition in. And make sure that you are going through all three of those checkpoints Correctly finally we're going to put everything together and begin with our hands together in front of us turn sideways to our Target and now we're going to take the racket back as we put our toss up into the air and All we're doing here is just taking our Racket in our shoulder back and putting it in that same position that we've been practicing from in our Abbreviated motion and then flowing through the rest of the motion from there So you'll draw the racket [backs] Smoothly bring it up to that hand out position Rotate forwards turn the hand in and then turn the hand out again as you reach up and extend with your arm and shoulder the Key here is Smoothness fluidity and you'll notice that as you move through this motion You'll feel several different circular paths taking place and that's the rhythm that we're looking for that the fluidity and the smoothness that we need as We move through this range of motion with [our] shoulder arm hand and body to be able to create High levels of acceleration eventually as you begin to get comfortable with this overall motion if you make your way Step-By-step through each of these steps in each of these progressions you start to be able to develop a Solid overhand motion with your throw and also a solid Serve base as well. There's a lot more that goes into a high level serve But this is really at [the] core and without what we just talked about demonstrated and explains It's not going to be possible [for] you to really reach your potential on the serve whether you're a beginner, or Somebody who's been playing for a long time that needs to kind of rebuild his or her motion, Start start here and really use this as your foundation and go from there. Thank you so much for watching I hope this has been a big help to you and I hope that as you go out and practice These different elements you start to really see some Exciting benefits as far as your throw and your server concerned if you enjoyed this lesson, do me a favor and click like Also be sure to subscribe Follow us on Social media as well So you don't miss out [on] our future videos if you have any comments or questions leave those down below as well as it may Be any topics that you'd like to see us cover in future tutorials as well Thanks for watching take care and good luck with your tennis

Channel: Essential Tennis - Lessons and Instruction for Passionate Players

Views: 556,629

Rating: 4.9222059 out of 5

Keywords: Essential Tennis, Ian Westermann, tennis, serve, lesson, beginner, how, to, hit, acorrect, good, proper, coaching, instruction, tutorial, free, swing, toss, waiter, tray, throw, pronate, position, hand, video, bad, habit, work, practice, advance, level

Id: FKtqaKjZVPs

Length: 9min 38sec (578 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 05 2016