Ball launch: advantage or disadvantage for your service?
We can talk about the serve as one of the most complex sequences in tennis. Even though there iss no footwork or movement involved, the serve in tennis is without a doubt one of the movements that requires the most flexibility, relaxation, coordination and technique. Several elements are to be considered if you want to improve your service, but it is important to treat them separately and therefore one at a time to achieve real improvements. What is interesting with the service is that the practice can be done alone, it is not necessary to have a partner, a field is sufficient, even a wall will do! (calculate 39 feet to the wall and draw a line 36 inches from the ground to represent the net).
Over the years, after coaching hundreds of players at all skill levels, I have noticed that throwing the ball is often misunderstood or poorly executed. Where to place the ball in the air, to the right or left of the body, how high, how to hold the ball in your hand, how to release it from your hand so that it comes out well and is well placed, what to do with then the left arm (for right-handed people…for left-handed people: always consider the reverse).
Is your ball toss hurting your serve? It's time to fix the situation because we're talking about the most important shot in your game, the one that will set the rally in motion and give you the advantage or put you in trouble from the start of the point!
Since throwing the ball is the basis of a quality serve, you must make sure you understand the basics and get the maximum quality from the start of the service motion.
Catch and "release" the ball
If you want to perform well on serve, it is imperative to hold the ball well in your hand. I recommend not holding the ball too much in the fingertips, nor too much in the palm. The ball must be held with the fingers but in a very relaxed way. When we start the movement, we want the ball to be skyward with the open hand facing up. Some people start their move by holding the ball pointing to the ground which complicates the task unnecessarily. It is then important to start your movement with both hands in front of your body but slightly to the right. It takes a swinging motion with both arms to create momentum that will allow us to properly release the ball without "throwing" it. This is referred to as a "throw" of the ball but I prefer the term "drop" of the ball because you don't want to make a snappy throwing motion. The slowness of the movement is very important because it ensures a better placement of the ball in space. It is also very important to open your hand wide when releasing the ball.
Placement of the ball
Many players have their fingers so tight that the ball will “hook” before it comes out and it is then difficult to place it well. The idea would be to place the ball slightly to the right of the body because our right arm will necessarily pass to the right as well to hit the ball with the racket. Some throw the ball too directly in front of them, or worse too to the left, making it difficult to maintain good balance on contact. We can say that we want to place the ball at 1 o'clock to better image everything for a flat or cut service and slightly to the left-behind for a brush service. As for the “front-to-back” placement of the ball, the ball should stay slightly in front of the baseline. Throwing too much behind you and you lose your balance backwards, throwing the ball too far forward and you lose your balance forward, which often makes you go to the net. A ball well placed in space, which stays slightly in front of us and slightly to the right of the body will allow us to keep a good balance to attack it well
To do this, we try to release the ball at eye level as much as possible, then continue to extend the left arm which will remain at the top in extension to ensure better ball placement, better balance and good transfer. of power between the left side and the right side of the body. It is very important not to try to lower the left arm too quickly, because the ball will not rise well, and you will lose the balance necessary for the execution. You can also try to see as little rotation as possible in the ball during the throw. If you can make out the mark of the ball well when you throw it, that's a very good sign that the ball is coming out of the hand cleanly. Spins will cause the ball to move through space which is undesirable. I emphasize the fact that all this throwing movement must happen in a slow and fluid way to give a good result and allow us to accelerate well afterwards with a change of pace necessary to generate power which would not be possible if the throw is too sharp and too fast.
The height at which the ball should end up is an essential aspect because it is the whole rhythm of the service that will depend on it. Throwing the ball too high will put us in a “passive” mode waiting for the ball to come down, and throwing the ball too low will put undue pressure on us to hit the ball right away without having time to settle down properly. Like all strokes in tennis, it is necessary to center your ball well in your racket when serving and this will come with a good balance, therefore a good throw. If we look at the professionals, we can observe a wide variety of ball heights during their serve throw. If we take Milos Raonic for example, he chooses to throw his ball very high in the air. You will notice that the call of the racquet behind his back will be slow enough to allow the ball time to come down to the right place before hitting it. The disadvantage for a club player who throws his ball very high is that the risks of errors in the placement of the ball are then greater and that the ball will come down towards us more quickly too, so the coordination for the contact will be more hard to find. The advantage is that this type of throw gives us more time to settle and get our balance before hitting.
Find the right place
If we then look at a player like Andy Roddick when he was still playing, we could observe that his ball throw was relatively low compared to his body. This one chose not to send the racket very far behind during his motion but to raise it immediately towards the “trophy” position to be in time on his strike. (The “trophy” position is the one that can be observed when the serving player has both arms parallel in the air before dropping the racket behind his back, on serve or at the spike). The advantage of this technique is that it gives a lot of explosiveness to the shot and it is easier to control the position of the ball in space; the downside is that we have very little time to settle on the legs before we strike. This is the reason why Roddick chose a half-motion on the serve, so not to send the racquet behind his body but rather brought the racquet very quickly in the movement. (I advise everyone to watch all of this in slow motion on Youtube: very informative!). What I suggest to club players is to mimic their throw on that of a player like Roger Federer. This one chooses to throw the ball just high enough to have time to make a full motion with the right arm but not too high so as not to lose rhythm and coordination. To find this spot, put your right arm above your head as if you were reaching to serve, what you want is to throw the ball just above the top frame of your racquet to get the height result you want.
We must never forget that the throwing of the ball is the basis of the service, it is easy to understand this by observing players who experience difficulties with it to see the pressure it puts on the service. Many players have difficulty in moments of pressure to find a good fluidity when throwing the ball, which will cause imbalances, more errors, double faults and possibly a loss of confidence in their service!
The service being probably one of the two most important strokes in tennis with the return of service, it is essential to master it to perform. Once again the beauty of the thing is that we don't even need a tennis court to practice our "dropping" of the ball, a little space above us and a line drawn on the ground will make the affair. I also advise when you practice your ball throw to always drop the ball on the ground to measure the quality of your throw at each try and thus better recognize the improvements to be made. The ball should land slightly to the right of the body, slightly in front of the baseline and have the required height for the pace you want to adopt.
By better controlling your ball throw you will find an unsuspected ally in your service!
Happy tennis :)