Serving Aces

In tennis, one of the most crucial aspects of the game is serving.  Any player who has an outstanding serve will always be in the game no matter how bad they are playing in other parts.  No matter what, if you can always win your serve, then you will always be at least tied with your opponent.  Whats the best way to get better at something? Practice.  That's the same way to get better at serving in tennis.

Earlier I mentioned that serving is somewhat like an overhead except further back from the net.  This is true, but there is more routine to serving than hitting overheads. When serving, you get two chances to get the ball over and inbound to your opponent.  Usually, the first serve is the one where you want to try and do your best and faster serve, if that one fails to be in, then on your second serve do you lighten up a little bit and work on just getting the ball in to play out the point.  The best serves are the ones that are fast and hard for the opponent to return.  If you serve the ball and the opponent fails to return it, it's called an ace.  To get better visuals on how to serve, here is a picture of the court we used earlier.

Picture Courtesy of http://www.sporting-central.com/tennis-rules.html 

When serving, you start back at the baseline.  You will go back and forth each point, always serving behind the baseline from the right side of the dash to the opposite side right service box and from the left side of the dash to the opposite left service box.  If right handed, you will always face the right sideline while serving.  One of the hardest things about serving is your toss. It is a good idea to practice your toss many times before actually serving.  You want your toss to be about double your height, and in front of you, but within your reach. Once you get the hang of your toss, you want to practice throwing the ball up and the swinging through.  Your swing will be much like that of an overhead swing, you want to make contact with the ball when it's at the peak of your reach and swing down across your body.  As you toss the ball up, you should squat down, extend up, and then forward to make contact with the ball  Make sure that your toes are point in the direction that you want the ball to go, which is at a slant.

Here is a video to help you see everything I just explained.  Keep in mind that this video is just showing practice serves, and that's why sometimes he's serving from over the baseline.