Serving And Your Tennis Game - Common Questions Answered
Below are some questions from a reader. If you’ve ever had questions about your serve, I encourage you to these questions and my responses below.
Hi Coach Kyril,
I was wondering where I could download the serving article. I also have some questions to put pace and slice on my kick serve. I have played with and seen a nationally ranked USTA players (18-under) play and serve. This guy at the place where I play has a nasty kick/slice serve. It kicks up into the air like a kick serve yet it curves like a slice (very sharp). So if I was standing
on the deuce side receiving the ball would kick and slice to my right sharply with plenty of pace. This serve aced me many times. I tried hitting a slice serve but it would slice flat and it is easier to hit. Plus the curve action was not as sharp. My kick second serve has decent pace and kick but it can be hit back (but not as a winner). I was wondering about a few things.
1)How to hit this kick/slice serve myself. (I have a kick serve with decent pace that sometimes does and American Twist but the movement of the twist ball is slight)
2)How to return this serve without being aced. (this guy aced me quite a few times even on second serve)
3)How to put more pace on my kick serve?
I hope you can answer my questions. Thanks
I hope you can answer my questions. Thanks
Here are my responses to this reader’s questions:
As far as the ‘how’ of hitting a ‘kick/slice’ serve goes, you have to understand the individual parts of the kick serve and the slice serve first. Let’s start with the slice.
The Slice Serve:
The Slice serve is called just that because of what it does - it ’slices’ away from you as it hits the ground. The reason for this is because of the sideways spin dynamic on the ball. This is very basic. The sideways spin on the ball is caused by the string bed on the face of the tennis racket hitting the tennis ball slightly to the right of center relative to the front of the ball, and hitting it from a horizontal bias. To picture exactly ‘where’ the strings hit the ball, imagine this:
Imagine the tennis ball as a person’s head. At the apex of your toss, when you make contact, the ‘face’ on this ball is facing (the fence/curtain whatever’s behind the baseline), or ‘looking’ behind you. With me so far? Okay. On a ’slice’ serve, the strings are making contact where the right ‘eye’ would be (for a right-handed player), as in right-center. The racket is coming into the ball from the side, and moving forward and horizontally at the same time. This propels the ball forward with side spin. The amount of side spin (number of sideways spinning revolutions per distance travelled) produced on the tennis ball will always be relative to:
1. How fast the racket is traveling when it strikes the ball,
2. The direction (angle) that the racket is traveling toward the tennis ball, and
3. The relationship between forward and sideways movement of the racket.
In other words, if I swing toward the ‘outside’ of the tennis ball (by the right ‘eye’) from a steep horizontal angle (racket coming from the right side) and swing hard with my racket toward the ’side’ of the ball, I will produce a lot of spin on the ball but not much forward speed. (A lot of players experience this when they first start try to hit a slice, and because they don’t know what pronation is and how to use it, they hit weak, shallow ‘junk balls’ that don’t have any pace. But if you’re a regular reader of mine, that shouldn’t be a problem for you 
Now, if I were to hit the right ‘eye’ of the tennis ball with a racket that is moving from a shallower angle (not swinging as much from the ‘outside’) and pronated my wrist, I would get the ball moving forward with good pace and a ton of spin. How do you strike this balance between spin and forward speed? Simple: practice. Just remember the underlying principle: you must strike the ball by the right ‘eye’, or the ‘right side of the ‘face’ on the tennis ball to produce the side spin will cause the ball to slice away from your opponent when it hits the playing surface.
It also helps to toss the ball a little further out to your right, as this will force you to extend your right arm and lay your wrist ‘back’, which causes the racket to approach the ball from the correct angle to induce sidespin. Proper pronation of your forearm and wrist will seal the deal.
The Kick Serve:
Okay, on to the ‘kick’ serve. Remember that our tennis ball is an imaginary ‘head’ with a ‘face’ on it. Without giving you a physics dissertation, let me just say that when hitting a kick serve, the racket is approaching the tennis ball from the lower part (think lower part of left ‘jaw’) on the ‘face’ on the ball and traveling toward the upper right part of the face. If you were to draw a line from the the lower left ‘jaw’ to the right ‘eye’, this would be the line that the racket travels as it strikes the ball. The racket stikes the ball on the ‘nose’ (center of the face). This gets the ball spinning up and at an angle. Think of it as ‘topspin at an angle’.
Now if this ‘topspin at an angle’ does not have a lot spin or pace, it will behave like a regular ’spin’ serve, meaning there won’t be much ‘junk’ on the ball, and it won’t behave the way you want it to; it certainly won’t hurt your opponent’s chances of returning your serve. However if we add a good healthy dose of fast forearm and wrist pronation to the formula, you then get a deadly (for your opponent) cocktail of spin and pace (speed) that will cause the ball to ‘kick’ back the opposite direction of it’s flight path when it bounces, keeping your opponent on his ‘toes’.
The Combo Kick/Slice Serve:
Alright, now for this thing called a ‘kick/slice’. This is a serve that behaves like a ‘kick’ in how it clears the net and angles down toward the service box, and behaves like a ’slice’ in that it moves away from you (assuming a scenario where you’re receiving in the deuce court and your opponent is serving wide to your forehand). This ‘kick/slice’ is really nothing more than a slice serve that has been struck at more of a low-to-high angle than a regular slice. Remember our ‘head’ and ‘face’ analogy? Picture a regular slice where the racket face approaches the ‘face’ of the ball from the right side and brushes the ball by the right ‘eye’, creating sidespin. Now Picture the racket traveling a little more ‘low-to-high’, and brushing the ball in the same spot with the racket’s line of travel coming from the ‘nose’ on the face of the ball. Just enough - and I mean very little - upward spin is produced to get the ball to ‘dive’ a little steeper than a normal slice, and more than enough sidespin is on the ball to cause it to slice ‘away’ from the receiver.
Returning the Slice and Kick/Slice serves:
Now as for how to return this serve without being aced: Watch where your opponent lines up on the baseline to serve relative to the hash mark in the center of the court, and watch his toss. (I’m assuming your opponent is acing you wide to the forehand side in the deuce court with this serve). He will in all likelihood either move out further to the right (rookie move that experienced players will notice right away and prepare for), or he will toss farther out wide to the right than normal, for the reasons I mentioned earlier in this post.
If he’s not a ‘rookie’ and is standing out wide and to the right when he serves, then he’s either very confident of his ability hurt you with his serve and doesn’t even care if you notice it, or he’s trying to fool you by standing out wide and going up the middle to your backhand. Either way, just remember that your opponent must either move right, toss right or both in order to get a sidespin-bias to the ball and hit this serve effectively to your forehand side, so the ‘tells’ are there. Just watch for them.
Another good way to prevent getting ‘aced’ by this serve is to adjust where you stand when receiving in the deuce court. Here are five things you can do that will help neutralize this type of serve in the deuce court:
1. Move your receiving position closer to the singles sideline. This puts you closer to your forehand side.
2. Face your opponent - not the net - squarely with your shoulders. This narrows the approach angle of the ball relative to your body position, and keeps you angled properly should you need to hit a backhand if he tries to fool you by going up the middle. It’s all about angles.
3. Move your receiving stance closer to and, if possible, on or inside the baseline to return. Again, cutting down the angles. Your comfort level in doing this will depend on how ‘big’ your opponent’s serve is, and how good your normal return of serve is.
4. Make sure you do a ’split-step’ just before your opponent’s racket hits the ball, which will keep you ‘on your toes’ and ready. (This is standard receiving procedure, but it always bears repeating).
5. Lastly, stay low. A slice bounces low and stays low, so you should to. This will help you move quicker and ’stay down’ on the ball as you attempt to return it.
Getting More Pace On Your Kick Serve
That’s easy - fast forearm and wrist pronation with an exaggerated follow-through!
And remember - Make It A Great Day!
To Your Massive Tennis Success,
Coach Kyril
Kyril Popoff is a former NCAA Div1 All-Conference Tennis Player, Instructor, Coach and Author.
His books include THE TEN LAWS OF TENNIS SUCCESS and FOCUS & WIN: WHY YOUR TENNIS GAME ISN’T WHERE YOU WANT IT TO BE, & WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT!
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