Serving Tip of the Week!!

Serving for Success
When you think Andy Roddick, you think big, explosive serve. The kind of serve that you wouldn’t want to play butts-up for. The kind of serve you don’t want to return at risk of embarrassing yourself by cowering in a corner/running away. The kind of serve... well, you get the point, the man’s got a decent start to the point. Don’t you want to serve like Roddick? You’ll need to practice about 16 years. This is not one of those “In ten minutes or less a day” commercials. But on a more serious note, there are a few great pointers to take away from Roddick’s rocket, first or second for that matter.
Regardless of your serving style (I get it, you want to be unique, embrace your specialness, yada yada), there are common elements to every good serve (unless, of course, you’d rather not get it into the court- but then you’re reading the wrong blog).



First and foremost, let’s check out the ball toss in relation to the body in the loading position. Aka, where you toss the ball when you’re in “trophy stance.” Junior players like to toss the ball exactly everywhere where it shouldn’t be.  Too far over their heads, too far to the left, too far to the right, too far forward, ect. What happens is simple mechanics- the left arm drops too fast, and you are not getting the maximum force going into the court- instead, players wish to go against physics and end up falling backwards or to the left. Not good.
Back to our pal, Roddick. You’ll see in the video that Andy places his toss slightly to the right of the center above his head. Pause the video right at the loading position (aka trophy stance), and you’ll see that the ball is in a straight line with his left arm pointing up the ball.
Turn your brain off for a second- we’re refocusing. Now since I didn’t tell you to un-pause (de-pause? Sorry, amusing myself with semantics) the video, you shouldn’t have moved very far from Andy’s trophy stance, correct? Notice how his hips and trunk are rotated? You can see that he has loaded up to hit his serve with massive trunk rotation in the trophy stance, combined with extensive knee bend (hello squat jumps!). Left arm isn’t dangling to the side. It’s in a straight line with the ball at the apex (perfect placement for a toss to optimize power). Once Andy loads into trophy stance and maxes out his loading, he then explodes upwards and lands on his left leg with his back leg extending backwards to counterbalance his forward movement. Ta-da! The momentum propels him into the court, maximizing his power and at the same time placing him in a good position to recover to play the point. Since, you know, you’ll have to actually play the point after your serve. Oh, by the way, you can play the video now, see what I’m talking about.
So now you can serve like Andy Roddick. Yay! Well, what you should take away from this is that next time you go out to practice your serve, practice placing the ball toss in a straight line with your left arm in the trophy stance. It should be slightly to the right of center in the perfect position. Let it rip. But seriously, you’ll feel that you begin to get more power by propelling your body up and into the court. Make sure you are landing on your left leg for maximum rotation and power. Go on, why are you still in front of the computer? Make Roddick proud!
Stay tuned for more fun and tips!