Types of Tennis Serves

Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Jason
Senior Marketing Manager

The serve in Tennis can be a difficult shot to learn for beginners, but it is worth persevering, as once you have mastered how to serve in Tennis, it can give you a big advantage over your opponents. Yes, we’re all about “Fun First, Winning Second”, but let’s face facts, it’s nice to be able to successfully execute the fundamentals of the game. Not being able to serve really breaks down the rhythm of the game. It will also break your partners heart, which is ironic considering it’s a game of love! In any event, here are the 4 main types of Tennis serves:

  1. The Flat Serve: Sounds boring right?! For the Flat Serve, the server normally uses a Continental or an Eastern grip and swings directly through the ball, using no spin. The key to a good Flat serve is power. Some professional players can hit them at over 150 mph.
  2. The Slice Serve: The cool one in the group. For the Slice Serve, the server adopts a version of the Continental or Eastern backhand grip and brushes their racket across the right hand side of the ball (assuming the server is right handed, a left handed person brushes the left hand side of the ball), making the ball spin. The sidespin makes the ball curve to the left and dip slightly, then bounce off the ground in a leftward direction (or rightward if the server is a lefty). The slice serve can be used to go for an ace, to push the receiver off court and out of position, or to make the ball bounce up at the receiver’s body. Then the receiver is all awkward, not knowing what to do!
  3. The Kick Serve: The Kick Serve has been around since the mountains were hills. The ball is tossed up over the head and the racket brushes up and through it from roughly a 7 o’clock to 1 o’clock position. If done properly, the ball should arch over the net and then hit the ground with topspin and bounce up towards the receiver. A variation of the Kick Serve is the American Twist, which is similar to the Kick, except that the spin is applied to the ball to make it bounce up and towards the left of the receiver, rather than straight at them. Someone needs to invent a Canadian Shout!
  4. The Underhanded Serve: Out of all the different types of Tennis serves, serving underhand is the rarest…like a unicorn or mountain gorilla. It is, however, legitimate at all levels of the game and can be employed at any time. As it is so rare, it is often used to surprise an opponent.

Good players will often use a mixture of different serve types. Typically they will use a Flat Serve or a Slice Serve for their first serve, as these can make things difficult for the receiver and are most likely to get aces. These serves have a relatively large margin of error, however, and there is a reasonable chance the serve will hit the net or go out of bounds.

Good luck out there players!