Serve - 5.The Four Different Types of Tennis Serves

The Four Different Types of Tennis Serves

There are four different types of serves that can be learned and each can be used to your advantage. Some of these serves may be effective against certain opponents and other may not.

Mixing up all four serves through out a match may cause your opponent problems because they can never find a rhythm in returning your serve. Learning to effectively hit each serve is key to advancing the service part of your game.

There are four kinds of serves you need to be aware of, the flat serve, slice serve, kick serve, and the topspin serve. All four serves can be very effective and no one serve is better than any of the others. Each has their advantages and disadvantages, learning how to hit all four is important, and learning to mix them up in a match against an opponent is even more important. Here we will list the advantages and disadvantages of each serve.

Flat Serve

Advantages
1. Speed of the serve gives your opponent less time to react and prepare for the return.
2. Helps to win easy points which in turn can also help you conserve energy.
3. Easy to learn.

Disadvantages
1. Gives serve and volley players less time to get to the net.
2. Percentage of serves that go in can be very low.
3. Harder for shorter people to get the clearance over the net with out some spin.
4. When returnee gets their racquet on the ball the return can come back very fast b/c they are using the power you generated.

Slice Serve

Advantages
1. Ball bounces low, away from or into opponent's body.
2. You can use the spin to make the ball get further away from the opponent stretching them out, or you can use it to spin into their body jamming them.
3. Percentage of serves in is high.
4. Easy to learn.

Disadvantages
1. It's a basic serve, people are used to hitting back slice serves.

Kick Serve

Advantages
1. Ball bounces high, away from or into opponent's body.
2. Ball bounces opposite direction of which it hits the ground.
3. Gives serve-and-volley players time to get to the net.
4. Hard to attack.
5. A lot of less experienced people have not seen or played much against a kick serve and it may really throw them off.

Disadvantages
1. If your opponent hit's the ball off the rise it takes away the effectiveness of the serve, not allowing the ball to go far in any direction.

2. Hard to learn.

Top Spin Serve

Advantages
1. Gives serve-and-volley players time to get to the net.
2. Bounces high.
3. Great consistency.
4. Easy to learn.

Disadvantages
1. If opponent hit's the ball off the rise it takes away the effectiveness of the serve, not allowing the ball to bounce high.
2. Easy to hit back.

3. Easy to see coming.


A Quick Breakdown of How To Strike The Ball for Each Serve

Please be aware that there is much more to these serves than I am explaining in this section. For the first three I am only going to talk about the motion your racquet needs to hit/brush the ball to execute these serves. Watching the pros is a great way to see how the whole body needs to move as one for the serve! The numbers I am referring to are the numbers on a clock so you can get orientated on how to hit the ball. These are also assuming you are right handed. (Sorry lefties)

The Flat Serve: No spin on the ball, just drive through the ball towards the court!

Here is an example of Serena Williams hitting a flat serve.

The Slice Serve: Brush the ball on the right side driving through the ball towards the court. Your swing should move right to left slightly as you hit this serve and follow through.

The Topspin Serve: Brush the ball from low to high, from 6 to 12. The harder you brush the ball, the more spin you will get.

The Kick Serve: Brush the ball from low to high, from 8 to 1 or 2 o'clock. Here is a great example of a kick serve illustrated by Patrick Rafter.