How to Master Your Tennis Serve

Your serve is the only part of a tennis match where you’re in complete control. Sometimes, you can even serve an ace — winning an immediate point with a powerful, well-placed serve. If your opponent returns your serve, you’ve still managed to limit their options and put yourself in the best position for your next shot. 

Refining your serve is one of the best ways to improve your tennis results. To do that, you need to understand the technique you’re trying to achieve.

8 Tips for the Perfect Tennis Serve

Your serve is one of the most crucial yet complex parts of your tennis skill set. These eight tennis serve tips will help you master it one step at a time.

1. Pick Your Style

There’s more than one way to hit the perfect tennis serve. Top players often practice at least two different serves to use during matches. This helps keep the opponent on their toes and target their weaknesses. The most common serves are: 

• Flat serve: This is a straight, powerful shot. It gives you the best chance of an ace but also the greatest risk of hitting the net. When you bring your arm up and the ball is at eye level, toss the ball into the air — avoid tossing it behind your head or too far to the left. The flat serve is a popular first serve.
• Slice serve: This is a slower serve that uses sidespin to curve the ball to the side of the court. The slice serve is popular both as a first and second serve. 
• Topspin serve: This tricky serve uses topspin, hitting the ball high over the net and causing it to bounce up on your opponent’s side. The topspin serve makes a strong return difficult and is a popular second serve. 
• Kick serve: Some use the term “kick serve” interchangeably with “topspin serve,” but it’s actually a variation with a more diagonal spin. You hit the ball high above the net, causing it to spin forward and kick once it hits the court. Kick serves are often used as second serves.

2. Find Your Feet

To find your tennis serve stance, stand with your front foot toward the net post on your dominant side. Your back foot should be parallel to the net. Adjust your back foot’s toes and your weight distribution for stability. Starting from this position, you can adapt your stance depending on where you want to place your serve. 

The simplest and most explosive approach to tennis serve footwork is the platform stance. This involves keeping your feet in position throughout the serve while you rotate your hips and shoulders to execute the swing. Some players prefer the pinpoint stance, where you bring your back foot nearer the front foot during the toss and push your body upward toward the ball to hit it.

3. Get a Grip 

Many beginners gravitate toward a forehand tennis serve grip. Instead, work on developing a continental grip. This method allows you to execute a variety of serves with greater power and control. Use these three tips to find your continental grip:

• Hammer or handshake: Hold the racquet as if it’s a hammer and you want to use its side to knock a nail down into the court. Alternatively, some players imagine shaking hands with their racquet.
• Finding your bevel: Your racquet’s handle is an octagon. As you hold it in front of you with the side of its frame pointing downward, call the top side or bevel of the octagon number 1, and number the rest of the sides clockwise until you come around to 8. Right-handed players should grip the racquet with the inside of their index finger’s knuckle on bevel 2. For left-handed players, make that bevel 8. 
• Finishing touches: For the right balance of control and fluidity, slightly spread out your fingers and keep your hand relaxed. 

4. Toss the Ball

Before hitting the ball, you need to toss it in the air with your nondominant arm and prepare a backswing with your racquet arm. Getting your tennis serve toss and backswing in shape is essential to a consistent serve. Here’s how you can do that:

• Hold the ball in your palm with your thumb resting gently on top.
• Keep your arm straight, moving only your shoulder to toss the ball straight up in the air.
• With knees slightly bent, swing your racquet arm backward toward the trophy position, keeping it relaxed. 
• Both your arms should be moving up at the same time.
• Release the ball in front of you at eye level, but keep lifting your arm beneath the ball.
• Aim to toss the ball 1-2 feet above that release point.
• Reach the trophy position — racquet high, dominant elbow bent at a 90-degree angle, tossing arm in front of you.

Now you’re set up to hit your serve!

5. Power Up

Power is important for an effective serve, especially when aiming for an ace. To increase your tennis serve power:

• Stay relaxed: Fluidity, not tension, will add force to your serve.
• Coil and uncoil: As you prepare your toss, turn your body parallel to the net. Then, open your body up with the backswing before rotating back toward the net when you swing your racquet toward the ball. Hip and shoulder rotation is key to getting the torque you need. For this reason, working on your core strength is important for injury prevention and serve power.

6. Hit It

When you’ve reached the trophy position and the ball is at peak height, it’s time to time your swing: 

• Give the racquet a short, loose bounce behind you before swinging forward.
• Swing the racquet forward and down toward the ball from a 45-degree angle.
• Once you make contact, straighten your racquet’s path to push forward toward the net.
• While driving forward, pronate your forearm so the racquet’s butt cap points about 45 degrees upwards. 

Practice your placement and timing to send the ball 1-12 inches over the net. Use your foot placement and body rotation to aim your serve. 

7. Go for a Spin

Following the steps above, if your racquet’s contact with the ball is dead center, you’ll execute a flat serve. This is a great fundamental serve to start with and remains a popular first serve for professionals.

If you want to challenge your opponent by introducing some tennis serve spin for variation, you can do that mainly by adjusting the racquet’s contact angle with the ball. For a slice serve, tilt the racquet’s surface 10-15 degrees and aim to brush the side of the ball. For a topspin serve, aim to make contact while brushing the racquet up along the ball’s surface from the bottom. You want to send the ball’s 6 o’clock point spinning quickly toward its 12 o’clock point. 

8. Practice Often

Now you know what goes into a great tennis serve. But the only way to truly master it is to practice regularly. Find a tennis club near you to practice your serve, paying attention to all the elements discussed in this guide. 

If you’re serious about improving your tennis serve, try to practice at least three times a week and connect with a coach who can help refine your technique.

Master Your Serve at Colonial Golf & Tennis Club

If you live in Central Pennsylvania, Colonial Golf & Tennis Club in Harrisburg is the perfect place to practice your serve. We offer our members four courts, lighting for evening matches and a classy patio bar for post-match refreshments. When you become a member, you get free access to all our tennis, golf and swimming facilities. 

If you’re looking for one-on-one tennis mentorship, you can sign up for coaching with former Grand Slam competitor Maja Palaversic. With over two decades of experience, Maja is a certified coach passionate about helping players of all ages and levels improve. 

Become a member today to practice your serve at Harrisburg’s finest tennis courts.