A tennis serve is a weapon only when the technique is correct. When the serve technique is not correct, then the serve is often more a liability than an asset.

In order to learn correct tennis serve technique, simple serving tips won’t get you there.

Instead you need to follow step-by-step progressions that build the service motion from the ground up.

The following technical progressions of building a proper tennis serve can be used to correct your existing serve techniques if you find your serve ineffective.

Step 1: The Stance

A proper tennis serve stance is when your feet are positioned so that the front foot is pointing towards the right net post (for right-handers) and the back foot is parallel to the baseline.

The toes of the back foot are also roughly aligned with the heel of the front foot because you need to be stable in all directions once you initiate and execute your full service motion.

This is a basic stance which you adjust depending on which direction you’re serving to.

If you’re a tennis beginner starting to learn correct serve technique, I suggest you start learning the serve from the ad side because there is less difference in the direction of the swing path and the actual ball flight, which makes it easier to master at these early stages of learning.

Step 2: The Grip

A proper tennis serve grip technique is to hold a continental grip.

There are many descriptions for how to find this grip. The one I’ll use makes it easy to check if your grip is really a continental grip.

Grip the racquet like a hammer and hold the racquet with the edge perpendicular to the ground, as shown in the picture.

Then place your left index finger in the “valley” between the thumb and the index finger of your right hand (for right-handers), just next to the bone on the thumb.

Now check where your left index finger is pointing on the racquet handle. It should point to the top left edge on the racquet handle.

The way you hold your racquet determines many things about the final serve technique and its effectiveness.

That’s why it’s crucial that you grip the racquet correctly.

In the ServeUnlocked course, I share two more tips on the grip. First, I explain how to grip the racquet with fingers spread more apart and why that helps with pronation.

Then I describe how to find a loose grip using a little exercise just before you start your serving ritual.

Step 3: The Hitting Part – Loose Drop, Swing Up And Pronation

The hitting part is where the serve happens either correctly or incorrectly.

Think of the backswing elements ‒ like coiling, bending your knees, swinging the racquet back, maintaining the trophy position and so on ‒ simply as ways of gathering energy.

You are simply accumulating energy in order to release it explosively into the contact with the ball.

It is this hitting moment that defines whether the ball is hit correctly (flat, topspin or slice) and cleanly or not.

The elements above are not directly responsible for correct hitting of the ball, although they influence it.

I can, for example, demonstrate incorrect backswing, trophy position, have no coiling in the body, completely straight legs and STILL hit a CLEAN and correct flat or topspin or slice serve – except that it will have less power and I’ll be more uncomfortable.

On the other hand, I can do the elements before the contact correctly and still not hit the ball correctly because I am not using my hand, forearm and arm correctly through the contact phase.

There are smaller parts of the hitting part:

• loose drop of the racquet and arm
• swing up & contact
• pronation

The loose drop before the swing up is achieved by “bouncing” or dangling the racquet behind you.

The serve generates a lot of power because of many body parts dynamically moving when they have to. If we at any moment of the serve stop the movement, we will lose power.

When we teach serve technique in this analytical way of breaking down the whole complex motion into smaller parts since that’s easier to learn, we unfortunately also break down the natural fluid movements of the body.

And the danger in this hitting part of the serve is that we initiate the swing up from a static position which in the long term might become a part of our whole serve technique.

Therefore, I use the “bounce” element to make sure the racquet is moving and that the arm is loosened up before you swing up – because that’s exactly what will happen when you execute the whole tennis service motion.

The swing up and pronation parts are best imagined and learned by placing two rows of balls on the ground. The first row of balls is at a roughly 45 degree angle, and the second one is perpendicular to the net.

This gives us a clear mental image of how the racquet and arm must move through the hitting part.

It’s a slight exaggeration at first, which helps the player learn to pronate and to understand that the hitting part of the serve is not one single swing through the ball with the whole arm. That is one of the most common misconceptions and mistakes out there.

The serve might look like that at first glance, which deceives us into interpreting the hitting part of the serve as one straight motion of the arm.

But, as you look closer, especially in slow motion, you realize that the swing towards the ball and movement of the forearm after the contact are not in the same line.

It is the internal rotation of the upper arm and pronation of the forearm that create these two racquet paths before and after contact.

Therefore, imagine swinging towards the ball at a 45 degree angle leading with the edge of the racquet and following the first row of balls.

Once you reach the contact, push the racquet head straight towards the net following the second row of balls and finishing on the right side of the body with the buttcap pointing upwards at a roughly 45 degree angle or more and the stringbed pointing towards the back fence.

While you may think that this oversimplifies the hitting part, I can assure you that, once you fluidly merge these two swing paths together, you’ll realize that this is exactly how a flat serve is done.

I personally repeat this part very often with players who are correcting their old serve techniques because it’s exactly here where they get it wrong.

Not only that, if they eventually learn the hitting part well, the dreaded waiter’s serve position of the racquet often disappears because it was simply an indicator of an incorrect hitting part of the serve.

Step 4: Backswing & Toss

Now that you have established the hitting part, you need to get to that stage from the initial serving position.

This part combines the backswing with the toss because they happen simultaneously.

The serve toss is often quite tricky to master and is often times practiced on its own. My own view is that it should never be practiced without simulating your backswing.

The very common toss drill where you place a target or even your own racquet in front of you on the ground and try to make the toss hit it is, in my opinion, not very effective if at the same time you are not getting into the same serving position as you would in reality.

That’s because if you just try to toss the ball in the target you won’t move any other body parts in order to be accurate.

But when you initiate your serve, you will immediately start turning your body to the side, your dominant arm will start swinging back, you’ll start leaning and coiling, etc.

All these movements must be present also when you just focus on your toss – hence, I consider backswing & toss as one step in this serving progression tutorial.

The key points about the toss:

• Place the ball in the middle of your hand, meaning exactly where the palm spreads out into fingers.
• Hold the ball with your thumb on top gently.
• Always toss with a straight arm using only your shoulder joint.
• Release the ball at around your eye level and keep lifting the arm up following the ball.

If you’re having troubles mastering the toss, look into my ServeUnlocked course that dedicates an entire module to an integrated toss which happens simultaneously with the backswing.

The backswing should be a relaxed swing backwards, as if your arm and the racquet are a pendulum that you swing backwards.