Tennis Serve Fundamentals – The Swing & Throw

The serve is the most complex stroke in tennis, yet we can learn its fundamentals in simple ways.

The most common mistake is to immediately start teaching the tennis serve technique without developing the main fundamentals (biomechanics) of the serve, which in my view are the throwing and swinging motion.

If the serve is taught only through technical corrections (grip, stance, backswing and toss, trophy position, pronation, follow-through, etc.), the player is unlikely to develop effortless power because we are in fact breaking down a smooth continuous motion into smaller chunks and creating very mechanical and uncoordinated movements.

The power of the serve – meaning the ability to effortlessly accelerate the racket head at high speed – is based on a swinging and throwing motion which smoothly connects many body parts into a synchronized movement.

That smooth, synchronized movement is the key to effortless power and achieving high racket head speeds at contact.

While we have to work on the serve from the technical standpoint in order to make it work for the game of tennis and its rules, we must also develop the player’s ability to improve their swinging and throwing motions as they are the fundamental biomechanics which efficiently connect different body parts and generate power.

In other words, if you cannot throw well, you cannot serve effortlessly.

Why Do We Need An Effortless Serve In The First Place?

It is, of course, also possible to muscle the serve and hit it relatively hard.

Most players instinctively use this approach, and it does get them to a certain speed of the serve.

But, this type of serving has quite a few disadvantages:

• The “muscling” approach based on muscle contraction relatively quickly plateaus, and the player is unable to serve faster, no matter how hard they try.
• Because the player tightens up their body and arm muscles too much when serving, they lose the feel and the ability to precisely guide the racket head to the ball. In other words, the serves are very inaccurate.
• The player expends lots of energy and quickly fatigues his arm, which results in even lower speeds of the serve.
• The player has a greater chance of injury, especially in the shoulder region.

These are then the main reasons we need to develop a different type of serve that’s based on a more relaxed and smooth swinging and throwing motion which allows us to achieve much higher racket head speeds with way less effort.

Which One Comes First – The Biomechanics Or The Technique?

If a person who previously trained a sport that involved a lot of throwing or spiking a ball like volleyball, handball, baseball, or football comes to tennis and starts to serve, they will immediately have power.

Their body parts will be well coordinated, and they will be able to whack a tennis ball at a very high speed with their serve.

While they may not be accurate and consistent at first, they will have no problems hitting with power.

If a person who can barely throw a tennis ball from the baseline over the net in the middle of the court wants to develop more power in their serve, they can take a million tennis lessons on the serve and they still won’t be able to hit the ball anywhere close to the speeds of the players I mentioned above who were involved in sports with throwing or spiking.

I can tell you that with 100% certainty after teaching tennis for over 20 years.

That is why I always work with players on developing the fundamentals of the serve, meaning improving the biomechanics of their throwing motion and their ability (or skill) of swinging a tennis racket.

The way to develop a better swing and a throw is surprisingly simple.

It requires only a few exercises and a disciplined, long-term approach that gives the brain and the body enough time to learn how to coordinate over 600 muscles in about 1 second as long as the serve lasts.

The Continuous Swing And Throw Drill

In order to practice the fundamentals of a tennis serve, you need to swing some weight around you in a figure 8 pattern and eventually release/throw it.

Simply take one small grocery bag and wrap it around 8 tennis balls.

Then put this small bag in a bigger grocery bag that allows you to dangle it using the handles off your two fingers.

Congrats – you’ve just created a perfect training device for developing the fundamental biomechanics of a tennis serve. 

If you have a light medicine ball of around 0.5 kg, you can use it instead of the 8 tennis balls in the bag.

I found that 0.5 kg is just the right weight for this swinging and throwing drill.

Now swing the bag around you in the continuous swing pattern that I demonstrated in the video above.

It may take you a few minutes or perhaps a few lessons to really master this swing pattern.

Be patient and keep trying until you can do it.

This continuous swing pattern teaches your brain and your body how to coordinate many body parts in a very short time into a smooth motion.

Keep in mind that, if someone trains tennis professionally from a young age, then they will do a variety of other exercises to develop the explosiveness of their movements, especially targeting the core muscles as they need to generate the most power through the body.

Players will perform various types of medicine ball throws, rubber band pulls, various throws of a light medicine ball isolating the arm and so on.

But, since most readers of this blog are recreational tennis players who will not very likely pursue such advanced training techniques, then my recommendation for improving the fundamentals of a tennis serve and its biomechanics is the continuous swing and throw drill.

It will make the most difference in your serving ability with the least time invested.

I suggest you practice the swing and release drill every time you work on your serve for at least a few weeks (possibly months).

Just spend 10-15 minutes per session practicing the continuous swing and release before working on more technical details of the serve.

You can also just use the swing and throw drill alone and then proceed to serving without thinking about technique but simply feeling the same sensation in your body from the previous exercise and looking to implement it into your existing serve.

Most Common Mistakes When Performing The Swing And Throw Drill

Every exercise out there can be performed incorrectly and therefore lose its purpose, so make sure you avoid the following common mistakes:

• Not enough body rotation and incorrect elbow position. If you don’t turn enough and at the same time push the elbow further backward, then you’ll know either consciously or subconsciously that you can hit yourself in the head while swinging behind you. As a result, you’ll automatically bend your wrist to change the swing path of the balls, which will just reinforce the waiter’s serve technique that’s so difficult to correct. So, make sure the elbow and the hand get behind you so you can swing easily past your head.
• Turning your head together with the body rotation. So, even though you want to rotate your body by 90 degrees back and forth while executing the continuous swing, don’t turn your head with the body. If you do, you will turn the body too much and possibly lose your balance, too. Try to keep your head straight – simply look into one of the poles of the back fence on the other side of the court.
• Not timing the drop and the body turn correctly. The usual mistake is that the player waits too long and allows the bag to drop all the way down to the bottom of the swing path before they start turning the body forward. That’s too late and you won’t get the maximum acceleration. A good guideline is that you start turning your body forward just as the bag is behind your head on the way down. Another possible mistake is that you turn too early. In that case, the bag will hit you in the back and you’ll immediately know that the timing was off.

Probably The Most Important Exercise For Improving Your Serve

What I just showed you above may be the most important drill for your serve.

You will NOT improve your serving ability by correcting only small technical details.

As I mentioned before, breaking down the serve into smaller chunks will also break down the natural coordination and and connection of body parts and therefore break down the source of effortless power.

While we have to learn the serve technique in that way in order to be able to develop all the smaller details of the serve that contribute to consistency and accuracy, we must also work on the underlying principle that generates power.

This principle is not unique to tennis – it is, in fact, the basic throwing motion used in various sports like handball, baseball, javelin throw and others.

The volleyball spiking motion is also based on this same principle, and I can tell you first hand as a former volleyball player that I never had one single lesson on the tennis serve technique and that I could serve well from day 1 playing tennis.

I only had to slightly modify my spiking motion to work for the game of tennis and my serve was functioning really well and became one of my main weapons in competitive tennis matches.

That is another reason I am sharing this article with you.

I know first hand that biomechanics comes first and that technique comes second.

I didn’t read this in a book; I experienced it myself – and so did many of my friends who used to train various sports that involved a lot of throwing or ball spiking. They could all serve really well despite never taking one single tennis lesson from a coach.

Use the swing and throw drill with the grocery bag and some weight in it (tennis balls, light medicine ball, etc.) as one of the main drills for warming up your service motion and for developing good biomechanical foundation of your serve.

You can complement this drill by throwing old rackets (to which you can add some extra weight), light medicine balls or simply tennis balls.

Give these drills a try and report back after a few days or weeks of practicing and let us know how you’re progressing.