How To Improve Tennis Serve

lisiki serve

How to improve Tennis Serve

Your tennis serve is one of the most important parts of your game. A good serve can make your opponent fearful and on their toes, while a bad serve can easily lose you the game. Always look for ways to improve your tennis serve, look at the professionals and see what they do. I promise you it will pay off in the end.

Relax your arm and wrist

If you keep your wrist straight during a serve, you'll lose a lot of power and control. Make sure to keep them loose, and you'll notice that your wrist will do a kind of whipping motion. This motion is key to your serving power, and to your control. Definitely make sure you practice at keeping your wrist loose, it's one of the secrets of a good serve.

Have a fluid motion (follow through)

Sometimes it's too easy to not follow through. This will make your serve choppy and uneasy. Not only that but it will make you inconsistent, plus it will take away some control and power from your serve. Always make sure you follow through and use your whole body in your serve. Keep the whole motion going, if you're having trouble try throwing the ball higher in the air, a lot of people find that that's their biggest problem.

Jump!

Try jumping in your serves, this gives you more power, accuracy, and it gives you some momentum as well. This is of course a more advanced technique, but learning how to do this will give you a good one up on competitors who do not know how to do a jump serve.

Practice

Practice makes permanent. Go out and practice your serve at least 30 minutes a day, you can practice more if you're looking at playing in a tournament soon. Try different strategies, and look up videos that can teach you more ways to change your serve. You could also consider taking a video of yourself, so that you can see what's going on with your serve, and how you can change it.

Conclusiopn

Never stop working on your serve, this is imperative to becoming a better player. if your'e still looking for more help you can check my post on Tennis Serve Tips.

Also I'd advice to check out my thoughts on a cool video about your serve, you can find it on my page about Improve Your Tennis Serve.

Emmett Hume

10 Top Tennis Tips For Coaching Junior Tennis Players
By Rufus Keown 


Mini Tennis, Pee Wee Tennis, Tiny Tots Tennis, Little Mozzies! Coaching Junior Beginners has been called everything. The bottom line for tennis coaches is that having a strong beginner tennis coaching program is the key to a long term sustainable business operation.

Putting together an exciting and challenging tennis coaching program for the young player should be a priority for any serious coach. These young beginners also need some special coaching methods to teach them to love tennis and stay in the game.

Tip 1 - Success equals Confidence equals Fun! Tennis is in the recreation business and coaches are fighting to attract young athletes to the sport so that grass roots programs flourish and we produce players at the elite level. Be constantly positive; play fun games which all players can succeed; create an atmosphere at your club that parents and children can enjoy. Do your best to keep children in tennis for life.

Tip 2 - Use modified tennis equipment. This relates to tip number one because by using lower nets, softer tennis balls, lighter tennis racquets and fun equipment we can help our students succeed and therefore enjoy tennis.

Tip 3 - Use cones to position players. Use cones or spots to position students for games and activities. This will give them a reference point and prevent them from wondering off.

Tip 4 - Refer to the names of lines and areas of the court. Use the names of lines and parts of the court when giving directions. This will provide a "full" tennis education and help when playing matches later on.

Tip 5 - Demonstrate before you explain the drill. Young children are fantastic learners. They learn best from observing and copying; as well as experimenting and feeling how something works. In your tennis lessons give the players lots of visual coaching and have them shadow swing so they can feel the correct stroke. This will be far more effective than explaining to a child with a very short attention span who may not fully understand the meaning of your words.

Tip 6 - Don't get too technical! This relates to tip number five. Technical instruction is wasted on young children but they do understand simple distinctions. For instance using higher or lower; softer or harder; to the left or right are effective words to guide a young player. This is one reason why the use of targets and cones can be a very valuable coaching tool.

Tip 7 - Use targets for students to aim at. The reason for using targets is to compel the players to use control over power. Many young players will associate success with how fast and far they can hit the ball. Studies have shown that in sports that require both speed and precision (like tennis) it is far better to learn slow, controlled moves and then make them faster; than learn fast uncontrolled moves and them slow them down. By hitting accurate controlled shots our players will become better at rallying (which should be foremost goal of any program.)

Tip 8 - Don't take private lessons too early. While some parents will expect us to dress up in a clown suit and entertain a 4 or 5 year old in a private lesson it is inappropriate at this age. The children at this age enjoy the excitement of playing with their friends and social interaction - the coach will soon become weary and lose passion for their job.

Tip 9 - Progress the program. Keep giving the students a reason to come back to the game. Progress from a mini court to full court; a mini racquet to a graduate racquet; low compression balls to championship balls; a 30 minute lesson to a 45 minute lesson. Keep challenging the students or they will feel they are not improving and find another sports which offers a pathway.

Tip 10 - Let them play the game. As coaches we are trying to teach players the game of tennis. Once the fundamentals have been taught modified game play should become an emphasis. While at a young age hitting the ball over the net seems miraculous, and returning an impossible dream; let the students experiment with a modified rally. The coach can help or make special rules so it remains enjoyable and the students can experience some success.

Follow these tennis tips to success in your own junior tennis program!

By Rufus Keown

Club Professional Coach

Co-founder http://www.globaltenniscoaching.com

The global website for tennis coaches and players with 1000's of tennis drills, tennis articles, tennis tips and tennis lesson plans.

Article Source: 10 Top Tennis Tips For Coaching Junior Tennis Players

Tennis Tips: How To Really Improve Your Tennis Game In Just Thirty Minutes

David Jones

Note: This article is a little old, but still really good!

Tennis Tips: How To Really Improve Your Tennis Game In Just Thirty Minutes
By Jay P. Granat, Ph.D.
The Australian Open is taking place now and avid tennis fans and tennis players will be tuning in early in the morning, (United States Time) to watch the world's best tennis players compete in this first major tournament of the year.

Highly ranked juniors and weekend warriors will be studying the players and the matches carefully and some will be hoping to pick up a few tips that will allow them to take their game to that next level.

I have coached many top players on the mental side of the game and have worked closely with some elite coaches. I am always intrigued by coaches who are great diagnosticians and who can make the game simple via the way they communicate with their students.

Sometimes, one simple tip can help a tennis player to elevate his or her tennis game.

One man, Oscar Wegner, the well-known tennis guru, has developed a simple methodology which can help skilled players, recreational players and weekend warriors.

Wegner, who has coached many of the top players in the world, encourages players to have three ideas in mind when they prepare to hit a tennis ball, when they strike it and when they complete their swing:

It is quite simple yet very comprehensive: Find it. Feel it. Finish it.

I have used these simple ideas in my own game and in helping others to play better.

Find it refers to locating the ball its pace, its direction, its height and its spin. Your feet will move almost automatically if you do a good job of locating the ball.

Feel it reminds players to impart spin and to keep the ball on the strings. Wegner, like most modern teachers understands and emphasizes the importance of topspin from the baseline.

Finish it encourages players to swing through the ball and follow through after you feel it on your strings. This facilitates and good weight transfer.

This simple method makes it easy to diagnose what you are doing wrong. For instance, if you set up late, you have not done a good job of following the ball.

Similarly, if you fail to impart spin, you have not done a good job of feeling the ball.

Thirdly, if you hit the ball into the net or weakly over the net, you most likely have failed to finish your swing.

In addition, Wegner's method can be applied to some extent to all of the shots in tennis. You can use these concepts are your serve, your volley, your half volley, you lob,your overhead, your slice, and your drop shot. So, this method has a lot of applications to it.

Give this approach a try and see if your tennis game improves.

Jay P. Granat, Ph.D., is a Psychotherapist, Author and The Founder of http://www.StayInTheZone.com. Granat has appeared in many major media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Good Morning America, Tennis Magazine, TennisView Magazine, The BBC, The CBC and ESPN. He is the author of Zone Tennis and many other mental toughness and peak performance programs. He has recently formed a partnership with some of the top tennis pros in the world. Dr. Granat is available for private coaching and for seminars. He can be reached at 888 580-ZONE or at info@stayinthezone.com

Article Source: Tennis Tips: How To Really Improve Your Tennis Game In Just Thirty Minutes