Big thanks, coach. Haven’t figured out the sick kick serve. But your tip of topspin slice, not chopping but pronation, is the game changer. Finally got a powerful safe second serve after struggling 3 years.

I like how you explained and demo. Simple and effective.

Your focus on the throw is so useful.Without this, the strokes are colourless, with, an explosion of colour.

The deuce side demonstration was good! Its very rare to see this side talked about regarding topspin/kick serves, just wish you had a dedicated video for this.

Hi Tom, the lesson is nice. The combination of kick and slice is better than a pure kick and mentioned it. Perhaps you could add some approaching drills for a kick. Yes, kick is better in add box as a second serve and for a duce box slice is more affective. Flat and slice have a lot in common but kick has a different aspect to understand. Mostly philological as you have more your racket to the sky which is difficult to understand for a player. Take care, Alex

I absolutely love your teaching style and methods! Thank you Tom

Thank you very much Tom, your explanation is excellent!

Also something new. Good stuff. Finally got a ping pong analogy in.

Insightful info/video!

Great great advice on the true conti grip Finally I got it 🎉

Big Thanks . You are amazing . I corrected my Serve by your tips

Brilliantly done

great video !

Yah, I feel the same way with staying on that side of the court for serving and then switching sides. Idk if you have ever come across this type of serve where the server will serve a kick serve but instead of it bouncing somewhat high, it stays low and kicks at you with incredible kick, to the point where you can pretty much hear it cutting through the air. The ball comes in slow like literally, and then propels to like idk like 5x the speed if not more of what it came in the box at. It's a really interesting serve idk if you know anything about it, but if you do you should make a video about it because it's a really interesting type of kick serve its pretty much all kick and speed.

Thanks Tom, this is a perfect demonstration, I was following you from you’re a short video you ever told how to power up in kick serve :) Can you elaborate little how to control in the halfway at the service box (deuce side)? My big problem now is I can have massive kick near the service line but hardly land at the halfway.... I don’t believe it’s from slower/softer swing but sometimes it makes it, thank you

Thanks

I like the deuce side demonstration. What would you suggest for a Lefty? Should they hit more of a topspin serve on the ad side rather than a kick for a 2nd serve?

Re. the kick serve on the deuce court since you so rightly say “there’s much less court to work with if” the target is the T, why not to kick serve there to the body?

Nice what racket are you using the older Dunlop cx200 or cx200+ ?

High elbow, high kick !

In my opinion the kick serve is not worth learning for about 99% of tennis players. This is primarily because a vast majority of players do not have the technical fundamentals needed to make the racquet move fast enough for their kick serve to move around in a way that hurts the opponent. The “slick” serve or topspin serve as Tom calls it is much more viable since you can still have decent speed in addition to the spin. I understand Tom talked about most of this in the video. It is extremely difficult to hit a true kick serve on the deuce side (as a righty). As a 5.0 level player, I’m not sure I have a true kick serve on the deuce side myself.

I teach continental grip to babies. If they ain’t hitting topspin by age 5, I tell them to pick up chess.

The tennis serve is a crucial shot that can greatly impact your performance on the court. Learn it

why don't we see pros use the reverse slice serve (on the ad side) posted by Simon Freund on his Instagram?

I wrote an online book called A NEW YEAR’S SERVE. Everything in it was wrong except for the title. Now I hesitate to say anything about serving since I am apt to change my mind the next day. But when I watch Tom Allsopp’s videos, I get a bunch of new ideas since he likes to fool around too. A famous online service guru who shall remain nameless has advised extremely turned around initial stance like McEnroe, Sampras and the old baseball pitcher Luis Tiant. He advised this but with the caveat, “if you can do it.” What? I thought. Why is he instilling doubt? Doesn’t want to see anyone on the other side of the net with back turned toward him? Is turned around serving difficult? To me it’s just the same. The personal challenge is not to jump up in the air and land on the partial replacement in my left leg. So I like Tom’s suggestion to remain on the ground, keep the back foot down, and use kinetic chain more. Okay, but I think the variations instructors offer in describing kinetic chain (if they describe it at all) are altogether too many. I went back to the letter from the Braden Tennis College pasted into the front cover of my copy of TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE. First link from feet to knees (who does that?). Second link from knees to hips. Third link from hips to shoulder. Fourth link the arm. When I’m turned way around with my feet parallel and pointed at the right fence post, I want to glide my hips and knees to get up on my toes. Tom says “along the baseline.” Me, I’m going slightly backward. And I want to do this early within Mark Phillippoussis’ 3-count rhythm which I feel is excellent for a tall octogenarian with limited shoulder range. Count one is toss including enough shoulders turn to activate the hips. Mark’s online cue from his childhood is use a smooth gravity drop to lop off your toes. Count two is getting racket up and back on straightened arm and then bending it and going straight to power position without stopping for trophy position or anything silly like that. This is a longer tract than probably you’ve ever used in this part of the serve but it works just fine. I think it especially economical if strings are slightly open at address. This somewhat spoils the amputation but as Robert Frost says all metaphors break down. The thing one needs to add may be the hip push (toward right fence post, I am saying) and make it so early that you have time for a two-legged Charleston pivot that screws the heels and knees so feet though turned are still parallel to each other. It delays hips at the same time. Who does this? I do. I’m out to restore Braden’s lost link. And I put this in count two not three which is the actual serve. Now in count three the second and third links fire in rapid succession-hips and shoulders. Guess what? The arm just squeezed together into a needle. And I looked for an easier way to stop the shoulders than Danil Medvedev’s shoving of his left hand up into his right armpit. Just move bent arm toward the net is my present idea. This outlined serve may not be fastest in the world but leads to good ball movement. It saves legs for late. It chops upward to transform into internal shoulder rotation/pronation to end of the follow through. The head no longer droops sadly down before contact as Tom says occurs 90 per cent of the time for all servers in the world. One watches Taylor Fritz on TV. His head doesn’t go down but rather up as he makes contact. He started with feet splayed. The thrust of his legs therefore spins the hips characteristic of modern serving. The entire arm-work is so fast and economical that the human head and racket head are still going up at contact. Bad imitations, as Tom suggests, fly bod high so that it and arm then crash down on the ball as all kinetic chain is lost. So is there kinetic chain in a modern serve? Yes, but most of it is automatically built into the initial thrust from splayed feet. Older ways of serving are more complicated. The restoration of Vic Braden’s lost link is revolutionary.

It is rare to see a kick serve. Most of the serves I have seen are actually variations of slice and spin serves. To me the real kick serve is what I called a "hook" serve. The ball literally jumps up high after it hit the ground. In my experience I have only seen one guy who was able to do the kick serve.

Anything useful you got out of this?

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