Tennis Topspin Serve: Need to Learn the Ins and Outs of the Kick Serve?

Your tennis topspin serve should be developed as a weapon in your arsenal.  The main reason is that it can throw off your opponent's return game.  Keeping them guessing is the one rule that you can apply to every part of your tennis game.

A great time to use a tennis topspin serve is when you want to exploit a weakness in your opponent's game.  An example, for me, is that for years I struggled with hitting a high backhand.  I would have to retreat every time I was served a kick to my backhand until I learned to judge early and attack these types of shots.  Here are some common questions that I hear surrounding a tennis topspin serve.

When is the best time to use a kick serve?

Be sure to throw in a tennis topspin serve early in the sets to keep it fresh in your opponent's mind.  This will add to their second guessing of where the next serve is going. 

This is also a great shot if you have served a few short serves out wide recently.  Your opponent may be anticipating cutting off the next one and cheating forward.  When you see this, throw the kick in and laugh as they scramble for it!  This is one of my favorite things to do to my friends on the court.

How do I learn to kick a serve?

Learning the tennis topspin serve takes practice, but so does everything tennis related! 

It should start out like a flat serve, but the toss needs to be either more in front of you or slightly behind.  Changing tosses is one of the things that I struggle with the most.  I like to practice tosses whenever I can.  Just carry a ball around with you.

The contact for a kick serve is different than a flat or slice.  Your racket head needs to be moving faster than on the other shots because you need to be brushing up on the ball over your head to generate the topspin.  This feeling takes a lot of practice.

What are some drills to master the kick serve?

As you begin to develop your tennis topspin serve, there are some basic drills that can be of enormous help.

The first is to familiarize you with the feel of sweeping upward on the ball to generate the spin.  Take a ball in hand and choke up on your racket.  Turn the racket sideways like it is about to hit the ball and sandwich the ball between hand and racket.  It should look like you are about to smash yourself in the face with ball through your racket.

Sweep up a couple of times, then sweep it out of your hand and forward.  You can move to doing this above your head.  Notice the spin of the ball as you do this.

The next drill is to assume the serving position and cock your racket behind your head as if you are in mid stroke.  Toss the ball and do a slight knee bend.  Exaggerate the topspin stroke while hitting gently to get the feel of the racket sweeping up on the ball.

While you are testing this, be sure to observe whether or not you are getting sufficient spin.  You may need to exaggerate even more until you get a speed of rotation that you are happy with.  When you feel confident that you can feel the sweeping, increase the pace slowly and incorporate the full serve motion.