Tuesday Tennis Tip: First Serve Percentage

TTT #7: First Serve Percentage

When I was playing competitive tennis, there was nothing I liked more than a cheap point earned when my opponent would hit a poor return. There was nothing I disliked more than when I gave away a cheap point by hitting a double fault.

So, is there away to increase the number of cheap points you get while reducing the number of double faults? Because if there is, then that would be a really smart thing to do, wouldn't it?

Of course, the answer to my oh-so-brilliantly-posed question is yes. There is a way to get more free points and have less double faults. It's not easy, but it is certainly doable. It just requires you to think and have variety in your game, which is something you should have anyways.

The answer is to increase your first serve percentage. The way to do this is to have several different options for your first serve. You don't have to get rid of the low percentage, booming serve. That can still be an effective serve, even if you only hit it in 1 out of 10 times. But what you really need to develop is a "powered up" second serve. In other words, a spinning serve that you hit with more power. This serve could be topspin (Johnny Kauffman) or slice (Jeremy Thomas) or a combination of semi-spins (Jared Schwartzentruber). This should be a serve that you can get in 8 to 9 times out of 10.

If you mix these serves, you can begin to be more like a pitcher in baseball. For example...
1st point - Big Booming Serve (let's opponent know to be on their toes)
2nd point - Spinning 1st Serve (if you missed the boomer, this will up percentages, plus your opponent might not expect it)
3rd point - Spinning 1st Serve (this time hit it to your opponent's backhand, changing location as well as speed)
4th point - Depending on game situation, you could vary this. If you're up 30-15 or 40-love, perhaps you want to take a chance at a big serve. If you're down 15-30, you may want to make sure the first serve gets in.
And etc, etc, etc.

Being able to vary the serve gives a great opportunity to keep your opponent thinking on his returns, and as we know, if we keep people thinking and under pressure, they tend to make more errors. So developing two first serves is a good idea.

(A little aside, if you are grooving your big serve in a match, really feeling it, then it is okay to stick with what's working for awhile. Any time you feel in a zone, it is smart to stay in that zone. Mikey is a good example of this happening, he would often get that first serve cranking and just stick with it. Of course, sometimes he'd lose that first serve, and that's when having a second option would have been good.)