MORE SERVE VIDEOS: Flat vs Slice Serve and how to master both: ruclips.net/video/Ai6DpVyAfdY/видео.html Modernize your Serve: ruclips.net/video/_6vkQ9Cmj0g/видео.html Make the switch to Continental Grip: ruclips.net/video/TPFQDt7Dbto/видео.html
In an interview Federer said he was amazed that Pete Sampras can have the same toss for all his serves. He decided to figure out how he did it and pretty soon he found himself can do the same. It was well written in the book The Master. They are just wired differently 😄
Great stuff. The "J" or Fed toss actually works for me, maybe because I was tossing too far in front. Turns shoulders and hips, and fixed what was wrong. Able to easily adjust for different strikes. Hit everything from here.
Thanks Mieke, I’ve been having real issues lately with an inconsistent toss, more with how I hold the ball, finding that using my fingers to hold the ball leads to ball going behind me as I’m releasing too late. Coupled with this is that I use elements of Feds J toss, but will try tossing more forward and eliminate the use of fingers to aid a better release. Never really had to think about my toss previously but somehow have developed this hitch which has been throwing off my serve the last couple of months 😢
Thank you 🙏 I had been trying to emulate Fed's serve for a long time, and I now realize that it was his atypical toss motion that made my toss & serve so erratic. Keep up the great work with your instructional videos. They are concise and on target for the problems we recreational player have.
Don't you think Fed tosses very slighlty from back to front, starting with his tossing hand between his legs and not in front of his front leg, which allows him to throw inside the court ?
your video helped me a lot, i started 3-4months ago and i have a terrible time still with my toss and my serve, one of my coaches recommended me to do something similar to federer and it has been a nightmare for me, too inconsistent and hard, i think your video helped me understand what i need to work on and it will be much easier. thanks!
I can only recommend to follow Meike's advice... Correcting my toss 3 years ago actually completely removed a persistent should pain when serving. I was constantly overstreching to hit a flat serve after a bad toss. One month after fixing my toss the pain was completely gone and never reoccurred since then. Also my playing level improved significantly...
Just going through a backlog of saved emails...Great tips on the Toss! A friend gave me the Times article- good to see your work on display to such a wide audience 🎾
It is amazing that Fed peeks at the returner *as the ball is about to leave his tossing hand* to get last second clue on the opponent. Never knew that. Have no interest in copying that. That is next level confidence and genius.
I’ve been thinking about this video. Somewhat (quasi) related. Of all the available “tennis pros” RUclips channels, yours hammer home (it helps that you toured and walked the walk). Would you consider doing a video or series of videos about what it takes to go from juniors to college and pro? My friends (one played college and the other tried his luck at the pros after college) and I are really gravitated to your teachings/wisdom.
The disconnect on the serve is this, throwers in any other sport connect the two shoulders for the uncoil, but somehow everyone thinks it’s more natural to lock the tossing arm out of the serve. Feliciano Lopez and Sam Groth are the models for actually uncoiling they body. No one would suggest doing this on the forehand for the kinetic chain, you bring the shoulders coiled for obvious reasons. I taught this way as well, no more. The J toss works and it isn’t that hard to teach. The shoulder alignment is worth it.
I've heard that Federer can look at his opponent while serving because he is left eye dominant. That's one reason why he can toss the ball parallel to the line :)
I've struggled with my ball toss for ages. It's hard to work on improving your serve if the ball is in the wrong place half of the time. It's been a bit better recently but whenever I try to add in elements like more body coiling or bending the knees more it just goes out of control again. :(
Ditto... My experience has been that 100% of my focus needs to be on the toss to do a proper flat or kick serve. When I try to add other elements (like how I bring the racquet up to trophy position) during practice, I completely forget about toss & contact... I just do this to bring the other elements into muscle memory... When I start playing again, I must have my full attention on the toss and hope the muscle memory works on other elements. I keep trying this till the other elements come automatically. Complete focus on the toss and eyes set on racquet contact gives me good-decent serves... Just my 2 cents... 🙏🏽
Same here. A proper serve is such a complex action to learn. I finally got rid of my waiter’s tray a few years ago but a proper serve with a good racquet drop is eluding me. And my toss is very inconsistent so I’m starting badly quite often.
A lot of the issues of incorporating new elements is that you just don't get enough repetitions. Pros don't "do" anything else but work on these things whereas mere mortals have very limited time to practice new things. So it's smart to work on the one thing that influences the serve the most: the toss. It would be awesome if everyone could spend hours and hours on the other stages of the serve but that's most likely not possible.
The Fed toss added to my serving woes. Too hard and I gave it practice. Straight up ends up everywhere no matter what I do with wrist, hand, etc. Just embarrassing. Then I tried the Bryan brothers toss which also uses an arc but it’s tossed into the court not parallel to the baseline. So much more control especially if I initiate the toss and pause the downward swing. I can get more serves in now and serve harder since I’m moving forward to get the toss.
Great tips! I’ve struggled with my toss for ages so am looking forward to trying these. I feel like my toss gets more erratic when I’m nervous-like on a big point or after I just double-faulted. Any suggestions? Thanks so much!!!
Take a few really deep breaths. It happens to a lot of players of all levels. Best practice is to play lots of matches so they don't feel like the weight of the world is resting on your shoulders!
Great video coach! With Roger’s serve, he also seems to coil really a lot. Is this practical for recreational players? I don’t know if very many of us can get out of the coil in time. 🤔
I was sitting behind the baseline in a recent tournament and noticed Naomi Osaka’s toss are identical between first and second serve. She is probably using similar technique as Roger’s as the ball was like a hook in the air.
Fed tosses the ball in an arc trajectory to mainly disguise his serve. It's mainly where along the arc that determines the type of serve. Too difficult to read as a returner.
i have tried tossing arm over the court and the ball trajectory straight up and down. however the problem is that, because my left arm over the court, my shoulder and right arm can only stretch to less than 180 degrees comparing with my left arm, I won't have enough space for racquet, meaning i need space to accelerate my racquet and do the pronation stuff. at the mean while i do recognize pros and cons of both straight toss and j toss: j toss is gives you the space as long we you can toss well, meaning that's unstable. straight toss can be more stable but it's hard to get the power. is there a way to do better stablizing j toss?
Interesting, because you use the term "J" toss and then say this is not a way to get the toss forward into court, but many other online coaches are saying the J toss ensures that you get your toss into the court.
Roger actully very uniqu body compositian like m.phealp ,he have longer upper body wide shoulder and long arms even longer finger to,he tossing with two finger and realise the ball to soon ,this motion create horizantal angle and unreadable motion.Roger right eye dominant and dont look fully in the court and he use abs and flexor muscle to create extra power and upper body rotation perfectly.Other wise s.wawrinka have so bad serve motion,if he can stay long time in the tour I am sure he living problem on shoulder (proable supraspinatus) (i am rape to english :) )
MORE SERVE VIDEOS:
Flat vs Slice Serve and how to master both:
ruclips.net/video/Ai6DpVyAfdY/видео.html
Modernize your Serve:
ruclips.net/video/_6vkQ9Cmj0g/видео.html
Make the switch to Continental Grip:
ruclips.net/video/TPFQDt7Dbto/видео.html
In an interview Federer said he was amazed that Pete Sampras can have the same toss for all his serves. He decided to figure out how he did it and pretty soon he found himself can do the same. It was well written in the book The Master. They are just wired differently 😄
I agree!
One of the best and comprehensive video on serve toss..👍🏼
Thank you! I appreciate your kind words!
Great stuff. The "J" or Fed toss actually works for me, maybe because I was tossing too far in front. Turns shoulders and hips, and fixed what was wrong. Able to easily adjust for different strikes. Hit everything from here.
Thanks Mieke, I’ve been having real issues lately with an inconsistent toss, more with how I hold the ball, finding that using my fingers to hold the ball leads to ball going behind me as I’m releasing too late. Coupled with this is that I use elements of Feds J toss, but will try tossing more forward and eliminate the use of fingers to aid a better release. Never really had to think about my toss previously but somehow have developed this hitch which has been throwing off my serve the last couple of months 😢
Thank you 🙏 I had been trying to emulate Fed's serve for a long time, and I now realize that it was his atypical toss motion that made my toss & serve so erratic. Keep up the great work with your instructional videos. They are concise and on target for the problems we recreational player have.
Thank you! Yeah, Federer is one of a kind!
Don't you think Fed tosses very slighlty from back to front, starting with his tossing hand between his legs and not in front of his front leg, which allows him to throw inside the court ?
Great video and kudos to sincere effort on trying to help with tossing 🙏
your video helped me a lot, i started 3-4months ago and i have a terrible time still with my toss and my serve, one of my coaches recommended me to do something similar to federer and it has been a nightmare for me, too inconsistent and hard, i think your video helped me understand what i need to work on and it will be much easier. thanks!
That’s great to hear. Yeah, Federer can do things that nobody else can do
Great tips for improving my toss & serve. Will share🎾🎾
Awesome, it's much appreciated!
I can only recommend to follow Meike's advice... Correcting my toss 3 years ago actually completely removed a persistent should pain when serving. I was constantly overstreching to hit a flat serve after a bad toss. One month after fixing my toss the pain was completely gone and never reoccurred since then. Also my playing level improved significantly...
Just going through a backlog of saved emails...Great tips on the Toss! A friend gave me the Times article- good to see your work on display to such a wide audience 🎾
Thank You Coach Babel! 🙏 top shelf lesson 👍 Appreciate
Thank you, Nathan!
It is amazing that Fed peeks at the returner *as the ball is about to leave his tossing hand* to get last second clue on the opponent. Never knew that. Have no interest in copying that.
That is next level confidence and genius.
I tried it a bunch of times and nearly whiffed the ball. So yeah, let's leave that to Roger :-)
I’ve been thinking about this video. Somewhat (quasi) related. Of all the available “tennis pros” RUclips channels, yours hammer home (it helps that you toured and walked the walk). Would you consider doing a video or series of videos about what it takes to go from juniors to college and pro? My friends (one played college and the other tried his luck at the pros after college) and I are really gravitated to your teachings/wisdom.
Oooooh, that's a good suggestion. I'm actually working on getting my Patreon up and running and those are the topics that go way deeper
@@MeikeBabelTennis please let me know when.
Thanks for the great tips and excellent video. Generally speaking - how high should the toss be ideally?
As a rule of thumb I teach about 2 feet higher than your full extension.
Thanks, will work on it. I have been tossing too low and then feeling like I have to rush the rest of the motion to catch up with the ball.
Great video, you can't have a good serve without a good toss first
Agree!
The disconnect on the serve is this, throwers in any other sport connect the two shoulders for the uncoil, but somehow everyone thinks it’s more natural to lock the tossing arm out of the serve. Feliciano Lopez and Sam Groth are the models for actually uncoiling they body. No one would suggest doing this on the forehand for the kinetic chain, you bring the shoulders coiled for obvious reasons. I taught this way as well, no more. The J toss works and it isn’t that hard to teach. The shoulder alignment is worth it.
I've heard that Federer can look at his opponent while serving because he is left eye dominant. That's one reason why he can toss the ball parallel to the line :)
I've struggled with my ball toss for ages. It's hard to work on improving your serve if the ball is in the wrong place half of the time. It's been a bit better recently but whenever I try to add in elements like more body coiling or bending the knees more it just goes out of control again. :(
Ditto...
My experience has been that 100% of my focus needs to be on the toss to do a proper flat or kick serve. When I try to add other elements (like how I bring the racquet up to trophy position) during practice, I completely forget about toss & contact... I just do this to bring the other elements into muscle memory... When I start playing again, I must have my full attention on the toss and hope the muscle memory works on other elements. I keep trying this till the other elements come automatically. Complete focus on the toss and eyes set on racquet contact gives me good-decent serves... Just my 2 cents... 🙏🏽
Same here. A proper serve is such a complex action to learn. I finally got rid of my waiter’s tray a few years ago but a proper serve with a good racquet drop is eluding me. And my toss is very inconsistent so I’m starting badly quite often.
A lot of the issues of incorporating new elements is that you just don't get enough repetitions. Pros don't "do" anything else but work on these things whereas mere mortals have very limited time to practice new things. So it's smart to work on the one thing that influences the serve the most: the toss. It would be awesome if everyone could spend hours and hours on the other stages of the serve but that's most likely not possible.
The Fed toss added to my serving woes. Too hard and I gave it practice. Straight up ends up everywhere no matter what I do with wrist, hand, etc. Just embarrassing. Then I tried the Bryan brothers toss which also uses an arc but it’s tossed into the court not parallel to the baseline. So much more control especially if I initiate the toss and pause the downward swing. I can get more serves in now and serve harder since I’m moving forward to get the toss.
Great tips! I’ve struggled with my toss for ages so am looking forward to trying these. I feel like my toss gets more erratic when I’m nervous-like on a big point or after I just double-faulted. Any suggestions? Thanks so much!!!
Take a few really deep breaths. It happens to a lot of players of all levels. Best practice is to play lots of matches so they don't feel like the weight of the world is resting on your shoulders!
@@MeikeBabelTennis thank you!!!
Great video coach! With Roger’s serve, he also seems to coil really a lot. Is this practical for recreational players? I don’t know if very many of us can get out of the coil in time. 🤔
I don't know any recreational players that can coil like he does and not many pros either. Try it to a lesser degree though, absolutely
I was sitting behind the baseline in a recent tournament and noticed Naomi Osaka’s toss are identical between first and second serve. She is probably using similar technique as Roger’s as the ball was like a hook in the air.
Fed tosses the ball in an arc trajectory to mainly disguise his serve. It's mainly where along the arc that determines the type of serve. Too difficult to read as a returner.
i have tried tossing arm over the court and the ball trajectory straight up and down. however the problem is that, because my left arm over the court, my shoulder and right arm can only stretch to less than 180 degrees comparing with my left arm, I won't have enough space for racquet, meaning i need space to accelerate my racquet and do the pronation stuff. at the mean while i do recognize pros and cons of both straight toss and j toss: j toss is gives you the space as long we you can toss well, meaning that's unstable. straight toss can be more stable but it's hard to get the power. is there a way to do better stablizing j toss?
Interesting, because you use the term "J" toss and then say this is not a way to get the toss forward into court, but many other online coaches are saying the J toss ensures that you get your toss into the court.
I just haven't seen reliable results (and that includes me and I spend hundreds of hours on the serve) so I stay away from teaching it.
Tossing as Fed does with the arm parallel to the baseline is not a J-toss.
Roger actully very uniqu body compositian like m.phealp ,he have longer upper body wide shoulder and long arms even longer finger to,he tossing with two finger and realise the ball to soon ,this motion create horizantal angle and unreadable motion.Roger right eye dominant and dont look fully in the court and he use abs and flexor muscle to create extra power and upper body rotation perfectly.Other wise s.wawrinka have so bad serve motion,if he can stay long time in the tour I am sure he living problem on shoulder (proable supraspinatus) (i am rape to english :) )
Are you a believer in the birthday 🥳 hat analogy when serving?
It's not something that I teach. I have another cue to prevent the waiter serve (video coming up :-)