Wall practice: five balls. Rest. Work on ONE thing.
Forehand against the wall. Stand back far enough for let the ball to bounce twice to have enough time for follow through.
Finish with the racket butt cap pointed up to the sky.
Serve: look for the seams of the ball. Lift the ball and wait to begin racket arm motion. Jannik Sinner’s racket arm is still down as the ball is at head level. Look at the target then look at where the ball needs to be at contact. No need to watch ball as it goes up.
I gave this toss a try for many months, but I just couldn’t get the ball positioned far enough over the baseline to help my serve. It was Ryan’s (2minutetennis) idea. John at Performance plus Tennis said don’t use that toss—I wasted so much time.
Wish I knew how to call up my serve mojo when I have a real human on the other side of the net? Something happens in my brain to make me try too hard. My serve is just a tiny blossom now so maybe I’ll just have this issue until it has more exposure to humans?
Case in point: after an awkward bunch of serves to a friend, I returned to the court alone and about four balls later I felt very comfortable and connected.
Trying to recall my approach after returning to the court. Maybe I could relax more and work my way up to a place where I felt comfort.
Practicing some serves. Not really getting the ball high enough or into the court enough to put them in consistently. The problem was trying to hit flat when I should’ve been more focused on hitting slice. Recreational players like myself are still trying to swing toward the target instead of away from the target to create spin. Once I can remember to spin the ball, I become more consistent, slicing it rather than hitting flat.
I was hitting slices and not really conscious of having made a decision to do that. When I began hitting flat, I started missing long and into the net—again I had made no conscious decision—balls were flying in a flat trajectory. I have to decide whether to flat kick or slice and where in the service box. It isn’t enough to hope the ball goes into a 13.5’x21’ rectangle—I have reached a level where that is actually possible.
I asked Ryan in the 2minutetennis weekly group Zoom class what can I do at the beginning of each stroke that will help ensure all the checkpoints fall into place without thinking about them?
Answer for groundstrokes And Volleys: Keep your elbows out.
Answer for serve: Rock forward and back before starting to serve. Some servers were even lift the toes at the front foot if not the entire foot when beginning the service motion.
I tried that today. It worked but anytime I try something new it works for maybe 30 to 45 minutes. The next time I go out, I either forget something or else it just plain doesn’t work.
I shot some video yesterday of myself trying to execute serve checkpoints laid out by various YouTube channels. One, to have my right elbow lined up with both shoulders, (I’m right handed.) I failed at after multiple attempts, by which I mean, 50 serves. I also tried knocking off the birthday hat as recommended by Ryan at 2minutetennis. I wasn’t wearing the birthday hat. When I wore the birthday hat before the racket would sometimes hit the top of the hat and push it back away from my face. A lot of serves went in, but I should’ve been paying more attention to my technique. I often forget: pay attention to technique and how the strings contact the ball— the ball will take care of itself. Trust the process—the ball just goes in.
How would I get y elbow in line with my shoulders? Before this morning, I thought about how I moved my racket when serving. My brain had sent instructions to my hand to move the racket; the elbow followed or just did some random thing. The change for the morning: Initiate movement with the shoulders or the elbow. I also remembered what Ryan had said about “elbowing the enemy” with my elbow and pulling it back to line up my elbow and shoulders. At the same time, I wanted to tilt my shoulders so that I could set up the shoulder over shoulder motion of the serve, as if performing a cartwheel. I also noticed that on some of the serves, I was hitting them flat, when I really wanted to hit a slice serve. That meant having the strings face the target while swinging across the back of the ball.
How was I going to make my serve better? I really needed to bounce the ball a few times and decide how I wanted the ball to move after contact. Did I want a slice or did I want a flat ball? Did I want to hit a kick serve? where did I want the ball to land? Could I place the ball there? How fast was I going to swing? Where was I going to make contact with the ball?
I resolved that I should execute several practice swings before serving every ball. Maybe even use a fake toss before hitting balls, (tossing the ball so far out of range I’d have to take two or three steps to reach it). I want to see how this goes
