The Follow Through
The tenth part of the serve is the follow through. From contact, I continue to pronate after I’ve hit the tennis ball. Also, I want to point the tennis racket down at the court, which I do at 10 seconds in the video. From this position, I bring the racket around to the other side of my body. This allows me to smoothly decelerate the tennis racket.
At 20 seconds in the video I focus on my feet during the follow through. Because I jumped when I served, I need to land on my front foot (which is my right foot because I’m left handed — it’s the opposite for all your right-handers out there). All the weight needs to be on my front foot. I’m kicking my back foot up, which allows me to stay balanced over the course of my follow through.
At 43 seconds in the video we look at some pictures of Andy Roddick following through. As he follows through he points the tennis racket down at the court. As he continues to follow through he’ll land on his front foot (with all of his weight on that foot), he’s got his back foot kicked up, and that’s going to help him stay balanced as he follows through. You’ll also notice that he’s begun to bring the tennis racket around to the other side of his body. In the final picture, taken from behind, Roddick has completed his follow through. His footwork remains the same and he’s brought the tennis racket all the way around to the other side of his body.
Now your service motion is complete! Hurray!
We would also like to extend a special thanks to the Washington Kastles World Team Tennis organization and Qorvis Communications. We were granted media passes in the Summer of 2008 to photograph matches and videotape player warm-ups even though we are not technically a tennis news outlet. Much of the great player hitting footage and still shots that we used in this section to teach you the tennis serve are the fruits of the opportunity the Kastles and Qorvis offered to us. We are looking forward to next season!
{ 13 comments }
You gave splendid excellent tennis instructions – so clear so good!
When are you going to collect them into a DVD series?
Thanks so much
Great series of instructional videos! Real eye opener to all the “little” things I am doing wrong in my serve and how to correct them.
I need to take my laptop out to the court to practice.
will have to rip up my serve and start again after 1 year of play. Great video and analysis just what i have been missing. This is now the only site i will use in future.
Cheers
Thanks for the videos, I have learned so much and I am now a fan of the FYB!
the explanations are clear and to the point, and the video quality simply excellent!
thank you very much for creating this web site, wish you all the best.
God Bless you1
I really love this website. Thank you for the great job. I have learnt a lot without having to pay hundreds of dollars for a personal trainer.
This was extremely helpful, thank you!!
u have NO idea how helpful u are! thank u!!!
How wonderful jobs you did in here !
I love it !
Thanks ~
thank you so very much from Thailand
you are very kind
this extremely helpful
I’ve never seen the serve broken down in such detail – it’s very helpful as is the constant repetition of key points. After the third or fourth emphasis of each point, it finally sinks in! Great job! Thanks!
Will: I really appreciate your clear teaching methods. Your ‘progressions’ teaching method is very effective. I notice that you are certified as a teacher by the Professional Tennis Registry (Dennis van derMeer’s organization). So am I. Please keep up the good work. I will become a subscriber as soon as I go back to work. Mikee.
Very clear, concise and well explained instructions. Thanks.
In addition to clear and easy to follow lessons, I also really appreciate the fact that you, like me, are left-handed. It's very difficult to find examples of grips, shots, etc. from a left-handed perspective, and always having to imagine it backwards from the visual examples can get very confusing/frustrating. Thanks for being a leftie!
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