The “Broken Serve”

The seventh part of the serve progressions is to add the backswing. The motion I demonstrate in this video is sometimes referred to as “the broken serve” because my arms do not move in the “down together, up together” motion we emphasized in the serve fundamentals section of the website in video #3.

At 35 seconds in the video I show the motion, starting in my stance. I’ve got the tennis racket pointed at the net, the tennis ball against my racket, and all the weight is on my front foot and the heel of my back foot is up. From this position, I’m going to take the racket back and get to the “L” position. I DO NOT do anything with my tossing arm at this point. When I take the racket back, I start my dropping it down and pointing it at the court, then I bring it up but my palm stays facing down, and I complete the motion my bringing my arm and the racket up to the “L” position. This motion was discussed in detail in video #3 in the serve fundamentals section.

At 1:12 in the video I discuss my weight transfer. My weight moves from my front foot to my back foot during my backswing. Once my weight ends up on my back foot and the tennis racket is in the “L” position, now I’m in the same position we hit from in the previous video.

At 1:35 I actually hit the tennis ball. From the stance, I get to the “L” position via the backswing. Once I get to that spot, THEN I toss and hit the tennis ball. Watching the motion in real time, you can see why it’s called the broken serve. The motion looks a little bit disjointed.